'To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Who sweetly all agree;'
but his voice failed, and gasping for breath he said, 'Now we have done, let us go!' Friends crowded round his bed, and amidst their words of comfort and love he was passing away. There was no conflict; only once he rose, and in a tone almost supernatural, exclaimed, 'The best of all is God is with us!' His brother's widow tenderly ministered to him; he tried to kiss her, saying, 'He giveth his servants rest!' Then he repeated his thanksgiving, 'We thank thee, O God, for these and all Thy mercies; bless the Church and King, and grant us truth and peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord, for ever and ever.' He paused a little; then he cried, 'The clouds drop fatness!' Then another pause, 'The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge!' Eleven persons were standing round his bed as he said 'Farewell,' his last word, at ten o'clock, Wednesday, March 2nd, 1791. 'Children,' said John Wesley's mother, 'as soon as I am dead, sing a song of praise!' As soon as Wesley died, his friends round his dead body raised their voices in a hymn, then knelt down and prayed. He was buried behind the chapel in the City-road, on the 9th of March. So great was the excitement created by his death, that he was buried at five o'clock in the morning; before this he had been laid in a kind of state. Thus Samuel Rogers, the poet, saw him. He says, 'As I was walking home one day from my father's bank, I observed a great crowd of people streaming into a chapel in the City-road. I followed them; and saw laid out upon a table the dead body of a clergyman in full canonicals, his grey hair partly shading his face on both sides, and his flesh resembling wax. It was the corpse of John Wesley, and the crowd moved slowly and silently round and round the table, to take a last look at that most venerable man.'
John Wesley appears to have been one of the most faultless of mortals: some of his followers claim for him a rank little short of perfection; and certainly few for whom such a claim is made, could sustain it so well. He nevertheless commands high admiration rather than passionate affection. The sapling he planted has struck its roots far and wide, still true to the spirit of its illustrious planter, his work has resulted in a great organization, rather than in a great soul. We have seen that the proportions of Wesleyanism in America are much more magnificent than in England. English Wesleyanism has narrowed its boundaries by making the sermons of its founder its legal creed; it is not so in America, there the Methodists have accepted his fundamental idea, while they have given room and verge enough for the soul to grow. Sometimes, beyond all question, Wesley himself was occupied by the consideration of the shape and the attitude his gigantic society would assume in future years; but he writes distinctly—'I do not, I will not, concern myself with what will be done when I am dead; I take no thought about that.' His was an ever-growing, keenly penetrating, and widely observant mind, and we cannot but think that he would have so modified his organization and adapted his discipline, that the immense institution he founded would have been saved from many of its ruptures and schisms, and have comprehended a still more extensive operation than it acknowledges at present. We have no space to enter into a comparison between American and English Wesleyanism; enough that the transatlantic child has far outstripped the English parent. In England, indeed, several powerful offshoots, all, it seems to us, comprehensible within Wesley's own idea, have divided the field of labour, which he, perhaps, would have occupied by his organization alone. But what a variety of sects regard him as their father: the Primitive Methodists, the Bible Christians, the Wesleyan Association, the New Connexion, and the Free Methodists; so that, regarding the immense Church of America, the old Conference of England, and all its offshoots, it is not too much to say that no single man, in the history of the Church has ever been the father of such a progeny, so many are those who in their temple and services are anxious that the 'shadow of "Wesley" passing may overshadow some of them.' In some particulars, although its numerical strength has ever gone on increasing, Wesleyanism has not grown since the days of its founder. Creating such a hymnology as that of Charles Wesley, the glory and beauty of Methodism, we do not know that since his time it has ever written a single hymn which has become the darling and the property of the Church. It has produced in England few Christian poets, no great hymn writers; certainly none to take place by the side of the lyrists of its early days. It was born in missionary fervour, and baptized into the missionary spirit; it has performed abroad a good and admirable work. To it greatly it is due that the Fiji Islanders, a race of cannibals, have ceased from their horrible manners and customs, and have approached the confines of civilization; but Wesleyanism has produced no great missionaries, and boasts of no vast achievements like those which are the heraldry of some it would be easy to name. It has no literature; it has done nothing for philosophy, with perhaps the exception of the metaphysical shoemaker, Samuel Drew; with the single exception of Richard Watson it has done nothing in scientific theology; here and there scholarly men like the learned Adam Clarke, Spence Hardy, or the recently departed Etheridge, meet us, but the history of the literature of Methodism would present only a poor scroll. There must be some reason for this, although we are not now disposed to inquire where it is to be found; we simply state a fact. Nor do those who are the immediate followers of Wesley occupy the fields of labour Wesley prescribed; we apprehend that Primitive Methodists and Bible Christians would receive the venerable Wesley's special benediction, and be regarded by him as carrying forward most efficiently his labours and intentions. Perhaps, if it were possible for the English Conference to adopt some of the principles of the American Conference, this great religious corporation might soon enlarge its field and sphere, so that even Wesley himself might seem to be the subject of a mighty resurrection.
