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JOHN WESLEY

AS A

SOCIAL REFORMER

BY

D. D. THOMPSON

NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS
CINCINNATI : CURTS « JENNINGS

Copyright by
EATON & MAINS,
1898.

TVl

Eaton & Mains Press,
150 Fifth Avenue, New York.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. The Apostle to the Poor   5-
II. Influence upon the Social Life of England.. . . 24-
III. Opposition to Slavery  42
IV. Influence in America  62 -
V. A Fruitful Sermon  71
VI. Influence upon the Labor Movement  92 -
VII. American Methodism and the Labor Move
ment of To-day  106

JOHN WESLEY AS A
SOCIAL REFORMER.

i.
The Apostle to the Poor.
WITHOUT intention on his part, John
Wesley became not only the greatest
social reformer of his day, but possibly the
greatest in all the history of England. Lecky,
in his History of England in the Eighteenth
Century, in his remarks upon the influences
which protected England from the horrors
ofthe revolution which ravaged France, says:
" The evangelical movement, which directly or
indirectly originated with Wesley, produced a
general revival of religious feeling which has
incalculably increased the efficiency of almost
every religious body in the community, while at
the same time it has not seriously affected party
politics. On the great American controversy
the leading Methodists were divided, Wesley
and Fletcher of Madeley being strongly opposed
to the American claims, while the bulk of the

6 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
Calvinistic Methodists were inclined to favor
them. The many great philanthropic efforts
which arose, or at least derived their importance,
from the evangelical movement soon became
prominent topics of parliamentary debate ; but
they were not the peculiar glory of any political
party, and they formed a common ground on
which many religious denominations could co
operate. " Great, however, as was the importance of
the evangelical revival in stimulating these
efforts, it had other consequences of, perhaps,
a wider and more enduring influence. Before
the close of the century in which it appeared a
spirit had begun to circulate in Europe threat
ening the very foundations of society and of
belief. The revolt against the supernatural
theory of Christianity which had been con
ducted by Voltaire and the encyclopedists, the
material conception of man and of the universe
which sprang from the increased study of phys
ical science and from the metaphysics of Con-
dillac and Helvetius, the wild social dreams
which Rousseau had clothed in such a tran
scendent eloquence, the misery of a high-spirited
people ground to the dust by unnecessary wars
and by partial and unjust taxation, the im
becility and corruption of rulers and priests, had
together produced in France a revolutionary
spirit, which in its intensity and its proselyting
fervor was unequaled since the days of the Ref
ormation. It was soon felt in many lands.
Millions of fierce and ardent natures were intoxi-

The Apostle to the Poor. 7
cated by dreams of impossible equality and of
a complete social and political reorganization.
Many old abuses perished, but a tone of thought
and feeling was introduced into European life
which could only lead to anarchy, and at length
to despotism, and was beyond all others fatal
to that measured and ordered freedom which
can alone endure. Its chief characteristics were
a hatred of all constituted authority, an insa
tiable appetite for change, a habit of regarding
rebellion as the normal as well as the noblest
form of political self-sacrifice, a disdain for all
compromise, a contempt for all tradition, a de
sire to level all ranks and subvert all establish
ments, a determination to seek progress, not
by the slow and cautious amelioration of exist
ing institutions, but by sudden, violent, and
revolutionary change. Religion, property, civil
authority, and domestic life were all assailed,
and doctrines incompatible with the very ex
istence of government were embraced by mul-V
titudeswith the fervor of a religion. England, j
on the whole, escaped the contagion. Many j
causes conspired to save her, but among them
a prominent place must, I believe, be given to
the new and vehement religious enthusiasm,
which was at that very time passing through
the middle and lower classes of the people,
which had enlisted in its service a large propor
tion of the wilder and more impetuous reform
ers, and which recoiled with horror from the
antichristian tenets that were associated with
the revolution in France."

8 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
Wesley's interest in the relief of the poor
began while he was at college in Oxford. One
of the rigidly observed, if not required, rules of
the Holy Club was that its members should
give away in relief of the poor all they had
left after providing for their own necessities.
Wesley in later years wrote: "One of them had
thirty pounds a year. He lived on twenty-
eight, and gave away forty shillings. The next
year, receiving sixty pounds, he still lived on
twenty-eight and gave away thirty-two. The
third year he received ninety pounds and gave
away sixty-two. The fourth year he received
one hundred and twenty pounds; still he lived as
before, on twenty-eight, and gave to the poor all
the rest." This " one " was John Wesley ; and
the rule here laid down he observed to the end
of his life, never spending upon himself more
than twenty-eight pounds a year.
The worthy poor and the unworthy found in
Mr. Wesley a friend. James Lackington says
that " in going the few yards from his study to
the pulpit Wesley generally distributed a hand
ful of half crowns to the poor old people of his
society." Nor did he confine his care to his
own societies. At Bristol, in January, 1740, the
severe frost threw many out of work. They
had no assistance from the parish, and were in

The Apostle to the Poor. 9
the last extremity. Wesley made three col
lections in one week, and was thus able to feed
a hundred, sometimes a hundred and fifty, a
day. The twelve or thirteen hundred French
prisoners at Knowle, near Bristol, whom he vis
ited in October, 1759, also found in him a zeal
ous friend and helper. The evening after his
visit he preached a special sermon, in which he
pleaded for these strangers so earnestly that
about one hundred dollars was raised to pro
vide them with warm clothing. Wesley also
wrote a letter on their behalf to Lloyd's Even
ing Post. The distress they suffered from the
want of clothing was soon abundantly relieved.
In January, 1785, when in his eighty-second
year, Mr. Wesley saw that the poor of the so
ciety needed clothes as well as the coals and
bread usually distributed at that season, and
set out to beg a thousand dollars " to clothe
them that needed it most." The London
streets were filled with melting snow, which lay
ankle-deep on the ground, so that his feet were
steeped in snow water nearly from morning to
evening. Five days of such traveling brought
on a severe illness.
As his private income increased his chari
ties increased. He received an allowance of
one hundred and fifty dollars a year from the/

10 ' John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
London society, and the country societies occa
sionally paid his traveling expenses, but his pri
vate charities were drawn from the income of his
Book Room. For some years previous to 1787
these were not less than five thousand dollars a
year, and during his lifetime they amounted to
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
In his Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and
Religion, Wesley devoted some attention to the
slanderous charges against Methodists, partic
ularly to those which represented that he and
his associates were making money from their
preaching ; that " their religion was a cloak for
covetousness." To the charge that he had
received one thousand three hundred pounds
a year (about six thousand five hundred dol
lars) from the Foundry alone, he replied that
the moneys given by the Methodists did not
come into his hands at all, but were expended by
the stewards in relieving the poor and in buy
ing, erecting, and repairing chapels. He had, he
said, " deliberately thrown up his ease, most of
his friends, his reputation, and that way of life
which of all others was most agreeable both to
his natural temper and education ; he had
toiled day and night, spent all his time and
strength, knowingly destroyed a firm constitu
tion, and was hastening into weakness, pain,

The Apostle to the Poor. 11
diseases, death — to gain a debt of six or seven
hundred pounds." Addressing himself to his
brother clergy, he asks :
" For what price will you preach (and that with
all your might, not in an easy, indolent, fash
ionable way) eighteen or nineteen times every
week, and this throughout the year? What
shall I give you to travel seven or eight hun
dred miles, in all weathers, every two or three
months ? For what salary will you abstain
from all other diversions than doing good and
the praising of God ? I am mistaken if you
would not prefer strangling to such a life, even
with thousands of gold and silver. . . .
" I will now simply tell you my sense of these
matters, whether you will hear or whether you
will forbear. Food and raiment I have — such
food as I choose to eat and such raiment as I
choose to put on ; I have a place where to lay my
head ; I have what is needful for life and godli
ness ; and I apprehend this is all the world can
afford. The kings of the earth can give me no
more. For as to gold and silver, I count it dung
and dross ; I trample it under my feet ; I esteem
it just as the mire ofthe streets. I desire it not ;
I seek it not ; I only fear lest any of it should
cleave to me, and I should not be able to shake
it off before my spirit returns to God. ... I
will take care (God being my helper) that . . .
none of the accursed thing shall be found in my
tents when the Lord calleth me hence. And
hear ye this, all you who have discovered

12 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
the treasures which I am to leave behind me :
if I leave behind me ten pounds — above my
debts and my books, or what may happen to be
due on account of them — you and all mankind
bear witness against me that I lived and died a
thief and a robber."
Wesley kept his word. Shortly before his
death he closed his cashbook with the follow
ing words, written in a tremulous hand, so as to
be scarcely legible : " For upward of eighty-
six years I have kept my accounts exactly ; I
will not attempt it any longer, being satisfied
with the continual conviction that I save all I
can and give all I can ; that is, all I have."
Wesley's pen^alj^hjirities were only a part
of his service for the poor. Early in the history
of the Methodist movement he began to utilize
his societies for the relief of those in need and
the distressed. As early as November, 1740,
he had begun systematic relief work, for he
writes in his Journal, under date of November
3, 1740: "We distributed, as everyone had
need, among the numerous poor of our society,
the clothes of several kinds which many who
could spare them had brought for that pur
pose." Under date of Tuesday, November 25,
the same year, he wrote in his Journal :
" After several methods proposed for employ-

The Apostle to the Poor. 13
ing those who were out of business we deter
mined to make a trial of one which several of
our brethren recommended to us. Our aim was,
with as little expense as possible, to keep them
at once from want and from idleness ; in order
to do which we took twelve of the poorest, and
a teacher, into the society room, where they
were employed for four months, till spring came
on, in carding and spinning of cotton. And
the design answered. They were employed
and maintained with very little more than the
produce of their own labor."
The demand grew for relief work in London,
and Wesley was obliged to adopt new plans.
He writes, May 7, 1741 :
" I reminded the United Society that many
of our brethren and sisters had not needful
food ; many were destitute of convenient cloth
ing ; many were out of business, and that with
out their own fault ; and many sick and ready
to perish ; that I had done what in me lay to
feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to employ
the poor, and to visit the sick ; but was not,
alone, sufficient for these things, and there
fore desired all whose hearts were as my heart :
1. To bring what clothes each could spare, to
be distributed among those that wanted most.
2. To give weekly a penny, or what they could
afford for the relief of the poor and sick. My
design, I told them, is to employ for the pres
ent all the women who are out of business, and
desire it, in knitting. To these we will first

14 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
give the common price for that work they do,
and then add according as they need. Twelve
persons are appointed to inspect these, and to
visit and provide things needful for the sick.
Each of these is to visit all the sick within
their district, every other day ; and to meet on
Tuesday evening to give an account of what
they have done, and what can be done further."
One of the duties of the stewards in London
— whose business was to manage the temporal
things ofthe society — was to send relief to the
poor by those appointed to visit them. In the
performance of their work they were required
to " be frugal," to " give none that asked relief
either an ill word or an ill look. Do not hurt
them if you cannot help. Expect no thanks
from man." The stewards met together at six
o'clock every Thursday morning, consulted on
the business which came before them, sent re
lief to the sick as everyone had need, and gave
the remainder of what had been contributed
each week to those who appeared to be in the
most pressing want.
The demand for relief of the needy grew rap
idly, and before long the stewards found a great
difficulty with regard to the sick. Some were
ready to perish before the stewards knew of
their illness ; and when they did know it was
not in their power (being persons generally em-

The Apostle to the Poor. IS
ployed in trade) to visit them so often as they
desired. When Mr. Wesley was informed of
the situation he called together the entire
membership of his society in London, then
numbering about four thousand. He explained
that it was impossible for the stewards to attend
all that were sick in all parts of the city, ex
pressed the desire that the leaders of classes
would more carefully inquire, and more con
stantly inform them, who were sick, and asked,
" Who among you is willing, as well as able, to
supply this lack of service ? " The next morn
ing many willingly offered themselves. Mr.
Wesley chose forty-six of those whom he
judged to be of the most tender, loving spirit,
divided the town into twenty-three parts, and
appointed two to visit the sick in each division.
It was the business of a visitor " to see every
sick person within his district three times a
week ; to inquire into the state of their souls,
and to advise them as occasion may require ;
to inquire into their disorders and procure ad
vice for them ; to relieve them if they are in
want ; to do anything for them which he (or
she) can do ; to bring in his accounts weekly to
the stewards." The visitors were enjoined to
observe strictly four rules: " I. Be plain and
open in dealing with souls. 2. Be mild, tender,

16 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
patient. 3. Be cleanly in all you do for the
sick. 4. Be not nice." Mr. Wesley never ex
hibited greater sagacity than in these four sim
ple rules, especially in the last ; for the good
effect of much philanthropic personal work is
destroyed by the manifest fastidiousness of the
doer of the work.
" Upon reflection," writes Mr. Wesley, " I
saw how exactly, in this also, we had copied
after the primitive Church. What were the
ancient deacons? What was Phcebe, the dea
coness, but such a visitor of the sick? " Five
years later he added : " We have ever since
had great reason to praise God for his contin
ued blessing on this undertaking. Many lives
have been saved, many sicknesses healed, much
pain and want prevented or removed. Many
heavy hearts have been made glad, many
mourners comforted ; and the visitors have
found, from Him whom they serve, a present
reward for all their labor."
As a result of his efforts to help the sick
poor, Mr. Wesley started in connection with the
Foundry a medical dispensary — the first free
dispensary — after which the Finsbury Dispen
sary in London, twenty years later, was mod
eled. The expense of relieving the poor at
their homes became so great and the profit was,

The Apostle to the Poor. 17
comparatively, so little that Mr. Wesley re
solved to try whether they might not receive
more benefit in the hospitals. He found hos
pital treatment to be less expensive ; but no
more good was done than before. He asked
the advice of several physicians, for the sick,
but without advantage. He saw the poor
people pining away and several families ruined,
and that without remedy. Finally, as a desper
ate expedient, he said, " I will prepare and
give them physic myself." This he was com
petent to do. For more than twenty-five years
he had made anatomy and physic the diversion
of his " leisure hours." His knowledge of medi
cine was extensive, and his common sense made
it of practical value to many persons. His
Primitive Physic, of which at least twenty-three
editions were issued before his death, grew out
of his medical efforts for the relief of the poor.
Notwithstanding some of his remedies are ab
surd, an eminent physician pronounced the
book incomparably superior to any other non
professional work of the same date.
A writer in the Gloucester Times tells of a
poor widow who went to Wesley for relief for
her only daughter, who was worn to a shadow
with a distressing cough. Wesley listened to
her story and told her he would see her the

18 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
next morning. " I am to preach at Tewkes
bury at twelve o'clock, and shall pass your
eottage." When he came he told the girl: " I
have thought over your state, and will give your
mother a remedy which, with God's blessing, I
trust will do you good ; and if God spares my
life I will call upon you when I come this way
again." The medicine led to the girl's com
plete restoration. In March, 1790, exactly a
year after his first visit, Wesley came again.
He said to the mother: "I see that you are
blessed by God with faculties to use the medi-
'cines mercifully given by God for our use, so
that I will instruct you in some further reme
dies that I have discovered lately ; and as my
body will soon be laid with the clods of the
valley, waiting for the resurrection, I shall like
to give you these remedies. Use them for God,
and may he bless you and be with you ! ' ' Wes
ley left with her a small manuscript, in his own
handwriting, containing instructions for the
treatment of prevalent diseases. They won for
the widow the name of " the village doctor."
Her daughter's son became a skillful physician,
and acknowledged that Wesley's remedies,
handed down to him by his grandmother, had
been the most successful he had prescribed dur
ing fifty years of professional life.

