in the course of the evening. "I was unwilling," he says, "indeed afraid to go, thinking it would not avail, unless some who were strong in faith were to wrestle with God for her. I opened my Testament on those words, I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth. I stood reproved, and went immediately. She began screaming before I came into the room; then broke out into a horrid laughter, mixed with blasphemy, grievous to hear. One who, from many circumstances, apprehended a preternatural agent to be concerned in this, asking, How didst thou dare to enter into a Christian?' was answered, She is not a Christian; she is mine.' Dost thou not tremble at the name of Jesus?' he asked. No words followed; but she shrunk back, and trembled exceedingly. Art thou not increasing thy own damnation? It was faintly answered, Aye, aye!' which was followed by fresh cursing and blaspheming. My brother coming in, she cried out, Preacher! Field-preacher! I do not love field-preaching.' This was repeated two hours together, with spitting, and all the expressions of strong aversion. We left her at twelve, but called again about noon the next day: and now it was that God showed he heareth prayer. All her pangs ceased in a moment. She was filled with peace, and knew that the son of wickedness was departed from her."

If Wesley himself were the questioner in this dialogue with the supposed devil, the woman acted her part readily if she were interrogated by any other person, the scene bears strong marks of having been prepared; for that some of his followers were now beginning to get up exhibitions of this kind, is made probable by the next cases which he has recorded. Being called in to another female demoniac at Kingswood, he set out on horseback. It rained heavily, and the woman, when he was three miles off, cried out, "Yonder comes Wesley, galloping as fast as he can!" a circumstance which it certainly required no aid from the devil to foresee. The ordinary symptoms appeared; and one who was

clearly convinced that this was no natural disorder, said, "I think Satan is let loose; I fear he will not stop here!" and added, "I command thee, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to tell if thou hast commission to torment any other soul?" It was immediately answered, "I have ;" and two women were named, who were at some distance, and in perfect health. If this was repeated to the women, which probably it would be, it might easily frighten them into a fit, prepared as they already were by Methodism. Wesley called the next evening at a house where he found them both, and presently both were in agonies. The violent convulsions all over their bodies are said by Wesley to be such as "words cannot describe, and their cries and groans too horrid to be borne, till one of them, in a tone not to be expressed, said, Where is your faith now? Come, go to prayers! I will pray with you. Our Father which art in heaven! We took the advice, from whomsoever it came, and poured out our souls before God, till Ly Cr's agonies so increased, that it seemed she was in the pangs of death. But in a moment God spoke; she knew his voice, and both her body and soul were healed. We continued in prayer till near one, when Sy J. -s's voice was also changed, and she began strongly to call upon God. This she did for the greatest part of the night. In the morning we renewed our prayers, whilst she was crying continually, "I burn! I burn! Oh, what shall I do! I have a fire within me-l cannot bear it. Lord Jesus, help!"

Charles was not so credulous in such cases as his brother. That the body would sometimes partake of the violent emotions of the soul, and sink under the passion which the preacher had raised he could not doubt, because it often occurred under his own eyes to persons whose sincerity could not be impeached; but he saw that this was not always involuntary, he frequently attempted to check it with success, and he sometimes detected imposition. A woman at Kingswood was distorting herself, and

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crying out loudly while he preached; she became quite calm when he assured her that he did not think the better of her for it. A girl at Bristol being questioned judiciously concerning her frequent fits and trances, confessed that what she did was for the purpose of making Mr. Wesley take notice of her. To-day," he says in his journal," one came who was pleased to fall into a fit for my entertainment. He beat himself heartily: I thought it a pity to hinder him; so instead of singing over him as had often been done, we left him to recover at his leisure. A girl as she began her cry, I ordered to be carried out her convulsions were so violent as to take away the use of her limbs till they laid her without at the door, and left her; then she immediately found her legs, and walked off. Some very unstill sisters, who always took care to stand near me, and tried who could cry loudest, since I have had them removed out of my sight, have been as quiet as lambs. The first night I preached here, half my words were lost through the noise of their outcries; last night before I began, I gave public notice that whosoever cried so as to drown my voice, should without any man's hurting or judging them, be gently carried to the furthest corner of the room: but my porters had no employment the whole night."

CHAPTER IX.

WESLEY'S VIEWS.-STATE OF RELIGION IN ENGLAND,

WESLEY had now proposed to himself a clear and determinate object. What had from time to time been effected in the monastic families of the Romish establishment, when the laws of those institutions were relaxed and the spirit had evaporated, he wished to do upon a wider theatre and with a nobler purpose. He hoped to give a new impulse to the Church of England, to awaken its dormant zeal, infuse life into a body where nothing but life was wanting, and lead the way to the performance of duties which the State had blindly overlooked, and the Church had scandalously neglected: thus would he become the author of a second Reformation, whereby all that had been left undone in the former would be completed. And here it will be convenient to look back upon the causes and circumstances which prepared the way for him, and made it desirable, even according to human perceptions, that such an agent in the moral world should be raised up. This will be rendered more intelligible by a brief retrospect of the religious history of England.

Christianity at its beginning was preached to the poor, and during the first centuries gradually made its way up; yet even then it was the religion of towns and cities, so that after its triumph was established, the same word came at length to signify a villager and a heathen. When the Roman empire was broken up, the work of conversion, especially in these northern countries, was to begin again; the missionaries then looked for proselytes in courts, they converted queens and kings, who had good political reasons for accepting their instructions, and Christianity made its way down. Intellect was never more beneficially employed, and never obtain

ed a more signal triumph. Bloody idolatries were overthrown; all that remained of literature and of science was rescued from destruction; and the comforts, arts and elegancies of social and refined life were introduced among the humanized barbarians. Miracles have been largely invented to exaggerate the wonder of a change which not improbably was sometimes promoted by fraud; still it is a beautiful part of the annals of mankind. The great actors have been magnified into demi-gods by their own church, but they have been, not less unduly, consigned to neglect and forgetfulness in ours; for if ever men were entitled to the lasting gratitude and admiration of those for whom they lived and laboured, these are they.

The conversion of Britain had not been completed when the island ceased to be a part of the Roman empire. There can be little doubt that the Roman idolatry was still subsisting: the Picts were apparently an unconverted tribe of indigenous savages, still tattooed and woaded; and it is certain that the Druidical superstitions were cherished in a later age. After the Saxons had become a Christian people, a fresh flood of heathenism came in with the Danes; and from the time of Alfred there existed a heathen party in the country, which continued sometimes in strength and always in hope, till the Conquest after that time it received no recruits from Scandinavia, and therefore it disappeared; but it may rather be said to have died away for want of support, than to have been eradicated by the care of the government, or the exertions of the clergy.

During the first centuries of the Saxon church there were no parochial divisions. The clergy resided in episcopal monasteries under the superintendence of the bishop, as they had been brought up: they were sent from thence to instruct the country people, and administer the offices of religion in the few churches which existed, or where there was no church, at a cross in the open air; when they had executed their commission they returned, and others