The Young People's Wesley

CHAPTER XX.

THE GREATER WESLEY OF THE OPENING CENTURY.

When on March 2, 1791, John Wesley closed his eyes to earth and opened them in heaven the visible results of his life were already great. At the opening of this new century they are greater. Only a few rods from where he his "body with his charge laid down, and ceased at once to work and live," is Wesley's Chapel, City Road, the head center of universal Methodism. Standing on the walls of this Zion in 1791 and looking around, what would we see?

Confining our vision within the bounds of Great Britain and Ireland, we would see this chapel surrounded by 644 others, "wholly appropriate to the worship of God." These chapels are ministered unto by 294 itinerant preachers, and have an enrollment of 71,668 members of the societies.

Extending our vision to the regions beyond, in the Wesleyan Methodist missions in France, the West Indies, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, we would see in 1791 an enrolled membership of 5,300, looked after by 19 ministers; giving as the total of Wesleyan Methodists at that time 76,968, and 313 ministers.

In addition to the home and foreign work of which John Wesley was the head, and City Road Chapel the center, was the Methodism of the United States, which in 1790 reported 43,265 members and 198 ministers, and which was known as "The Methodist Episcopal Church of America." So that we would see as the total of Methodists in the world at Wesley's last Conference, in 1790, 120,233 members, and 511 ministers. Besides these, a great number who, from 1739 to 1790, saved by Methodist agency, had been transferred to the Church above.

Let us now in this year 1901 stand again on the walls of this old Methodist cathedral and look around us for the living monument of the greater Wesley. With the March quarterly meetings' returns in our hands we see that in great Britain alone "the total number of persons meeting in class, seniors and juniors, is 573,140, an increase for the year of 12,937." To these must be added the 46,262 full members and 11,619 "on trial" in the Wesleyan foreign missions reported in 1899. All these are under the government of the mother Conference. Then there are the Irish, French, South African, and West Indian Conferences, which are affiliated to it; and to these must be added the detached bodies, such as the Australian Methodist Church, the Methodist New Connection, Wesleyan Reform Union, Primitive Methodists, Bible Christians, United Methodist Free Churches, and Independent Methodist Churches, all included in "Old World Methodism," and rolling up the grand totals of 25,675 churches, 1,201,663 members and probationers, and 64,550 traveling and local preachers.

Thus the great Methodism of the Old World in 1791, with its 313 ministers and 76,968 members, in 1901 has become the greater Methodism, with 64,550 preachers and 1,201,663 members.

Let the point of view now be changed from City Road Chapel, London, to John Street Methodist Episcopal Church, in New York city, for a survey of the New World Methodism. To the north is the Methodist Church of Canada, with 11 Conferences and a mission in China, with a ministry, traveling and local, of 4,322, and a membership of 284,901. The missions in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, in 1791, have thus developed and become the greater Canadian Methodism.

After this telescopic view let the vision be confined to American Methodism. We are still at old John Street Church in New York city. The Methodist tree, planted on this spot in 1766, has spread itself out into 16 branches, which with the parent trunk includes 9 white and 8 colored growths. The 43,265 American Methodists of 1790 have grown into 5,916,349 in 1901, and the 198 ministers have increased to 37,907, who preach in 54,351 Methodist churches. The Methodists lead the ecclesiastical hosts in America in the matter of members, and stand second only to the Roman Catholics, who count all adherents as communicants. The latter claim 8,766,083 by including all born into their families. Roman Catholicism in America has for its sharpest competitor American Methodism. If the Methodists counted their adherents as the Catholics do they would claim about 18,000,000 over against the Catholics less than 9,000,000.

The names of the branches of the American Methodist family are: 1. The Methodist Episcopal; 2. Union American Methodist Episcopal; 3. African Methodist Episcopal; 4. African Union Methodist Protestant; 5. African Methodist Episcopal Zion; 6. Methodist Protestant; 7. Wesleyan Methodist; 8. Methodist Episcopal, South; 9. Congregational Methodist; 10. Congregational Methodist (colored); 11. New Congregational Methodist; 12. Zion Union Apostolic; 13. Colored Methodist Episcopal; 14. Primitive Methodist; 15. Free Methodist; 16. Independent Methodist; 17. Evangelical Missionary. These all claim to be one in doctrine, one in spirit and aim, and should be one in piety. Would that they were all one in Church union!

Epworth Leaguers will be more especially interested in the progress of their own Methodist Episcopal Church, which is the oldest daughter, as well as the largest branch, of Wesleyan Methodism. From The Methodist Year Book, 1901, we learn that our "lay membership—total of full members and probationers (on partial returns only)—is 2,907,877." Dr. H. K. Carroll in The Christian Advocate, January 3, 1901, tells the story of progress so well that we insert the entire article:

Only living things grow. The abundant life of American Methodism, beginning under favorable conditions, made growth natural, luxuriant, and easy. The soil and the sun, the air and the rains, were all that the fresh, vigorous plant needed for a development which has been truly amazing.

Time, 1766; place, New York; a godly woman calling a few backslidden Methodists to their duty; a local preacher; meetings in a sail loft; a new church costing $3,000. Such was the beginning.

The soil was fallow. It produced rank weeds. There were few husbandmen. Other churches insisted on well-trained men from European schools. Methodism, having no such resources, organized training classes on the field and taught its men at the plow. Such were the conditions.

Time, 1784; place, Baltimore; a plain meetinghouse with stiff benches; 60 preachers in Conference; an independent Church, with a name, an episcopacy, a ministry, the sacraments, a practical system, a doctrinal standard, a ritual. Such was the organization. What has been the growth?

