Wesleyan Methodists
1T39
ITOT
ISIO
1S1C>
1S15
lS-iS-i9
1849
3,1.57 207 2G0 943 S5 2.'>4 312 20
557,995
5S.577 35; 706 161,229 14,247 20,241 68,063 9.393
776,522 about 80,000 about 50,000
258,857
about 20,000
44, •.'■21
152,315 18.475
New- Connection Methodists
Primitive Methodists
Pi-i luiti ve (Iiehuul) Methodists
Bii)le ( •Iiii>ti;ins
United :\reth(Hlist Free Cliin-ches
Totals
■5,238
931,450
1,400,390
Denomination.
Date of Org;,anization.
Number of Ministers.
Number of
Church Members.
Number of
Sunday-school
Scholars.
1784
1808
1800
ISOO
1816
1819
1828
18.54 ?
1828
1830
1843
1S44
1S60
10,742 624
'632 600 694
'iii
228
423
about 250
2,S5S
about 90
about 20
17,308
1,458,441 75,000
78,710
20,000
164,000
09,597
16,118
21,103
60,000
20,000
600,9(10
6,000
2.000
2,.591,875
1,267,742
6!Ui2 18,706
300,523 1,656,143
Methodist Church (Non-Episcopal)
United Brethren
African Methodist Episcopal (Zion)
Canada Wesleyans
Eastern British American Wesleyan Methodi.'-ts
Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada
Methodist Protest ants. South
Methodist Episcopal Church, South (in 1871)t
Free Methodists
Primitive Methodists
Totals
■ This does not include t
I membership now separately organized as the Colored MeUtodisi Episcopal Church, South,
METHODISM
160
METHODISM
exercised a potent and beneficial influence upon other ■ churelies : Episcopal, Presbyterian, Independent, and Ba])tist churches have all been largely indebted to Methodism, either directly or indirectly, for many of the best ministers and agents they have ever had. It is a remarkable fact that, during SVesley's life-time, of the C'.H) men who acted under him as itinerant preachers, 24'J relinquished the itiiierant ministry. These 249 ?•<■- tirers included not a few of the most intelligent, ener- getic, pious, and useful preachers that Wesley had. tjome left him on the ground of health ; others began business, because as itinerant preachers they were una- ble to support their wives and families; but a large pro- portion became ordained ministers in other churches. In some instances, the labors of these men, and tlieir brother ^lethodists, led to marvellous residts. To give but one example : David Taylor, originally a servant of lady Himtingdon, was one of Wesley's first preachers, but afterwards left the work. Taylor, however, was the means of converting Samuel Deacon, an agricultural la- borer; and the two combined were the instruments, in the hands of (iod, in raising up a number of churches in Yorkshire and the midland counties, which, in 1770, were organized into the New Connection of General Baptists; and tliat connection seventy years after- ■wards, in 1810, comprised 113 churches, having 11,358 members, a foreign missionary society, and two theo- logical academies" {^[«thodist Miif/azine [185G], p. 335).
Simday-schools arc bow an important appendage of every church, and have been a benefit to millions of immortal souls; but it deserves to be mentioned that Hannah Ball, a young Methodist lady, had a Methodist Siniday-school at High Wycombe fourteen years before I-iobert IJaikes began his at Gloucester; and that So- phia Cooke, another j\Iethodist, who afterwards became the wife of Samuel Uradburn, was the first who suggest- ed to Kr.ikes the Sunday-school idea, and actually marched with him, at the head of his troop of ragged urchins, the first Sunday they were taken to the parish church.
