While increasing care has been taken with the training of the ministry, lay education has not been neglected. Kingswood School, founded by Wesley, continues, as in his day, to give excellent instruction to ministers" sons. In 1837 a Methodist school, Wesley College, was opened at Sheffield, and a few years later one at Taunton, well known as Queen"s College. The Leys School at Cambridge, under the head-mastership of Dr. Moulton, was opened in 1874, and has shown "the possibility of reconciling Methodist training with the breadth and freedom of English public school life." There are in Ireland excellent colleges at Belfast and Dublin.
In 1875, a scheme for establishing middle-cla.s.s schools was adopted, resulting in the opening of such schools at Truro, Jersey, Bury St.
Edmunds, Woodhouse Grove, Congleton, Canterbury, Folkestone, Trowbridge, Penzance, Camborne, and Queenswood; all report satisfactorily.
Elementary education, which has made such great progress during the Queen"s reign, engaged the anxious attention of our authorities long before the initiation of the School Board system, under which the average attendance in twenty-five years increased almost fourfold.
Methodism has been in the forefront of the long battle with ignorance.
The establishment of "week-day schools" in connexion with this great Church owed its origin to the declaration of the Conference in 1833.
that "such inst.i.tutions, placed under an efficient spiritual control, cannot fail to promote those high and holy ends for which we exist as a religious community." The object was to give the scholars "an education which might begin in the infant school and end in heaven,"
thus subserving the lofty aim of Methodism, "to fill the world with saints, and Paradise with glorified spirits"; a more ambitious idea than that expressed by Huxley when he said, "We want a great highway, along which the child of the peasant as well as of the peer can climb to the highest seats of learning."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Queen"s College, Taunton.]
In 1836 the attention of the Conference was directed to education in general, and especially to Wesleyan day schools; the Pastoral Address of 1837, regretting that children had to be trained outside the Church or be left untaught, expressed the hope that soon, in the larger circuits, schools might be established which would give a scriptural and Wesleyan education. Already some schools had been commenced; and the plan was devised which has been the basis of all subsequent Methodist day-school work.
In 1840 it was decided to spend the interest of the 5,000 given from the Centenary Fund for the training of teachers, work which was at first carried on at Glasgow. The determination of Conference to perfect its plan of Wesleyan education was quickened when an unfair Education Bill, not the last of its kind, was introduced into Parliament in 1843, proposing to hand over the children in factory districts to the Church of England. An Education Fund was established. Government, in 1847, offered grants for the training of elementary school teachers; and in 1851 the Westminster Training College was opened, with room for 130 men students. In 1872, in response to an increased demand for Wesleyan teachers, a separate college for mistresses was opened at Southlands, Battersea. Already four thousand have been trained in these inst.i.tutions. Many hold positions in Board schools. In 1896 the number in Wesleyan and Board schools was 2,400.
The system thus inaugurated met a great and real need, and under it excellent work has been done on the lines laid down by the Department at Whitehall; for, receiving State aid, the training colleges and all the schools, like other similar denominational inst.i.tutions on the same footing, are inspected and in a measure controlled by the national educational authority. In 1837 there were only 31 Wesleyan day schools; to-day there are 753 school departments, and on their books 162,609 scholars. But the introduction of free education has made it difficult for the Methodist Church to maintain her schools, efficient though they be. Since 1870, when school boards were introduced, the number of Wesleyan day schools has only increased by 10, while 9,752 Board schools have arisen, and the Church of England schools have increased from 9,331 to 16,517; the Roman Catholic schools actually trebling in number and attendance.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Wesley College, Sheffield.]
In view of these changed conditions, Conference has expressed itself anxious for such a complete national system of education as might place a Christian unsectarian school within reasonable distance of every family, especially in rural districts, with "adequate representative public management"; it has most earnestly deprecated the exclusion of the Bible, and suitable religious instruction therefrom by the teachers, from the day schools; but, so long as denominational schools form part of the national system, it is resolved to maintain our schools and Training Colleges, in full vigour. Difficulties, undreamed of sixty years ago, surround this great question; but a.s.suredly Methodism will be true to its trust and its traditions.
The cost of Wesleyan schools last year was 215,634, and was met by school fees, subscriptions, and a government grant of 185,780. The Education Fund of 1896, amounting to 7,115, was spent on the Training Colleges, grants to necessitous schools, etc.