A growth of 2,900,000 in 134 years and of 2,835,000 in the past century. The 65,000 has added to itself nearly 44 times. The average annual gain has been 28,350.

The percentage of increase is 4,362. If the population of the country had increased in this period at the same rate, it would now be 232,000,000 instead of 76,300,000.

But the gains of the Methodist Episcopal Church have been only a part of the gains of Methodism. Include all branches since 1834, and we have:

The 65,000 has repeated itself about 91 times, or once every 13 months during the last century. The percentage of gain is 8,977. If the population had increased at the same rate it would now be 476,000,000 instead of 76,300,000. The average annual gain has been 58,350.

The gain in preachers in the Methodist Episcopal Church is indicated as follows:

The gain for the century is 17,413. The 287 have been multiplied by 62; average annual gain, 174.

The beginning in a sail loft in 1766, the erection shortly afterward of a church costing $3,000, gave no more promise of ecclesiastical wealth than it did of growth in membership. Our 27,000 churches, worth $116,000,000, show a development of resources as wonderful as a miracle. It takes now between $23,000,000 and $24,000,000 a year to carry on the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to say nothing about its universities, colleges, and hospitals. The consecration of wealth is truly stupendous. Methodists have not been stingy.

Methodism was ninth among Protestant denominations in number of churches in 1775, and third in number of communicants in 1800. It soon advanced to first place in numbers, and easily holds this place at the end of the century. It was only a handful of corn on the top of the mountains at the beginning. How wonderfully has God multiplied it!

It is pertinent to ask, How did it win its success?

Not by immigration, as many other Churches did. Roman Catholics came here from Europe by hundreds of thousands. The Lutheran, Reformed German, and Presbyterian Churches gained immensely by the streams of immigration. But Methodists and Baptists have grown out of American soil and drawn their chief strength from the surrounding elements.

Not by proselytism. We have lost hundreds of thousands of converts; we have gained comparatively few in return from the denominations we have fed. We would like to hold all who are converted at our altars, but we do not feel that our losses have impoverished us, though they have enriched our neighbors.

Not because of wealth, social prestige, ecclesiastical antiquity, or what an historian calls "the aristocracy of education and position." Other Churches had these; we began with nothing but a needy field and earnest men, full of the Holy Ghost and flaming with zeal for the Gospel.

Not by our machinery and methods. These were powerful, even providential, aids; but if we ever come to depend on these alone Methodism will be a great system of enginery, with wheels, pulleys, cogs, and joints, all silent and inert, because the boilers are cold. It was not our itinerancy, our class meetings, our Conferences, or our methods which gave us success.

Our hosts have been won, by the power of the Gospel manifested in a real, religious experience, from the vast classes of unconverted persons. We have regarded these, wherever we found them, as legitimate prey. We count it a special honor that our millions are trophies won for Christ from the masses of godless, indifferent, unconverted persons. The late Dr. John Hall once said that he specially honored the Methodist Church for the importance it attaches to conversion. The power of Methodism is spiritual in its nature.

I do not believe a greater boon could be asked for our Church in the twentieth century than that it might continue to regard it as its special task to call men and women to repentance and insist upon an experience such as our fathers enjoyed and we profess.

When John Wesley lay dying in 1791 there were only four Methodist schools in England—three small ones at London, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Bristol, and the Kingswood School, near Bristol. The latter is still doing most excellent work at Bath. English Methodism has no university or college empowered to grant degrees. It sadly lacks secondary schools. The Leys School at Cambridge is its nearest approach to a reputable American college. But it has a good share in the elementary education of the people. Colonial Methodism excels in respect to secondary and higher education. Of American Methodism in general, and of the Methodist Episcopal Church in particular, it may be said, in this respect, "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all." Whilst some of our colleges are somewhat prophetic, yet the long list of our institutions and the honorable records they have made place us in the front rank of American educators. It has been well said that "The Methodist Episcopal Church began the century with the ashes of one college." In 1900 it had 56 colleges and universities, 60 academies and seminaries, 8 institutions exclusively for women, 4 missionary institutions and training schools, 25 schools of theology, and 99 foreign mission schools—228 in all. These schools have more than 3,000 instructors, and about 50,000 students. The total value of property and endowment is about $30,000,000. "The Board of Education" in 1873 began its noble work of placing the first steps to these institutions very near to the feet of any young man or woman who has the ability to climb them, whether a Methodist or not. President Warren, of Boston University, puts our educational work in the strongest possible light, and in the briefest space, thus: "The Banner Church in Education."

That the Methodist Episcopal Church is indeed "the banner Church in education" the following facts bear witness:

From 1784, the year of its organization, to 1884, the Methodist Episcopal Church established 225 classical seminaries and colleges; in other words, established a classical seminary or college every fifth month through a hundred toilsome years. No other organization in human history ever made so honorable a record in the higher education, or was entitled to celebrate so jubilant a centennial. If we go back through the stormy period of the Revolution to the first feeble beginnings of American Methodism in 1766, we must add to the above-mentioned 225 institutions belonging to the Church the 58 known schools of more private ownership, to get the true aggregate of Methodist institutions for the higher education, namely, 283, a little more than one for every fifth month through the first 118 years of our existence as a Church, infancy included.

Is it not time to bury the ancient allegation that the early Methodists were indifferent or hostile to learning? If the long-standing slander must live on to the end of time, let us once in a hundred years lift it gently into the pillory of ecumenical publicity and placard it as an instructive example of immortal mendacity.

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