I !

The Apostle to the Poor. 19
In the dispensary work Wesley had for assist
ants an apothecary and a surgeon, and probably
sometimes Dr. Whitehead, the local preacher
who for many years was his personal physician.
He resolved at the start not to go beyond his
depth, " but to leave all difficult and compli
cated cases to such physicians as the patients
should choose. ' ' All sick persons, whether they
belonged to the society or not, were invited by
Mr. Wesley to come to him every Friday for
such assistance as he could give. In the course
of the first five months, at an expense of two
hundred dollars, he treated five hundred per
sons, of whom seventy-one were entirely cured.
Mr. Wesley also started a widows' home.
He had observed for some years many who,
although not sick, were not able to provide for
themselves and had no relatives or friends who
took enough interest in their welfare to provide
for them. These persons were chiefly feeble,
aged widows. So he consulted with the stew
ards in regard to their relief. All agreed that
if the women could be kept in one house it
would not only be less expensive to the society
but also far more comfortable for them. Wes
ley had no money with which to begin the
work, but he leased two houses near by and
fitted them up so that they were warm and

20 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
clean. He took in as many widows as there
was room for, and provided them with things
needful for the body. They ate with him and
his preachers at the family table. A large part
of the expense of this widows' home (com
monly called the Poorhouse) was paid for
from the weekly contributions of the bands and
the collections at the Lord's Supper. Of this
work Wesley wrote :
"I have blessed God for this house ever since
it began, but lately much more than ever. I
honor these widows, for they ' are widows in
deed.' So that it is not in vain that, without
any design of so doing, we have copied after
another of the institutions of the apostolic age.
I can now say to all the world, ' Come and see
how these Christians love one another.' "
For some time Mr. Wesley was much con
cerned over the number of children who were
like "a wild ass's colt," because their parents
could not afford to send them to school. Others
of whom he knew were sent to school, but
while they learned at least to read and write
they also learned, wrote Mr. Wesley, " all kinds
of vice at the same time, so that it had been
better for them to have been without their
knowledge than to have bought it at so dear a
price." So Mr. Wesley determined to have
them taught in his own house, " that they might

The Apostle to the Poor. 21
have an opportunity of learning to read, write,
and cast accounts (if no more) without being
under almost a necessity of learning heathenism
at the same time." Into his school were gath
ered about sixty children over six years of age,
the parents of most of whom were too poor to
pay for their schooling. As many as were in
need were also provided with clothes. The ex
pense was chiefly defrayed by voluntary contri
butions. Rules were laid down for the govern
ment of the children and rigidly observed. All
were required to be present at the morning ser
mon. The school hours were from six to twelve
and from one to five. There were no playdays.
" A happy change," remarks Mr. Wesley, " was
soon observed in the children, both with regard
to their tempers and behavior."
In the course of his labors Mr. Wesley found
many who were not, strictly speaking, so poor
that they needed alms, but yet frequently were
in want of a present supply of money. Some
of these persons were in business, and a small
loan for a few weeks or months would tide them
over difficulty. But there was no one of whom
they could borrow, except the pawnbroker, and
to place themselves in his debt was to almost
abandon hope. Wesley resolved to try in some
way to help such persons. So he devised the

22 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
scheme of a loan fund. This was started in
1746, about one hundred and fifty years before
a similar scheme was begun by philanthropic
gentlemen in New York. After deciding to
try his scheme Mr. Wesley went from one end
of London to the other and exhorted those who
_had an abundance of this world's goods to as
sist their needy brethren. Fifty pounds (about
two hundred and fifty dollars) were contrib
uted. This sum was placed in the hands of
two stewards, who were present every Tuesday
morning in order to lend to those who desired
any small sum, not exceeding twenty shillings
(about five dollars), which was to be repaid
within three months. The amount which one
person might borrow was afterward increased to
five pounds (about twenty-five dollars). Under
date of Sunday, January 17, 1748, Mr. Wesley
writes in his Journal :
" I made a public collection toward a lending
stock for the poor. Our rule is to lend only
twenty shillings at once, which is repaid weekly
within three months. I began this about a
year and a half ago. Thirty pounds sixteen
shillings were then collected, and out of this no
less than two hundred and fifty-five persons
have been relieved in eighteen months."
This loan fund, or " lending stock," as an in
stitution of the Methodist societies continued

The Apostle to the Poor. 23
for a number of years. Among its benefici
aries was a cobbler named James Lackington,
who in 1775 borrowed five pounds with which
to start a secondhand book shop ^"connection , ,
with his shoe shop. This new business grew
more rapidly than his cobbling, and in course
of time he gave up the latter. The book busi
ness developed into the largest secondhand
bookstore in London, if not in the world. It
made its proprietor immensely wealthy, and
the year Mr. Wesley died Lackington's profits
from his business amounted to twenty-five thou
sand dollars.
Such social effort constituted a large part of'
the work of Mr. Wesley. It is not surprising
that the historian J. R. Green, in his History
of the English People, should say: " The Meth
odists themselves were the least result of the
Methodist revival. . . . The noblest result of;
the religious revival was the steady attempt, \
which has never ceased from that day to this,;;
to remedy the guilt, the ignorance, the physi-j
cal suffering, the social degradation of the prof-y
ligate and the poor." A most directly beneficial
result, however, was the inspiration it gave to
those who bestowed their service and their
money.

24 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.

II.
Influence upon the Social Life of
England.
REV. W. MOORE EDE, M.A., rector of
Gateshead, in his Hulsean Lectures for
1895 on " The Attitude of the Church to Some
of the Social Problems of Town Life," said :
" The man who did most to reform the social
life of England in the last century was John
Wesley. His appeal was direct ; it was an ap
peal to the individual ; his aim was to reach the
heart and conscience of each man in the crowds
which gathered round him. His words were
the instrument whereby men were brought to
a sense of the sinfulness of their lives and the
desire quickened in them to live henceforth
more as children of God. His converts were
for the most part among the poorest, the most
degraded ; as among the early converts of the
Church, ' not many mighty, not many noble '
were called. How low they had sunk is evident
from the observations in his diary, and the need
he found for directions as to destruction of ver
min. Those whom his appeal reached became
changed characters, and the changed character
soon expressed itself in changed surroundings ;
the homes of the Methodists were cleaner than
those of their neighbors, their children were

Influence upon Social Life. 25
cared for and clad, they set about improving
their social condition in many ways ; they were
thrifty, and the training they gained in manag
ing their religious societies, and the develop
ment of their character which resulted, enabled
them to take a leading part in those self-help
associations — Friendly Societies, Trade Unions,
and Cooperative Societies — which have done so
much to elevate and improve the wage-earning
classes." This transformation in the personal character
of Mr. Wesley's followers and in the social con
dition of the kingdom was not accomplished
in a day, or a year, or a decade. Day after
day, year after year, by exhortation in private
conversation, in letters, in class meetings, in
sermons, in pamphlets, and in books, Mr. Wes
ley was continually, and in the plainest and
most forcible language, urging his followers to.
the pursuance of a course of conduct such as
became a follower of Christ. In his delineation
of " the character of a Methodist " written in
1739, he says:
" He knows that vice does not lose its nature
though it becomes ever so fashionable, and re
members that. ' every man is to give an account
of himself to God.' He cannot, therefore, ' fol
low ' even ' a multitude to do evil.' He can
not ' fare sumptuously every day,' or ' make
provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.'

26 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
He cannot ' lay up treasures upon the earth '
any more than he can take fire into his bosom.
He cannot ' adorn himself,' on any pretense,
' with gold or costly apparel.' He cannot join
in or countenance any diversion which has the
least tendency to vice of any kind. He cannot
' speak evil ' of his neighbor any more than he
can lie either for God or man. He cannot utter
an unkind word of anyone, for love keeps the
doors of his lips. He cannot speak 'idle words;'
' no corrupt communication ' ever ' comes out
of his mouth,' as is all that ' which is ' not ' good
to the use of edifying,' not ' fit to minister grace
to the hearers.' But ' whatsoever things are
pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever
things are' justly 'of good report,' he thinks
and speaks and acts, ' adorning the Gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ in all things.' Lastly,
as he has time he ' does good unto all men ; '
unto neighbors and strangers, friends and ene
mies : and that in every possible kind ; not only
to their bodies, by ' feeding the hungry, cloth
ing the naked, visiting those that are sick or in
prison ; ' but much more does he labor to do
good to their souls, as of the ability which God
giveth ; to awaken those that sleep in death ;
to bring those who are awakened to the atoning
blood, that, ' being justified by faith, they may
have peace with God ; ' and to provoke those
who have peace with God to abound more in
love and in good works. And he is willing to
' spend and be spent therein,' even ' to be offered
up on the sacrifice and service of their faith,'

Influence upon Social Life. 27
so they may ' all come unto the measure of the
stature of the fullness of Christ.' "
Those who professed sanctification (as all
were expected to do in time) were enjoined to
" Beware of sins of omission ; lose no oppor
tunity of doing good in any kind. Be zealous
of good works ; willingly omit no work, either
of piety or mercy. Do all the good you pos
sibly can to the bodies and souls of men.
Particularly, ' thou shalt in any wise reprove
thy neighbor, and not suffer sin upon him.'
Be active. Give no place to indolence or
sloth ; give no occasion to say, ' Ye are idle, ye
are idle.' Many will say so still ; but let your
whole spirit and behavior refute the slander.
Be always employed ; lose no shred of time ;
gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost.
And whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it
with thy might. Be ' slow to speak ' and wary
in speaking. ' In a multitude of words there
wanteth not sin.' Do not talk much ; neither
long at a time. Few can converse profitably
above an hour. Keep at the utmost distance
from pious chitchat, from religious gossiping."
The minutest affairs of his people were of
interest to him. He instructed them in their
domestic as well as religious life. An illus
tration of the extent to which he would go

28 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
sometimes is seen in his " Plain Words " to
Mr. S., at Armagh, to whom, under date of
April 24, 1769, he wrote :
" Dear Brother : I shall now tell you the
things which have been more or less upon
my mind ever since I have been in the north
of Ireland. If you forget them you will be a
sufferer, and so will the people ; if you observe
them it will be good for both.
" 1. To begin with little things. If you re
gard your health, touch no supper, but a little
milk or water gruel. This will entirely, by the
blessing of God, secure you from nervous dis
orders ; especially if you rise early every morn
ing, whether you preach or no.
" 2. Be steadily serious. . . .
" 3. In every town visit all you can from
house to house. . . .
" 4. But on this and every other occasion
avoid all familiarity with women. This is
deadly poison both to them and you. You
cannot be too wary in this respect ; therefore
begin from this hour.
" 5. The chief matter of your conversation,
as well as your preaching, should doubtless be
the weightier matters of the law. Yet there
are several (comparatively) little things which
you should earnestly inculcate from time to
time ; for he that despiseth small things shall
fall by little and little. Such are,
" (1) Be active, be diligent ; avoid all lazi
ness, sloth, indolence. Fly from every degree,

Influence upon Social Life. 29
every appearance of it ; else you will never be
more than half a Christian.
"(2) Be cleanly. In this let the Methodists
take pattern by the Quakers. Avoid all nasti-
ness, dirt, slovenliness, both in your person,
clothes, house, and all about you. Do not
stink above ground. This is a bad fruit of
laziness. Use all diligence to be clean ; as one
says: " ' Let thy mind's sweetness have its operation
Upon thy person, clothes, and habitation.'
"(3) Whatever clothes you have let them
be whole ; no .rents, no tatters, no rags. These
are a scandal to either man or woman, being
another fruit of vile laziness. Mend your
clothes, or I shall never expect you to mend
your lives. Let none ever see a ragged Meth
odist. " (4) Clean yourselves of lice. These are a
proof of uncleanness and laziness ; take pains
in this. Do not cut off your hair, but clean it
and keep it clean.
" (5) Cure yourself and your family of the
itch ; a spoonful of brimstone will cure you.
To let this run from year to year proves both
sloth and uncleanness. Away with it at once.
Let not the north be any longer a proverb of
reproach to all the nation.
" (6) Use no tobacco unless prescribed by a
physician. It is an uncleanly and unwhole
some self-indulgence, and the more customary
it is the more resolutely should you break off
from every degree of that evil custom.

30 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
" (7) Use no snuff, unless prescribed by a
physician. I suppose no other nation in Eu
rope is in such vile bondage to this silly,
nasty, dirty custom as the Irish are. But let
Christians be in this bondage no longer. As
sert your liberty, and that all at once; nothing
will be done by degrees. But just now you
may break loose, through Christ strengthening
you. " (8) Touch no dram. It is liquid fire. It is
sure, though slow, poison. It saps the very
springs of life. In Ireland, above all countries
in the world, I would sacredly abstain from
this, because the evil is so general, and to this,
and snuff, and smoky cabins, I impute the blind
ness which is so exceeding common through
out the nation. . . ."
These were indeed "plain words" to ad
dress to one of his preachers ; but Mr. Wesley
spoke and wrote as plainly to the members of
his societies. He was especially severe upon
drunkards and smugglers, of whom the num
ber was large. In his printed address to the
former, entitled "A Word to a Drunkard,"
he said :
" 1. Are you a man? God made you a
man ; but you make yourself a beast. Where
in does a man differ from a beast ? Is it not
chiefly in reason and understanding ? But you
throw away what reason you have. You strip
yourself of your understanding. You do all

Influence upon Social Life. 31
you can to make yourself a mere beast ; not a
fool, nor a madman only, but a swine, a poor
filthy swine. Go and wallow with them in the
mire ! Go, drink on, till thy nakedness be un
covered, and shameful spewing be on thy
glory!" To those engaged in smuggling, or who ben
efited by the crime, he addressed himself, in
1767, in a pamphlet entitled A Word to a
Smuggler, which he began with the following
paragraphs :
" I. ' What is smuggling ? ' It is the import
ing, selling, or buying of run goods ; that is,
those which have not paid the duty appointed
by law to be paid to the king.
" 1. Importing run goods. All smuggling
vessels do this with a high hand. It is the
chief, if not the whole, business of these to
bring goods which have not paid duty.
" 2. Next to these are all sea captains, offi
cers, sailors, or passengers who import any
thing without paying the duty which the law
requires. " 3. A third sort of smugglers are all those
who sell anything which has not paid the duty.
" 4. A fourth sort, those who buy tea, liq
uors, linen, handkerchiefs, or anything else
which has not paid duty.
"II. 'But why should they not? What
harm is there in it ?'
" 1. I answer, open smuggling (such as was

