They agreed that there could be no better way to come at a sure and thorough knowledge of every individual, than by dividing them into classes, under the direction of those who could be trusted, as had been done at Bristol. Thenceforth, whenever a society of Methodists was formed, this arrangement was followed: a scheme for which Wesley says he could never sufficiently praise God, its unspeakable usefulness having ever since been more and more manifest.

The business of the leaders was to see every person in his class at least once a week, in order to inquire how their souls prospered; to advise, reprove, comfort or exhort, as occasion might require; and to receive what they were willing to give toward the expenses of the society, and the relief of the poor. They were also to meet the minister and the stewards of the society, that they might inform the minister of any that were sick, and of any that were disorderly, and would not be reproved, and pay to the stewards what they had collected from their several classes in the week preceding. At first they visited each person at his own house, but this was soon found, on many accounts to be inexpedient, and even impracticable. It required more time than the leaders could spare; many persons lived with masters, mistresses, or relations, who would not suffer them to be thus visited; and when this frequent and natural objection did not exist, it often happened that no opportunity could be had of speaking to them, except in the presence of persons who did not belong to the society, so that the purpose of the visit was rendered useless. Differences, also, and misunderstandings between members of the same class could not be cleared up, unless the parties were brought face to face. For these reasons it was soon determined that every class should assemble weekly. Advice or reproof was then given, as need required; quarrels were made up, misunderstandings were removed; and after an hour or two had thus been passed, the meet

ing concluded with prayer and singing*. "It can scarcely be conceived," says Wesley, "what advantages have been reaped from this little prudential regulation. Many now happily experienced that Christian fellowship, of which they had not so much as an idea before. They began to bear one another's burdens, and naturally to care for each other. As they had daily a more intimate acquaintance with, so they had a more endeared affection for each other. Evil men were detected and reproved: they were borne with for a season; if they forsook their sins we received them gladly; if they obstinately persisted therein, it was openly declared that they were not of us. The rest mourned and prayed for them, and yet rejoiced, that as far as in us lay the scandal was rolled away from the society."

Accident had led to this essential part of the Methodist discipline. The practice of itinerancy also was taken up, not from forethought, but as the natural consequence of the course in which the Wesleys found themselves engaged. John, indeed has affirmed, that at their return from America, they were “resolved to retire out of the world at once, being sated with noise, hurry, and fatigue, and seeking nothing but to be at rest. Indeed," says he, "for a long season, the greatest pleasure I had desired, on this side eternity, was

-tacitum sylvas inter reptare salubres,

Quærentem quicquid dignum sapiente bonoque;

and we had attained our desire. We wanted no

* The leader has a class paper, upon which he marks, opposite to the name of each member, upon every day of meeting, whether the person has attended or not; and if absent, whether the absence was owing to distance of abode, business, sickness, or neglect. And every member had a printed class ticket, with a text of scripture upon it, and a letter. These tickets must be renewed every quarter, the text being changed, and the letter also, till all the alphabet has been gone through, and then it begins again. One shilling is paid by every member upon receiving a new ticket; and no person, without a proper ticket, is considered a member of the society. These were later regulations, but the main system of finance and inspection, for which the class meetings provide, was established at this time, in consequence of the debt incurred for the first meeting-house.

thing, we looked for nothing more in this world, when ⚫ we were dragged out again, by earnest importunity, to preach at one place and another; and so carried on, we knew not how, without any design but the general one of saving souls, into a situation which, had it been named to us at first, would have appeared far worse than death." Whitefield, on his first return from America, earnestly advised Charles Wesley to accept a college living, thinking that the best service which he could perform would be thus to get possession of a pulpit; and his brother and all the first leaders of the Methodists urged him after this to settle at Oxford. But soon, before they were aware of it, they were engaged in a course of itinerancy. This was no new practice in England. The Saxon bishops used to travel through their dioceses, and where there were no churches, preach in the open air. It is part of the system of the Mendicant orders; and the Romish church has been as much benefited by their exertions in this way as it has been disgraced by their fooleries and their fables. At the beginning of our Reformation, preachers were sent to itinerate in those counties where they were most needed, for thus it was thought they would be more extensively useful, than if they were fixed upon particular cures. Four of Edward the Sixth's chaplains were thus employed, of whom John Knox was one; and in the course of his rounds he frequently preached every day in the week. At that time it was designed that there should be in every diocese some persons who should take their circuit and preach* like Evangelists, as some of the favourers of the Reformation called them. Unhappy circumstances frustrated this among other good intentions of the fathers of our church, but it was practis

