The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., Founder of the Methodists. By Rev. L. Tyerman. Vols. I. and II. Hodder and Stoughton.
Our literary and ecclesiastical authorities are much occupied at present with the life-work and surroundings of John Wesley, with his relation to the Church of England, and with the probable position that would have been assigned to an ecclesiastical reformer, or revivalist, occupying in the Church of Rome a position analogous to that of John Wesley in the English Church. We do not endorse the big words with which Mr. Tyerman opens up his subject. 'Is it not a truth (he asks) that Methodism is the greatest fact in the history of the Church of Christ? Methodism has now existed one hundred and thirty years. Is there any other system that has spread itself as widely in an equal period? We doubt it.' Whether the victories of Methodism over other ecclesiastical organizations, or over religious indifferentism, or over the stubborn resistance to God's truth of the barbarian or the idolater, can be paralleled with the past successes of the Apostolic Church or not, and whether numbers or area can now be used as measures of greatness, may be considered open questions, but no ecclesiastical writer pretending to honour truth or candour can hide his eye to the fact of Methodism, or to the vitality it displays at the present moment. We are thankful for this instalment of Mr. Tyerman's valuable work. There is a mine of wealth, a store-house of treasure, in the unimpeachable diary and authentic correspondence contained in this first volume, which will amply repay most careful attention.
Miss Julia Wedgewood, in our opinion, has done very excellent service. She has not attempted to write a memoir of John Wesley or his brother, or a history of Methodism, nor has she kept up a chronological continuity in her fascinating pages, but she has shown us the remarkable figure of Wesley upon a great variety of backgrounds. Methodism at Oxford, with its first obstacles in the painfully exacting conscience and scrupulosity of Wesley himself, becomes a vivid sketch of Oxford life at the commencement of the eighteenth century. Methodism in Virginia becomes an impressive representation of the relation of England to her colonies. The conflict of Methodism with Bristol and Cornwallese colliers; its hand to hand fight with the devils of hysteria and fear, and with those of bigotry and exclusiveness; with Moravian theology, and with Calvinism and its old problem of the universe, are all well told in a succession of bright and thoughtfully conceived pictures. There is very remarkable candour, much good sense, and wise use of material in her work; and the volume will bring the high enthusiasm and glorious earnestness of Wesley into contact with classes that would remain strangers to the more elaborate biographical details of Mr. Tyerman. The subject is so large—so important in all its bearings—that we cannot dismiss these works with a cursory notice; we shall hope, at an early date, to return to the literature and ecclesiastical position of the Wesleys.
Memorials of the late Rev. William M. Bunting; being Selections from his Sermons, Letters, and Poems. Edited by the Rev. G. Stringer Rowe. With a Biographical Introduction by Thomas Percival Bunting. Wesleyan Conference Office.
The characteristic of William Bunting which all who knew him would assuredly mention first was an unbounded power of loving; and as the effect of this as near an embodiment of the 'charity' of the Epistle to the Corinthians as is perhaps possible to men who love truth and the God of truth. 'Grace to all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity,' was not only a sentiment upon his lips, it was an instinctive, irrepressible feeling of his heart. Few men were more attached to his own Church; few men had more large-hearted and loving appreciation of the good men and good things of all other Churches. Charity was the 'bond of his perfectness.' Wherever Christ was to be served, the souls of men benefited, faithful preachers to be heard, fervent worship to be joined in, there, according to his opportunity, William Bunting was to be found. Our cathedrals were familiar with his tall, attenuated, intellectual figure. In any Nonconformist congregation in London, where worship and preaching were edifying, he was at any time as likely to be found as in a Wesleyan Chapel. Few of the principal Nonconformist pulpits were unfamiliar with his ministrations. His friends were the best ministers of every evangelical church. He was a lover of all good men, and all good men loved him. He was a kind of tertium quid, around which the best men and feelings of the different sects crystallized into beautiful forms of charity. No one thought of him as belonging to any one section of the Church; the feeling towards him was that he belonged to all. This volume of memorials will be valued by his friends. The brief biographical sketch by his brother is sufficient for the record of his uneventful life; it is racy and piquant in its style, yet fervent and tender in its love and devout sympathy.
As a preacher, Mr. Bunting was diffuse and therefore lengthy, and sometimes tedious, although his brother testifies to his great efficiency.
As a letter-writer he was wonderfully loquacious; some of his letters, as he says, 'as long as a life,' even as abbreviated here, filling eight or ten pages of print. Rarely could he have said with Paul, 'I have written a letter unto you in few words:' but they are wonderfully loving, enthusiastic and brilliant, full of delicate sympathy and beautiful piety and charity.
Chiefly, however, Mr. Bunting excelled as a writer of hymns. Two or three of his compositions have found their way into popular hymnals, and are not likely to be forgotten. The tender pathos of the 'Song in the Night Season,'
'Thou doest all things well,'
has not often been surpassed.