not? And before any person entered into one of these bands, a promise of the most unreserved openness was required. "Consider, do you desire we should tell you whatsoever we think, whatsoever we fear, whatsoever we hear, concerning you? Do you desire that, in doing this, we should come as close as possible that we should cut to the quick, and search your heart to the bottom? Is it your desire and design to be on this, and all other occasions, entirely open, so as to speak every thing that is in your heart without exception, without disguise, and without reserve?" The nature, and the inevitable tendency of this mutual inquisition, must be obvious to every reflecting mind; and it is marvellous, that any man should have permitted his wife or his daughter to enter into these bands, where it is not possible for innocence to escape contaminationt.

The institution of the select society or band was not liable to the same objection. This was to consist of persons who were earnestly athirst for the full image of God, and of those who continually walked in the light of God, having fellowship with the Father and the Son: in other words, of those who had attained to such a degree of spiritual pride, that they professed to be in this state, the adepts of Methodism, who were not ashamed to take their degree as

*Wesley has himself recorded an instance of mischief atising from these bands. "I searched to the bottom," says he, "a story I had heard in part, and found it another tale of real wo. Two of our society had lived together in uncommon harmony, when one, who met in band with E. F., to whom she had mentioned that she had found a temptation toward Dr. F., went and told her husband she was in love with him, and that she had it from her own mouth. The spirit of jealousy seized him in a moment, and utterly took away his reason. And some one telling him his wife was at Dr. F.'s, on whom she had called that afternoon, he took a great stick, and ran away, and meeting her in the street, called out Strumpet! strumpet! and struck her twice or thrice. He is now thoroughly convinced of her innocence; but the water cannot be gathered up again. He sticks there-'I do thoroughly forgive you, but I can never love you more."" After such an example, Wesley ought to have abolished this part of his institutions.

In one of his letters Wesley says, "I believe Miss F. thought she felt evil before she did. and, by that very thought, gave occasion to its re-entrance." And yet he did not perceive the danger of leading his people into temptation. by making them recur to every latent thought of evil; and compelling them to utter, with their lips, imaginations which might otherwise have been suppressed within their hearts for ever!

perfect. "I saw," says Mr. Wesley, "it might be useful to give some advice to those who thus continued in the light of God's countenance, which the rest of their brethren did not want, and probably could not receive. My design was not only to direct them how to press after perfection, to exercise their every grace, and improve every talent they had received, and to incite them to love one another more, and to watch more carefully over each other; but also to have a select company, to whom I might unbosom myself on all occasions, without reserve; and whom I could propose, to all their brethren, as patterns of love, of holiness, and of all good works. They had no need of being encumbered with many rules, having the best rule of all in their hearts." Neverthe

less, the judicious injunction was given them, that nothing which was spoken at their meetings should be spoken again. Wesley says, he often felt the advantage of these meetings, and experienced there, that, in the multitude of counsellors there is safety. But they placed the untenable doctrine of perfection in so obtrusive and obnoxious a light, that he found it difficult to maintain them; and they seem not to have become a regular part of the system.

The watch-night was another of Wesley's objectionable institutions. It originated with some reclaimed colliers of Kingswood, who, having been ac customed to sit late on Saturday nights at the alehouse, transferred their weekly meeting, after their conversion, to the school-house, and continued there praying and singing hymns, far into the morning. Wesley was advised to put an end to this; but," upon weighing the thing thoroughly, and comparing it with the practice of the ancient Christians," he could see no cause to forbid it; because he overlooked the difference between their times and his own, and shut his eyes to the obvious impropriety of midnight meetings. So he appointed them to be held once a month, near the time of full moon. "Exceedingly great,' says he," are the blessings we have found therein; it has generally been an extremely solemn season. when the word of God sunk deep into the hearts even

of those who till then knew him not. If it be said, this was only owing to the novelty of the thing, (the circumstance which still draws such multitudes together at those seasons,) or perhaps to the awful stillness of the night, I am not careful to answer in this matter. Be it so however, the impression then made on many souls has never since been effaced. Now, allowing that God did make use either of the novelty, or any other indifferent circumstance, in order to bring sinners to repentance, yet they are brought, and herein let us rejoice together. Now, may I not put the case further yet? If I can probably conjecture, that either by the novelty of this ancient custom, or by any other indifferent circumstance, it is in my power to save a soul from death, and hide a multitude of sins, am I clear before God if I do not? If I do not snatch that brand out of the burning?"

