Little by little he developed a kingly authority. He carried the atmosphere of gentle supremacy. "How did you know that Theseus was a god?" The answer was: "I recognized Apollo by his speech; Mars by his thunderbolts; Minerva by her wisdom, but I knew that Theseus was a god, because whatsoever he did, whether he sat, or whether he walked or whatsoever he did, he conquered." John Wesley was a natural king, ruling men by the divine right of moral supremacy. One day a mob threatened to tear him in pieces. "I called," Wesley writes, "for a chair. Suddenly the winds were hushed, and all was calm and still; my heart was filled with love; my eyes with tears; my mouth with arguments. The leaders were amazed; they were ashamed; they were melted down; they devoured every word." At the end of the sermon the leader, who held a stone in his hand, with which to strike Wesley, seemed transformed. He turned to his followers and shouted, "If any man dares to lift a hand against Mr. Wesley he will have to reckon with me first!" Those who came to curse remained to pray.
Wesley has had scores of biographers, and every one of them seems to have emphasized the happiness and the serene cheerfulness of his daily life. If there ever lived a man who dwelt in constant sunshine, and maintained unbroken tranquillity and peace amidst endless storm and tumult, that man was John Wesley. He cared nothing about a great house, servants, equipage, money. It is said that the profits of his various publications were about $150,000, but he gave this money away as fast as it came in. He discovered the simple life long before Pastor Wagner. He ate sparingly, cared nothing for rich foods or costly raiment. He loved the temperate zone, far removed alike from luxury and poverty. He never wrote a creed. In welcoming a member into his company he asked two questions, "Is thine heart right? If it be, give me thine hand. Dost thou love and serve God? It is enough. I give thee the right hand of fellowship." In that spirit, when members of other churches came to him he bade them keep their own creed if only "they did love and serve God, and desired to save souls."
And so his work spread into every land. Asbury, the great pioneer, rode his horse to and fro over the Alleghany Mountains, preaching in hundreds of settlements between the Atlantic Coast and the Mississippi River. Simpson, with his unrivalled eloquence, travelled from state to state for forty years, founding churches, charging class leaders, consecrating lay preachers, placing the torch in the hand of some gifted youth, and sending him out to light a thousand other tapers. Taylor made his way across India with its three hundred millions, and in every cannibal island in the South Seas and along the path through the jungles of Africa, went the followers of Wesley. It is a wonderful story. For the man who counted himself the friend of all the churches and the enemy of none "has liberalized, broadened and sweetened every Christian faith."
The year 1741 brought the beginning of Wesley's plan of world evangelization. He saw that the millions of the human race would never be reached by a handful of preachers. He tells us that it was as if a veil had fallen from his eyes, after which he saw clearly that Jesus used lay disciples, both men and women, for the spread of His life and teaching. Holding a candle in his hand, Wesley lighted another candle, and watched the flame leap from taper to taper. He organized each group of one hundred converts into a class and pledged them to come together in a meeting, when each disciple was to tell the story of what the living Christ had done for him. He saw that merchants advertised their cotton and their woollen goods; that manufacturers went everywhither telling other men the advantages of the new loom, or locomotive; and instead of having one minister to confess Christ before five hundred dumb hearers, Wesley conceived the idea of dedicating each of the five hundred hearers, not to dumbness but to full speech, and to send them forth, from house to house, and mine to mine, and school to school.
Scientists tell us that the Gulf Stream, made up of individual drops of water, each of which has been warmed by the tropic sun, bathes England and turns a land that is as far north as Labrador into a land of fruit and flowers. And from that hour, if other churches had one minister, to five hundred disciples, Wesley dedicated laymen and laywomen to the task of going forth into all the world to tell the story of the love of God to sinful men.
The movement he started is still advancing in the world. It was Wesley who gave the impulse to Wilberforce, the emancipator, to Howard, the prison reformer, to Livingstone, the missionary, to the Booths with their work for the submerged classes. Above any other man in modern times he made it plain to the miner, the peasant, and the criminal, that they must achieve eminence through penitence and obedience, love and self-sacrificing service. Having turned multitudes to righteousness, his name now shines like the brightness of the firmament, and will continue to shine like the stars for ever and ever.
John Wesley mastered another secret—he knew how to die gloriously. In his last hours, Moody, the evangelist, turned with smiles to a friend, and whispered, "They were all wrong. There is no valley, and no shadow." Wesley died with that memorable word upon his lips, "The best of all is, God is with us." He preached his last sermon on February 23, 1791. His last letter was addressed to Wilberforce, and was a protest against the horrors of slavery. A few weeks before, he had given the first five days of the new year to the task of walking through the streets of London, soliciting alms for the relief of the poor. In those days his appearance in the street was the signal for all passers-by to uncover. Men revered him as a noble saint. He died singing, in the spirit of serene happiness and outbreaking joy:
"I'll praise my Maker while I've breath
And when my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall employ my nobler powers."
Great was the power of the soldier, Napoleon; wonderful the genius of his opponent Wellington, the victor; marvellous the influence of Pitt, with his vision of the expansion of England as a world power; but more wonderful, a thousand times, the influence of John Wesley, carried to his grave by six very poor men, but whose work is memorable, whose influence is immortal, and whose spirit is inshrined in the hearts of millions of his grateful followers.