was less successful: it was asked, in the Conference of 1782, if it were well for the preachers to powder their hair, and to wear artificial curis? and the answer merely said, that "to abstain from both is the more excellent way." A direct prohibition was not thought advisable, because it would not have been willingly obeyed.

Cards, dancing, and the theatres were, of course, forbidden to his disciples. Not contented with such reasons as are valid or plausible for the prohibition, they have collected superstitious anecdotes upon these subjects; and, in a spirit as presumptuous as it is uncharitable, have recorded tales of sudden death, as instances of God's judgment upon cardplayers and dancing-masters! Innocent was a word which Wesley would never suffer to be applied to any kind of pastime; for he had set his face against all diversions of any kind, and would not even allow the children at school to play. "Those things we have falsely called innocent," says one of his correspondents," are the right eye to be plucked out. If you were besieging strong enemies, and had no hope of conquering but by starving them, would it be innocent now and then to throw them a little bread ?" Wesley was in nothing more erroneous than in judging of others by himself, and requiring from them a constant attention to spiritual things, and that unremitting stretch of the faculties, which, to him, was become habitual. If he never flagged, it was because he was blessed, above all men, with a continual elasticity of spirits; because the strong motive of

plained of, as inconsistent with the opinions upon this subject which he had repeatedly professed: "Let every one, when he appears in public, be decently clothed, according to his age, and the custom of the place where he lives: he that does otherwise, seems to affect singularity. Nor is it sufficient that our garment be made of good cloth; but we should constrain ourselves to follow the garb where we reside, seeing custom is the law and standard of decency in all things of this nature." He paraphrases this in a subsequent number, in order to vindicate it; says that the author is speaking of people of rank; and, that he may get rid of the accusation with a jest, exhorts all lords of the bed-chamber, and maids of honour, to follow the advice. "The whole," says he, “may bear a sound construction, nor does it contradict any thing which I have said or written."

per

ambition was always acting upon him; because petual change of place kept his mind and body for ever on the alert; and because, wherever he went, his presence excited a stir among strangers, and made a festival among his friends. Daily change of scene and of society, with a life of activity and exertion, kept him in hilarity as well as health. But it was unreasonable to expect that his followers should have the same happy temperament.

Bishop Hacket's happy motto was, "Serve God, and be cheerful."-"Be serious," was one of Wesley's favourite injunctions. "Be serious;" it was said in the first Conference. "Let your motto be, Holiness to the Lord.' Avoid all lightness, as you would avoid hell-fire; and trifling, as you would cursing and swearing. Touch no woman: be as loving as you will, but the custom of the country is nothing to us*." When the two brothers, John and Charles, were in the first stage of their enthusiasm, they used to spend part of the Sabbath in walking in the fields, and singing psalms. One Sunday, when they were beginning to set the stave, a sense of the ridiculous situation came upon Charles, and he burst into a loud laughter. I asked him," says John, "if he was distracted, and began to be very angry, and presently after to laugh as loud as he. Nor could we possibly refrain, though we were ready to tear ourselves in pieces, but were forced to go home, without singing another line." Hysterical laughter, and that laughter which is as contagious as the act of yawning, when the company are in tune for it, Wesley believed to be the work of the devil,-one of the many points in which the parallel holds good between the enthusiasm of the Methodists and of the Papistst.

66

*This passage will not be found in the minutes of the Conference. It is given by Mr. Myles, in his Chronological History of the Methodists, (p. 31. 3d edition,) as a minute relative to practice. This authority will not be questioned, Mr. Myles being a travelling preacher himself, and a distinguished member of the Conference.

There is a grand diatribe of St. Pachomius against laughing. The beatified Jordan, second general of the Dominicans, treated an hysterical affection of this kind with a degree of prudence and practical wisdom, not often to be found in the life of a Romish saint. "Cum idem

He advised his preachers not to converse with any person more than an hour at a time; in general to fix the end of every conversation before they began; to plan it before hand; to pray before and after it, and to watch and pray during the time. In the same spirit of a monastic legislator also, but to a more practicable and useful end, he exhorted them to watch against what he called the lust of finishing; to mortify which, he and his companions at Oxford, he said, frequently broke off* writing in the middle of a sentence, if not in the middle of a word, especially the moment they heard the chapel bell ring. "If nature," said he, “reclaimed, we remembered the word of the heathenejicienda est hæc mollities animi." Could his rules have been enforced like those of his kindred spirits in the days of papal dominion, he also would have had his followers regular as clock-work, and as obedient, as uniform, and as artificial as they could have been made by the institutions of the Chinese