The practice which Wesley thus revived had been discountenanced, even in the most superstitious Catholic countries, for its inconvenience, and its manifest ill tendency; and therefore it had long been disused. While the converts to his doctrine retained the freshness of their first impression, watch-nights served to keep up the feeling to the pitch at which he wished to maintain it; and if any person, who was almost a Methodist, attended one of these meetings, the circumstances were likely to complete his conversion. For the sake of these advantages, Wesley disregarded the scandal which this part of his institutions was sure to occasion; and he seems not to have considered the effect among his own people, when their first fervour should have abated, and the vigils be attended as a mere formality. He also appointed three love-feasts in a quarter: one for the men, a second for the women, and the third for both together; "that we might together eat bread," he says, "as the ancient Christians did, with gladness and singleness of heart. At these love-feasts (so we termed them, retaining the name, as well as the thing, which was in use from the beginning,) our food is only a little plain cake and water; but we seldom

return from them without being fed not only with the meat which perisheth, but with that which endureth to everlasting life." A travelling preacher presides at these meetings: any one who chooses may speak ; and the time is chiefly employed in relating what they call their Christian experience. In this point, also, Mr. Wesley disregarded the offence which he gave, by renewing a practice that had notoriously been abolished, because of the abuses to which it led.

It cannot be supposed that a man of his sagacity should have overlooked the objections to which such meetings as the watch-nights and the love-feasts were obnoxious: his temper led him to despise and to defy public opinion; and he saw how well these practices accorded with the interests of Methodism as a separate society. It is not sufficient for such a society that its members should possess a calm, settled principle of religion to be their rule of life and their support in trial: religion must be made a thing of sensation and passion, craving perpetually for sympathy and stimulants, instead of bringing with it peace and contentment. The quiet regularity of domestic devotion must be exchanged for public performances; the members are to be professors of religion; they must have a part to act, which will at once gratify the sense of self-importance, and afford employment for the uneasy and restless spirit with which they are possessed. Wesley complained that family religion was the grand desideratum among the Methodists; but, in reality, his institutions were such as to leave little time for it, and to take away the inclination, by making it appear flat and unprofitable after the excitement of class-meetings, band-meetings, love-feasts, and midnight assemblies.

Whenever a chapel was built, care was taken that it should be settled on the Methodist plan; that is, that the property should be vested, not in trustees, but in Mr. Wesley and the Conference. The usual form among the dissenters would have been fatal to the general scheme of Methodism; "because," said Wesley," wherever the trustees exert the power of placing and displacing preachers, there itinerant

preaching is no more. When they have found a preacher they like, the rotation is at an end; at least till they are tired of him, and turn him out. While he stays, the bridle is in his mouth. He would not dare speak the full and the whole truth; since, if he displeased the trustees, he would be liable to lose his bread; nor would he dare expel a trustee, though ever so ungodly, from the society. The power of the trustees is greater than that of any patron, or of the king himself, who could put in a preacher, but could not put him out." Thus he argued, when a chapel at Birstall had been erroneously settled upon trustees; and the importance of the point was felt so strongly by the Conference, that it was determined, in case these persons would not allow the deed to be cancelled, and substitute one upon the Methodist plan, to make a collection throughout the society, for the purpose of purchasing ground, and building another chapel as near the one in question as possible.

Wesley never wished to have any chapel or burialground consecrated; such ceremonies he thought relics of popery, and flatly superstitious. The impossibility of having them consecrated, led him, perhaps, to consider the ceremony in this light, at a time when he had not proceeded so far as to exercise any ecclesiastical function, for which he was not properly authorized. The buildings themselves were of the plainest kind: it was difficult to raise money* even for these; but Mr. Wesley had the

*The history of one of these chapels, at Sheerness, is curious. "It is now finished," says Wesley, in his Journal for 1786, "but by means never heard of. The building was undertaken, a few months since, by a little handful of men, without any probable means of finishing it: but God so moved the hearts of the people in the dock, that even those who did not pretend to any religion, carpenters, shipwrights, labourers, ran up at all their vacant hours, and worked with all their might, without any pay. By these means a large square house was soon elegantly finished, both within and without. And it is the neatest building, next to the new chapel in London, of any in the south of England."

A meeting-house at Haslinden, in Lancashire, was built for them on speculation, by a person not connected with the society in any way. He desired only three per cent. for what he laid out, (about 8001.) provided the seats let for so much; of which, says Wesley, there is little doubt. This was in 1783.