to come the wisest and the most learned may derive instruction from their admirable works, and find in them a satisfaction and a delight by which they may estimate their own progress in wisdom. Among the laity also, the innate sense of piety, wherever it had been fostered by those happy circumstances which are favourable to its developement and growth, received a right direction. No idols and phantoms were interposed between man and his Redeemer; no practices were enjoined as substitutes for good works or compensations for evil; no assent was demanded to propositions which contradict the senses and insult the understanding. Herein we differ from the Romanists. Nor are the advantages inconsiderable which we enjoy over our Protestant brethren who walk in the bye-paths of sectarianism. It has been in the error of attributing an undue importance to some particular point, that sects have generally originated: they contemplate a part instead of the whole: they split the rays of truth, and see only one of the prismatic colours, while the members of the national church live in the light.

The evil was, that, among the educated classes, too little care was taken to imbue them early with this better faith; and too little exertion used for awakening them from the pursuits and vanities of this world, to a salutary and hopeful contemplation of that which is to come. And there was the heavier evil, that the greater part of the nation were totally uneducated;-Christians no farther than the mere ceremony of baptism could make

them, being for the most part in a state of heathen, or worse than heathen, ignorance. In truth, they had never been converted; for at first one idolatry had been substituted for another: in this they had followed the fashion of their lords; and when the Romish idolatry was expelled, the change on their part was still a matter of necessary submission;they were left as ignorant of real Christianity as they were found. The world has never yet seen a nation of Christians.

The ancient legislators understood the power of legislation. But no modern government seems to have perceived, that men are as clay in the potter's hands. There are, and always will be, innate and unalterable differences of individual character; but national character is formed by national institutions and circumstances, and is whatever those circumstances may make it-Japanese or Tupinamban, Algerine or English. Till governments avail themselves of this principle in its full extent, and give it its best direction, the science of policy will be incomplete.

Three measures then were required for completing the Reformation in England: that the condition of the inferior clergy should be improved; that the number of religious instructors should be greatly increased; and that a system of parochial education should be established and vi gilantly upheld. These measures could only be effected by the legislature. A fourth thing was needful, that the clergy should be awakened to an active discharge of their duty; and this was

not within the power of legislation. The former

objects never for a moment occupied Wesley's consideration. He began life with ascetic habits and opinions; with a restless spirit, and a fiery heart. Ease and comfort were neither congenial to his disposition nor his principles: wealth was not necessary for his calling, and it was beneath his thoughts: he could command not merely respectability without it, but importance. Nor was he long before he discovered what St. Francis and his followers and imitators had demonstrated long before, that they who profess poverty for conscience-sake, and trust for daily bread to the religious sympathy which they excite, will find it as surely as Elijah in the wilderness, and without a miracle. As little did the subject of national education engage his mind: his aim was direct, immediate, palpable utility. Nor could he have effected any thing upon either of these great legislative points: the most urgent representations, the most convincing arguments, would have been disregarded in that age, for the time was not come. The great struggle between the destructive and conservative principles,-between good and evil, - had not yet commenced; and it was not then foreseen that the very foundations of civil society would be shaken, because governments had neglected their most aweful and most important duty. But the present consequences of this neglect were obvious and glaring; the rudeness of the peasantry, the brutality of the town populace, the prevalence of drunkenness, the growth of impiety, the general

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deadness to religion. These might be combated by individual exertions, and Wesley felt in himself the power and the will both in such plenitude, that they appeared to him a manifestation, not to be doubted, of the will of Heaven. Every trial tended to confirm him in this persuasion; and the effects which he produced, both upon body and mind, appeared equally to himself and to his followers miraculous. Diseases were arrested or subdued by the faith which he inspired, madness was appeased, and, in the sound and sane, paroxysms were excited which were new to pathology, and which he believed to be supernatural interpositions, vouchsafed in furtherance of his efforts by the Spirit of God, or worked in opposition to them by the exasperated Principle of Evil. Drunkards were reclaimed; sinners were converted; the penitent who came in despair was sent away with the full assurance of joy; the dead sleep of indifference was broken; and oftentimes his eloquence reached the hard brute heart, and opening it, like the rock of Horeb, made way for the living spring of piety which had been pent within. These effects he saw, they were public and undeniable; and looking forward in exultant faith, he hoped that the leaven would not cease to work till it had leavened the whole mass; that the impulse which he had given would surely, though slowly, operate a national reformation, and bring about, in fulness of time, the fulfilment of those prophecies which promise us that the kingdom of our Father shall

come, and his will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

With all this there was intermingled a large portion of enthusiasm, and no small one of superstition; much that was erroneous, much that was mischievous, much that was dangerous. But had he been less enthusiastic, of a humbler spirit, or a quieter heart, or a maturer judgement, he would never have commenced his undertaking. Sensible only of the good which he was producing, and which he saw produced, he went on courageously and indefatigably in his career. Whither it was to lead he knew not, nor what form and consistence the societies which he was collecting would assume; nor where he was to find labourers as he enlarged the field of his operations; nor how the scheme was to derive its temporal support. But these considerations neither troubled him, nor made him for a moment foreslack his course. God, he believed, had appointed it, and God would alway provide means for accomplishing his own ends.