As time advances, the point of view changes from whence a great man may be most distinctly seen; as the trees are removed which interfered with the prospect, so prejudices which prevented due appreciation are modified. If the subsequent ages do not substantially alter their verdict, yet so much is added to, or subtracted from impressions, either by a larger catholicity of judgment or by the accumulation of additional facts, that new portraits and fresh and more accurate appreciations are demanded. Ours has been called especially the age of resurrections: beyond all former times it is the age in which men have industriously 'garnished the sepulchres of the prophets,' and Wesley's tomb has not been suffered to fall into ruin; many a loving Old Mortality re-cuts his name on the stone; and recently, especially, many able hands have set themselves to the task of faithful and admiring delineation of the features of the man and his work. Miss Wedgewood's interesting little volume, if founded upon no additional information, shows the growing disposition in members of other Churches to do him substantial justice. As a history of the great evangelical reaction and revival, her work is inadequate, and we question very much whether she has qualified herself, either by sufficient sympathy or sufficient knowledge, to fulfil the requirements of the larger and more comprehensive title of her work. Mr. Tyerman's volumes constitute by far the most exhaustive, as they are certainly the bulkiest, and from many points of view, the most interesting of the lives of Wesley. He has industriously ferreted out and brought together a great deal of unpublished or unconnected material, although much material to which he might have found access still remains unexamined, acquaintance with which would probably have modified some of his judgments. The author does not aim at any remarkable melody of style, philosophic disquisition, or even personal portraiture; his work is simply an Index Rerum about Wesley. Mr. Tyerman's judgment is usually characterized by great clearness and good sense; his pen seems to be always governed by the desire to be fair and impartial, and for the first time our libraries receive a full and comprehensive memoir of the great religious teacher and ecclesiastical statesman, of a life as transcendently above ordinary lives in its incessant and immeasureable activity, as it was protracted beyond them in its period of service. We suppose that those readers who desire a philosophy of Methodism, will still turn to the pages of Isaac Taylor; and those who desire to read a charming story, will still find most refreshment in the pages of Robert Southey, or in the more recent glowing collection of anecdotes in Dr. Stevens's 'History of Methodism.'
Art. VII.—Mr. Darwin on the Origin of Man.
(1.) The Descent of Man and Selection in relation to Sex. By Charles Darwin, M.A., F.R.S., &c. 2 vols. John Murray.
(2.) On the Genesis of Species. By St. George Mivart, F.R.S. Macmillan.
The mode of the origin of man is a question of such momentous interest to intelligent men that it is not easy to handle it with calm philosophical indifference, or to discuss it dispassionately. It is true, we have been informed that the conclusions concerning man's evolution which have been lately taught far and wide are not opposed to religion, but we have not been favoured with the tenets of that religion to which an evolutionist may, without inconsistency, subscribe. We have even been assured that evolution presents us with a most noble view of the Great Creator, who endowed living matter with the capacity of change, and subjected it to natural laws; that it admits the necessity of a directing, intelligent will, and refers all the phenomena of the universe to God. But those who have recorded this remarkable discovery have not been careful to make known to us the attributes of that Deity in whom they trust; and they express themselves in a manner that is rather vague concerning the limits imposed upon His power, His will, and His government by what they call natural law.