32 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
common a few years ago, on the southern
coasts especially) is robbing on the highway ;
and as much harm as there is in this, just so
much there is in smuggling. A smuggler of
this kind is no honester than a highwayman.
They may shake hands together.
" 2. Private smuggling is just the same with
picking of pockets. There is full as much
harm in this as in that. A smuggler of this
kind is no honester than a pickpocket. These
may shake hands together.
" 3. But open smugglers are worse than com
mon highwaymen, and private smugglers are
worse than common pickpockets. For it is
undoubtedly worse to rob our father than one
we have no obligation to."
This category included the respectable as
well as disreputable smugglers.
Notwithstanding his followers were from the
ranks of the poorest of the people Mr. Wesley
was continually warning them against the
dangers of riches. In his " Thoughts upon
Methodism," written August 4, 1786, he says:
" It nearly concerns us to understand how the
case stands with us at present. I fear, wherever
riches have increased (exceeding few are the ex
ceptions), the essence of religion, the mind that
was in Christ, has decreased in the same pro
portion. Therefore do I not see how it is pos
sible, in the nature of things, for any revival of
true religion to continue long. For religion

Influence upon Social Life. 33
must necessarily produce both industry and fru
gality ; and these cannot but produce riches.
But as riches increase so will pride, anger, and
love of the world in all its branches.
" How, then, is it possible that Methodism,
that is, the religion of the heart, though it flour
ishes now as a green bay tree, should continue
in this state? For the Methodists in every\
place grow diligent and frugal ; consequently, j
they increase in goods. Hence, they propor-
tionably increase in pride, in anger, in the de
sire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the
pride of life. So, although the form of religion
remains, the spirit is swiftly vanishing away.
" Is there no way to prevent this ? this con
tinual declension of pure religion ? We ought
not to forbid people to be diligent and frugal ; we
must exhort all Christians to gain all they can,
and to save all they can ; that is, in effect, to
grow rich ! What way, then (I ask again), can
we take that our money may not sink us to the
nethermost hell? There is one way, and there
is no other under heaven. If those who ' gain
all they can,' and ' save all they can,' will like
wise ' give all they can,' then, the more they
gain the more they will grow in grace, and the
more treasure they will lay up in heaven."
In his sermon on " The Good Steward " Mr.
Wesley, describing the scene when the Lord's
steward is called upon to render his account,
said: " The Lord of all will next inquire, ' How
3

34 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
didst thou employ the worldly goods which I
lodged in thy hands ? Didst thou use thy food,
not so as to seek or place thy happiness therein,
but so as to preserve the body in health and
strength and vigor, a fit instrument for the
soul ? Didst thou use apparel, not to nourish
pride or vanity, much less to tempt others to
sin, but conveniently and decently to defend thy
self from the injuries of the weather? Didst
thou prepare and use thy house, and all other
conveniences, with a single eye to my glory?
In every point seeking not thy own honor, but
mine ; studying to please not thyself, but me ? '
Once more : ' In what manner didst thou employ
that comprehensive talent, money? Not in
gratifying the desire of the flesh, the desire of
the eye, or the pride of life ? Not squandering
it away in vain expenses, the same as throwing
it into the sea ? Not hoarding it up to leave
behind thee, the same as burying it in the earth ?
But first supplying thy own reasonable wants,
together with those of thy family ; then restor
ing the remainder to me, through the poor,
whom I had appointed to receive it ; looking
upon thyself as only one of that number of poor
whose wants were to be supplied out of that
part of my substance which I had placed in thy
hands for this purpose ; leaving thee the right of
being supplied first, and the blessedness of giv
ing rather than receiving? Wast thou accord
ingly a general benefactor to mankind ? Feed
ing the hungry, clothing the naked, comforting
the sick, assisting the stranger, relieving the

Influence upon Social Life. 35
afflicted, according to their various necessities ?
Wast thou eyes to the blind, and feet to the
lame ? A father to the fatherless, and a hus
band to the widow ? And didst thou labor to
improve all outward works of mercy, as a means
of saving souls from death ? ' "
Whatever may be thought of such admoni
tions they had great influence upon the mem
bers of the societies, very many of whom
endeavored by watching and prayer to conform
their lives to them, and to help their associates
to do likewise. This often required great sac
rifice, but Mr. Wesley himself set them a worthy
example. He even did more than any others.
How he was able to do so much was a mystery
to many. He explains in a letter written De
cember 10, 1777:
"You do not at all understand my manner
of life. Though I am always in haste I am
never in a hurry ; because I never undertake any
more than I can go through with perfect calm
ness of spirit. It is true I travel four or five
thousand miles in a year. But I generally
travel alone in my carriage ; and, consequently,
am as retired ten hours in a day as if I was in
a wilderness. On other days I never spend less
than three hours (frequently ten or twelve) in
the day alone. So there are. few persons in the
kingdom who spend so many hours secluded
from all company. Yet I find time to visit

36 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
the sick and the poor ; and I must do it if I
believe the Bible, if I believe these are the marks
whereby the Shepherd of Israel will know and
judge his sheep at the great day; therefore,
when there is time and opportunity for it, who
can doubt but this is a matter of absolute duty?
When I was at Oxford, and lived almost like a
hermit, I saw not how any busy man could be
saved. I scarce thought it possible for a man
to retain a Christian spirit amid the noise and
bustle of the world. God taught me better by
my own experience. I had ten times more
business in America (that is, at intervals) than
ever I had in my life. But it was no hindrance
to silence of spirit."
The influence of Wesley's teaching and man
ner of life was not confined to his own follow
ers. The leaven affected all classes, from the
lowest to the highest. Says F. W. Farrar,
Dean of Canterbury, in " Prophets of the Chris
tian Faith," published in The Outlook:
John Wesley " found a church forgetful and
neglectful of its duties, somnolent in the pleth
ora of riches, and either unmindful or unwisely
mindful of the poor. He found churches
empty, dirty, neglected, crumbling into hideous
disrepair ; he found the work of the ministry
performed in a manner scandalously perfunc
tory. . . . But John Wesley, becoming mag
netic with moral sincerity, flashed into myriads
of hearts fat as brawn, cold as ice, hard as the

Influence upon Social Life. 37
nether millstone, the burning spark of his own
intense convictions, and thus he saved the
Church. ... It may be that in talent, in imag
ination, in learning, in the pure and undefinable
quality of genius, Wesley was not the equal of
many of his contemporaries ; but which among
them all equaled him in versatility of benefi
cence, in zeal of self-sacrifice, in the munificence
of his generosity, or in the luster ofthe example
he has left to the world ? Consider his supreme
disinterestedness, his unparalleled courage, his
indefatigable toils. How many have there been
in all the centuries who made such an absolute
offering of his money to God, and, living on
less than many a curate's salary, gave away
forty thousand pounds? Consider, again, his
unparalleled courage. How many have shown
equal undauntedness? Men admire the cour
age of the soldier who heads the forlorn hope
through the cross-fire of the batteries, of the
sailor or of the fireman who, at personal risk,
plucks from destruction an imperiled life ; but
such physical courage is a million times cheaper
and more common than that of the scholar, the
gentleman, the clergyman, who, in that age, day
after day, month after month, year after year,
in England, in America, in Scotland, in Wales,
in Ireland, even in the Isle of Man, could, vol
untarily and out of the pure love of souls, face
raging mobs and descend to what was then
regarded as the vulgar humiliation of preaching
in the open air. And higher even than this was
the moral and spiritual courage which, in the

38 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
calm of blameless innocence, could treat the
most atrocious and the most persistent calum
nies with the disdainful indifference of unblem
ished rectitude. . . .
" Although the world and the Church have
learned to be comparatively generous to Wes
ley, now that a hundred years have sped away,
and though the roar of contemporary scandal
has long since ceased, I doubt whether even
now he is at all adequately appreciated. I doubt
whether many are aware of the extent to which
to this day the impulse to every great work of
philanthropy and social reformation has been
due to his energy and insight. The British and
Foreign Bible Society, the Religious Tract So
ciety, the London Missionary Society, even the
Church Missionary Society, owe not a little to
his initiative. The vast spread of religious in
struction by weekly periodicals, and the cheap
press, with all its stupendous consequences,
were inaugurated by him. He gave a great ex
tension to Sunday schools and the work of
Robert Raikes. He gave a great impulse both
to national education and to technical education,
and in starting the work of Silas Told, the Foun
dry Teacher, he anticipated the humble and
holy work of John Pounds, the Portsmouth cob
bler. He started in his own person the funeral
reform, which is only now beginning to attract
public attention, when in his will he directed
that at his obsequies there should be no hearse,
no escutcheon, no coach, no pomp. He visited
prisons and ameliorated the lot of prisoners be-

Influence upon Social Life. 39
fore John Howard ; and his very last letter was
written to stimulate William Wilberforce in his
parliamentary labors for the emancipation ofthe
slave. When we add to this the revival of fervent
worship and devout hymnology among Chris
tian congregations, and their deliverance from
the drawling doggerel of Sternhold and Hop
kins, and the frigid nullities of Tate and Brady,
we have indeed shown how splendid was the
list of his achievements, and that, as Isaac Tay
lor says, he furnished ' the starting point for
our modern religious history in all that is char
acteristic of the present time.'
" And yet, in this long and splendid cata
logue, we have not mentioned his greatest and
most distinctive work, which was that through
him to the poor the Gospel was again preached.
Let Whitefield have the credit of having been
the first to make the green grass his pulpit and
the heaven his sounding-board ; but Wesley in
stantly followed, at all costs, the then daring
example, and through all evil report and all
furious opposition he continued it until at last
at Kingswood, at the age of eighty-one, he
preached in the open air, under the shade of
trees which he himself had planted, and sur
rounded by the children and children's children
of his old disciples, who had long since passed
away. Overwhelming evidence exists to show
what' preaching was before and in his day;
overwhelming evidence exists to show what
the Church and people of England were be
fore and in his day — how dull, how vapid,

40 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
how soulless, how Christless was the preach
ing ; how torpid, how Laodicean was the
Church ; how godless, how steeped in immoral
ity was the land. To Wesley was mainly granted
the task, for which he was set apart by the
hands of invisible consecration — the task which
even an archangel might have envied him — of
awakening a mighty revival of the religious
life in those dead pulpits, in that slumbering
Church, in that corrupt society. His was the
religious sincerity which not only founded the
Wesleyan community, but, working through
the heart ofthe very Church which had despised
him, flashed fire into her whitening embers.
Changing its outward forms, the work of John
Wesley caused, first, the evangelical movement,
then the High Church movement, and, in its
enthusiasm of humanity, has even reappeared
in all that is best in the humble Salvationists,
who learned from the example of Wesley what
Bishop Lightfoot called ' that lost secret of
Christianity, the compulsion of human souls.'
Recognizing no utterance of authority as equally
supreme with that which came to him from the
Sinai of conscience, Wesley did the thing and
scorned the consequence. His was the voice
which offered hope to the despairing and wel
come to the outcast. . . . The poet says :
" ' Of those three hundred grant but three
To make a new Thermopylae.'
And when I think of John Wesley, the organ
izer, of Charles Wesley, the poet, of George

Influence upon Social Life. 41
Whitefield, the orator of this mighty move
ment, I feel inclined to say of those three self-
sacrificing and holy men, Grant but even one to
help in the mighty work which yet remains to
be accomplished ! Had we but three such now,
" ' Hoary-headed selfishness would feel
His deathblow, and would totter to his grave ;
A brighter light attend the human day,
When every transfer of earth's natural gift
Should be a commerce of good words and works.'
We have, it is true, hundreds of faithful workers
in the Church of England and in other religious
communities. But for the slaying of dragons,
the rekindlement of irresistible enthusiasm, the
redress of intolerable wrongs, a Church needs
many Pentecosts and many Resurrections. And
these, in the providence of God, are brought
about, not by committees and conferences and
common workers, but by men who escape the
average ; by men who come forth from the mul
titude ; by men who, not content to trudge on
in the beaten paths of commonplace and the
cart-ruts of routine, go forth according to their
Lord's command, into the highways and hedges ;
by men in whom the love of God burns like a
consuming flame upon the altar of the heart ;
by men who have become electric to make
myriads of other souls thrill with their own
holy zeal. Such men are necessarily rare, but
God's richest boon to any nation, to any society,
to any Church is the presence and work of such
a man — and such a man was John Wesley."

42 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.

III.
Opposition to Slavery.
WESLEY'S opposition to human slavery
was lifelong and, if the term may be
applied to one so full of kindness, bitter. When
in Georgia and South Carolina in 1736 he was
deeply affected by the heathenish condition of
the slaves, but he was unable to do anything
for their relief. It is probable, however, that
he and the founder of Georgia, Oglethorpe,
often talked of the unrighteousness of slavery,
and that the determined attitude of Oglethorpe,
who declared that the trustees of the colony
refused " to make a law permitting such a hor
rid crime," because "it is against the Gospel as
well as against the fundamental law of Eng
land," was in part due to Wesley's influence.
The African slave trade was a somewhat re
spectable business at that date. African slaves
had been imported into the United States from
the time of Charles V. Las Casas, the famous
Spanish missionary, had recommended the first
large importation of Negro slaves, to save from
destruction by life-destroying overwork his be
loved Indians of the West Indies ; but, notwith-

Opposition to Slavery. 43
standing Las Casas afterward bitterly repented
his mistake, his Church supported and perpetu
ated the slave trade and excused the horrors of
"the middle passage." During two centuries
the Spanish government, " in the name of the
Most Holy Trinity," concluded at least ten
treaties which authorized the sale of more than
five hundred thousand human beings, and re
ceived from such traffic a tax of over ten mil
lion dollars.
Protestant England was as guilty as Catholic
Spain. The first ship which sailed from Eng
land, in 1 562, to engage in the slave trade bore
the sacred name of Jesus. For many years
English monarchs encouraged the trade, and
bishops and clergy approved it. Even Meth
odism's greatest preacher, " the prince of pul
pit orators," George Whitefield, condoned it.
His letter to Wesley, written from Georgia, is
a most surprising epistle. It must have been
a shock to Wesley, even at a time when there
were few who denounced the slave trade. This
letter reads as follows :
"Bristol, March 22, 1751.
" Reverend and very dear Sir : Thanks
be to God that the. time for favoring the colony
of Georgia seems to be come. Now is the sea
son for us to exert our utmost for the good of

44 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
the poor Ethiopians. We are told that even
they are soon to stretch out their hands to
God ; and who knows but their being settled in
Georgia may be overruled for this great end ?
As for the lawfulness of keeping slaves, I have
no doubt, since I hear of some that were
bought with Abraham's money and some that
were born in his house. I also cannot help
thinking that, some of those servants mentioned
by the apostles in their epistles were, or had
been, slaves. It is plain that the Gibeonites
were doomed to perpetual slavery ; and, though
liberty is a sweet thing to such as are born free,
yet to those who never knew the sweets of it
slavery, perhaps, may not be so irksome. How
ever this be, it is plain to a demonstration that
hot countries cannot be cultivated without Ne
groes. What a flourishing country might
Georgia have been had the use of them been
permitted years ago ! How many white people
have been destroyed for want of them, and how
many thousands of pounds spent to no pur
pose at all ! Though it is true that they are
brought in a wrong way from their own coun
try, and it is a trade not to be approved of,
yet, as it will be carried on whether we will or
not, I should think myself highly favored if I
could purchase a good number of them in order
to make their lives comfortable, and lay a
foundation for breeding up their posterity in
the nurture and admonition of the Lord. I
had no hand in bringing them into Georgia,
though my judgment was for it, and I was

Opposition to Slavery. 45
strongly importuned thereto ; yet I would not
have a Negro upon my plantation till the use of
them was publicly allowed by the colony.
Now this is done, let us diligently improve the
present opportunity for their instruction. It
rejoiced my soul to hear that one of my poor
Negroes in Carolina was made a brother in
Christ. How know we but we may have many
such instances in Georgia! I trust many of
them will be brought to Jesus, and this con
sideration, as to us, swallows up all temporal
inconveniences whatsoever.
" I am, etc.,
"George Whitefield."
Whitefield not only approved of slavery, but
he became a slaveholder, and at the time of his
death possessed seventy-five slaves in connec
tion with his Orphan House plantations in
Georgia. How early in his career Mr. Wesley began
his open hostility to slavery is not known. His
indirect influence against it began to be exerted
certainly as early as 1758, when' a Mr. Gilbert,
of Antigua, Speaker of the House of Assembly,
visiting England in 1758 and 1759, and two of
the four slaves accompanying him were con
verted in London under Mr. Wesley's preach
ing. The converts laid the foundation of the
Wesleyan missions, which did much to prepare
the slaves ofthe West Indies for emancipation.