Wesley approved of Sunday schools as means of giving religious instruction to the children of the poor, and Hannah Ball at High Wycombe, a good Methodist, and Silas Told, teaching at the Foundery, both antic.i.p.ated the work of Raikes by several years. In 1837 there were already 3,339 Sunday schools, with 341,442 scholars. Today the schools number 7,147, the officers and teachers 131,145, and there are in the schools 965,201 children and young people. The formation in 1869 of the Circuit Sunday-school Union, and in 1874 of the Connexional Sunday-school Union, has done much for the schools, in providing suitable literature for teachers and scholars, and in organising their work. An additional motive to Scripture study is furnished by the "Religious Knowledge Examinations" inst.i.tuted by Conference; certificates, signed by the President, being granted to teachers and scholars who succeed in pa.s.sing the examinations. In recognition of the value of so important a department of the Church, adequate representation at the quarterly meetings is now accorded to the Sunday schools.
It is not in our day only that the pastoral oversight of the young has been deemed worthy of attention; the duty has always been enforced on ministers; but in 1878 there were first formed junior Society cla.s.ses, to prepare children for full membership. There are now seventy-two thousand in such cla.s.ses.
In 1896 we note a new effort to bring young people into the kingdom, in the foundation of the "Wesley Guild," of which the President of Conference is the head, with four vice-presidents, two being laymen.
The guild is "a union of the young people of a congregation. Its keynote is comradeship, and its aim is to encourage the young people of our Church in the highest aims of life." The story of its origin may be briefly told.
The Rev. Charles H. Kelly introduced the subject in the London Methodist Council, and then brought the matter before the Plymouth Conference of 1895, dwelling on the desire existing to form a Wesley Guild that should do for Britain what the Epworth League does for American Methodism, and secure the best advantages not only of that league, but of the Boys" Brigade, Bands of Hope, Christian Endeavour and Mutual Improvement Societies, which it should federate. The Liverpool Conference of 1896 therefore sanctioned the formation of the "Wesley Guild." Its three grades of members include young people already attached to the Church, with others not yet ripe for such identification, and "older people young in heart," who all join in guild friendship, and aid in forming this federation of the existing societies interesting to young people.
By periodical meetings, weekly if possible, for devotional, social, and literary purposes, a healthy common life and beneficent activity are stimulated, and the rising generation is happily and usefully drawn into relation with the older Church workers, whom it aids by seeking out the young, lonely, and unattached, and bringing them into the warm circle of youthful fellowship.
Such in brief is the programme of the Guild, which may yet greatly enrich the Church with which it is connected.
We turn now to one of the most notable changes in Methodism during the Queen"s reign--the wonderful advance in the temperance movement.
Wesley himself was an ardent temperance reformer, but his preachers were slow to follow him. A few prominent men strove long to induce Conference to inst.i.tute a temperance branch of our work, and finally succeeded, their efforts having effected a great change in opinion.
For many years our theological students, though not compelled thereto, have almost all been pledged abstainers. 1873 saw Conference appoint a temperance committee "to promote legislation for the more effectual control of the liquor traffic--and in general for the suppression of intemperance." In 1879 a scheme was sanctioned for the formation of Methodist Bands of Hope and Circuit Temperance Unions; and a special Sunday, the last in November, is devoted to considering "the appalling extent and dire result" of our national sin, one of the greatest obstacles to that "spread of scriptural holiness" which is the aim of the true Wesleyan Methodist, whose chosen Church, with its manifold organisation, has unequalled facilities for temperance work. In 1896 the report showed 1,374 temperance societies, with 80,000 members--figures that do not include all the abstainers in Methodism; some societies have no temperance a.s.sociation, and some Methodists are connected with other than our own temperance work. The 4,393 Bands of Hope count 433,027 members.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Children"s Home, Bolton.]