* Something was done in this way by individuals who deemed their own strong sense of duty a sufficient qualification. In 1557, George Eagle, a tailor, who was called Trudge-over for his activity as an itinerant preacher, was executed as a traitor, "for gathering the Queen's subjects together, though he never stirred them up to rebellion ;" and zeal for genuine Christianity was his only offence.

ed with great efficacy in a part of England, where it was greatly wanted, by Bernard Gilpin, one of the most apostolical men that later ages have produced. During the civil wars the practice revived, but it was in hostility to the Establishment: Quakerism was propagated by itinerant preachers of both sexes; and the fierce Calvinistic fanatics, by their harangues from tubs as well as pulpits, and in barns and streets as well as churches, fomented the spirit which they raised, and which for a whole generation made this country miserable. And when they had won the victory, they attempted not merely to get rid of any church establishment, but even of all settled ministers, and to substitute a system of itinerancy. When this was proposed for England, it was lost only by a minority of two voices in Cromwell's parliament; and it was partly carried into effect in Wales under the direction of Hugh Peters and Vavasor Powell. But when the Methodists began their career, the practice had been discontinued for more than seventy years, and therefore it had all the effect of novelty when it was revived. It existed, indeed, among the Quakers, but the desire of making proselytes had ceased in that society; they had by that time acquired that quiet and orderly character, by which they have long been distinguished, and the movements of their preachers were rarely or never observed out of their own circle.

By becoming an itinerant, Wesley acquired general notoriety, which gratified his ambition, and by exciting curiosity concerning him, induced persons to hear him who would not have been brought within the influence of his zeal by any other motive. This alone would have filled the churches if he had been permitted to preach in them: field-preaching was a greater novelty; it attracted greater multitudes, and brought him more immediately among the lower and ruder classes of society, whom he might otherwise in vain have wished to address. He has forcibly shown in one of his Appeals, the usefulness and necessity of the practice: "What need is there." he

says, speaking for his antagonists, "of this preaching in fields and streets? Are there not churches enough to preach in ?—No, my friend, there are not, not for us to preach in. You forget: we are not suffered to preach there; else we should prefer them to any place whatever. Well, there are ministers enough without you! Ministers enough, and churches enough, for what? To reclaim all the sinners within the four seas? If there were they would all be reclaimed: but they are not reclaimed. Therefore it is evident there are not churches enough. And one plain reason why, notwithstanding all these churches, they are no nearer being reclaimed, is this: they never come into a church; perhaps not once in a twelvemonth, perhaps not for many years together. Will you say (as I have known some tender-hearted Christians), "then it is their own fault; let them die and be damned." I grant it is their own fault. And so it was my fault and yours when we went astray, like sheep that were lost; yet the Saviour of souls sought after us, and went after us into the wilderAnd oughtest not thou to have compassion on thy fellow servants, as he had pity on thee? Ought not we also to seek as far as in us lies, and to save that which is lost?" The utility of the practice, while so many persons lived in habitual disregard of all religious ordinances, and while so large a part of the people were suffered to grow up in brutal ignorance, could not indeed be questioned by any reasonable man. Its irregularity he confessed, but he protested that those persons who compelled him to be thus irregular, had no right to censure the irregularity. "Will they throw a man into the dirt," said he," and beat him because he is dirty? Of all men living those clergymen ought not to complain who believe I preach the gospel. If they do not ask me to preach in their churches, they are accountable for my preaching in the fields."

ness.

Wesley had the less repugnance to commence preaching in the open air in England, because it was what he had often done in Georgia, and did not there