Tlie first British Bible Society that existed, "The Naval and Jlilitary," was projected by George Cussons, and organi/,('(l liy a small number of his IMethodist com- panions. The I^dudon Missionary Society (iriginatcd in an ai)]i('al from ^Iclvillc Morne, wlio for some years was one of Wesley's itinerant preachers, and then became the successor of Fletcher as vicar of Madeley. The Church j\Iissionary Society was started by John Venn, the son of Henry Yeim, tlie Methodist clergyman. The first Tract Society was formed by John Wesley and Thomas Coke in 1782, seventeen years before the or- ganization of the present great Religious Tract Society in Paternoster Bow — a society, by the way, which was instituted chietiy by Rowland Hill, and two or three other Cilvinislic ]\Icthodist3. It is believed that the first Dispensary ihaK the world ever had was foinided Ity Wesley himself in connection with the old Poundery, in Moorfields. The Strangers' Friend Society, paying every year from forty to fifty thousand visits to the sick poor of I^)ndon, and relieving them as far as possi- ble, is an institution to which Methodism gave birth in 178.-).
Building churches is one of the great features of the age. rnfortiniately, England has had no religious wor- ship census since 1851; but even then, according to the tables of Horace Jlann, IVIcthodism had, in ICngland and Wales oidy, 1 1,835 places of worship, with 2,2.'!1.017 sittings. In America, according to the census of ]8(;o, j\Iethodism nine years ago provided church accommoda- tion for (>,2.")0,79'.), wliich was two an<l a (piarter millions more than was provided by any other Church what- ever.
The public press is one of the most powerful institu- tions of the day. England has four Methodist newspa- pers; Ireland, one; France, one; Germany, one; India, one; China, one; Australia, two; Canada and British America, five; and the United States about fifty.
VI. Ouf growth in Missionary Labors. 1. Tn English, or chiefly so. — Methodism was from its very inception a missionary movement, domestic and foreign. It initi- ated, so to speak, both the spirit and plan of modern English mission work. Protestant England had mani- fested but a faint interest in this species of Christian la- bor until the birth of ;Methodism, and tlie spirit of life may be said to have been breathed into English nnssion- ary societies by iSIcthodism. Nor need this astonish us. The Church of F^ngland recognised as its field the terri- tory lield by the Anglican throne ; cold and almost life- less at home, the residents in the colonics and other de- pendencies received but little religious care. Methodism, the outgrowth of a reawakened zeal for holy living, sought its fields not only in England and Ireland, but manifested early a strong desire for the spread of the Gosjiel into all parts. To this end Dr. Thomas Coke, in 178(>, issued "An Address to the Pious and Benevolent, proposing an Annual Subscription for tlie Support of ilissionarics in the Highlands and adjacent Islands of Scotland, the Isles of Jersey, (iuernsey, and Newfoundland, the West Indies, and the I'rovinces of Nova Scotia and (Quebec;" and in the year following the Wcsleyan missions bore the distinctive title of "Missions established by the Methodist Society." Even before this organization had been effected, missionary labors were put forth in behalf of the residents of the West Indies. In 1791 ^It lliodif m reached out its hand after France, and its great schemes to Christianize Africa were brought to trial as early as 1811. In Asia labor was commenced in 1814; in Aus- tralasia in 1815; in Polynesia in 1822; until, from the first call of Wesley for American evangelists, in the Conference of 1769, down to our day, we see the grand enterprise reaching to the shores of Sweden, to Germa- ny, France, and the Upper Alps; to Gibraltar and Jlal- ta ; to the banks of the Gambia, to Sierra Leone, and to the (iold Coast; to the Cape of Good Hope; to Cey- lon, to India, and to China; to the colonists and ab- original trii)es of Australia ; to New Zealand, and the Friendly and Fiji Islands; to the islands of the western as well as of the southern hemisi)here; and from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Puget's Sound (comp. Alder, Wcshyan Mhsions [Loud. 1842], p. 4). From 1803 to the present time AVesleyan Methodism has contributed more than twenty millions of dollars for foreign evan- gelization. In England the Wesleyan Society to-day enrolls more communicants in its mission churches than all other British missionary societies comliined. The historian of religion during the last and present centu- ries would find it dilHcult to point to a more magnificent monument of Christianity.