devotion to practical labors precluded that steady and long-continued reflection which are essential to any great achievements in speculative philosophy.

During this period of school life John was religious only in a very moderate sense, and declined rather than advanced in that sensibility of heart which had characterized his early childhood. At the same time he held to the form, and did not wholly lay aside the purpose of religion. But serious considerations were awakened in his mind as he began to contemplate the ministerial office. His standard of piety was also greatly exalted by the careful perusal at this juncture of Kempis' "Imitation of Christ," and Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Living," and "Holy Dying." To be sure, he took some exceptions to these productions, complaining of the excessive asceticism of Kempis, and of Taylor's denial of assurance to the believer. Nevertheless, his heart was profoundly moved. Referring to impressions made by these works, he afterwards wrote: "I saw that giving even all my life to God would profit me nothing unless I gave my heart, yea all my heart to Him. I saw that simplicity of intention, and purity of affection, one design in all that we speak and do, and one desire ruling all our tempers, are indeed the wings of the soul, without which she can never ascend to God. . . . Instantly I resolved to dedicate all my life to God, all my thoughts and words and actions,- being thoroughly convinced that there was no medium; but that every part of my life, not some only, must either be a sacrifice to God, or myself,- that is, in effect, the devil." A little later his thirst after entire conformity to God was not a little intensified by reading the stir

ring treatises of William Law. Meanwhile he had entered into orders, being ordained deacon in September, 1725. He continued, however, his connection with Oxford. In March, 1726, he was elected Fellow of Lincoln College, and in November of the same year, although at that time but twenty-three years of age, was chosen Greek lecturer and moderator of the classes. From the middle of 1727 to the latter part of 1729 he was mainly engaged as his father's curate at Epworth and Wroote.

During this last interval the germ of an important movement had appeared at Oxford. Of this, Charles Wesley, who entered Christ Church in 1726, gives the following account: "My first year at college I lost in diversions; the next I set myself to study. Diligence led me into serious thinking. I went to the weekly sacrament and persuaded two or three young students to accompany me, and to observe the method of study prescribed by the statutes of the University. This gained for me the harmless name of Methodist." Such was the first application of this term in the connection to which modern usage has assigned it, though it was not the first instance of its use in England in ecclesiastical relations. It had been thrown out as a term of reproach against various parties in the preceding century. On the arrival of John Wesley, in 1729, as tutor in Lincoln College, he was at once installed as the leader of the initial society, and it assumed a more definite form. At first it consisted of four members, -the two Wesleys, William Morgan, and Robert Kirkham. Among the later additions the more noteworthy were Benjamin Ingham, James Gambold, Thomas Broughton,

John Clayton, James Hervey, and George Whitefield, the last of whom joined in 1735, near the close of the Wesleys' stay at Oxford. In the first instance, their scheme embraced, besides frequent attendance on the Lord's Supper, the employment of several evenings of the week in reading together the Greek Testament and the classics, and the dedication of Sunday evening to the study of divinity. To this there were soon added a comprehensive system of self-examination, the visiting of the prisoners and the sick, and the practice of contributing to the poor all of their incomes in excess of necessary expenses, and of fasting Wednesdays and Fridays, a kind of life which earned for them from their many bitter and scurrilous opponents such titles. as the Reforming Club, the Godly Club, the Holy Club, Sacramentarians, Bible Moths, Supererogation Men, and Enthusiasts. Some of these terms were not altogether inappropriate. They had in truth something of the disposition of the typical sacramentalist. They accredited much authority to Christian antiquity, and were scrupulous upon points of ceremonial. In these respects, as well as in their ascetic bias, they prefigured to some extent the Ritualistic party of the present century. Says Tyerman: "With the exception of sacerdotal millinery, the burning of incense, the worship of the Virgin, prayers for the dead, and two or three other kindred superstitions, the Oxford Methodists were the predecessors of the present Ritualistic. party of the Church of England." It should be stated, however, in justice, that, in wide distinction from the later Ritualists, they were conscious of no hostility to

1 Oxford Methodists.

the leading doctrines of Protestantism, and cast no reverential, longing glances toward the Church of Rome, which indeed they regarded as the temple of Antichrist. It must be allowed, moreover, that the régime of the Oxford Club, though representing an inferior stage of piety, and lacking the breath of the evangelical life and power which afterwards kindled an invincible and contagious energy in some of its representatives, was not without its advantages. It gave a valuable schooling in self-denial, in practical benevolence, and in the hardihood which preserves a calm and cheerful mien in the midst of opprobrium and

scorn.

A few words may be said here respecting the afterlife of some of the Oxford Club, whom it will not be convenient to recall again. Kirkham retired to a curacy in 1731, and his further history remains in obscurity. Morgan died in 1732. Clayton, the most ritualistic of the Oxford group, carried into his parish work at Manchester the same zeal which had distinguished him at the University; but when Methodism ran into the irregularity of an out-door evangelism he withheld from it his countenance and friendship. Ingham, a companion of Wesley in Georgia, as also in his German tour, became at an early date an out-door evangelist, and labored successfully in the North of England. The resulting societies he held for a time. in connection with the Moravians, but finally disengaged them from this relation, and, in providing them with sacramental services of their own, virtually effected a separation from the Established Church. His later years were imbittered by the disrupting work which the

Sandemanian heresy wrought in his societies. Ingham was happily married to Lady Margaret Hastings, a most devout and worthy woman. Her testimony that, after she had found the grace of Christ, she had been as happy as an angel, was a principal means in converting the noble countess, Selina Huntingdon, who figured so prominently in the history of Calvinistic Methodism. Gambold became permanently identified with the Moravians, acquired among them the episcopal rank, and preached to their societies in London with eloquence and power. Hervey was distinguished, apart from his pastoral labors, by his productiveness as a writer. Among his works, the most elaborate was his "Theron and Aspasio," in which a theological teaching moderately Calvinistic is relieved by a plentiful intermixture of scene-painting. He was of a contemplative turn, and "his mission," as one has described it, "was to sanctify the sentimentalism of the day." Modern taste would hardly be pleased with these writings. "Hervey's style," says Overton, "can be described in no meaner terms than as the extrasuperfine style. It is prose run mad." Nevertheless, it was well suited for immediate effect. The works of Hervey had for the time being an immense circulation. Broughton, as secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, rendered valuable service in the distribution of Christian literature.

While the members of the Oxford Club practised an ascetic type of piety, they were far from proscribing cheerfulness or advocating moroseness. Clear testimony is given that this was the case with their leader. Gambold informs us that Wesley at Oxford was always