magister duceret secum multos novitios, quos receperat in quodam loco, ubi non erat conventus; accidit quod in quodam hospitio cum Completorium cum eis & aliis suis diceret, unus cæpit ridere; et alii hoc videntes similiter fortiter inceperunt ridere. Quidem autem de sociis magistri incepit eos per signa compescere; at illi magis ac magis ridebant. Tunc dimisso Completorio, et dicto benedicite, incepit magister dicere illi socio suo, Frater, quis fecit vos magistrum novitiorum nostrorum? Quid pertinet ad vos eos corrigere? Et conversus ad novitios dixit, carissimi ridete fortiter, et non dimittatis propter fratrem istum : ego do vobis licentiam. Et vere debetis gaudere et ridere, quia exivistis de carcere diaboli et fracta sunt dura vinculi illius, quibus multis annis tenuit vos ligatos. Ridete ergo, carissimi, ridete. At illa in his verbis consoluti sunt in animo; et post ridere dissolutè non potuerunt." Acta Sanctorum, 13 Feb. p. 734.

*St. David accustomed his monks to the same kind of alert discipline: if any one heard the bell ring while he was engaged in writing, be instantly left off, though it might be in the middle of a letter. Veniente autem vesper nola sonitus audiebatur, et quisque studium suum deserebat, et ad communitatem veniebat Si vero in auribus alicujus resonabat scripta tunc literæ apice vel etiam dimidi liter eam incompletam dimittebat, et ad communem locum conveniebat cum silentio.-Acta Sanctorum. March 1st Vol. i p. 46.

Stanihurst, in his description of Ireland, relates an instance of this in "an holie and learned abbot called Kanicus, 'who "was wholly wedded to his book and to devotion; wherein he continued so painful and diligent, as being on a certain time penning a serious matter, and having not fully drawn the fourth vocal, the abbey-bell ting d to assemble the convent to some spiritual exercise; to which he so hastened, as he left the letter in semi-circle-wise unfinished, until he returned back to his book."

empire, or the monastery of La Trappe. This was not possible, because obedience was a matter of choice: his disciples conformed no further than they thought good; dismissal was the only punishment which he could inflict, and it was always in their power to withdraw from the Connexion. Even his establishment at Kingswood failed of the effect which he had expected from it, though authority was not wanting there; because the system was too rigorous and too monastic for the age and country. The plan of making it a general school for the society was relinquished; but it was continued for the sons of the preachers, and became one of those objects for which the Conference regularly provided at their annual meeting. In the year 1766 he delivered over the management of it to stewards on whom he could depend: "So I have cast," said he, "a heavy load off my shoulders; blessed be God for able and faithful men who will do his work without any temporal reward." The superintendence he still retained; and it was a frequent cause of vexation to him. Maids, masters, and boys, were refractory, sometimes the one, sometimes the other, sometimes all together, so that he talked of letting the burthen drop On one occasion, he says, " Having told my whole mind to the masters and servants, I spoke to the children in a far stronger manner than ever I did before. I will kill or cure. I will have one or the other, a Christian school, or none at all." But the necessity of such an asylum induced him to persevere in it; and it was evidently, with all the gross errors of its plan, and all the trouble and chagrin which it occasioned, a favourite institution with the founder. 66 Trevecca," said he, "is much more to Lady Huntingdon than Kingswood is to me. I mixes with every thing. It is my college, my masters, my students. I do not speak so of this school. It is not mine, but the Lord's." Looking upon himself, however, as the vicegerent, the complacency with which he regarded the design, made amends to him for the frequent disappointment of his hopes. "Every man of sense," he said, "who read the rules, might con

clude that a school so conducted by men of piety and understanding would exceed any other school or academy in Great Britain or Ireland." And his amazing credulity whenever a work of grace was announced among the boys, was proof against repeated experience, as well as common sense. The boys were taken to see a corpse one day, and, while the impression was fresh upon them, they were lectured upon the occasion, and made to join in a hymn upon death. Some of them being very much affected, they were told that those who were resolved to serve God might go and pray together; and, accordingly, fifteen of them went, and, in Wesley's language, " continued wrestling with God, with strong cries and tears," till their bed-time. Wesley happened to be upon the spot. The excitement was kept up day after day, by what he calls "strong exhortations," and many gave in their names to him, being resolved, they said, to serve God. It was a wonder that the boys were not driven mad by the conduct of their instructors. These insane persons urged them never to rest till they had obtained a clear sense of the pardoning love of God. This advice they gave them severally, as well as collectively; and some of the poor children actually agreed that they would not sleep till God revealed himself to them, and they had found peace! The scene which ensued was worthy of Bedlam, and might fairly have entitled the promoters to a place there. One of the masters, finding that they had risen from bed, and were hard at prayer, some halfdressed and some almost naked, went and prayed and sung with them, and then ordered them to bed. It was impossible that they could sleep in such a state of delirium; they rose again, and went to the same work; and being again ordered to bed, again stole out. one after another, till, when it was near midnight, they were all at prayer again. The maids caught the madness, and were upon their knees with the children. This continued all night; and maids and boys went on raving and praying through the next day, till, one after another, they every one fancied at last, that they felt their justification! " In