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Staircase, Christ Church.

Wesley, therefore, looked facts in the face and concentrated his whole mind upon the study of theology. Since he could not be Prime Minister, he would be a great religious man. He began by disagreeing with “The Imitation of Christ,” and held views on the question of humility which lead one to believe that by this time the seeds of his ambition had grown to trees. Jeremy Taylor’s tenet, that we ought, “in some sense or other, to think ourselves the worst in every company where we come,” was flatly contradicted by Wesley, who, although admitting absolute humility to God, reserved the right to consider himself a better man than many another; for when he was elected a Fellow of Lincoln, after he had been ordained, he practically showed the door to all those of his visitors whom he thought would do him no good, by reason of their not loving or fearing God. Then an incident happened which had a lasting effect upon Wesley; which changed his whole life. He travelled over to see what was called “a serious man.” Who this man was is unknown, but he was a student of psychology and a man of keen intuition. He summed up John Wesley, and gave forth the remark which had so great an influence upon him. “Sir,” he said, “you wish to serve God and go to Heaven. Remember, you cannot serve Him alone; you must, therefore, find companions or make them: the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion.”

Wesley never forgot these words. They were the turning-point in his career. His vast brain and desire to become the greatest of God’s servants would not allow him to be merely a curate in the Established Church, thus to serve God humbly. Even the chance of his eventually emerging as Archbishop was not sufficiently big. Neither was the Roman Church large enough, though from his characteristics it is conceivable that he was in sympathy with the love of power which, in olden times, is said to have marked out the Jesuits. The words of this “serious man” gave him furiously to think. He would make companions, followers, disciples. He, himself, would become greater than any of the men discussed by his fellow Undergraduates by taking over the leadership of a band of religious and ascetic men, who should occupy themselves solely in carrying out the commands of God.

Already his piety and zeal were much discussed in Oxford, for he led the way to George Whitefield in attending the Sacrament daily and doing charitable works. His younger brother, Charles, had formed the nucleus of a religious order by meeting weekly with two or three serious-minded friends and discussing religion. When John Wesley returned to Lincoln after an absence of some two years, during which he had had time to think out matters while filling a country curacy, these lads put themselves under his leadership. It was the first taste of power and individual authority. He ruled the little band sternly, put their practices into order and method, and secured an “accession of members.” He submitted himself to rigorous fasts, and cultivated an eccentric appearance by letting his hair grow. Even his brother, Samuel, himself really religious, perceived that he “excited injurious prejudices against himself, by affecting singularity in things which were of no importance.” His mother suggested cutting his hair off, but the money could not be spared from Wesley’s charities. His brother put forward that it should be merely reduced in length. This Wesley agreed to, and it is recorded that “this was the only instance in which he condescended, in any degree, to the opinions of others.”

The culminating instance of his egoism lies in his absolute refusal, in spite of his father’s earnest entreaty, to take on his cure at the latter’s death. He considered the proposal “not so much with reference to his utility, as to his own well-being in spiritual things.” The question, as it appeared to him, was not whether he could do more good to others there or at Oxford, but whether he could do more good to himself, seeing that wherever he could be most holy himself, there he could most promote holiness. He decided that he could improve himself more at Oxford than at any other place, and at Oxford, therefore, he determined to remain. His father wrote to him, “if you are not indifferent whether the labours of an aged father, for above forty years in God’s vineyard, be lost, and the fences of it trodden down and destroyed; if you consider that Mr M. must in all probability succeed me if you do not, and that in prospect of that mighty Nimrod’s coming hither shocks my soul, and is in a fair way of bringing down my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave; if you have any care for our family, which must be dismally shattered as soon as I am dropt; if you reflect on the dear love and longing which this poor people has for you, whereby you will be enabled to do God the more service, and the plenteousness of the harvest, consisting of near two thousand souls, whereas you have not many more souls in the university—you may, perhaps, alter your mind and bend your will to His, who has promised if in all our ways we acknowledge Him, He will direct our paths.”

In the face of this stirring appeal from an aged father what did Wesley reply? He refused absolutely to entertain the matter. His self-centredness, the while he directed the religious beliefs and operations of the small body of disciples at Oxford, made him forget all considerations of filial duty and love and of God’s commands to obedience. His parents had been the reason of his entering the Church. He would make no further sacrifice for them now that he saw his way clear. His father, mother, the thousands of poor people—nobody and nothing mattered except that he should make himself more holy! The petty duties, worries, and cares, the continual small demands of trifling points entailed by such a curacy were too small for this striving, all-conquering spirit. What mattered it that he should send his father’s grey hairs down in sorrow to the grave?

All this while, he was most certainly turning over the saying of the “serious man”—to make followers. On his father’s death it was proposed that he should go to America. Here was his great chance. Oxford had taught him that to expect to make English people, in their then blind and vicious state, see the truth of the gospel of Christ, was futile and childish. He was a prophet in his own country. But America, with all its unsophisticated, raw children, its ripeness for a strong man to come with the gift of oratory and sweep the country from end to end—there was his chance! And afterwards, on the crest of his fame and success, then would he convert England. His glory would have preceded him, and he would return as one already great, to whom they would lend a more willing ear. But with the astuteness of a really clever man, he peremptorily refused the offer to send him out there. As a natural result the proposers of the scheme argued. By degrees he allowed his willingness to be seen, though he piously pointed out that as he was his mother’s support, the staff of her age, he could not go without her consent. This she immediately gave, as he well knew she would. Accordingly, filled with exultation, buoyed up by a feeling of certainty as to his ultimate success, John Wesley left Oxford and England for the new country on which he intended to stamp his personality, and by whose conquest he was determined to hand down his name to posterity in the profession to which he had reconciled himself at the age of some nineteen years while still an Undergraduate of Christ Church.

Had Wesley not gone up to Oxford, his name might never have been added to the list of England’s famous men. It was Oxford which first showed him the narrowness of a small curacy, Oxford which set him contemplating greatness, Oxford which actually started him in command of disciples. Therefore it is to Oxford that must be attributed the foundation, growth, and fame of Methodism, the means by which John Wesley attained his ends, power, and celebrity.