46 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
Mr. Wesley's first hostile opinion of slavery
is found expressed in an entry in his Journal
under date of February 12, 1772, in which, con-
, trasting a book he had just read with Sterne's
Sentimental Journey, which he had read some
time before, he writes :
" I read a very different book, published by
kn honest Quaker, on that execrable sum of all
villainies, commonly called the slave trade. I
read of nothing like it in the heathen world,
ancient or modern ; and it infinitely exceeds, in
every instance of barbarity, whatever Christian
slaves suffer in Mohammedan countries."
Quoting these words, Tyerman says :
"This is a remarkable utterance. It was
in this very year that Granville Sharpe, the
first of the English antisTa^eTy*^dvocates, be
gan to take up the subject ; and it was not
until fifteen years after this that the Society
for the Suppression of the Slave Trade was
founded, of which, besides Sharpe, two of
the chief members were Thomas Clarkson, a
young graduate of Cambridge, and William
Wilberforce, who was then Member of Parlia
ment for the county of York. The book which
Wesley read was probably written by Anthony
/V Benezet, a French Protestant, who, afterT5eing
educated in England, became a Quaker in Phil
adelphia and, in 1762, published the work which
first attracted the attention of this country to
the inhuman traffic which Wesley so justly

Opposition to Slavery. 47
designates 'that execrable sum of all villainies.'
Let it be noted that, besides all his other
honors, John Wesley, the poor, persecuted
Methodist, was one of the first advocates on
behalf of the enthralled African that England
had, and that, sixty years before slavery was\
abolished in the dominions of Great Britain, he
denounced the thing in the strongest terms it
was possible to employ."
Mr. Wesley's most powerful contribution to
the antislavery movement was his Thoughts on
Slavery. This was an octavo pamphlet of fifty-
three pages, issued in 1774. No more severe
arraignment of slavery than this was ever writ
ten. It was sent out in every direction by the
Methodist preachers, and was widely scattered
by them both in Europe and America, and it
probably exerted a greater influence upon the
public conscience than any other book ever
written, not excepting Uncle Tom's Cabin, for
the reception of which it prepared the way.
The work met with speedy and vindictive op
position in England, which Wesley expected.
It was soon afterward republished in America
by Mr. Anthony Benezet, of Philadelphia.
The character of the Thoughts on Slavery is
indicated by a few extracts. After describing
the method of making war upon native villages
and the capture of natives Mr. Wesley says :

48 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
" But in what numbers and in what manner
are they carried to America? Mr. Anderson,
in his History of Trade and Commerce, observes :
' England supplies her American colonies with
Negros laves amounting in number to about a
hundred thousand every year ;' that is, so many
are taken on board our ships, but at least ten
thousand of them die in the voyage ; about a
fourth part more die at the different islands, in
what is called the seasoning. So on an average,
in the passage and seasoning together, thirty
thousand die ; that is, properly, are murdered.
O earth, O sea, cover not thou their blood !
" When they are brought down to the shore
in order to be sold our surgeons thoroughly
examine, them, and that quite naked, women
and men, without any distinction ; those that
are approved are set on one side. In the mean
time a burning iron, with the arms or name of
the company, lies in the fire, with which they
are marked on the breast. Before they are put
into the ships their masters strip them of all
they have on their backs, so that they come on
board stark naked, women as well as men. It
is common for several hundred of them to be
put on board one vessel, where they are stowed
together in as little room as it is possible for
them to be crowded. It is easy to suppose
what a condition they must soon be in, be
tween heat, thirst, and stench of various kinds.
So it is no wonder so many should die in the
passage, but rather that any should survive it.
" When the vessels arrive at their destined

Opposition to Slavery. 49
port the Negroes are again exposed naked to
the eyes of all that flock together, and the ex
amination of their purchasers. Then they are
separated to the plantations of their several
masters to see each other no more. Here you
may see mothers hanging over their daughters,
bedewing their naked breasts with tears, and
daughters clinging to their parents till the
whipper soon obliges them to part. And what
can be more wretched than the condition they
then enter upon? Banished from their country,
from their friends and relations forever, from
every comfort of life, they are reduced to a
state scarce any way preferable to that of beasts
of burden. In general a few roots, not of the
nicest kind, usually yams or potatoes, are their
food, and two rags that neither screen them
from the heat of day nor the cold of the night,
their covering. Their sleep is very short, their
labor continual and frequently above their
strength, so that death sets many of them at
liberty before they have lived out half their
days. The time they work in the West Indies
is from daybreak to noon, and from two o'clock
till dark, during which they are attended by
overseers, who, if they think them dilatory, or
think anything not so well done as it should be,
whip them most unmercifully, so that you may \
see their bodies long after wealed and scarred,
usually from the shoulders to the waist. And
before they are suffered to go to their quarters
they have commonly something to do, as col
lecting herbage for the horses or gathering fuel
4

50 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
for the boilers, so that it is often past twelve
before they can get home. Hence, if their food
is not prepared they are sometimes called to
labor again before they can satisfy their hunger.
And no excuse will avail. If they are not in
the field immediately they must expect to feel
the lash. Did the Creator intend that the no
blest creatures in the visible world should live
such a life as this?
" ' Are these thy glorious works, Parent of good ? '
"As to the punishments inflicted upon them,
says Sir Hans Sloane, ' they frequently geld
them, or chop off half a foot ; after they are
whipped till they are raw all over, some put
pepper and salt upon them, some drop melted
wax upon their skin, others cut off their ears,
and constrain them to broil and eat them. For
rebellion — that is, asserting their native liberty,
which they have as much right to as to the air
they breathe — ' they fasten them down to the
ground with crooked sticks on every limb, and
then applying fire, by degrees, to the feet and
hands they burn them gradually upward to the
head.' " But will not the laws made in the planta
tions prevent or redress all cruelty and oppres
sion ? We will take but a few of these laws for
a specimen, and then let any man judge:
" In order to rivet the chain of slavery the
law of Virginia ordains : ' That no slave shall be
set free upon any pretense whatever, except for
some meritorious services to be adjudged and
allowed by the governor and council, and that

Opposition to Slavery. 51
where any slave shall be set free by his owner,
otherwise than is herein directed, the church
wardens of the parish wherein such Negro shall
reside for the space of one month are hereby
authorized and required to take up and sell the
said Negro by public outcry.' "

Mr. Wesley answers at length the numerous
pleas made in justification of slavery, and in
doing so says :
"That slaveholding is utterly inconsistent
with mercy is almost too plain to need a proof.
Indeed, it is said that, these Negroes being
prisoners of war, our captains and factors buy
them merely to save them from being put to
death. And is not this mercy? I answer,
I. Did Sir John Hawkins, and many others,
seize upon men, women, and children, who were
at peace in their own fields and houses, merely
to save them from death? 2. Was it to save
them from death that they knocked out the
brains of those they could not bring away?
3. Who occasioned and fomented those wars
wherein these poor creatures were taken pris
oners ? Who excited them by money, by drink,
by every possible means, to fall upon one an
other? Was it not themselves? They know
in their own conscience it was, if they have any
conscience left. But, 4. To bring the matter
to a short issue, can they say before God that
they ever took a single voyage, or bought a
single Negro, from this motive ? They cannot ;

52 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
they well know, to get money, not to save lives,
was the whole and sole spring of their mo
tions. 5. But if this manner of procuring and
treating Negroes is not consistent either with
mercy or justice, yet there is a plea for it which
every man of business will acknowledge to be
quite sufficient. Fifty years ago one meeting
an eminent statesman in the lobby of the House
of Commons said, 'You have been long talking
about justice and equity. Pray, which is this
bill — equity or justice ? ' He answered very
short and plain, ' D — n justice ; it is necessity.'
Here also the slaveholder fixes his feet ; here
he rests the strength of his cause. ' If it is not
quite right, yet it must be so ; there is an abso
lute necessity for it. It is necessary we should
procure slaves ; and when we have procured
them it is necessary to use them with severity,
considering their stupidity, stubbornness, and
wickedness.' " I answer, you stumble at the threshold ; I
deny that villainy is ever necessary. It is im
possible that it should ever be necessary for any
reasonable creature to violate all the laws of
justice, mercy, and truth. No circumstances
can make it necessary for a man to burst in sun
der all the ties of humanity. It can never be
necessary for a rational being to sink himself
below a brute. A man can be under no ne
cessity of degrading himself into a wolf. The
absurdity of the supposition is so glaring that
one would wonder anyone could help seeing it.

Opposition to Slavery. 53
"V. I. It remains only to make a little appli
cation of the preceding observations. But to
whom should that application be made ? That
may bear a question. Should we address our
selves to the public at large ? What effect can
this have ? It may inflame the world against
the guilty, but it is not likely to remove that
guilt. Should we appeal to the English nation
in general ? This also is striking wide, and is
never likely to procure any redress for the sore
evil we complain of. As little would it in all
probability avail to apply to the Parliament.
So many things, which seem of greater im
portance, lie before them, that they are not
likely to attend to this. I therefore add a few
words to those who are more immediately con
cerned, whether captains, merchants, or planters.
"2. And, first, to the captains employed in
this trade. Most of you know the country of
Guinea ; several parts of it, at least, between the
river Senegal and the kingdom of Angola.
Perhaps, now, by your means part of it is be
come a dreary, uncultivated wilderness, the
inhabitants being all murdered or carried away,
so that there are none left to till the ground.
But you well know how populous, how fruitful,
how pleasant it was a few years ago. You
know the people were not stupid, not wanting
in sense, considering the few means of improve
ment they enjoyed. Neither did you find them
savage, fierce, cruel, treacherous, or unkind to
strangers. On the contrary, they were in most
parts a sensible and ingenious people. They

54 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
were kind and friendly, courteous and obliging,
and remarkably fair and just in their dealings.
Such are the men whom you hire their own
countrymen to tear away from this lovely coun
try ; part by stealth, part by force, part made
captives in those wars which you raise or fo
ment on purpose. You have seen them torn
away — children from their parents, parents from
their children, husbands from their wives, wives
from their beloved husbands, brethren and sis
ters from each other. You have dragged them
who had never done you any wrong, perhaps
in chains, from their native shore. You have
forced them into your ships like a herd of
swine — them who had souls immortal as your
own ; only some of them leaped into the sea,
and resolutely stayed under water, till they
could suffer no more from you. You have
stowed them together as close as ever they
could lie, without any regard for decency or
convenience. And when many of them had
been poisoned by foul air or had sunk under
various hardships you have seen their remains
delivered to the deep till the sea should give up
his dead. You have carried the survivors into
the vilest slavery, never to end but with life ;
such slavery as is not found among the Turks at
Algiers, no, nor among the heathens in America.
" 3. May I speak plainly to you-? I must.
Love constrains me ; love to you as well as to
those you are concerned with.
" Is there a God ? You know there is. Is
he a just God ? Then there must be a state of

Opposition to Slavery. 55
retribution ; a state wherein the just God will
reward every man according to his works. Then
what reward will he render to you? O think
betimes before you drop into eternity ! Think
now, ' He shall have judgment without mercy
that showed no mercy.'
" Are you a man ? Then you should have a
human heart. But have you, indeed ? What
is your heart made of? Is there no such prin
ciple as compassion there ? Do you never feel
another's pain? Have you no sympathy, no
sense of human woe, no pity for the miser
able? When you saw the flowing eyes, the
heaving breasts, or the bleeding sides or tor
tured limbs of your fellow-creatures, was you
a stone, or a brute ? Did you look upon
them with the eyes of a tiger ? When you
squeezed the agonizing creatures down in the
ship, or when you threw their poor mangled re
mains into the sea, had you no relenting? Did
not one tear drop from your eye, one sigh es
cape from your breast ? Do you feel no relent
ing now ? If you do not you must go on till
the measure of your iniquities is full. Then
will the great God deal with you as you have
dealt with them, and require all their blood at
your hands. And at ' that day it shall be more
tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for
you ! ' But if your heart does relent, though
in a small degree, know it is a call from the
God of love. And ' to-day, if you will hear his
voice, harden not your heart.' To-day resolve,
God being your helper, to escape for your life.

