his behaviour; so that at the age of eight years he was admitted to the sacrament of the Lord's supper. When he was eleven years old he was sent to the Charterhouse School in London, where he was soon distinguished by his diligence and progress in learning. At seventeen he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford, where he pursued his studies to great advantage; and at the age of twenty-one it is said that he appeared the very sensible and acute collegian, possessed of a fine classical taste, and the most liberal and manly sentiments. He was afterward elected a fellow of Lincoln College; and was also appointed Greek lecturer, and moderator of the classes.

At Oxford Mr. Wesley laid the foundation of that sound and various learning in which he was known to excel, and which was of immense advantage to him in future life. When he had taken his degree as master of arts, and his time was at his own disposal, he pursued his studies with undiminished ardour. Monday and Tuesday in each week, he devoted to the Greek and Roman historians and poets; Wednesday, to logic and ethics; Thursday, to Hebrew and Arabic; Friday, to metaphysics and natural philosophy; and Saturday,. to oratory and poetry, chiefly composition. In the intermediate hours of close and set study he perfected himself in the French language, paid considerable attention to physic, and read a great variety of modern authors, carefully transcribing such passages as appeared to be particularly important. As the result of this application, he conversed fluently in Latin, and both spoke and wrote it with remarkable purity and correctness. The Greek Testament became as familiar to him as the English; and his skill in logic has been rarely equalled, and perhaps never surpassed.

Mr. Charles Wesley was born December 18th, 1708. Like the rest of the children, he received the first rudiments of learning from his inestimable mother; and in the year 1716, being about eight years of age, he was sent to Westminster School, and placed under the care of his eldest brother Samuel, then an usher in that famous establishment. By Samuel he was confirmed in those high-church principles, the impression of which

he had doubtless received under the paternal roof. He was spightly and active; apt to learn; but arch and unlucky, though not ill-natured. From Westminster he removed to Oxford, where he entered at Christ Church, and afterward became a student of that college, a title which embraces what in other colleges is usually called a fellowship. According to his own account, he wasted the first year of his residence at the university in diversions; but he afterward applied himself diligently to his studies, and graduated in the usual course. He attained to eminence in classical scholarship, his own poetic mind enabling him justly to appreciate the beauties of the great writers of antiquity.

It was during their residence at Oxford that the two Wesleys became deeply impressed with a sense of the importance of religion. They saw it to be the great business of life, to which every other occupation and pursuit should be subordinated; and they perceived, more clearly than ever, that it consists not in the performance of outward duties, but in a right state of the heart. John was the first that received these impressions, which were mainly produced by the reading of three books which successively fell in his way. The first was Bishop Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying ;" from which he learned that a simple intention to please God is necessary in every action. The second was Kempis's "Christian's Pattern ;" which strengthened his conviction of the spirituality of true religion. The third was Mr. Law's "Serious Call to a devout and holy Life;" in the principles of which he was further confirmed by the same writer's treatise on "Christian Perfection.' All these works are well adapted to convince the man of the world that his pleasures are both vain and sinful; and to make the formalist feel that his empty religion is not Christianity: but while they forcibly incul. cate purity of heart as the essence of Christian godliness, not one of them shows the manner in which that blessing is to be obtained. They preserve a complete silence respecting the faith by which the conscience is purged from dead works, and the very thoughts of the heart are made pure; and therefore leave the reader

engaged in the hopeless attempt to practise Christian holiness while he is under the power of sin. He is required to love God with all his heart; but he receives no information concerning the manner in which he is to be saved from the condemnation to which he is liable on account of his past transgressions, and from "the carnal mind which is enmity against God." The imperfect instruction which the Wesleys thus received, at this period of their lives, left them unacquainted with the method in which the "ungodly" are justified; and hence they were for many years unsuccessful in their efforts to attain that spirituality of mind which they saw to be both their duty and privilege. They served God from a principle of servile fear, rather than of constraining love. Theirs was not a filial spirit, but a spirit of bondage. They could not " rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in every thing give thanks :" for they had not as yet "received the atonement;" nor did they see how the sacrificial blood of Christ, and the offices of the Holy Ghost, were to be made available in order to their present salvation from guilt, and from the evils of their fallen nature.

