of it, as related to the Christianity of the times next ensuing. This sort of continuity is necessarily implied when it is affirmed that Methodism, as did the Reformation, formed a signal epoch in religious history; for every event, or course of events, that may deserve to be so spoken of, must stand related to the future as well as to the past. Methodism, the coherent dependence of which upon the Reformation may be traced, will, no doubt, be seen also to reappear among those greater religious movements which are destined, next, to agitate the social system. An attempt to predict distinctly those future movements ought to be reprehended as presumptuous: nevertheless, it may be warrantable to pursue an analogy thus far: that is to say, while considering the relationship of Methodism to the Reformation, to consider, also, what it is to which Methodism may have been the proper preliminary, or to what order of events, yet future, it may seem to point. Hitherto the intervals have been long between one remarkable religious era and the next. At present the belief is strong and general, whether resting upon any sufficient grounds or not, that such intervening periods will be cut short, and that all things are now hastening to reach their final results. 15 THE FOUNDERS OF METHODISM. THE TWO WESLEYS. THE band of men who had already attracted the eye of the world in the year 1740, and who, most of them, finished their labours some time before the close of the century, were connected together, partly by the ties of natural affection, or of Christian love, partly by voluntary compact and subordination, as members of a religious association, and partly by no stricter tie than that of a discordant accordance in promoting, separately, the same great purposes. Methodism did not appear before the world as if it had issued from a conclave; for although it came to be ruled mainly (but never wholly) by one master spirit, it was not devised, plotted, modelled, touched and retouched, by its two or three projectors, who, when thus they had set their hands to its code, prudently hushed their individual opinions, and presented a front of unanimity to the world. This was true of Jesuitism; but it was not true of Methodism. Methodism rose as great rivers do, from several springs of nearly equal volume; and it spread and strengthened itself as much by its contrarieties as by its agreements; and eventually the great ends of this movement were secured by a doctrinal antagonism that was not then, and has not since been, adjusted. As a matter of mere convenience, and to avoid circumlocution, we speak of Wesley and his colleagues as one; but, in truth, they were not one; and their individuality, and their independent concurrence, and their opposed proceedings, are facts essentially attaching to the history of this course of events. We must bring them, therefore, into view singly in their distinct personality; and this, as we have said, is best done before the great features of Methodism as a whole come to be considered. But with what order of men is it that we have now to do? Let it be confessed that this company does not include one mind of that amplitude and grandeur, the contemplation of which, as a natural object—a sample of humanity-excites a pleasurable awe, and swells the bosom with a vague ambition, or with a noble emulation. Not one of the founders of Methodism can claim to stand on any such high level; nor was one of them gifted with the philosophic faculty— the abstractive and analytic power. More than one was a shrewd and exact logician, but none a master of the higher reason. Not one was erudite in more than an ordinary degree; not one was an accomplished scholar; yet while several were fairly learned, few were illiterate, and none showed themselves to be imbued with the fanaticism of ignorance. Powers of popular oratory were among them such as to set them far out of the reach of rivalry with any of their contemporaries, in the pulpit. Not one was a great writer; but several of them knew how to hold the ear of men with an absolute mastery. As to administrative tact and skill in government, the world has given them (or their chief) more praise than they or he deserved, while baffled in its own perplexed endeavour to solve the problem of Methodism in ignorance of the main cause of its spread and permanence. Apart from the gratuitous supposition of a profound craft, as the intellectual distinction of Wesley, "what intelligible account shall we be able to give of Methodism ? " No credible account can be given of it by aid of any such supposition, nor until the presence of causes has |