Mr. Wesley, alluded to in a former article, brought about another separation.

"Thus," observes the "Member of the Houses of Shirley and Hastings," who is the historian of these events, "the Chapel in Fetter-Lane was the original cradle of the whole Methodist body! There the first Society was formed; there, likewise, the first lay-preachers commenced their immensely blessed labours; there the noble Countess, destined to take such a prominent lead in the great revival of religion; there the great leaders in this glorious warfare, with their zealous coadjutors-persons whose whole souls were consecrated to the cause of God our Saviour-often took sweet counsel together. They have all long since gone to their rest, to meet in the better temple together, as they often worshipped in the temple below; and to go out no more.”

During the year 1744, Lady Huntingdon was deprived of two of her children, George and Ferdinand Hastings; both of whom died of a disease now comparatively rare, the small-pox. While she felt this affliction very deeply, "she saw," as her biographer expresses it, "light through the dark cloud." During this year she made the acquaintance of several pious and distinguished persons beyond the pale of the National Church. With Dr. Doddridge, in particular, the well-known author of "The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul"-a work which, by no incompetent authority, has been pronounced to be "one of the very best works in the English language," she formed an intimate friendship. Dr. Watts was also among the number of her friends; and would seem to have been by her introduced to the acquaintance of Colonel Gardiner; a man whose name is inseparably associated with the circumstances of his religious history. Of his conversion, it is sufficient here to observe, that, extraordinary as was the manner of it, it was proved to be genuine by the only incontestable evidence-a subsequent life of holiness.

share.

In the troubles of the year 1745, "the Societies, in derision called Methodists"-to adopt John Wesley's phraseology-had their full Their avowed attachment to the cause of civil and religious liberty furnished their unscrupulous opponents with a sufficient pretext for representing them as being politically disaffected; and calumnies the most preposterous and the most inconsistent with each other were circulated with respect to them. Mr. Wesley was reported to be a Papist, if not a Jesuit. His house was said to be a place of refuge for Popish priests; and there were those who affirmed, that they had themselves seen him in France with the Pretender. Even the Surrey magistrates thought it necessary to summon him to take the oath of

allegiance, and to sign a declaration against Popery; and however generally indifferent to "railing accusations," he deemed it proper, on this occasion, to draw up, on the part of himself and his adherents, a loyal address to the King, setting forth their hearty attachment to the Protestant Church as established in these kingdoms, and declaring it to be their principle to revere the higher powers, as of God; and to be subject for conscience' sake.

The Countess of Huntingdon was herself accused of favouring the Pretender; and although she disregarded malicious reports affecting herself personally, she was induced to cause a remonstrance to be laid before George II., in behalf of certain itinerant preachers who were under her protection, and whom, on occasion of their being violently attacked and ill-treated by the populace, the neighbouring magistrates had refused to protect. The King, through a Secretary of State, Lord Carteret, returned an answer in accordance with the principles which had placed him upon the throne; and, moreover, assured her ladyship of his confidence in her attachment to the House of Hanover, and of "his most gracious favour and kindest wishes."

It fell to the lot of Mr. Charles Wesley to be more practically incommoded than Lady Huntingdon, or than his brother John had been, by imputations of disloyalty.

While on a preaching-tour in Yorkshire, an accusation was laid against him, to the effect, that he had publicly uttered certain treasonable expressions, and witnesses were summoned to depose against him before the magistrates at Wakefield. He went to Wakefield to confront them; and learned the charge against him to be, that he had prayed that the Lord would call home his "banished ones;" a phrase which his accusers, in perfect good faith, as it appeared, construed as including, and principally pointing at, the Pretender. It is to the honour of the Wakefield magistrates of that day, that they accepted the preacher's explanation.

"I had no thought," said Charles Wesley, "of praying for the Pretender, but for those who confess themselves strangers and pilgrims upon earth; who seek a country, knowing that this is not their home. You, Sir," he added, addressing himself to a clergyman who was upon the bench," you, Sir, know, that the Scriptures speak of us as captive exiles, who, while we are present in the body, are absent from the Lord. We are not at home till we are in heaven."

The magistrates, on this occasion, being "men of sense," avowed themselves satisfied; but the clamour raised in many quarters against

the Methodists, as being "Papists, Jesuits, and bringers-in of the Pretender," was not so easily appeased. Their taking refuge under the Toleration Act is matter of history, and needs no notice here; but the observations offered upon it by Lady Huntingdon's biographer are worth quoting.

"It was, indeed," he writes, "a curious phenomenon to behold a whole bost of persons, who rejected the name of Dissenters as an unfounded calumny; who professed themselves the truest sons of the Church, attached to her doctrines, ceremonies, and hierarchy; many of whom retained even in their places of meeting, her Liturgy and her vestments, and who still communicated at her altars; yet resorting for protection to an Act passed to exempt persons dissenting from the Church of England from certain pains and penalties.'

"The politic conduct of the government," he adds, “in choosing rather to give a large and liberal interpretation to the Toleration Act, than to run the hazard of introducing another, was a grand step in the progress of religious liberty; for it converted this law into a much more extensive and mighty blessing than it was ever designed to be."

Certain it is, that the "Methodists," as they were called, of every class—those who, being clergymen within the pale of the Established Church, continued to be guided strictly by her regulations; those who, "like Whitefield, retained her doctrines, but broke loose from her restraints;" and those who, with Wesley, adopted an Arminian creed-formed, at this juncture, a mighty host; and not less certain, that traversing the land as they did, in its length and breadth, and attracting hearers by thousands and tens of thousands, "they put," as their historian remarks, "the practical liberality of the government and the nation to a severe test." The practice of field-preaching, a practice as startling as it was novel, had been recently introduced by Mr. Whitefield. When he preached on Kennington Common, thirty thousand persons, drawn from all parts of London, formed his audience; and in Moorfields he was accustomed to attract hearers in almost equal numbers. John Wesley followed the bold example; and it speedily became no uncommon thing, that a preacher standing on Tower-Hill, in the streets of Bristol, or amid the colliers of Kingswood and Newcastle, or the miners of Cornwall, should draw around him countless multitudes of intensely interested listeners. Would it have been matter of wonder, if, under the actual circumstances of the country, the government, viewing with jealousy and distrust the exercise of a power so vast, and the ultimate direction of which was as yet unascertained, had opposed to the further proceedings of the Methodists invincible obstacles? Events, however, were otherwise ordered;