Another most important result of the class meetings, formed so accidentally, or rather providentially, at Bristol, was the pecuniary provision they led to for the prosecution of the plans which were daily enlarging under the hands of Wesley. The whole fiscal system of Methodism arose from the Bristol penny collections. Thus, without foreseeing the great independent cause he was about to establish, Wesley formed, through a slight circumstance, a simple and yet most complete system of finance for the immense expenses which its future prosecution would involve. And how admirably was this pecuniary system adapted to the circumstances of that cause! He was destined to raise up a vast religious combination; it was to include the poorer classes, and yet require large pecuniary resources. How were these resources to be provided among a poor people? The project presents a complete dilemma. The providential formation of a plan of finance which suited the poverty of the poorest, and which worldly sagacity would have contemned, banished all difficulty, and has led to pecuniary results which have surprised the world.

That other important peculiarity of our church already alluded to, a lay and itinerant ministry, was equally providential in its origin. Wesley

was at first opposed to the employment of lay preachers. He expected the co-operation of the regular clergy. They, however, were his most hostile antagonists. Meanwhile, the small societies formed by his followers for spiritual improvement increased. "What," says he,

66 was to be done in a case of so extreme necessity, where so many souls lay at stake? No clergyman would assist at all. The expedient that remained was to seek some one among themselves who was upright of heart and of sound judgment in the things of God, and to desire him to meet the rest as often as he could, to confirm them, as he was able, in the ways of God, either by reading to them, or by prayer or exhortation." This was the origin of the Methodist lay ministry.

The multiplication of societies exceeded the increase of preachers. This rendered it necessary that the latter should itinerate, and thence arose the Methodist itinerancy. Our itinerancy is the most admirable feature in our whole ministerial system. It is not a labour-saving provision-it is the contrary of this-but it is truly a labourer-saving one. The pastoral service, which otherwise would have been confined to a single parish, is extended by this plan to scores, and sometimes hundreds, of towns and villages,

and, by the co-operation of the class meeting, is rendered almost as efficient as it would be were it local. It is this peculiarity that has rendered our ministry so successful in our new states. It has also contributed, perhaps, more than any other cause, to maintain a sentiment of unity among us. It gives a pilgrim character to our preachers. They feel that "here they have no abiding city," and are led more earnestly to "seek one" out of sight. It will not allow them to entangle themselves with local trammels. The cross peculiarly "crucifies them to the world, and the world to them." Their zeal, rising into religious chivalry; their devotion to one work; their disregard for ease and the conveniences of stationary life, are owing, under divine grace, chiefly to their itinerancy It has made them one of the most self-sacrificing, laborious, practical, and successful bodies of men at present to be found in the great field of Christian labour. The time when itinerancy shall cease in our ministry, and classes among our laity, will be the date of our downfall.

METHODISM ADAPTED TO OUR COUNTRY.

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them: and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose."-Isaiah.

THERE is another and no less interesting light in which the economy of Methodism strikes me as providential; I mean its adaptation to our country. It is a fact worthy of remark, that while the great moral revolution of Methodism was going on across the Atlantic, the greatest political revolution of modern times was in process on our own continent; and when we contemplate the new adaptations of religious action which were evolved by the former, we cannot resist the conviction that there was a providential relation between the two events-that they were not only coincident in time, but also in purpose. While Wesley and his co-labourers were reviving Christianity there, Washington and his compatriots were reviving liberty here. It was the American revolution that led to the development of the resources of this vast country, and rendered it the assembling place of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people; and Methodism commenced its operations sufficiently early to be in

Its

good vigour by the time that the great movement of the civilized world toward the West began It seems to have been divinely adapted to this emergency of our country. If we may judge from the result, it was raised up by Providence more in reference to the new than to the old world. Its peculiar measures were strikingly suited to the circumstances of the country, while those of every other contemporary sect were as strikingly unadapted to them. zealous spirit readily blended with the buoyant sympathies of a youthful nation flushed with the sense of liberty. The usual process of a long preparatory training for the ministry could not consist with the rapidly-increasing wants of the country. Methodism called into existence a ministry less trained, but not less efficient; possessing in a surprising degree that sterling good sense and manly energy, examples of which great exigences always produce among the people. These it imbued with its own quenchless spirit, and formed them to a standard of character altogether unique in the annals of mankind; they composed a class which, perhaps, will never be seen again. They were distinguished for native mental vigour, shrewdness, extraordinary knowledge of human nature, many of them for overwhelm