We have already spoken of the growth and development of social philanthropic work in connexion with the great Methodist missions in towns; there remains one most important movement in this direction to notice--the establishment of the "Children"s Home," which, begun in 1869 by Dr. Stephenson, received Conference recognition in 1871. It has now branches in London, Lancashire, Gravesend, Birmingham, and the Isle of Man, and an emigration depot in Canada. Over 900 girls and boys are in residence, while more than 2,900 have been sent forth well equipped for the battle of life; some of them becoming ministers, local preachers, Sunday-school workers, and in many ways most useful citizens. The committee of management has the sanction of Conference. This "powerful arm of Christian work" not only rescues helpless little ones from degradation and misery; it undertakes the special training of the workers amongst the children in industrial homes and orphanages; and hence has arisen the inst.i.tution in 1895 of the order of Methodist deaconesses, which is recommended by Conference to Connexional sympathy and confidence, the deaconesses rendering to our Church such services as the Sisters of Mercy give to the Church of Rome. One example may suffice. A London superintendent minister describes the work of one of the Sisters during the past twelvemonth as "simply invaluable. She has visited the poor, nursed the sick, held services in lodging-houses, met Society cla.s.ses and Bible-cla.s.ses, gathered round her a G.o.dly band of mission-workers, and in a hundred ways has promoted the interests of G.o.d"s work."
Two events made 1891 memorable for Methodists, the centenary of Wesley"s death and its commemoration being the first.
The Conference decided that suitable memorial services should be held, and an appeal made to Methodists everywhere for funds to improve Wesley"s Chapel and the graveyard containing his tomb.
Universal interest was aroused; all branches of Methodism were represented; the leading ministers of Nonconformist Churches also shared in the services. Crowded and enthusiastic congregations a.s.sembled in City Road when on Sunday, March 1, the Rev. Charles H.
Kelly, Ex-President, preached on "The Man, his Teaching, and his Work," and when the Rev. Dr. Moulton delivered the centenary sermon.
On March 2, a statue of Wesley was unveiled--exactly one hundred years after his death--Dean Farrar and Sir Henry H. Fowler addressing the meeting.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Westminster Training College.]
The Allan Library, the gift of the late Thomas R. Allan, containing more than 30,000 books and dissertations, was opened by the President; it has since been enriched by gifts of modern books from the Fernley Trustees and others, and a circulating library is now connected with it. Accessible on easy terms to ministers and local preachers, and within the reach of many others, this library should be a useful stimulus to the taste for study among ministers and people.
The other event of the year was the meeting of the second Oec.u.menical Conference in October, at Washington, in the country where Methodism obtained great triumphs. The Conference lasted twelve days, like its predecessor; the opening sermon, prepared by the Rev. William Arthur, was read for him, Mr. Arthur"s voice being too weak to be heard; and the President of the United States gave a reception at the Executive Mansion, and also visited the Conference. Many topics of deep interest were discussed on this occasion, and not the least attractive subject was the statistical report presented. The difficulty of estimating the actual strength and influence of Methodism is very great.
In the present year the membership of the Wesleyan Methodists, for Great Britain and Ireland, is estimated at 494,287; of other Methodist bodies in the United Kingdom at 373,700; the affiliated Conferences of Wesleyan Methodists in France, South Africa, the West Indies, and Australasia at 212,849, being 1,942 for France, 62,812 for South Africa, 50,365 for the two West Indian, and 97,730 for the Australasian Conferences. American Methodism in all its branches, white and coloured, returns a membership of 5,573,118, while the united Methodism of Canada shows 272,392, and the foreign missions of British Wesleyan Methodism 52,058 members. These figures, giving a total of 6,978,404 members, exclusive of the ministers, estimated at 43,368, are sufficiently gratifying; yet they do not represent the real strength of the Church at large, and give only a faint idea of its influence.
The Oec.u.menical Report gave the number of Methodist "adherents" as 24,899,421, intending, by the term _adherents_, those whose religious home is the Methodist chapel, though their visits to it be irregular.
For the British Wesleyans the two millions of sittings were supposed to represent the number of adherents (yet should all the occasional worshippers wish to attend at once, it may be doubted if they could be accommodated); for the other branches of Methodism in the United Kingdom, four additional persons were reckoned to each member reported. The statistics for Ireland and Canada were checked by the census returns. Probably in the case of missions the adherents would be more than four times the membership. Varying principles were adopted for the United States, and the adherents reckoned at less than four times the members reported. Should we to-day treat the returns of membership on the same principle (Sunday scholars being now as then included in the term "adherents "), we should find nearly thirty millions of persons in immediate touch with Methodism and strongly bound to it. Compare these figures with those of 1837, and we must exclaim, "What hath G.o.d wrought!"
