In the same sermon, he powerfully elaborates his three well known rules,—Gain all you can; Save all you can; Give all you can.
In his “Advice to the Methodists with regard to Dress,” he says: “I would not advise you to imitate the quakers, in those little particularities of dress, which can answer no possible end, but to distinguish them from all other people. To be singular, merely for singularity’s sake, is not the part of a Christian. But I advise you to imitate them, first, in the neatness, and secondly in the plainness, of their apparel.” He continues: “Wear no gold, no pearls or precious stones; use no curling of hair; buy no velvets, no silks, no fine linen; no superfluities, no mere ornaments, though ever so much in fashion. Wear nothing which is of a glaring colour, or which is, in any kind, gay, glistering, showy; nothing made in the very height of fashion; nothing apt to attract the eyes of bystanders. I do not advise women to wear rings, earrings, necklaces, lace, or ruffles. Neither do I advise men to wear coloured waistcoats, shining stockings, glittering or costly buckles or buttons, either on their coats or in their sleeves, any more than gay, fashionable, or expensive perukes. It is true these are little, very little things; therefore, they are not worth defending; therefore, give them up, let them drop, throw them away, without another word.” What will the fashionable followers of Wesley say to this? And yet Wesley enforces his advices, and answers objections, in a manner which, we suspect, the devotees of fashion will find it difficult to set aside.
“The Duties of Husbands and Wives” was a republication, in an abridged form, of Whateley’s “Directions for Married Persons,” published, in 1753, in Vol. XXII. of the “Christian Library.”
The “Thoughts on Christian Perfection” have been already noticed; and “Christian Instructions” contains nothing which deserves further mention.
A quarter of a century had elapsed since Wesley set sail for America. With what results? To say nothing of the success of the labours of Whitefield and his coadjutors, Methodism had been introduced into almost every county of England and Ireland; ninety itinerant preachers were acting under Wesley’s direction; also a much larger number of local preachers, leaders, and stewards; chapels had been built in London, Bristol, Kingswood, Newcastle on Tyne, Redruth, St. Just, St. Ives, Whitehaven, Gateshead, Sunderland, Teesdale, Colchester, Portsmouth, Whitchurch, Bacup, Bolton, Flixton, Liverpool, Epworth, Louth, Norwich, Kinley, Misterton, Coleford, Tipton, Wednesbury, Lakenheath, Salisbury, Bradford, Halifax, Hutton Rudby, Haworth, Leeds, Osmotherley, Stainland, Sheffield, York, Cardiff, Bandon, Cork, Dublin, Edinderry, Tullamore, Court Mattrass, Pallas, Castlebar, Waterford, and other places;[418] and to these sacred edifices must be added scores, probably hundreds, of private houses, schools, barns, and rooms, which were regularly used as preaching places. In addition to all this, the Wesley brothers, John and Charles, had published about a dozen volumes and about thirty tracts and pamphlets of hymns and poetry; while Wesley himself had issued nine numbers of his Journal, about one hundred and thirty separate sermons, tracts, and pamphlets, and nearly seventy volumes of books, including his “Notes on the New Testament,” his Sermons, and his “Christian Library.”
Can this be equalled, all things considered, in the same space of time, in the life of any one, in this or in any other age and nation of the world? We doubt it. Wesley began his career as a penniless priest; he was without patrons and without friends; magistrates threatened him; the clergy expelled him from their churches, and wrote numberless and furious pasquinades against him; newspapers and magazines reviled him; ballad singers, in foulest language, derided him; mobs assaulted, and, more than once, well-nigh murdered him; and not a few of his companions in toil forsook him and became his antagonists; and yet, despite all this, such were some of the results of the first five-and-twenty years of his unequalled public ministry.
PART III.
1761.
1761
Age 58
UPON the whole, the reign of the second George had been a prosperous one. Money was plentiful; waste lands were cultivated; mines were opened; and the exports of the country doubled. But still, the population of England and Wales was only about six millions, one half of whom were living on barley and oaten cakes.