A history of England

by Charles Oman

Decline of religious feeling.

It was not to be expected that such prelates would be in touch with their subordinates the country clergy, who still for the most part remained Tory in their views, looked on the least measure for the political emancipation of Dissenters or Romanists with horror, and nourished a strong personal dislike for the two first Georges and their ministers. Hence came such a breach in the unity and organization of the Church as had never been seen before. The upper clergy were careless and unspiritual, the lower clergy grew lethargic and apathetic under the neglect of their superiors. There was a general tendency to praise common sense and morality, and to sneer at theological learning or evangelical fervour.

The Methodist movement.—John Wesley.

This general deadness in the Church could not long continue without causing a reaction. The great feature in the second quarter of the eighteenth century was the appearance of the "Methodist" movement, of which John Wesley was the originator. Shocked by the want of energy and enthusiasm among the clergy, Wesley, a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, devoted himself to active evangelical work, and especially to public preaching. He is first heard of as preaching to the poor of neglected Oxford parishes, and to the prisoners in the jail (1729). A few years later he went out as a missionary to America, and laboured in the backwoods of Georgia. Returning in 1738, he resumed his work in England, passing from place to place, and addressing large congregations of all sorts and conditions of men. His fervent eloquence and enthusiasm came as a revelation to the neglected masses of the cities, or to congregations condemned to many years of sermons on dry morality. He spoke of sin and conversion with an earnestness which had not been seen since the days of early Puritan enthusiasm. Wesley and the numerous followers who sprang up to join him might have inspired the Church with a new spirit of fervour, if they had but been permitted to do so. But, unfortunately, the Latitudinarian bishops disliked his emotional harangues and his clear-cut dogma, and the parish clergy often treated him as an intruder when he appeared inside their cures. Hence, though a strong Churchman at first, he was gradually driven into schism, and became the founder of a new Nonconformist sect, instead of the restorer of the spirituality of the Church from within. Towards the end of his sixty years of labour (1729-91), he took the final step of ordaining preachers and allowing them to celebrate the sacraments, thus committing his followers to abandoning the national Church. His work, however, was not without its effect inside the Church of England; many who sympathized with him remained Churchmen, and from them came the Evangelical, or newer Low-Church party, within the establishment.

Growth of a higher morality.

From Wesley and his contemporaries began a decided improvement in the moral life of England. After remaining at its lowest ebb in the eighty years that followed the Restoration, it began to mend about the middle of the century. The change is marked in all the most characteristic spheres of action, by an increased humanity to prisoners, paupers, and slaves, an improved tone in literature and the drama, and a growing demand for the observation of a higher standard of morals by public men. Political corruption and ostentatious ill living, which had been the rule in the beginning of the eighteenth century, had become the exception at its end.

But if England was more serious and more moral by the end of the century, no small share in that result must be attributed to the sobering effect of three long and desperate wars, which more than once seemed about to be the ruin of the realm. Between 1756 and 1815 there were to be thirty-six years of war to twenty-three of peace, and two whole generations were bred up in times of stress and trouble, which developed the sterner virtues, and taught men no longer to sneer at fervour, whether displayed in patriotism or in religion.

The Seven Years' War.

The "Seven Years' War" into which England was plunged in 1756, while still under the imbecile guidance of the elder Pelham, was the most important struggle in which she had engaged since the days of the Spanish Armada. It definitely settled all the points which had been left undetermined by the peace of Aachen, and gave her the empire of the seas and the lion's share of the commerce of the world. Her hold on these gains was to be shaken in later wars, but never lost.