Estimating the increase of British Methodism, we have to remember that the population has almost doubled in the sixty years, while British Wesleyan Methodism has not doubled; but the great losses occasioned by the agitations must be taken into account, and also the curious fact that the ratio of increase for Methodism at large, in the ten years between the two Oec.u.menical Conferences, was thirty per cent--twice as great as the increase of population in the countries represented; the Methodist Church in Ireland actually increasing thirteen per cent, while the population of the country was diminishing and the other Protestant Churches reported loss.
If the increase in Great Britain be proportionally smaller, this need not cause surprise, in view of that vast development of energy in the Established Church which is really due to the reflex action of Methodism itself; that Church, with all the old advantages of wealth and prestige and connexion with the universities and grammar schools which she possessed in the days of her comparative supine-ness, with her clergy roll of 23,000, and her many voluntary workers, having in twenty-seven years almost doubled the number of her elementary schools, largely attended by Methodist children. But the indirect influence of Methodism is such as cannot be represented in our returns; figures cannot show us the true spiritual status of a Church. The total cost of the maintenance of our work in all its branches can be estimated; and so able an authority as the Rev. Dr.
H. J. Pope stated it at from 1,500,000 to 1,750,000 pounds annually, a sum more than equal to a dividend on fifty millions of consols; but it is impossible to compute the profit to the human race from that expenditure and the work it maintains. This may be said with certainty, that other Churches have been greatly enriched thereby. We may just refer to that remarkable religious movement, the Salvation Army, of Methodist origin, though working on new lines; doing such work, social and evangelistic, as Methodism has chosen for its own, and absorbing into its ranks many of our own trained workers. "The Salvationists, taught by Wesley," said the late Bishop of Durham, "have learned and taught to the Church again the lost secret of the compulsion of human souls to the Saviour."
"The Methodists themselves," says John Richard Green, "are the least result of the Methodist revival"; the creation of "a large and powerful and active sect," numbering many millions, extending over both hemispheres, was, says Lecky, but one consequence of that revival, which exercised "a large influence upon the Established Church, upon the amount and distribution of the moral forces of the nation, and even upon its political history"; an influence which continues, the sons of Methodism taking their due part in local and imperial government. Eloquent tributes to the work of Wesley are frequent to-day, the _Times_, in an article on the centenary of his death, saying: "The Evangelical movement in the Church of England was the direct result of his influence and example, and since the movements and ideas which have moulded the Church of England to-day could have found no fitting soil for their development if they had not been preceded by the Evangelical movement, it is no paradox to say that the Church of England to-day is what it is because John Wesley lived and taught in the last century.... He remains the greatest, the most potent, the most far-reaching spiritual influence which Anglo-Saxon Christianity has felt since the days of the Reformation." So far the _Times_, of him whom it styles "the restorer of the Church of England." Many impartial writers, some being ardent friends of the English Church, have also recognised a gracious overflow from Methodism which has blessed that Church, the Nonconformist bodies, and the nation at large. If a man would understand "the religious history of the last hundred years," that "most important ecclesiastical fact of modern times," the rise and progress of Methodism, must be studied in relation to the Anglican and the older Nonconformist Churches, and the general "missionary interests of Christianity": so we are taught by Dr. Stoughton, who has traced the influence of Methodism in the general moral condition of the country and the voluntary inst.i.tutions of our age. The doctrines once almost peculiar to Wesley and his followers--such as entire sanctification--are now accepted and taught by many Churches, and the religious usages of Methodism are imitated, watchnight services being held, and revival mission services and prayer-meetings being conducted, in Anglican churches; while the hymns of Charles Wesley, sung by all English-speaking Protestants, and translated into many languages, enrich the devotional life of the Christian world.
It was a fit tribute to the benefits which the English Church has derived from the Methodist movement, when the memorial tablet to the brothers John and Charles Wesley was unveiled in Westminster Abbey by the late Dean Stanley, in 1872.
"The bracing breezes," said Dr. Stoughton, "came sweeping down from the hills of Methodism on Baptist meadows as well as upon Independent fields." We may give some few instances that will show what blessings have come to Nonconformist Churches by the agency of Methodism.