Mr. William Law, whose name often occurs in con. nection with the early religious history of the Wesleys, was a nonjuring clergyman. Being attached to the house of Stuart, and refusing to swear allegiance to George I., he was incapable of holding any benefice, and of publicly performing any of the clerical functions. The English language he wrote with uncommon purity, elegance, and strength; and he enforced the duty of entire deadness to the world, and devotedness to God, with almost unexampled earnestness and power; but he appears never to have held correct views of the atonement of Christ, and of its bearing upon the justification of the ungodly. When Mr. John Wesley had obtained the true scriptural and Protestant view of these subjects, he most faithfully admonished this erring ca. suist and ascetic, by whom he had been so grievously misled. In the latter part of his life, Mr. Law wandered still farther from evangelical truth, and was swallowed up in the quagmire of Jacob Behmen's mystical philosophy. He died in the year 1761, at King's

Cliffe, in Northamptonshire. He belonged to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, of which he was for some time a fellow; and after he left the university, lived at Putney, London, Thrapston in Northamptonshire, and King's Cliffe, where he founded an almshouse.

Mr. John Wesley received the deep religious convictions, to which reference has just been made, some years before his brother; concerning whom he says, "He pursued his studies diligently, and led a regular, harmless life; but if I spoke to him about religion, he would warmly answer, What, would you have me to be a saint all at once?' and would hear no more.' Such was the state of Charles's mind when John, having been ordained deacon by Bishop Potter, September 19th, 1725, and priest the year following, left Oxford in August, 1727, for the purpose of being his father's curate at Epworth and Wroote. John returned to Oxford, intending to take up his permanent residence there as a tutor, in November, 1729; and was rejoiced to find that during his absence, and chiefly by means of his influence, his brother had become deeply serious, having for some months received the Lord's supper weekly, and prevailed upon two or three young men to do the same. These gentlemen had occasionally met together, to assist and encourage each other in their several duties. The exact regularity of their lives, as well as studies, occasioned a young gentleman of Christ Church to say, "Here is a new set of Methodists sprung up;" alluding, it is said, to some ancient physicians who were so called. The name was new and quaint; so it took immediately; and the Methodists were known all over the university. On Mr. John Wesley's arrival, he became one of their fraternity; and the direction of their concerns was gladly committed to his superior judgment.

Of this first Methodist society, Mr. Wesley gives the following account :--" In November, 1729, four young gentlemen of Oxford, Mr. John Wesley, fellow of Lincoln College, Mr. Charles Wesley, student of Christ Church, Mr. Morgan, commoner of Christ Church, and Mr. Kirkman, of Merton College, began to spend some evenings in a week together, in reading chiefly the

Greek Testament. The next year two or three of Mr. John Wesley's pupils desired, the liberty of meeting with them; and afterward one of Mr. Charles Wesley's pupils. It was in 1732 that Mr. Ingham, of Queen's College, and Mr. Broughton, of Exeter, were added to their number. To these, in April, was joined Mr. Clay. ton, of Brazennose, with two or three of his pupils. About the same time Mr. James Hervey was permitted to meet with them, and afterward Mr. Whitefield.”*

This was the first Methodist society. It consisted exclusively of young men, whose theological views were imperfect, and whose experience was limited: yet they had a sincere desire to please God; and in diligence, self-denial, and active benevolence, they far surpassed many who have boasted of the superiority of their religious knowledge, and have despised these simplehearted worshippers of God, and inquirers after truth. They instructed the children of the neglected poor; they visited the sick, and the prisoners in the common jail, for whom no other men seemed to care; they attended secret prayer, public worship, and the Lord's table, with scrupulous exactness; they observed the regular fasts of the church; they assisted each other in their studies, and watched over each other's spiritual interests with kindness and fidelity; and they conscientiously saved all the money that they could for pious and charitable purposes. Some grave men thought them "righteous over much," and attempted to dissuade them from an excess of piety; while profane wits treated them with sarcasm and contempt: but these young disciples of the cross showed the strength of their convictions, by patient perseverance in their plans of usefulness and devotion. They consulted the elder Mr. Wesley, at Epworth, who urged them forward in the course upon which they had entered.

An incident which Mr. Wesley has related in one of his sermons will serve to show the tenderness of his con. science, and the serious light in which he viewed his responsibility, during this part of his college life. "When I was at Oxford," says he, "in a cold winter's day, a young maid (one of those we kept at school) * Works, vol. v, p. 246. Am. edit.