56 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
Regard not money ! All that a man hath will
he give for his life ! Whatever you lose, lose
not your soul ; nothing can countervail that
loss. Immediately quit the horrid trade; at
all events, be an honest man.
"4. This equally concerns every merchant
who is engaged in the slave trade. It is you
that induce the African villain to sell his coun
trymen ; and in order thereto to steal, rob,
murder men, women, and children without
number, by enabling the English villain to pay
him for so doing, whom you overpay for his
execrable labor. It is your money that is the
spring of all, that empowers him to go on ; so
that whatever he or the African does in this
matter is all your act and deed. And is your
conscience quite reconciled to this? Does it
never reproach you at all ? Has gold entirely
blinded your eyes and stupefied your heart ?
Can you see, can you feel, no harm therein ?
Is it doing as you would be done to ? Make
the case your own. ' Master,' said a slave at
Liverpool to the merchant that owned him,
' what if some of my countrymen were to come
here and take away my mistress, and Master
Tommy, and Master Billy, and carry them into
our country and make them slaves, how would
you like it ? ' His answer was worthy of a man :
' I will never buy a slave more while I live.' O
let his resolution be yours ! Have no more
part in this detestable business. Instantly leave
it to those unfeeling wretches who
• Laugh at human nature and compassion ! '

Opposition to Slavery. 57
Be you a man, not a wolf, a devourer of the
human species ! Be merciful that you may ob
tain mercy !
" 5- And this equally concerns every gentle
man that has an estate in our American planta
tions ; yea, all slaveholders, of whatever rank
and degree ; seeing men-buyers are exactly on
a level with men-stealers. Indeed you say, ' I
pay honestly for my goods, and I am not con
cerned to know how they are come by.' Nay,
but you are ; you are deeply concerned to
know they are honestly come by. Otherwise
you are a partaker with a thief, and not a jot
honester than him. But you know they are
not honestly come by ; you know they are pro
cured by means nothing near so innocent as
picking of pockets, housebreaking, or robbery
upon the highway. You know that they are
obtained by a deliberate series of more com
plicated villainy (of fraud, robbery, and mur
der) than was ever practiced either by Moham
medans or pagans ; in particular, by murders
of all kinds ; by the blood of the innocent
poured upon the ground like water. Now, it is
your money that pays the merchant, and
through him the captain and the African
butchers. You therefore are guilty, yea, prin
cipally guilty, of all these frauds, robberies,
and murders. You are the spring that puts all
the rest in motion ; they would not stir a step
without you ; therefore the blood of all these
wretches who die before their time, whether in
their country or elsewhere, lies on your head.

58 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
' The blood of thy brother ' (for, whether thou
wilt believe it or no, such he is in the sight of
Him that made, him) ' crieth against thee from
the earth,' from the ship, and from the waters.
O, whatever it costs, put a stop to its cry be
fore it be too late ; instantly, at any price, were
it half of your goods, deliver thyself from
bloodguiltiness ! Thy hands, thy bed, thy fur
niture, thy house, thy lands, are at present
stained with blood. Surely it is enough ; accu
mulate no more guilt ; spill no more the blood
ofthe innocent ! Do not hire another to shed
blood ; do not pay him for doing it ! Whether
you are a Christian or no, show yourself a man !
Be not more savage than a lion or a bear.
" 6. Perhaps you will say, ' I do not buy
any Negroes ; I only use those left me by my
father.' So far it is well ; but is it enough to
satisfy your own conscience ? Had your father,
have you, has any man living a right to use
another as a slave? It cannot be, even setting
revelation aside. It cannot be that either war
or contract can give a man such property in
another as he has in his sheep and oxen. Much
less is it possible that any child of man should
ever be born a slave. Liberty is the right of
every human creature as soon as he breathes
the vital air ; and no human law can deprive
him of that right which he derives from the
law of nature. If, therefore, you have any re
gard to justice (to say nothing of mercy, nor
the revealed law of God), render unto all their
due. Give liberty to whom liberty is due, that

Opposition to Slavery. 59
is, to every child of man, to every partaker of
human nature. Let none serve you but by his
own act and deed, by his own voluntary choice.
Away with all whips, all chains, all compulsion !
Be gentle toward all men ; and see that you
invariably do unto everyone as you would he
should do unto you.
" 7. O thou God of love, thou who art lov
ing to every man, and whose mercy is over all
thy works ; thou who art the Father of the
spirits of all flesh, and who art rich in mercy
unto all ; thou who hast mingled of one blood
all the nations upon earth, have compassion on
these outcasts of men, who are trodden down
as dung upon the earth ! Arise, and help
those who have no helper, whose blood is spilt
upon the ground like water ! Are not these
also the work of thine own hands, the purchase
of thy Son's blood ? Stir them to cry to thee
in the land of their captivity; and let their
complaint come up before thee ; let it enter
into thy ears ! Make even those who lead them
away captive to pity them, and to turn their
captivity as the rivers in the south. O, burst
thou all their chains in sunder ; more espe
cially the chains of their sins ! Thou Sav
iour of all, make them free, that they may be
free indeed !
" ' The servile progeny of Ham
Seize as the purchase of thy blood !
Let all the heathens know thy name ;
From idols to the living God
The dark Americans convert,
And shine in every pagan heart ! ' "

60 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
The hostility to slavery expressed in his
Thoughts on Slavery was manifested by Mr.
Wesley to the end. Indeed, the last letter he
wrote, four days before his death, was upon
this subject. It was addressed to William
Wilberforce, leader of the movement for the
emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies,
and his words were an inspiration to those of
his followers in England and America who for
many years had been striving- to overthrow
slavery. His characterization of American
slavery as -" the vilest that ever saw the sun "
was like a bugle blast in arousing his people.
This famous letter is as follows :
" London, February 24, 1791.
" DEAR Sir : Unless the divine power has
raised you up to be as Athanasius contra mun-
dwm, I see not how you can go through your
glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable
villainy which is the scandal of religion, of Eng
land, and of human nature. Unless God has
raised you up for this very thing, you will be
worn out by the opposition of men and devils ;
but ' if God be for you, who can be against
you ? ' Are all of them stronger than God ?
O, ' be not weary in well-doing.' Go on, in
the name of God and in the power of his
might, till even American slavery, the vilest
that ever saw the sun, shall vanish away be
fore it.

Opposition to Slavery. 61
" Reading this morning a tract, wrote by a
poor African, I was particularly struck by that
circumstance — that a man who has a black
skin, being wronged or outraged by a white
man, can have no redress ; it being a law in all
our colonies that the oath of a black against a
white goes for nothing. What villainy is this !
" That He who has guidfed you from your
youth up may continue to strengthen you in
this and all things, is the prayer of, dear sir,
your affectionate servant,
" John Wesley."

62 Jbhn Wesley as a Social Reformer.

IV.
Influence in America.
THE missionaries whom Wesley sent to
America sympathized with his antislavery
views, and early began to preach and talk
privately against the hateful system. At the
Conference ofthe preachers in 1780 the follow
ing question was asked : " Does this Confer
ence acknowledge that slavery is contrary to
the laws of God, man, and nature, and hurtful
to society; contrary to the dictates of con
science and pure religion, and doing that
which we would not others should do to us
and ours ? Do we pass our disapprobation
on all our friends who keep slaves, and advise
their freedom ? " The recorded answer to the
questions was, " Yes."
The Christmas Conference of 1784, at which
the Methodist Episcopal Church was organ
ized, pronounced slavery to be " contrary to the
golden law of God . . . and the unalienable
right of mankind, as well as every principle of
the Revolution."
It took action providing for the emancipa
tion of slaves held by members of the society,

Influence in America. 63
and when, six months later, it was " recom
mended to all our brethren to suspend the
execution of the minute on slavery till the
deliberations of a future Conference," to this
recommendation was added : " N. B. — We do
hold in the deepest abhorrence the practice of
slavery, and shall not cease to seek its destruc
tion by all wise and prudent means." In the
Discipline for 1789 among the General Rules
appeared for the first time one respecting
slaves. It prohibited " the buying or selling
the bodies and souls of men, women, or chil
dren with an intention to enslave them."
The first person arrested in America for
utterances against slavery was a Methodist^
preacher, the Rev. Jacob Gruber. Mr. Gruber,
who was presiding elder of Carlisle District, in
the Baltimore Conference, was invited to preach
at a camp meeting held in Washington County,
Md., August 16, 1818. He took for his text
the words found in Prov. xiv, 34 : " Righteous
ness exalteth a nation ; but sin is a reproach
to any people." In the course of his remarks
he said :
" The last national sin is slavery and
oppression. This in particular is a reproach
to the nation. Other nations who are under
the yoke of despots are pitied, especially when

64 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
they are ground under the iron heel of oppres
sion. This nation is happily delivered from
such bondage. We live in a free country; and
that all men are created equal, and have in
alienable rights, such as life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness, we hold as self-evident
truths. But there are slaves in our country,
and their sweat and blood and tears declare
them such. The voice of our brother's blood
crieth. Is it not a reproach to a man to hold
articles of liberty and independence in one
hand and a bloody whip in the other while
a Negro stands and trembles before him with
his back cut and bleeding ?
" There is' a laudable zeal manifested in our
country to form Bible and missionary societies,
to send the Scriptures and the Gospel to
heathen nations. Would it not be well for
some to be consistent, and instruct the
heathens at home in their kitchens, and let
them hear the Gospel likewise ? What would
heathen nations at a distance think if they
were told that persons who gave liberally to
send them the Bible and the Gospel did not
believe, or obey it themselves, or teach their
own families to read that book, or allow
them time to hear the Gospel of their
salvation preached ? There is some difference
even in this country. We Pennsylvanians
think it strange, and it seems quite curious to
read in the public prints from some States an
advertisement like this : ' For sale, a plantation,
I a house and lot, horses, cows, sheep, and hogs.

Influence in America. 65
Also, a number of Negroes, men, women, and
children, some very valuable ones. Also, a
pew in such and such a church.' Again, ' For
sale, a likely young Negro, who is an excellent
waiter, sold for no fault,' or else ' for want of
employment.' These are sold for cash, for
four, five, six, seven, or eight hundred dollars a
head ; soul and body together, ranked with
horses, hogs, etc. Look further and see ' Fifty
dollars reward,' ' One hundred dollars reward,'
' Two hundred dollars reward.' What for?
Has an apprentice run away from his master ?
No ; perhaps a reward for him would be six
cents. A man that ran off has probably, gone
to see his wife, or child, or relations, who have
been sold and torn from him, or to enjoy the
blessings of a free country and get clear of
tyranny. In this inhuman traffic and cruel
trade the most tender ties are torn asunder
and the nearest connections broken. That
which God has joined together let not man put
asunder. This solemn injunction is not re
garded. Will not God be avenged on such a
nation as this ? . . .
"Such alarming and dreadful consequences
may attend and follow this reproachful sin in
our land and nation :
" ' Is there not some chosen curse,
Some secret thunder in the stores of heaven,
Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the wretch
That traffics in the blood of souls ? ' "
Some of the slaveholders present were much
displeased with the sermon, and a few weeks

66 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
later a warrant was issued for the arrest of Mr.
Gruber. In the warrant he was charged with
"unlawfully, wickedly, maliciously, and ad
visedly ".endeavoring "to stir up, provoke, in
stigate, and incite divers Negro slaves . . .
to commit acts of mutiny and rebellion . . .
against the peace, government, and dignity of
the State."
Mr. Gruber was defended by Roger B.
Taney, afterward Chief-Justice of the United
States, and author of the famous Dred-Scott
decision. Mr. Taney in his defense of Mr.
Gruber referred to the well-known attitude of
the Methodist Episcopal Church in regard to
slavery, and uttered these remarkable words :
" It is well known that the gradual and
peaceful abolition of slavery in these States is
one of the objects which the Methodist society
have steadily in view. No slaveholder is al
lowed to be a minister in that Church. Their
preachers are accustomed, in their sermons, to
speak of the injustice and oppressions of slav
ery. The opinion of Mr. Gruber on this sub
ject nobody should doubt. And if any slave
holder believed it dangerous to himself, his
family, or the community to suffer his slaves
to learn that all slavery is unjust and oppres
sive, and persuaded himself that they would not
of themselves be able to make the discovery, it
was in his power to prevent them from attend-

Influence in America. 67
ing the assemblies where such doctrines were
likely to be preached. Mr. Gruber did not
go to the slaves ; they came to him. They
could not have come if their masters had chosen
to prevent them. . . .
" But the reverend gentleman merits a de
fense on very different principles. The counsel
to whom he had confided his cause cannot con
tent themselves with a cold and reluctant
acquittal, and abandon Mr. Gruber, without
defense, to all the obloquy and reproach which
his enemies have industriously and most un
justly heaped upon him. We cannot consent
to buy his safety by yielding to passion, preju
dice, and avarice, the control of future discus
sions on this great and important question.
He must not surrender up the civil and reli
gious rights secured to him, in common with
others, by the Constitution of this most favored
nation. Mr. Gruber feels that it is due to his
own character, to the station he fills, to the
respectable society of Christians in which he is
a minister of the Gospel, not only to defend
himself from this prosecution, but also to
avow, and to vindicate here, the principles he
maintained in his sermon. There is no law
that forbids us to speak of slavery as we think
of it. Any man has a right to publish his
opinions on that subject whenever he pleases.
It is a subject of national concern, and may at
all times be freely discussed. Mr. Gruber did
quote the language of our great act of national
independence, and insisted on the principles

68 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
contained in that venerated instrument. He
did rebuke those masters who, in the exercise of
power, are deaf to the calls of humanity ; and
he warned them of the evils they might bring
upon themselves. He did speak with abhor
rence of those reptiles who live by trading in
human flesh and enrich themselves by tearing
the husband from the wife, the infant from
the bosom of the mother ; and this, I am in
structed, was the head and front of his offend
ing. Shall I content myself with saying he
had a right to say this? that there is no
law to punish him ? So far is he from being
the object of punishment in any form of pro
ceeding that we are prepared to maintain the
same principles, and to use, if necessary, the
same language here in the temple of justice,
and in the presence of those who are the min
isters of the law.
"A hard necessity, indeed, compels us to
endure the evil of slavery for a time. It was
imposed upon us by another nation, while we
were yet in a state of colonial vassalage. It
cannot be easily or suddenly removed. Yet,
while it continues, it is a blot on our national
character, and every real lover of freedom con
fidently hopes that it will be effectually, though
it must be gradually, wiped away, and ear
nestly looks for the means by which this neces
sary object may be best attained. And until
it shall be accomplished, until the time shall
come when we can point without a blush to
the language held in the Declaration of Inde-

Influence in America. 69
pendence, every friend of humanity will seek
to lighten the galling chain of slavery, and
better, to the utmost of his power, the wretched
condition ofthe slave."
Mr. Gruber was acquitted.
Not all followers of Mr. Wesley in America
accepted his antislavery views. Even the
General Conference for a time receded from
the high position taken by the Conference of
1784, and leading ministers in the Church
sought by Conference action and official author
ity to silence the opponents of slavery. One
Annual Conference in 1838 declared that,
" Whereas, there is a clause in the Discipline of
our Church which states that we are as much
as ever convinced of the great evil of slavery ;
and whereas, the said clause has been perverted
by some and used in such a manner as to pro
duce the impression that the Methodist Epis
copal Church believed slavery to be a moral
evil ; therefore, resolved, that it is the sense of
the Georgia Annual Conference that slavery,
as it exists in the United States, is not a moral
evil." Notwithstanding the divided opinions of his
followers, John Wesley's words, especially his
declaration that " American slavery [was] the
vilest that ever saw the sun," continued their

70 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
work of molding public opinion and were a
large factor in the division of the Church in
1844, which action contributed largely to the
growth of the sentiment against slavery and to
its final overthrow.

