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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 practised 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

Something was done in this way by individuals who deemed their own strong sense of duty a sufficient qualification. In 1557, George Eagle, a taylor, 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.

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: fieldpreaching 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

The

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 wilderness. And 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?" 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."

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 therefore at first appear so strange to himself

as to his congregation. But neither he nor his brother at that time perceived that it must soon become a necessary part of their plan to admit the co-operation of laymen. Their first co-adjutors were all clergymen: except Whitefield, none of them had devoted themselves body and soul to the work; they had not entered upon it with the same passion or the same ambition; their habits, their feelings, or their circumstances, would have rendered an itinerant life impossible or intolerable; they were settled upon cures, or staked down by family duties, or disqualified for incessant fatigue and public exhibitions by their state of health and constitutional diffidence. But among the lay-converts there were many who were not troubled with this last disqualification, - young men in the heat and vigour of youth, free to choose their course, and with the world before them. And the doctrine which Wesley preached was above all others able to excite confidence while it kindled enthusiasm. His proselytes by the act of conversion were regenerate men; they were in a state of Christian perfection; they had attained the grace of our Lord the fellowship of the Holy Spirit; they had received the seal and stamp of God. So he taught and they believed; and men who believed this required no other qualification to set up as teachers themselves than a good stock of animal spirits, and a ready flow of words, the talent which of all others has the least connection with sound intellect. They were acted upon by sympathy at their meetings, as some persons are stage-struck by fre

quenting the theatres, and as others are made apostles of anarchy and atheism at debating clubs.

The first example of lay-preaching appears to have been set by a Mr. Bowers, who is not otherwise named in the history of Methodism. One Saturday, after Whitefield had finished a sermon in Islington Church-yard, Bowers got up to address the people; Charles Wesley entreated him to desist, but finding that his entreaties were disregarded, he withdrew, and drew with him many of the persons present. Bowers afterwards confessed that he had done wrong, but the inclination which he mistook for the spirit soon returned upon him; he chose to preach in the streets at Oxford, and was laid hold of by the beadle. Charles Wesley just at that time came to Oxford, Bowers was brought to him, and promising after a reproof to do so no more, was set at liberty. The fitness of this innovation naturally excited much discussion in the society, and the Wesleys strongly opposed it; but a sort of compromise seems to have been made, for the laymen were permitted to expound the Scriptures, which, as Law justly observed to Charles, was the very worst thing both for themselves and others.

Wesley had raised a spirit which he could not suppress, but it was possible to give it a useful direction. He has been said at first to have entertained a hope, that the ministers of those parishes in which he had laboured with success, would watch over those whom he had turned from the