an awful manner round the mount, in the profoundest silence, filled me with a holy admiration. Blessed be God for such a plentiful harvest. Lord, do thou send forth more labourers into thy harvest!" On another occasion he says, "The trees and hedges were full. All was hush when I began: the sun shone bright, and God enabled me to preach for an hour with great power, and so loud, that all, I was told, could hear me. Blessed be God Mr.- spoke right; the fire is kindled in the country!"-"To behold such crowds standing together in such an awful silence, and to hear the echo of their singing run from one end of them to the other, was very solemn and striking. How infinitely more solemn and striking will the general assembly of the spirits of just men made perfect be, when they join in singing the song of Moses and the Lamb in Heaven!" Yet he says, "As the sene was new, and I had just began to be an extempore preacher, it often occasioned many inward conflicts. Sometimes, when twenty thousand people were before me, I had not, in my own apprehension, a word to say either to God or them. But I never was totally deserted; and frequently (for to deny it would be lying against God) so assisted, that I knew by happy experience what our Lord meant by saying, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters." The deep silence of his rude auditors was the first proof that he had impressed them; and it may well be imagined how greatly the consciousness and confidence of his own powers must have been increased, when, as he says, he saw the white gutters made by the tears which plentifully fell down their black cheeks,-black as they came out of their coalpits. The open firmament above me," says he, "the prospect of the adjacent fields, with the sight of thousands and thousands, some in coaches, some on horseback, and some in the trees, and at times all affected and drenched in tears together; to which sometimes was added the solemnity of the approaching evening, was almost too much for, and quite overcame me."

While Whitefield thus with such signal success was renewing a practice which had not been seen in England since the dissolution of the monastic orders, Methodism in London had reached its highest point of extravagance, and produced upon susceptible subjects a bodily disease, peculiar and infectious; which both by those who excited and those who experienced it, was believed to be part of the process of regeneration, and, therefore, the work of God. The first patients having no example to encourage them, naturally restrained themselves as much as they could; they fell however into convulsive motions, and could not refrain from uttering cries; and these things gave offence at first, and occasioned disputes in the society. Charles Wesley thought them "no sign of grace." The first violent case which occurred, was that of a middle aged woman in the middle rank of life, who for three years had been "under strong convictions of sin, and in such a terror of mind, that she had no comfort in any thing, nor any rest day or night." The minister of her parish, whom she had consulted, assured her husband that she was stark mad, and advised him to send immediately for a physician; and the physician being of the same opinion, she was bled, blistered, and drenched accordingly. One evening in a meeting where Wesley was expounding to five or six hundred persons, she suddenly cried out as if in the agonies of death, and appeared to some of those about her almost to be in that state; others, however, who began to have some experience in such cases, understood that it was the crisis of her spiritual struggles. "We prayed," says Wesley in a letter to Whitefield, "that God who had brought her to the birth would give her strength to bring forth, and that he would work speedily that all might see it, and fear, and put their trust in the Lord."-"Five days she travailed and groaned being in bondage; then," be continues, "our Lord got himself the victory," and from that time the woman was full of joy and

love, and thanksgivings were rendered on her ac

count.

Another woman was affected under more remarkable circumstances: Wesley visited her because she was "above measure enraged at the new way, and zealous in opposing it." He argued with her till he perceived that argument had its usual effect of inflaming more and more a mind that was already feverish. He then broke off the dispute, and entreated that she would join with him in prayer, and she so far consented as to kneel down: this was, in fact, submitting herself. "In a few minutes she fell into an extreme agony both of body and soul, and soon after cried out with the utmost earnestness, Now I know I am forgiven for Christ's sake! Many other words she uttered to the same effect, witnessing a hope full of immortality. And from that hour God set her face as a flint to declare the faith which before she persecuted." This Wesley calls one of the most surprising instances of divine power that he ever remembered to have seen. The sincerity of the subject he never questioned, and perhaps there was no cause for questioning it; like Mesmer and his disciples, he had produced a new disease, and he accounted for it by a theological theory instead of a physical one. As men are intoxicated by strong drink affecting the mind through the body, so are they by strong passions influencing the body through the mind. Here there was nothing but what would naturally follow when persons, in a state of spiritual drunkenness, abandoned themselves to their sensations, and such sensations spread rapidly, both by voluntary and involuntary imitation.

Whitefield was at this time urging Wesley that he would come to Bristol without delay, and keep up the sensation which had been produced there, for he himself must prepare for his return to Georgia.These solicitations were enforced by Mr. Seward of Evesham, a young man of education and fortune, one of the most enthusiastic and attached of Whitefield's converts. It might have been thought that Wesley,

to whom all places were alike, would have hastened at the call, but he and his brother, instead of taking the matter into calm and rational consideration, had consulted the Bible upon the business, and stumbled upon uncomfortable texts. The first was, "And some of them would have taken him; but no man laid hands on him," to which they added, "not till the time was come," that its import might correspond with the subsequent lots. Another was, "Get thee up into this mountain, and die in the Mount, whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people." The next trial confirmed the impression which these had made: "And the children of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days." These verses were sufficiently ominous, but worse remained behind: "I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake," and pushing the trial still further, they opened upon the burial of St. Stephen the proto-martyr. "Whether," "Whether," says Wesley in his journal, "this was permitted only for the trial of our faith, God knoweth, and the event will show." These unpropitious texts rendered him by no means desirous of undertaking the journey, and when it was proposed at the society in Fetterlane, Charles would scarcely bear it to be mentioned.Yet, like a losing gamester, who, the worse he finds his fortune, is the more eagerly bent upon tempting it, he appealed again to the oracles of God, which were never designed thus to be consulted in the spirit of heathen superstition. "He received," says the journal, "these words, as spoken to himself, and answered not again," "Son of man, behold I take from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke, and yet shalt thou not mourn or weep, neither shall thy tears run down."-However disposed the brothers might have been that he should have declined the journey without further consultation, the members of the society* continued

"that

* "It was a rule of the Society," says Dr. Whitehead, any person who desired or designed to take a journey, should first, if it were possible, have the approbation of the bands; so entirely at this time were the ministers under the direction of the people." But as there were no settled ministers, and no settled place at this time, it is evident that this rule had nothing to do with church discipline.

to dispute upon it, till, seeing no probability of coming to an agreement by any other means, they had recourse to sortilege; and the lot decided that Wesley should go. This being determined, they opened the Bible concerning the issue," and the auguries were no better than before: "When wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed, shall I not now require his blood at your hands, and take you away from the earth?" This was one; the final one was, "Ahaz slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city, even in Jerusalem." There are not so many points of similitude between Bristol and Jerusalem, as between Monmouth and Macedon, and Henry the Fifth was more like Alexander than John Wesley would have acknowledged himself to resemble Ahaz; but it was clear language for an oracle. "We dissuaded my brother," says Charles, "from going to Bristol, from an unaccountable fear that it would prove fatal to him. He offered himself willingly to whatever the Lord should appoint. The next day he set out, recommended by us to the grace of God. He left a blessing behind him. I desired to die with him." "Let me not be accounted superstitious," says Wesley, "if I recite the remarkable Scriptures which offered as often as we inquired touching the consequences of this removal." It will not be thought superfluous here to have repeated them.