JOHN WESLEY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 51, 18 April 1874, Page 10

JOHN WESLEY.

(' London Universe.') Let us begin with a quotation : — "if supi'invity in falsehood can be called excellence, Wesley t-icell? all. Wn-ir reude-s him po much the more dangorous is the fiirb of rt-',;"ou'. hypocrisy which l»e throws around him. The longfaced etiiuUßii-t.', the w;iiuing cant, the sanctified mood is enough to dociivo, if po-sih't, tho vrry eleur. I esteem open audacity infinitely ntort- l.ureit and jjveier.ible tbau the guile of the religious hypoorito." I ii. . =» wii^cs i.j<; who, converted iv middle uge from tho heresy of Me;! < /( < v, h\s thought it a duty he owed to hi 3 fellow-countrymen to i % i| >t^ a..- '"uLonr sd and tho danger of the Wesleyan principles anct tho Av't-c-vun usscnxtiou. No answer has ever been attempted to the menj and eenovs < h-trgoH ;.-» Las brought, not only against the founder, but c^ninst the m bolt loay. And, indeed, how was he to be answered ? For be t -U. us o* Lnn«eif : —

" T waa a i ih.'iwt of the Methodists, born of Methodistical uai'ents, instrucced in aucl deeply imbued with their principles from

my earliest infancy. . . . Methodism was riveted in my heart, it* doctrines were ingrafted in my nature. ... I distinctly assert that I was justified in the Methodi«t sense. Did others pass day* and weeks and months in the " pangs of the new birth P " So did I. Did the} weep and mourn and cry ? " So did I. Did they for " faith incessant try 1 " So did I. I became a " prayer maker," then an " exhorter," finally a preacher and class-leader. Ten years I laboured gratis, and in all the circuits where I hate laboured, I never neglected my part or brought scandal on my religion. On the contrary, numbers can rise up and declare that I was of spiritual benefit to them." It is a man who can speak so in the hearing of thousands, who having known him, could have convicted him on the spot had he spoken anything more than the truth, who does not shrink from pen* ning a sentence like the following :—: — "Mr Wesley is unworthy of credit. His flagrant falsifications of the Word of God, hia false glosses, mutilations and misrepresentation! of the fathers, councils and Catechism of the Catholic Church, with numerous other delinquencies, warrant such a conclusion." What is our term " old rassal," by the side of all this invective and opprobrium, but positive moderation and delicacy P In hie " Popery Calmly Considered," Wesley's object was to excite fear as well as hatred in the minds of his ignorant countrymen in reference to their Catholic fellow- subjects. It made its appearanoe at a time when the oppressed Catholics of these realms were struggling vainly for a relaxation f»om the thrice-acoursed penal code, 11 and 12 of William 111. and Mary. It produced all the evil which the vile vagabond who composed it intended that it should. Mr Milner writes of it :— " The gresn eyed monster of religious jealousy which had so long slept over its unresisting prey began to rouse itself in all its native fury. The pulpits of the iower sort, particularly those of John Wesley and his associates, resounded with the hypocritical lamentations on the fatal conaequencea to be apprehended from any indulgence granted bo Catholics, etc." Then indeed did the " old rascal" shine out in his true colon. We have no reason to explain to our readers the foundation of the Pretest ant Association, its programme, its conduct, its diabolical work and its ignominious finish. Suffice it to say, that from first to last its master-spirit was John Wesley ; Joshua Bangs (Mr Dickens' 8 Gash* ford in " Barnaby Budge ") was its seoretary ; Jabez Fisher was its treasurer ; David Wilson was its " sleuth hound ;" but John Wesley was its founder, champion, pleader and king. It was Wesley who said that — "To tolerate Popery was to be instrumental in the damnation of souls and was the direct way to provoke the vengeance of God against our fleets and armies." It was Wesley who urged on Lord George Gordon and his mob to burn down London. It was Wesley who, when the ruin was half accomplished, dared to assert with characteristic cowardice, stupidity and perfidy, that — " The Papists themselves had set fire to their own ohapels and had plundered th© homes of their own defenders in ordo>" to be able to throw the blame upon their enemies and co bring odium upon the Protestant cause.*' It waß Wesley who threatened the government if it dared to proceed to the punishment of those miscreants who had been caught redhanded in their attack upoc Newgate and the Bank ; and it was Wesley too who, whilst thirty-9ix conflagrations were blazing at one and the same time in the streets of London — all of them kindled by his Methodistionl zeal— addressed the untamed brute masß of his "NoPopery " adherents, in the waste ground about Moorfields, in the following piiific and evangelical strain :—: — "3o now I bjg of you to kneel down and pray to the King of Heaven that He will give you strength to go and pluck up thii Popery by the roots " This invitation to arson and sedition, to pillage and massacre, his followers (though willing) were unablo to accept, for the simple reason tnat the uation having begun to recover its senses, the military were ordered to put down the insurrection at uny price. Accordingly the wretched Protestant mob were slaughtered wherever it was met with a coolness and a decision which, bad they been employed at an earlier date, would have bitterly disappointed the hopes of Wesley's association, by siving from its infernal pengeance the few peaceable and unoffending Catholics who at that date were thinly scattered up and down the great metropolis. Iv reference to the " No-Popery riots " of 1780, we have always felt one especial regret, namely, that their chief instigator and apologist contrived to escape chastisement. In various quarters of London there -were public executions by iha dozen of those who had taken part in that week's work of pillage and terror — the poor fool, Lord Gordon, was tried for his life, and escaped only to die afterwards as a criminal in Newgate. But we miss oue man from the scaffold eracted in Bloomsbury Square after the sessions held at the Old Bailey ia July, 1780. Laurence and Roberts and Taplin and Brown were there, but these were only the " hands" (to use Coningsby's expression) — only the scholars. The head was absent — the mast or had escaped. John Wesley, strange to say, did not " die in his shoes," nor by the hand of the public hangman. Such is human justice. E.S. — We have taken the troublo (iv our auxioty to give our correspondent all satisfaction) to look into tb.t> last new dictionary for the meaning of the word "rascal-" Here it is: "A mean fellow, a scoundrel, a sorry wretch, a baso villain." With thn interpretation before us, we feel unable to evaao it from its place of synonyms for John "VVesloy.