Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great | Page 5

idleness and dissipation. John wrote to his mother describing the conditions. She wrote back, pleading that he keep his life free from the follies that surrounded him, and band those who felt as he did into a company, and meet together for prayer and meditation in order that they might mutually sustain one another.
Susanna Wesley was the true founder of Methodism, a fact stated by John Wesley many a time.
As early as Seventeen Hundred Nine, she wrote to her son Samuel, who was then at Oxford, and who was never converted from Oxford influences: "My son, you must remember that life is our divine gift-- it is the talent given us by Our Father in Heaven. I request that you throw the business of your life into a certain method, and thus save the friction of making each day anew. Arise early, go to bed at a certain hour, eat at stated times, pray, read and study by a method, and so get the most out of the moments as they swiftly pass, never to return. Allow yourself so much time for sleep, so much for private devotion, so much for recreation. Above all, my son, act on principle, and do not live like the rest of mankind, who float through the world like straws upon a river."
In hundreds of her letters to John and Charles at Oxford, their mother repeats this advice in varying phrase: "We are creatures of habit; we must cultivate good habits, for they soon master us, and we must be controlled by that which is good. Life is very precious--we must give it back to God some day, so let us get the most from it. Let us methodize the hours, so we may best improve them."
John Wesley was a leader by nature, and before he was twenty he had gathered about him at Oxford a little group of young men, poor in purse, but intent in purpose, who held themselves aloof from the foibles and follies of the place, and planned their lives after that of the Christ. In ridicule they were called Methodists. The name stuck.
In this Year of Grace, Nineteen Hundred Seven, there are more than thirty million Methodists, and about seven million in America, The denomination owns property to the value of more than three hundred million dollars in the United States, and has more than one hundred thousand paid preachers.
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After Wesley's graduation he was importuned by the authorities to remain and act as tutor and teacher at Christchurch College. He was a diligent student, and his example was needed to hold in check the hilarious propensities of the sons of the nobility.
In due time John was ordained to preach, and often he would read prayers at neighboring chapels. His brother Charles was his devoted echo and shadow. Then there was an enthusiastic youth by the name of George Whitefield, and a sober, serious young man, James Hervey, who stood by the Oxford Methodists and endured without resentment the sarcastic smiles of the many.
These young men organized committees to visit the sick; to search out poor and despondent students and give them aid and encouragement; to visit the jails and workhouses. The intent was to pattern their lives after that of the Apostles. They were all very poor, but their wants were few, and when John Wesley's income was thirty pounds a year he gave two pounds for charity. When it was sixty pounds a year he gave away thirty pounds; and here seems a good place to say that, although he made more than a hundred thousand pounds during his life from his books, he died penniless, just as he had wished and intended.
Thus matters stood in the year Seventeen Hundred Thirty-five, when James Oglethorpe was attracted to that Oxford group of ascetic enthusiasts. The life of Oglethorpe reads like a novel by James Fenimore Cooper. He was of aristocratic birth, born of an Irish mother, with a small bar sinister on his scutcheon that pushed him out and set him apart. He was a graduate of Oxford, and it was on a visit to his Alma Mater that he heard some sarcastic remarks flung off about the Wesleys that seemed to commend them. People hotly denounced usually have a deal of good in them. Oglethorpe was an officer in the army, a philanthropist, a patron of art, and a soldier of fortune. He had been a Member of Parliament, and at this particular time was Colonial Governor of Georgia, home on a visit.
He had investigated Newgate and other prisons and had brought charges against the keepers and succeeded in bringing their inhumanities before the public. Hogarth has a picture of Oglethorpe visiting a prison, with the poor wretches flocking around him telling their woes. In