A remarkable incident that occurred in 1872 was recorded in the _Wesleyan Methodist Magazine_. Dr. Jobson had invited five eminent ministers to meet the President of Conference at his house. After breakfast their conversation quite naturally took the form of a lovefeast, all being familiar with Methodist custom; when Dr. Allon, Dr. Raleigh, and Dr. Stoughton all said they were converted in Methodist chapels, and began Christian work as Methodists. Thomas Binney said that "the direct instrumentality in his conversion was Wesleyan," and Dr. Fraser was induced to enter the ministry by a Wesleyan lady. Charles H. Spurgeon was converted through the instrumentality of a Primitive Methodist local preacher; William Jay of Bath was converted at a Methodist service; John Angell James caught fire among the Methodists; and Thomas Raffles was a member of the Wesleyan Society; Dr. Parker began his ministrations as a Methodist local preacher; while Dr. Dale has shown the indebtedness of Nonconformity to Methodism. In France and Germany Methodist agency has been one of the strongest forces in re-awakening the old Protestant Churches; the services held by our Connexional evangelists send many converts to swell the fellowship of Churches not our own.
And the same effects followed the great Methodist revival in America; out of 1,300 converts, 800 joined the Presbyterian and other denominations. But while calling attention to the spiritual wealth and the beneficent overflow of Methodism, we would not be unmindful of the debt which Methodism owes to other Churches, and in special of its obligations to those Anglican divines of our day who have enriched the whole Church of Christ by their scholarly contributions to sacred literature; and we would ascribe all the praise of Methodist achievement to the almighty Author of good, whom the spirit of ostentation and vain glorifying must displease, while it would surely hinder His work.
The great desire of Methodism to-day--its great need, as Dr. Handles expressed it in his presidential address--is "fulness of spiritual life." If this be attained, the actual resources of the Church will amply suffice to carry on its glorious future mission; it will not fail in its primary duties of giving prominence to the spirituality of religion, of maintaining strict fidelity to scriptural doctrine, of giving persevering ill.u.s.tration of the fellowship of believers, nor in upholding the expansion of home and foreign missions, nor in ceaseless efforts to promote social advancement. "There is no rigid system of Church mechanism, nor restraining dogma," to hinder missions.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Group of Presidents Number Three.]
At present four-sevenths of the human race are in heathen darkness.
To win the world for Christ demands that Methodists should unite with all His true soldiers. Wesley said: "We have strong reason to hope that the work He hath begun He will carry on until the day of the Lord Jesus; that He will never intermit this blessed work of His Spirit until He has fulfilled all His promises, until He hath put a period to sin and misery, infirmity and death, re-established universal holiness and happiness, and caused all the inhabitants of the earth to sing, "Alleluia: for the Lord G.o.d omnipotent reigneth.""
If Methodism be faithful to her mission, this prophecy may be fulfilled.
When the second temple was built, Haggai exhorted Zerubbabel and Joshua to be strong, and all the people to be strong, and to work, for the Lord was with them. Let Methodists be strong in G.o.d"s strength, and work with the consciousness that the Lord of hosts is with them, and they will insure success to the great mission of their Church.
We will conclude with the last paragraph of the Rev. Charles H.
Kelly"s sermon at the celebration of the centenary of Wesley"s death in 1891.
"Surely the lesson to the Methodists of to-day is clear enough. Let us cherish the memory of our forefathers, let us emulate their spirit, let us cling to their G.o.d-given doctrines, let us cultivate, as they did, communion with the Master and fellowship with each other. Let us aim to be one, to do our duty. Let us strive to make our Church a greater power for evangelism among the people of the earth than ever, let us look to the Holy Spirit for the richer baptism of grace, and Methodism, so blest of the Lord in the past, will yet be blest. Her mission is not accomplished, her work is not done; long may she live and prosper. Peace be within her walls, and prosperity within her palaces. For my brethren and companions" sake, the faithful living and the sainted dead, I will now say, Peace be within her; peace be within her."
CONCLUSION.
The last days of the half-century are fleeting fast as we write, and we are yet at peace with Europe, as when Victoria"s reign began. How long that peace shall last, who shall say? who can say how long it may be ere the elements of internal discord that have threatened to wreck the prosperity of the empire, shall be composed to a lasting peace, and leave the nation free to follow its better destiny? But foes within and foes without have many times a.s.sailed us in vain in past years; many times has the political horizon been shadowed with clouds portending war and strife no less gloomily than those which now darken it, and as yet the Crimean war is the only war on which we have entered that can be called European; many times have grave discontents broken our domestic peace, but wise statesmanship has found a timely remedy. We need not, if we learn the lessons of the past aright, fear greatly to confront the future. Not to us the glory or the praise, but to a merciful overruling Providence, ever raising up amongst us n.o.ble hearts in time, that we are found to-day