The following poem was written by the "Bard of Sheffield," Hon. James Montgomery, on the first centennial of Wesleyan Methodism, 1836. It is a beautiful tribute:
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
One song of praise, one voice of prayer,
Around, above, below;
Ye winds and waves the burden bear,
A hundred years ago!
A hundred years ago! What then?
There rose the world to bless
A little band of faithful men—
A cloud of witnesses.
It looked but like a human hand;
Few welcomed it, more feared.
But as it opened o'er the land
The hand of God appeared.
The Lord made bare his holy arm
In sight of earth and hell;
Fiends fled before it with alarm,
And alien armies fell.
God gave the word, and great has been
The preachers' company.
What wonders have our fathers seen!
What signs their children see!
One song of praise for mercies past,
Through all our courts resound;
One voice of prayer, that to the last
Grace may much more abound.
All hail! a hundred years ago!
And when our lips are dumb,
Be millions heard rejoicing so,
A hundred years to come.
CHAPTER XIX.
WESLEY'S CHARACTER AS ESTIMATED BY UNBIASED JUDGES.
Rev. Dr. Rigg, author of The Living Wesley, says: "No single man for centuries has moved the world as Wesley moved it; since Luther, no man."
Dr. Abel Stevens, the historian of Methodism, says Mr. Wesley "possessed, in an eminent degree, one trait of a master mind—the power of comprehending and managing at once the outlines and details of plans. It is this power that forms the philosophical genius in science; it is essential to the successful commander and great statesman. It is illustrated in the whole economical system of Methodism."
Bishop Coke, in speaking of Mr. Wesley's unbounded benevolence, says: "Sometimes, indeed, the love which believeth and hopeth all things, of which he had so large a share, laid him open to imposition, and wisdom slept at the door of love; if there was any fault in his public character, it was an excess of mercy."