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St. Ives in Cornwall. At Hull in 1752 Wesley's lodgings were attacked till midnight. There were riots at Manchester, Dublin, Gloucester, Epworth, and Halifax. In 1768 six students were expelled from St. Edmund's Hall, Oxford, for sympathy with Methodism, and the supposition that they were helped by Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, the friend of Whitefield.

Among the clergymen who joined Wesley were Henry Piers, Vicar of Bexley, Kent; Meriton, of the Isle of Man; Taylor, Vicar of Quinton; Hodges, Rector of Wenvoe; Vincent Perronet, Vicar of Shoreham, Kent; Peard Dickenson; William Grimshaw, Vicar of Haworth, Yorkshire; John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley; John Berridge, Vicar of Everton; John Richardson, who gave up a curacy in Sussex to help in the New Chapel; and David Simpson, of Macclesfield. John Jones, a lay preacher, was ordained as a helper to Wesley, first by a Cretan bishop, and afterwards by the Bishop of London. Lawrence Coughlan followed the same course. James Creighton was secured with Peard Dickenson as clerical helpers at New Chapel. E. Smith took charge of the chapel at Bath. Dr. Coke became in 1776 one of Wesley's closest advisers. He was

mainly responsible for the policy of the ordinations for America.

Wesley was a close student of primitive antiquity, and he found that the idea that preaching is the exclusive right of the ordained officers of the Church is quite modern. In primitive days every Christian might preach outside the congregation, and selected and approved laymen were accustomed to preach in the church, and even in the presence of the clergy and bishops. Wesley, after much consideration, approved the appointment of lay preachers, as supplemental to the ordained ministry of the Church of England: at his death there were four hundred of the itinerant order alone. Wesley considered them as raised up for an emergency; but of course there was always the tendency to claim for themselves the fuller ministerial duties and responsibilities. Before the year 1760 a distinction was made between the itinerant and the local preachers : the former gave their whole time, and were maintained by contributions; the latter could remain in business.

Wesley's first visit to Ireland was in 1747, and he regularly repeated his visits in alternate years till the time of his death. The connection

between the Irish Church and Methodism became closer than the corresponding tie in England. There were great annual communions at St. Patrick's Cathedral, which continued

long after Wesley's death. Of late years the larger section of Irish Methodists has been absorbed into the distinct Wesleyan body; but the "Primitive Church Methodists" remain loyal to the original plan, and faithful to the connection with the Church of Ireland.

It was in 1760 that a few Methodists embarked from Limerick for America. The English Church was prevented by legal and political difficulties from doing its duty to the States. The Bishop of London, in whose diocese the States were considered up till the Declaration of Independence, was unable, it appeared, to ordain even one missionary for the American continent. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was doing what it could; but Asbury the missionary wrote in 1784, "We are greatly in need of help." Letter after letter came with the same appeals. If only the orderly consecration of a bishop to organise a Church in the United States might not have been postponed so long! Wesley was persuaded early one morning, at Bristol

and in his own room, to go through a form of laying on of hands, after which his friend Dr. Coke considered himself a bishop, and Whatcoat and Vasey regarded themselves as presbyters. This was Wesley's first distinct departure from the order of the Church of England. He wrote that King, a writer on the Primitive Church, held that originally presbyters could ordain as well as bishops; and he was persuaded that the emergency of America justified the step. On reading the letter, the Conference at Baltimore determined that they should call themselves the Methodist Episcopal Church, which title they have ever since maintained. With regard to Coke and Asbury, to whom he gave a like commission, Wesley called them superintendents, and not bishops; but the word in the Greek is the same. In 1785 also he "set apart" three preachers to be ministers in Scotland. Later on he commissioned some for Antigua and other distant places. Those he thus raised by his own authority from preachers to ministers were about nine in all.

Wesley was a voluminous writer; and it is impossible in this brief sketch to give an account of his long series of sermons, his compilations, class-books, journals, and articles. In 1790,

in his Arminian Magazine, he protested against all idea of secession from the English Church: "I never had any design of separating from the Church. I have no such design now. I do not believe the Methodists in general design it, when I am no more seen. I do, and will do, all that is in my power to prevent such an event. Nevertheless, in spite of all that I can do, many of them will separate from it. . . . In flat opposition to these, I declare once more that I live and die a member of the Church of England, and that none who regard my judgment or advice will ever separate from it."

In his old age Wesley had outlived all enmity, and was revered by his fellow-countrymen. George III. spoke of him with enthusiasm. Charles Simeon and William Wilberforce were among his friends. His brother Charles, who had always been more conservative than John, but with whom he had always remained in the closest possible affection, died in 1788. Wesley's last journey to Scotland and the north of England was in 1790. Wherever he went he was received with extraordinary honour and interest. On March 2nd, 1791, in his eightyninth year, he died "of old age" in perfect

peace.

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