A Fruitful Sermon. 71

V.
A Fruitful Sermon.
ONE of the most notable of Wesley's ser
mons, and in many respects one of the
most fruitful in its influence upon the dress and
practices of early Methodists in England and
America, was that on " The Use of Money."
Many thousands patterned their lives by its in
structions. It would not be wise, perhaps, to
practice some of its precepts to-day, under con
ditions very different from those existing when
the sermon was delivered, but for the most
part its spirit and lessons are as applicable as
they were in England a century and more ago.
Christians of the present time, whether they be
rich or poor, may well accept it as a message
from one of Jehovah's prophets, and adapt it to
their own needs. The sermon is as follows :
The Use of Money.
" I say unto you. Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of un
righteousness ; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting
habitations." — Luke xvi, g.
I. Our Lord, having finished the beautiful
parable of the prodigal son, which he had par
ticularly addressed to those who murmured at

72 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
his receiving publicans and sinners, adds an
other relation of a different kind, addressed
rather to the children of God. " He said unto
his disciples " — not so much to the scribes and
Pharisees, to whom he had been speaking be
fore- — " There was a certain rich man, who had a
steward, and he was accused to him of wasting
his goods. And calling him, he said, Give
an account of thy stewardship ; for thou canst
be no longer steward" (verses I, 2). After re
citing the method which the bad steward used
to provide against the day of necessity our
Saviour adds, " His lord commended the unjust
steward," namely, in this respect, that he used
timely precaution ; and subjoins this weighty
reflection, " The children of this world are
wiser in their generation than the children of
light " (verse 8) ; those who seek no other por
tion than this world " are wiser " (not abso
lutely; for they are, one and all, the veri
est fools, the most egregious madmen under
heaven ; but, " in their generation," in their
own way ; they are more consistent with them
selves ; they are truer to their acknowledged
principles; they more steadily pursue their
end) " than the children of light " — than they
who see " the light of the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ." Then follow the words
above recited : "And I " — the only begotten
Son of God, the Creator, Lord, and Possessor
of heaven and earth and all that is therein ; the
Judge of all, to whom ye are to "give an ac
count of your stewardship," when ye " can be

A Fruitful Sermon. 73
no longer stewards ; " "I say unto you " —
learn in this respect, even of the unjust steward
— " make yourselves friends," by wise, timely
precaution, " of the mammon of unrighteous
ness." " Mammon " means riches, or money.
It is termed " the mammon of unrighteous
ness" because of the unrighteous manner
wherein it is frequently procured, and wherein
even that which was honestly procured is gen-
erally\employed. " Make yourselves friends "
of this, by doing all possible good, partic
ularly to the children of God ; " that when
ye fail " — when ye return to dust, when ye
have no more place under the sun — those of
them who are gone before " may receive you,"
may welcome you, into " everlasting habita
tions." 2. An excellent branch of Christian wisdom
is here inculcated by our Lord on all his follow
ers, namely, the right use of money ; a subject
largely spoken of, after their manner, by men
of the world, but not sufficiently considered by
those whom God hath chosen out of the world.
These, generally, do not consider, as the im
portance of the subject requires, the use of this
excellent talent. Neither do they understand
how to employ it to the greatest advantage ;
the introduction of which into the world is one
admirable instance of the wise and gracious
providence of God. It has, indeed, been the
manner of poets, orators, and philosophers, in
almost all ages and nations, to rail at this as
the grand corrupter of the world, the bane of

74 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
virtue, the pest of human society. Hence,
nothing so commonly heard as,
" Ferrum, ferroque nocentius aurum"
" And gold, more mischievous than keenest steel."
Hence the lamentable complaint,
" Effodiuntur opes, irritamenta malorum,"
" Wealth is dug up, incentive to all ill."
Nay, one celebrated writer gravely exhorts his
countrymen, in order to banish all vice at once,
to " throw all their money into the sea: "
" In mare proximum,
Summi materiem malt! "
But is not all this mere empty rant ? Is there
any solid reason therein ? By no means. For,
let the world be as corrupt as it will, is gold or
silver to blame ? " The love of money," we
know, " is the root of all evil ; " but not the
thing itself. The fault does not lie in the
money, but in them that use it. It may be
used ill; and what may not? But it may like
wise be used well ; it is full as applicable to
the best as to the worst uses. It is of unspeak
able service to all civilized nations, in all the
common affairs of life ; it is a most compendi
ous instrument of transacting all manner of
business, and (if we use it according to Chris
tian wisdom) of doing all manner of good. It
is true, were man in a state of innocence, or
were all men 'filled with the Holy Ghost," so
that, like the infant Church at Jerusalem, " no
man counted anything he had his own," but
" distribution was made to everyone as he had

A Fruitful Sermon. 75
need," the use of it would be superseded, as we
cannot conceive there is anything of the kind
among the inhabitants of heaven. But, in the
present state of mankind, it is an excellent
gift of God, answering the noblest ends. In
the hands of his children it is food for the hun
gry, drink for the thirsty, raiment for the naked ;
it gives to the traveler and the stranger where
to lay his head. By it we may supply the place
of a husband to the widow and of a father to
the fatherless. We may be a defense for the
oppressed, a means of health to the sick, of
ease to them that are in pain ; it may be as
eyes to the blind, as feet to the lame ; yea, a
lifter up from the gates of death !
3. It is, therefore, of the highest concern that
all who fear God know how to employ this
valuable talent ; that they be instructed how it
may answer these glorious ends, and in the
highest degree. And perhaps all the instruc
tions which are necessary for this may be re
duced to three plain rules, by the exact ob
servance whereof we may approve ourselves
faithful stewards of "the mammon of unright
eousness." I. 1. The first of these is (he that heareth,
let him understand !), " Gain all you can."
Here we may speak like the children of the
world ; we meet them on their own ground.
And it is our bounden duty to do this ; we
ought to gain all we can gain, without buying
gold too dear, without paying more for it than
it is worth. But this it is certain we ought not

76 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
to do : we ought not to gain money at the ex
pense of life, nor (which is in effect the same
thing) at the expense of our health. Therefore
no gain whatsoever should induce us to enter
into, or to continue in, any employ which is of
such a kind or is attended with so hard or so
long labor as to impair our constitution. Nei
ther should we begin or continue in any busi
ness which necessarily deprives us of proper
seasons for food and sleep in such a proportion
as our nature requires. Indeed, there is a great
difference here. Some employments are abso
lutely and totally unhealthy, as those which im
ply the dealing much with arsenic or other
equally hurtful minerals, or the breathing an
air tainted with steams of melting lead, which
must at length destroy the firmest constitution.
Others may not be absolutely unhealthy, but
only to persons of a weak constitution. Such
are those which require many hours to be spent
in writing ; especially if a person write sitting,
and lean upon the stomach, or remain long in
an uneasy posture. But whatever it is which
reason or experience shows to be destructive of
health or strength, that we may not submit to;
seeing " the life is more [valuable] than meat,
and the body than raiment ; " and if we are
already engaged in such an employ we should
exchange it, as soon as possible, for some which,
if it lessen our gain, will, however, not lessen
our health.
2. We are, secondly, to gain all we can with
out hurting our mind, anymore than our body.

A Fruitful Sermon. 77
For neither may we hurt this ; we must pre
serve, at all events, the spirit of a healthful
mind. Therefore we may not engage or con
tinue in any sinful trade, any that is contrary
to the law of God or of our country. Such are
all that necessarily imply our robbing or de
frauding the king of his lawful customs. For
it is at least as sinful to defraud the king of his
right as to rob our fellow-subjects ; and the
king has full as much right to his customs as
we have to our houses and apparel. Other
businesses there are which, however innocent
in themselves, cannot be followed with inno
cence now, at least not in England : such, for
instance, as will not afford a competent main
tenance without cheating or lying or conform
ity to some custom which is not consistent with
a good conscience: these, likewise, are sacredly
to be avoided, whatever gain they may be at
tended with, provided we follow the custom of
the trade ; for, to gain money, we must not
lose our souls. There are yet others which we
may pursue with perfect innocence, without
hurting either body or mind, and yet perhaps
you cannot ; either they may entangle you in
that company which would destroy your soul,
and by repeated experiments it may appear
that you cannot separate the one from the
other, or there may be an idiosyncrasy, a pecul
iarity in your constitution of soul (as there is
in the bodily constitution of many), by reason
whereof that employment is deadly to you
which another may safely follow. So I am

78 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
convinced, from many experiments, I could
not study to any degree of perfection either
mathematics, arithmetic, or algebra without
being a deist, if not an atheist ; and yet others
may study them all their lives without sustain
ing any inconvenience. None, therefore, can
here determine for another ; but every man must
judge for himself, and abstain from whatever he,
in particular, finds to be hurtful to his soul.
3. We are, thirdly, to gain all we can with
out hurting our neighbor. But this we may
not, cannot do, if we love our neighbor as our
selves. We cannot, if we love everyone as
ourselves, hurt anyone in his substance. We
cannot devour the increase of his lands, and per
haps the lands and houses themselves by gam
ing, by overgrown bills (whether on account of
physic, of law, or anything else), or by requir
ing or taking such interest as even the laws of
our country forbid. Hereby all pawnbroking
is excluded ; seeing whatever good we might
do thereby all unprejudiced men see with grief
to be abundantly overbalanced by the evil.
And if it were otherwise, yet we are not allowed
to " do evil that good may come." We cannot,
consistent with brotherly love, sell our goods
below the market price ; we cannot study to
ruin our neighbor's trade in order to advance
our own; much less can we entice away, or re
ceive, any of his servants or workmen whom he
has need of. None can gain by swallowing up
his neighbor's substance without gaining the
damnation of hell!

A Fruitful Sermon. 79
4. Neither may we gain by hurting our
neighbor in his body. Therefore we may not
sell anything which tends to impair health.
Such is, eminently, all that liquid fire commonly
called drams, or spirituous liquors. It is true,
these may have a place in medicine ; they may
be of use in some bodily disorders ; although
there would rarely be occasion for them were it
not for the unskillfulness of the practitioner.
Therefore such as prepare and sell them only
for this end may keep their conscience clear.
But who are they ? Who prepare them only for
this end ? Do you know ten such distillers in
England ? Then excuse these. But all who
sell them in the common way, to any that will
buy, are poisoners general. They murder his
majesty's subjects by wholesale ; neither does
their eye pity or spare. They drive them to
hell like sheep ; and what is their gain ? Is it
not the blood of these men ? Who then would
envy their large estates and sumptuous palaces?
A curse is in the midst of them ; the curse of
God cleaves to the stones, the timber, the fur
niture of them ! The curse of God is in their
gardens, their walks, their groves ; a fire that
burns to the nethermost hell ! Blood, blood is
there ; the foundation, the floor, the walls, the
roof, are stained with blood ! And canst thou
hope, O, thou man of blood, though thou art
" clothed in scarlet and fine linen, and farest
sumptuously every day," canst thou hope to
deliver down thy fields of blood to the third
generation ? Not so ; for there is a God in

80 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
heaven ; therefore thy name shall soon be rooted
out. Like as those whom thou hast destroyed,
body and soul, " thy memorials shall perish
with thee ! "
5. And are not they partakers of the same
guilt, though in a lower degree, whether sur
geons, apothecaries, or physicians, who play
with the lives or health of men, to enlarge their
own gain ? who purposely lengthen the pain
or disease which they are able to remove
speedily? who protract the cure of their pa
tient's body in order to plunder his substance ?
Can any man be clear before God who does not
shorten every disorder " as much as he can,"
and remove all sickness and pain " as soon as he
can?" He cannot; for nothing can be more
clear than that he does not " do unto others as
he would they should do unto himself."
6. This is dear-bought gain. And so is what
ever is procured by hurting our neighbor in his
soul ; by ministering, suppose, either directly
or indirectly, to his unchastity or intemperance,
which certainly none can do who has any fear
of God or any real desire of pleasing him. It
nearly concerns all those to consider this who
have anything to do with taverns, victualing
houses, opera houses, play houses, or any other
places of public fashionable diversion. If these
profit the souls of men you are clear; your em
ployment is good and your gain innocent ; but
if they are either sinful in themselves or natu
ral inlets to sin of various kinds, then, it is to
be feared, you have a sad account to make. O,

A Fruitful Sermon. 81
beware lest God say in that day, " These have
perished in their iniquity, but their blood do I
require at thy hands ! "
7. These cautions and restrictions being ob
served, it is the bounden duty of all who are
engaged in worldly business to observe that
first and great rule of Christian wisdom with
respect to money, " Gain all you can." Gain all
you can by honest industry. Use all possible
diligence in your calling. Lose no time. If
you understand yourself and your relation to
God and man you know you have none to
spare. If you understand your particular call
ing, as you ought, you will have no time that
hangs upon your hands. Every business will
afford some employment sufficient for every
day and every hour. That wherein you are
placed, if you follow it in earnest, will leave
you no leisure for silly, unprofitable diversions.
You have always something better to do, some
thing that will profit you more or less. And
" whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it
with thy might." Do it as soon as possible ;
no delay ! no putting off from day to day or
from hour to hour. Never leave anything till
to-morrow which you can do to-day. And do
it as well as possible. Do not sleep or yawn :
over it ; put your whole strength to the work.
Spare no pains. 'Let nothing be done by
halves or in a slight and careless manner. Let
nothing in your business be left undone if it can
be done by labor or patience.
8. Gain all you can by common sense, by
6

82 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
using in your business all the understanding
which God has given you. It is amazing to
observe how few do this ; how men run on
in the same dull track with their forefathers.
But, whatever they do who know not God,
this is no rule for you. It is a shame for a
Christian not to improve upon them, in what
ever he takes in hand. You should be contin
ually learning, from the experience of others or
from your own experience, reading and reflec
tion, to do everything you have to do better
to-day than you did yesterday. And see that
you practice whatever you learn, that you may
make the best of all that is in your hands.
II. i. Having gained all you can, by honest
wisdom and unwearied diligence, the second
rule of Christian prudence is, " Save all you
can." Do not throw the precious talent into
the sea : leave that folly to heathen philoso
phers. Do not throw it away in idle expenses,
which is just the same as throwing it into the
sea. Expend no part of it merely to gratify the
desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the
pride of life.
2. Do not waste any part of so precious a tal
ent merely in gratifying the desires ofthe flesh ;
in procuring the pleasures of sense of whatever
kind ; particularly in enlarging the pleasure of
tasting. I do not mean avoid gluttony and
drunkenness only ; an honest heathen would
condemn these. But there is a regular, rep
utable kind of sensuality, an elegant epicurism,
which does not immediately disorder the stom-

A Fruitful Sermon. 83
ach, nor (sensibly at least) impair the under
standing ; and yet (to mention no other effects
of it now) it cannot be maintained without
considerable expense. Cut off all this expense.
Despise delicacy and variety, and be content
with what plain nature requires.
3. Do not waste any part of so precious a
talent merely in gratifying the desire of the eye,
by superfluous or expensive apparel, or by
needless ornaments. Waste no part of it in
curiously adorning your houses; in superfluous
or expensive furniture ; in costly pictures, paint
ing, gilding, books ; in elegant rather than use
ful gardens. Let your neighbors who know
nothing better do this. " Let the dead bury
their dead." But "what is that to thee?"
says our Lord. " Follow thou me." Are you
willing? Then you are able so to do !
4. Lay out nothing to gratify the pride of
life ; to gain the admiration or praise of men.
This motive of expense is frequently interwoven
with one or both of the former. Men are ex
pensive in diet, or apparel, or furniture, not
barely to please their appetite, or to gratify
their eye, or their imagination, but their vanity
too. " So long as thou doest well unto thy
self men will speak good of thee." So long as
thou art " clothed in purple and fine linen, and
farest sumptuously every day," no doubt
many will applaud thy elegance of taste, thy
generosity and hospitality. But do not buy
their applause so dear. Rather be content
with the honor that cometh from God.

