I, School and College Life. — When Wesley was in his eleventh year, the patronage of the duke of Bucking- ham secured his admission to the Charterhouse School, London, of which Dr. Thomas Walker was then master. and the Rev. Andrew Tooke, author of the Pantheon, usher. To such a grave and gentle-mannered boy as was this poor son of a village rector, his removal from the peaceful rectory and the companionship of his firm but loving mother to the cloisters of a large " founda- tion" school, and to forced association with numerous rude boys, whose cruelty to their juniors was equal to their thoughtlessness, must have been a very sore trial ; but he stood it bravely, and soon won a very high rep-
utation for good behavior, devotion to study, and supe- rior scholarship. When sixteen years old he was elect- ed to Christ Church College, Oxford. Here he pursued his studies with the same exemplary diligence as at the Charterhouse, So highly were his classical attain- ments esteemed by the heads of the university that he was elected fellow of Lincoln College, March 17, 1726, He was then but twenty-three years of age, yet such was his reputation as a classical scholar, a tlioughtful and polished writer, and a skilful logician that he was chosen Greek lecturer and moderator of the classes only eight months after his election to a fellowship, and be- fore he had proceeded master of arts, to which academic honor he was admitted in February, 1727,
II, Ordination and Work in America. — After much hesitation, caused by grave doubts as to whether the ministry of the Gospel was his proper vocation, Wesley had sought and obtained ordination as a deacon by the hands of bishop Potter in September, 1725, The same prelate ordained him priest in 1728. From 1725 to 1729 his time was spent partly at Epworth, as his father's curate, and ])artly at Oxford; but in the latter year his college authorities insisting on his residence at Oxford, he returned thither and devoted himself to the duties of his fellowship. In 1735, on the death of his father, he was strongly urged by his relatives to take the nec- essary steps for securing the vacant Epworth rectorship. Believing that he could be more useful at Oxford than at Epworth, he only yielded to the wishes of his friends so far as to make an indirect application for the living (Tyerman, Wesley, i, 102, 103). He was probably pleased to learn that it was given to another. Yet in t)ctober of the same year his convictions respecting his duty to remain at Oxford were so modified that he was per- suaded to go with general (fglethorpe as a missionary to Georgia.
Wesley spent two years and almost four months in Georgia, faithfully preaching to the colonists; but find- ing no opportunity to reach the Indians, as he had hoped to do, and seeing but scant fruit from his labors in Savannah and adjacent settlements, he returned to England in 1738. His ascetic habits, his extreme rit- ualistic practices, his rigid administration of Church dis- cipline, his vigorous method of dealing with prevailing vices in the pulpit, and his highly cultivated and re- fined nature were not suited to win the sympathy of those rude, self-seeking colonists. Had his character and preaching been softened by that evangelical expe- rience which he subsequently obtained, his missionary work in America would probably have been more pro- ductive. Nevertheless, it was eminently beneficial to himself; and after his departure the people of Savan- nah, reflecting on what he had said and done among them, generally admitted his great worth, and lamented his absence as a serious loss to the colony.
Wesley was now nearly thirty-five years of age, and, except in academic circles at Oxford, was almost an unknown man. No signs of the great celebrity to which he was destined had yet appeared ; but his hour was at hand. He was about to receive that spiritual baptism which was the pivotal fact in his career, but for which it is quite probable he would have spent his life in the gratification of his scholastic tastes, quietly performing the duties of his fellowship within the walls of Lincoln College, at Oxford, Wesley's special work was the fruit of his religious experience, to which we will now direct the reader's attention,
HI, His Reliffious Erperience. — From his earliest childhood Wesley was uncommonly susceptible to re- ligious impressions. He was reverential, conscientious, reflective, and grave, far beyond his years. These qual- ities were developed by the religious atmosphere which pervaded the Epworth rectory, by the methodical in- struction and judicious training of his affectionate and highly gifted mother, and by the influence of his learn- ed and devoui father. Reared in this home, consecrated to the domestK affections, to intellectual culture, and to
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spiritual pursuits, his mind and heart drank in the sweet intlucncesof tlie spirit of truth so precociously that his father, impressed by the consistency of liis child- life, admitted him to the communion when he Avas only eight years old. And he himself declared that " until I was about ten years old I had not sinned away that washing of the H0I3' Ghost which was given me in baptism."
When he was sent to the Charterhouse School, he was like a plant suddenly removed from the genial warmth of a greenhouse to the cold air of an unshel- tered garden. The form of religion was maintained in its halls, but the spiritual atmosphere and the personal guidance to which he had been accustomed were not there. Hence the piety of his childhood wilted. lie still adhered to the outward duties of religion, but his heart lost the consolations of the Spirit; and though he avoided scandalous sins, he fell into practices which his conscience condemned.