84 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
5. Who would expend anything in gratifying
these desires if he considered that to gratify
them is to increase them ? Nothing can be
more certain than this : daily experience shows
the more they are indulged they increase the
more. Whenever, therefore, you expend any
thing to please your taste or other senses you
pay so much for sensuality. When you lay out
money to please your eye you give so much
for an increase of curiosity — for a stronger at
tachment to these pleasures which perish in the
using. While you are purchasing anything
which men use to applaud you are purchasing
more vanity. Had you not then enough of
vanity, sensuality, curiosity, before ? Was there
need of any addition ? And would you pay for
it too ? What manner of wisdom is this ?
Would not the literally throwing your money
into the sea be a less mischievous folly ?
6. And why should you throw away money
upon your children any more than upon your
self, in delicate food, in gay or costly apparel,
in superfluities of any kind ? Why should you
purchase for them more pride or lust, more
vanity or foolish and hurtful desires ? They do
not want any more; they have enough already;
nature has made ample provision for them ;
why should you be at farther expense to in
crease their temptations and snares and to
pierce them through with many sorrows ?
7. Do not leave it to them to throw away.
If you have good reason to believe they would
waste what is now in your possession, in grati-

A Fruitful Sermon. 85
fying, and thereby increasing, the desire of the
flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life,
at the peril of theirs and your own soul, do
not set these traps in their way. Do not offer
your sons or your daughters unto Belial any
more than unto Moloch. Have pity upon
them, and remove out of their way what you
may easily foresee would increase their sins,
and consequently plunge them deeper into ever
lasting perdition ! How amazing, then, is the
infatuation of those parents who think they
can never leave their children enough ! What !
cannot you leave them enough of arrows, fire
brands, and death ? Not enough of foolish and
hurtful desires ? Not enough of pride, lust,
ambition, vanity? Not enough of everlasting
burnings ? Poor wretch ! Thou fearest where
no fear is. Surely both thou and they, when
ye are lifting up your eyes in hell, will have
enough both of " the worm that never dieth "
and of " the fire that never shall be quenched ! "
8. " What then would you do if you were in
my case — if you had a considerable fortune
to leave ? " Whether I would do it or no, I
know what I ought to do ; this will admit of no
reasonable question. If I had one child, elder
at younger, who knew the value of money, one
who I believed would put it to the true use, I
should think it my absolute, indispensable duty
to leave that child the bulk of my fortune, and
to the rest just so much as would enable them
to live in the manner they had been accus
tomed to do. " But what if all your children

86 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
were equally ignorant of the true use of
money?" I ought then (hard saying! who
can hear it ?) to give each what would keep
him above want, and to bestow all the rest in
such a manner as I judged would be most for
the glory of God.
III. i. But let not any man imagine that he
has done anything barely by going thus far, by
" gaining and saving all he can," if he were to
stop here. All this is nothing if a man go not
forward, if he does not point all this at a far
ther end. Nor, indeed, can a man properly be
said to save anything if he only lays it up.
You may as well throw your money into the
sea as bury it in the earth. And you may as
well bury it in the earth as in your chest or in
the Bank of England. Not to use is effectually
to throw it away. If, therefore, you would in
deed " make yourselves friends of the mammon
of unrighteousness," add the third rule to the
two preceding. Having first gained all you can,"i
and, secondly, saved all you can, then " give all \
you can."
2. In order to see the ground and reason of
this, consider, when the Possessor of heaven and
earth brought you into being, and placed you in
this world, he placed you here, not as a proprie
tor, but a steward ; as such he intrusted you for
a season with goods of various kinds, but the
sole property of these still rests in him, nor can
ever be alienated from him. As you yourself
are not your own, but his, such is, likewise, all
that you enjoy. Such is your soul and your

A Fruitful Sermon. 87
body, not your own, but God's. And so is
your substance, in particular. And he has told
you in the most clear and express terms how
you are to employ it for him, in such a manner
that it may be all a holy sacrifice, acceptable
through Christ Jesus. And this light, easy
service he hath promised to reward with an
eternal weight of glory.
3. The directions which God has given us
touching the use of our worldly substance may
be comprised in the following particulars. If
you desire to be a faithful and a wise steward,
out of that portion of your Lord's goods which
he has for the present lodged in your hands,
but with the right of resuming whenever it
pleases him, first, provide things needful for
yourself, food to eat, raiment to put on, what
ever nature moderately requires for preserving
the body in health and strength. Secondly,
provide these for your wife, your children, your
servants, or any others who pertain to your
household. If, when this is done, there be an
overplus left, then " do good to them that are
of the household of faith.' ' If there be an over
plus still, " as you have opportunity, do good
unto all men." In so doing you give all you
can ; nay, in a sound sense, all you have ; for all
that is laid out in this manner is really given to
God. You " render unto God the things that
are God's," not only by what you give to the
poor, but also by that which you expend in
providing things needful for yourself and your
household.

88 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
4. If then a doubt should at any time arise
in your mind concerning what you are going to
expend, either on yourself, or any part of your
family, you have an easy way to remove it.
Calmly and seriously inquire, 1. In expending
this am I acting according to my character?
Am I acting herein, not as a proprietor, but as
a steward of my Lord's goods ? 2. Am I do
ing this in obedience to his word ? In what
Scripture does he require me so to do ? 3. Can
I -offer up this action, this expense as a sac
rifice to God through Jesus Christ ? 4. Have
I reason to believe that for this very work I
shall have a reward at the resurrection of the
just ? You will seldom need anything more to
remove any doubt which arises on this head ;
but by this fourfold consideration you will re
ceive clear light as to the way wherein you
should go.
5. If any doubt still remain you may farther
examine yourself by prayer, according to
those heads of inquiry. Try whether you can
say to the Searcher of hearts, your conscience
not condemning you, " Lord, thou seest I am
going to expend this sum on that food, apparel,
furniture. And thou knowest I act therein
with a single eye, as a steward of thy goods,
expending this portion of them thus, in pur
suance of the design thou hast in intrusting
me with them. Thou knowest I do this in
obedience to thy word, as thou commandest,
and because thou commandest it. Let this,
I beseech thee, be a holy sacrifice, acceptable

A Fruitful Sermon. 89
through Jesus Christ ! And give me a witness
in myself that for this labor of love I shall have
a recompense when thou rewardest every man
according to his works." Now if your con
science bear you witness in the Holy Ghost that
this prayer is well-pleasing to God, then have
you no reason to doubt but that expense is
right and good, and such as will never make
you ashamed.
6. You see, then, what it is to " make your
selves friends of the mammon of unrighteous
ness," and by what means you may procure
" that when ye fail they may receive you into
everlasting habitations." You see the nature
and extent of truly Christian prudence so far
as it relates to the use of that great talent,
money. Gain all you can without hurting either
yourself or your neighbor, in soul or body, by
applyinghereto with unintermitted diligenceand
with all the understanding which God has given
>fou ; save all you can by cutting off every ex
pense which serves only to indulge foolish desire
to gratify either the desire of the flesh, the de
sire of the eye, or the pride of life ; waste noth
ing, living or dying, on sin or folly, whether for
yourself or your children ; and then give all
you can, or, in other words, give all you have, to
God. Do not stint yourself, like a Jew rather
than a Christian, to this or that proportion.
Render unto God, not a tenth, not a third, not
half, but all that is God's, be it more or less, by
employing all, on yourself, your household, the
household of faith, and all mankind, in such a

90 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
manner that you may give a good account of
your stewardship, when ye can be no longer
stewards ; in such a manner as the oracles of
God direct, both by general and particular pre
cepts ; in such a manner that whatever ye do
may be " a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savor
to God," and that every act may be rewarded
in that day when the Lord cometh with all his
saints. 7. Brethren, can we be either wise or faith
ful stewards unless we thus manage our Lord's
goods ? We cannot, as not only the oracles of
God, but our own conscience, beareth witness.
Then why should we delay ? Why should
we confer any longer with flesh and blood, or
men ofthe world? Our kingdom, our wisdom,
is not of this world ; heathen custom is nothing
to us. We follow no men any farther than
they are followers of Christ. Hear ye him ;
yea, to-day, while it is called to-day, hear and
obey his voice ! At this hour, and from this
hour, do his will ; fulfill his word in this and in
all things ! I entreat you, in the name of the
Lord Jesus, act up to the dignity of your call
ing ! No more sloth ! Whatsoever your hand
findeth to do, do it with your might ! No
more waste ! Cut off every expense which
fashion, caprice, or flesh and blood demand.
No more covetousness ! But employ whatever
God has intrusted you with in doing good, all
possible good, in every possible kind and de
gree, to the household of faith, to all men !
This is no small part of " the wisdom of the

A Fruitful Sermon. 91
just." Give all ye have, as well as all ye are,
a spiritual sacrifice to Him who withheld not
from you his Son, his only Son ; so " laying up
in store for yourselves a good foundation against
the time to come, that ye may attain eternal
life."

92 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.

VI.
Influence upon the Labor Movement.
THE moral condition of England at the
beginning of the Methodist movement is
thus described by Mr. Wesley in his Appeal to
Men of Reason and Religion, published in 1745 :
"What can an impartial person think con
cerning the present state of religion in Eng
land ? Is there a nation under the sun which
is so deeply fallen from the very first principles
of all religion ? Where is the country in which
is found so utter a disregard to even heathen
morality; such a thorough contempt of justice
and truth and all that should be dear and hon
orable to rational creatures?
" What species of vice can possibly be named,
even of those that nature itself abhors, of which
we have not had for many years a plentiful and
still increasing harvest? What sin remains,
either in Rome or Constantinople, which we
have not imported long ago (if it was not of
our native growth), and improved upon ever
since? Such a complication of villainies of
every kind, considered with all their aggrava
tions ; such a scorn of whatever bears the face
of virtue ; such injustice, fraud, and falsehood ;
above all, such perjury and such a method of
law, we may defy the whole world to produc."

Influence upon the Labor Movement. 93
Equally deplorable was the industrial condi
tion of the people then, and for many years
afterward. That of the miners and agricultural
laborers, or peasants, as they were called, was
particularly bad.
" The generality of English peasants," wrote
Mr. Wesley in 1756, " are not only grossly, stu
pidly, I had almost said brutishly, ignorant as
to all the arts of this life, but eminently so with
regard to religion and the life to come. Ask a
countryman, 'What is faith? What is repent
ance ? What is holiness ? What is true reli
gion ? ' and he is no more able to give you an
intelligible answer than if you were to ask him
about the Northeast Passage. Is there, then,
any possibility that they should practice what
they know nothing of? If religion is not even
in their heads can it be in their hearts or lives ?
It cannot. Nor is there the least savor thereof
either in their tempers or conversation. Neither
in the one nor the other do they rise one jot
above the pitch of a Turk or a heathen."
But wretched as was the lot of the peasant
it was much better than the terrible toil and
hardship of the miner and the factory worker.
Until the nineteenth century was far advanced
thousands of children from four to five years
of age worked as trappers amid the darkness
and the horrors of the pit, and never saw the
sunshine except on Sundays. Women were

94 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
employed as beasts of burden, and with chains
around their waists crawled on hands and knees
through narrow passages, drawing after them
the coal carriages. Girls and women carried on
their backs burdens often weighing a hundred
Vand fifty pounds, and little children of six and
seven years of age carried coal creels weighing
fifty pounds up stairs that, in the aggregate,
equaled an ascent fourteen times a day to the
summit of St. Paul's Cathedral. Other children
were daily required to work for thirteen and
( fourteen hours pumping water from the mine ;
and it is stated that they would " often be
standing for thirty-six hours ankle-deep in the
water." Their pay was a mere pittance, and
they were obliged to spend that at the " truck
stores," where they were charged twenty-five
per cent more for everything they bought than
they would have paid elsewhere. Men were
also required to work thirteen or fourteen
hours ; they were the victims of injustice and
oppression ; rheumatism was universal and con
sumption common. Deaths from accident were
of almost daily occurrence. But there has
been a marked improvement in the condition
of the miner, and he has himself become a
leader in the movement for bettering the con
dition of all classes of working people.

Influence upon the Labor Movement. 95
" The miner," says Mr. T. R. Threlfall, Sec- '
retary of the Labor Electoral Association, " is a
strong personality in the industrial world. He
is the pioneer of the labor movement. Possess
ing the physical vigor of the agricultural la
borer, the astuteness of the town artisan, and
that desire for knowledge which is the keynote
to progress, he has learned amid the dark pas
sages in the mine, while the shadow of death
hovered over him, to understand somewhat the
solemnity of life, to be awed by the infinite,
and in many cases to find solace in religion.
He turned to Methodism, and found therein a
faith in keeping with his sturdy, hopeful nature.
The miner's attachment to Methodism is of
long standing. It dates from the time when
Wesley discoursed to the pitmen of Northum
berland and Durham, who received him with
open arms. Here the faith found congenial
soil, for it was planted amid a people tradition
ally religious, whose ancestors had lived for
centuries beneath the shadow of the monas
tery, and who had been faithful to their ancient
Church when king and Parliament afssailed it.
The relics of St. Cuthbert were a charm in the
forests and morasses lying betweenthe Tyne
and the Wear and over the wild borderlands of
Northumberland. And when at length this
stately Church was stripped of its power and
glory, its abbeys overthrown and its priests dis
persed, these Northern men did not take kindly
to its successors, but spiritually slumbered un
til the Wesleys broke the spell. Since then

96 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
Methodism has become the dominant faith of
the miners. Such affinity of the vanguard of
labor for this particular Church is not only
eloquent for the past but is significant for the
future. It is not based upon local peculiarities,
upon conditions of employment, upon tradi
tion or material surroundings, but springs from
the fact that Methodism has nearly approached
the miner's conception of a democratic Church.
Its spiritual zeal aroused him, its democratic
instincts were in keeping with his political as
pirations, and its organizing ability educated
him in the principles' of unity."
With the conversion of their souls many of
the miners seemed to receive the gift of
tongues, and not only the power to tell of the
experience of salvation in their hearts and to
appeal to their fellow-workers to give up their
sins, but a consciousness of the social and in
dustrial wrongs of which they were the victims,
and the moral courage to protest against them
and to seek deliverance. Soon they began to
organize, and their spiritual leaders, the Meth
odist local preachers, became their industrial
leaders. Mr. Threlfall, in an article on " The
Faith of the Miners," in the London Methodist
Times, in 1890, wrote as follows:
" Methodism has undoubtedly played a very
important part in organizing miners. No one
can read the detailed history of the great strikes

Influence upon the Labor Movement. 97
in the mining world without observing how
many of the leaders are connected with some
branch of the Methodist Church. Take the
first great Northumberland strike in 1831 as an
instance. Name after name of those who or
ganized it, guided it, and were imprisoned for
it are those of local preachers. Nor was this
feature confined to Northumberland and Dur
ham ; it is a feature of all the mining struggles
in Yorkshire and Wales, in Cornwall and Der
byshire. But these men had learned other
things from their connection with Methodism
than training as speakers. They had obtained
education in the art of organization, and this
they put to good use. The result is that to
day no workmen are so well organized as the
miners, none have more nearly approached a
national federation, and none have been so
quick to perceive the utility of direct represen
tation in Parliament. Can there be any more
striking tribute to the influence of Methodism
upon the mining community than the fact that
the five miners' members in the House of Com
mons have all been trained in the Methodist
Church, four being past or present local preach
ers? In the Parliament of 1885 there were six,
the last one being Mr. John Wilson, CC, ex-
M. P. for Houghton-le-Spring, treasurer of the
Durham Miners' Association, and the president
of the Labor Electoral Association.
" Nor is this the only evidence of the militant
force of Methodism in the democratic move
ment. While I write there lies before me an
1

98 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
extensive list of miners' leaders who either have
been, or are now, local preachers. The North
umberland and Durham miners are, of course,
well represented ; next comes the Yorkshire
Miners' Association, with three of the leading
officials and a host of branch leaders; one of
the two agents of the Derbyshire Miners ; the
agents of the Forest of Dean miners, and the
Notts miners ; and a long array of names well
known in the mining world. Lancashire, Staf
fordshire, the Midlands, Notts, Derbyshire, and
other coal fields, all furnish a considerable num
ber. Indeed, looking at this list, and compar
ing it with the names of delegates attending
the great miners' conferences, when from three
hundred thousand to four hundred thousand
men are occasionally represented, it is no ex
aggeration to say that fully one half served an
apprenticeship as local preachers."
When in 1874 the miners decided that labor
should be represented in Parliament by one of
their own order they selected as their repre
sentative Thomas Burt. He was elected by a
majority of three thousand in a constituency of
four thousand, and has represented labor in
Parliament ever since. Mr. Burt has been pres
ident of the Miners' International Union, and
was the English delegate to the Berlin Labor
Congress called by the Emperor of Germany.
Of Mr. Burt, a writer in an English paper some
months ago said :

Influence upon the Labor Movement. 99
" Mr. Burt, the miner, who sits in Parliament
for Morpeth, and who possesses the distinction
of having sat there since 1874 without having
lost those good qualities which led his fellow-
miners to elect him, is also a Methodist. He
was, as our readers already know, one of the
British delegates attending the International
Labor Conference, which was presided over by
the German emperor. Mr. Burt had a pleas
ant little conversation with the emperor at one
of the state receptions at the imperial palace.
It must have been an interesting sight — the
head of the German empire chatting with the
quiet, unassuming Methodist miner-member of
the English House of Commons about trades-
unionism. When the kaiser asked him if trades-
unionism in England lead to frequent breeches
of contract or rioting, Mr. Burt was able to
assure his majesty that breach of contract was~
practically unknown, and that rioting seldom
or never occurred. He further stated that they
had solved that problem by freedom ; that
when the laws against combination existed
there was some violence ; but since the men
had been left free to combine and do their
business in their own way there had been none,
while greatimprovement had been secured in
the social condition of the workmen."
Commenting upon the interview between the
emperor and Mr. Burt, W. T. Stead, editor of
the Review of Reviews, wrote:
" It was worth while holding the Labor Con-

100 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
ference, if only that Thomas Burt might have
the opportunity of speaking such words of
sound sense in the ear of the Emperor of Ger
many." Mr. Burt's father was a miner and a Primi
tive Methodist local preacher. In 1844 there
was a great strike of the miners of Seghill.
All who dwelt in the colliery proprietors'
cottages were evicted, and Peter Burt, his
wife, and little children were obliged to move.
Says George Jacob Holyoake : " Peter Burt
was, like his famous son in subsequent years,
the last man to put himself, forward, but the
first to stand in the front when storm and
stress came. Peter Burt was actively and
prominently engaged in the strike, and when it
became a question how the wageless miners were
to live he was one of those who offered to be
come legally responsible for all goods obtained
by them during their contest. In consequence of
the conspicuous part he took in the dispute he
was marked by refusal of employment after the
strike was ended. Thomas Burt was then only
in his seventh year, but he pondered these
things. Subsequently his father was offered
employment again, but in an ungracious way,
and the old Pilgrim blood in his veins was
stirred ; he turned away, and migrated to the

Influence upon the Labor Movement. 101
neighboring county of Durham." Peter Burt,
says Mr. Holyoake, " belonged to the ' order
of Rechabites ; ' so there was the example of
prudence at home ; the son went on his own
conviction. A lecture he heard on temper
ance decided him to be an abstainer, a rule of
conduct he considered ' calculated to develop
whatever was highest and best in a man.'
Those who are capable of being inspired by
high ideals of public service, and cultivate
manly habits, find meaner life ever after dis
tasteful and impossible to them. This explains
the singular and honorable career of Thomas
Burt. His character was further formed by his
father's connections. . . . He kept, what
is a distinction and an advantage to possess, a
' prophets' chamber ' in his house, and enter
tained the itinerant preachers who came his
way. From their visits, and the wise and varied
conversation that ensued, an observant listener
like his son derived great advantage."
Next to Mr. Burt perhaps the most noted
and influential leader of organized labor in
England has been Joseph Arch, organizer and
head of the Agricultural Laborers' Union,
which has done more during the twenty-five years
of its existence to improve the condition of the
English peasant than any other agency. Mr.

102 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
Arch also was a local preacher, and became the
peasants' leader because of their confidence in
him and his known ability as a speaker and or
ganizer. A writer in an American journal de
scribes Mr. Arch as " the greatest in character
and achievements, though not in learning, of all
the English leaders." In his efforts he was
aided by many other itinerant and local
preachers ; and it is an important fact that the
call for the meeting at which the union was or
ganized was almost wholly circulated over many
miles of country by the Primitive Methodist
preachers. The first two parliamentary secretaries of the
British Trades Congress were Methodists ; and
Henry Broadhurst, a working stone mason,
who became the first workingman to hold a
cabinet position in the English government,
though not a full member, is actively identi
fied with the educational and other important
work of the Wesleyan Church, and in his house
and with his cooperation was started the Meth
odist Times.
Among the Methodist laymen or local preach
ers who are prominently identified with the
British labor movement are Charles Fenwick,
who was a coal heaver when elected to Parlia
ment, but possessed such ability as to be

Influence upon the Labor Movement. 103
appointed parliamentary secretary of the Brit
ish Trades Congress, and William Abraham, a
miner, a famous Welsh bard, and until the last
election the only non-English workingmen's
member in Parliament.
The labor movement is more marked in Eng
land by religious leadership than in any other
country in the world. This, as before stated,
is largely due to the influence of Methodist
laymen and local preachers. Had John Wesley
ordered Thomas Maxfield to cease preaching,
and thus deprived Methodism and the world of
blessings that have resulted from the labors of
local preachers, vastly different would have
been the religious, social, and political history
of England and indeed of the world.
Thorold Rogers, in Six Centuries of Work
and Wages, says :
" I do not believe that the mass of peasants
could have been moved at all had it not been
for the organization of the Primitive Methodists,
a religious system which, as far as I have seen
its working, has done more good with scanty
means, and perhaps, in some persons' eyes, with
grotesque appliances for devotion, than any
other religious agency."
And Principal Fairbairn, in his volume on Re
ligion in History and Modern Life, discussing
the estrangement of the working classes from

104 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
the Church and the responsibility of the Church
therefor, says :
" Methodism, in its several branches, has
done more for the conversion and reconciliation
of certain of the industrial classes to religion
than any other English Church. It is but just
to say that the enfranchisement of our mining
and agricultural populations made this evident
— that their regulative ideas were religious
rather than utilitarian and secular. The politi
cian finds, when he addresses the peasantry,
that he has to appeal to more distinctly ethical
and religious principles than when he addresses
the upper or middle classes. And we may
hope that even in a politician the principles he
appeals to may ultimately affect his policy.
Meanwhile, we simply note that it is the local
preacher rather than the secularist lecturer who
has, while converting the soul, really formed
the mind of the miner and laborer, and who
now so largely represents the ideas he seeks, in
his dim and inarticulate way, to see applied to
national policy and legislation."
The testimony of Principal Fairbairn to the
interest of Methodism in the industrial classes
is true to-day as in the past. No great strike
has occurred in recent years that the workers
have not found a friend in such Methodist
leaders as Rev. Hugh Price Hughes and other
ministers and laymen. When the striking coal
miners two years ago, and the slate workers in

Influence upon the Labor Movement. 105
the quarries of Lord Penrhyn a year ago, sent
delegations to London to solicit aid for the
suffering men and their families, the delega
tions were provided for in Methodist homes,
and arrangements were made for them to pre
sent their cause from Methodist pulpits. And
such aid is rendered to suffering humanity
whether the strike be approved or not.

106 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.

VII.
American Methodism and the Labor
Movement of To-day.

M

ETHODISM still is, as it has been since
its preachers first proclaimed a free Gos
pel, the Church of and for the masses. But
with changed conditions of society the Church
in America has not kept as closely in touch
with working people as it should have done.
It is a singular fact that, while no Methodist
workingman has come to the front as a reli
gious labor leader, two of the most radical ex
tremists and atheistic leaders were formerly
Methodists. Samuel Fielding, one of the Chi
cago anarchists, who was sent to the peniten
tiary and afterward pardoned, was at one time
a local preacher, and his power as a speaker
was, in a large measure, doubtless due to his ex
perience in preaching. The other, in another
city, a so-called anarchist, whose bitterness of
speech was due to the cruel blacklisting of
which he was a victim, was formerly a Bible
class teacher in a Methodist Sunday school.
The tone of the utterances of both these men

American Methodism and Labor. 107
would have been different, and perhaps they
would not have lost their faith in God and in
Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour, had they
been in constant touch with ministers and
brethren who appreciated the industrial condi
tions of which they were the victims, and sym
pathized with them in the motive which
prompted their efforts to improve those condi
tions, even though they could not indorse their
methods. No doubt there are elements in our large
cities whose aims are a source of danger to so
ciety. Some of the leaders are, indeed, ene
mies of law and order. The influence of these
extremists over the mass of the people, how
ever, is due chiefly to the fact that the work
ing people are ignored by those who are called
the " upper classes," and that they come into
intellectual and social contact only with those
who would array them against existing condi
tions. If the " masses " are dangerous, as
many believe, is it the part of wisdom to per
mit them to plot in secret against society ?
On the contrary, would it not be wise to get
into personal touch with them and show them
that all are brothers — that the interest of each
is the interest of all ? Only those who have
done this know how welcome such fraternal

108 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
interest is, and how much influence it gives to
those who manifest it.
There is little doubt that the great Pullman
strike was brought to a close at least a day
sooner than it otherwise would have been
through the influence of the Rev. W. H. Car-
wardine, the Methodist pastor at Pullman, 111.,
who was regarded by the strikers in that place,
many of whom were members of his church,
as their friend. It is reasonable to assume,
also, that the workingmen of Cincinnati will
always believe they have friends in Dr. D.
H. Moore, editor of the Western Christian Ad
vocate, who presided, and Rev. J. W. Magruder
and Rev. Gervase Roughton, the Methodist
preachers who spoke at the public meeting
held in that city in behalf of the coal miners
whose families were suffering for food during
the strike of 1897. And they will also feel as
sured that the Methodist Episcopal Church is
their friend because of the fact that the Metho
dist Book Concern tendered the use of its
building for the reception of supplies for the
relief of the miners.
Perhaps the greatest need in America to-day
is a leader who will possess the' wisdom to con
ceive and the power to execute plans that will
aid Christian workingmen to infuse a religious

American Methodism and Labor. 109
tone into the labor movement. Such a leader
will arise, and he may arise in the Methodist
Church. Indeed, there are a number of our
ministers and members whose study of the
great social problems of the day and whose
work give promise that before long the leader
desired will be found. He will be, not an agi
tator, but a prophet of God, who will realize
and fearlessly proclaim the gospel that Christ
came to save both the individual and society,
and that both are saved only through righteous
life and conduct. This involves more than
many seem to think. It is often said that " the
minister should confine himself to preaching
the simple Gospel of Christ." That is true, but
the simple Gospel of Christ relates to every
thing that affects the welfare of man.
The labor question is not a temporary issue,
one that will be settled in a day. It is a move
ment, and it is a part of the evolution of soci
ety. Dr. Abel Stevens, the historian of Meth
odism, in an article in Zion's Herald on the
labor problem, wrote :
" Indisputably this question is to be the next
great problem of the race ; or, rather, it has al
ready become the supreme and irrepressible
question of the social and political world.
There will inevitably be much friction, perhaps

110 John Wesley as a Social Reformer.
some disastrous abrasion, in the process of its
evolution. . . . But it is a normal problem ; it
comes up legitimately in the progress of civili
zation; and, in spite of deplorable temporary
accompaniments, it will be one of those grand
strides, forward and upward, by which human
ity has been achieving its glorious destiny ; for
glorious that destiny must be, according to the
most obvious conditions and the constantly
augmenting capabilities of the race, even apart
from its best religious predictions on the sub
ject. Prince Bismarck is reported to have lately
expressed his conviction of the beneficent tend
ency of the problem. It has arisen, he said
substantially, in the natural evolution of his
tory ; it is one of those antagonisms which de
velop humanity. I think we may advance far
ther, and (surprising as it may be to some
readers) affirm that the problem is eminently a
Christian fact — a necessary evolution of Chris
tian ethics and of our Christian civilization,
notwithstanding the avowed skepticism and
anarchism of many of its leading agitators and
organizations in both Europe and America. I
venture even to assert that it is exclusively a
product of Christian thought ; and this is an
aspect of the subject that seems hardly to have
attracted the attention of the ever-increasing
thinkers who are agitating the world about it."
Dr. Stevens also believed that this move
ment will eliminate, or at least absorb, most
other great questions of the time — the ques-

American Methodism and Labor. Ill
tions of mercantile and financial legislation, of
protection and free trade, incorporated capital,
trusts, nationalism, individualism, etc. — and
will abolish war between nations.
The preacher, whose divine message is for
both capitalist and workingman, is still, as he
has always been, the most powerful leader of
thought ; and, whether he wishes to do so or
not, he must take part in the discussion of the
social questions, which, as Dr. Stevens says, are
a necessary evolution of our Christian civiliza
tion. He must not be a partisan, seeing only
one side of these questions. He should thor
oughly inform himself — to do which requires
wide reading and personal intercourse with
people of all classes — and in the spirit of Christ
dispassionately, kindly, and in the fear of God
alone, present the truth to rich and poor, cap
italist and workingman alike, as occasion seems
to require — as did John Wesley.

the end.

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