English Landmarks of Religion page 2

From that time forward John Wesley was a dedicated spirit, and the whole course of his life bore witness to the greatness and genuineness of the change which had come over him. He and his brother Charles began to preach their new-found Gospel wherever pulpits were open to them. After a time, under the influence and following the example of Whitefield, they took to field preaching, and in this way reached great masses of the common people who at that time were outside all religious influences and often sunk in ignorance and vice. The effect these men produced was tremendous. Though the preaching was often accompanied by wild hysterical and emotional outbursts, it had definite results in real conversions and in raising the moral tone of the whole country.

Wesley's labours were prodigious. He travelled the whole length and breadth of the country, and wherever he went left a trail of real converts behind him. He showed, too, a genius for organization, gathering his converts into societies and so giving order and permanence to his work. His firm intention was to keep it all inside and under the aegis of the established Church. But time soon showed that this was impossible. Many of the clergy were indifferent or hostile, and Wesley found himself obliged to ordain or set apart his own men for the work. This made the breach with Anglicanism complete and lost the Church a great opportunity. Accordingly, much against John Wesley's will, Methodism thus became Nonconformist.

Wesley was greatly helped in all his work by his brother Charles, whose hymns, more than two thousand in number, did much to frame both the devotion and the theology of the movement. Another ally was George Whitefield, probably the most remarkable preacher this country has ever seen. An Anglican and a Calvinist, he was yet entirely free from the sectarian spirit, and his preaching of God's forgiving grace and of peace through believing profoundly influenced religious life and thought both in this country and in America, which he visited.

The revival brought about by the work of these men was effective far beyond the borders of Methodism itself. Wesley was the, more influential among the Anglicans, and his work gave a great impulse to the Evangelical movement in the Established Church associated with the names of Newton, Scott, Cowper, Hannah More and Wilberforce. Whitefield was more influential with the Nonconformists, and although their leaders at first looked askance at the Revival it did succeed in breathing new life into the very dry bones of eighteenth-century Dissent.

From the impulse thus given arose the great philanthropic work of Howard and Wilberforce, the founding of Sunday Schools by Robert Raikes, the founding of the Religious Tract and Bible Societies, and the vast enterprise of Foreign Missions. The revival was justified by its works.

The next great landmark in English religious life was the Anglo-Catholic revival at Oxford led by Newman, Hurrell Froude, Keble and Pusey. The first three, all members of Oriel College, were the founders of the movement. Pusey came into it after the publication of some of the Tracts for the Times, and, when Newman seceded, was its chief leader.

The movement sprang out of a double reaction- against the supposed rationalism of men like Coleridge, Arnold and Maurice on the one hand, and Political Liberalism on the other. It took the form of a romantic revival of Patristic and medieval thought and practice. It exalted the Church, the priesthood and the sacraments, Ubi ecclesia ibi salus. The Church was constituted by a priesthood in lineal succession to the Apostles and therefore the sole ministers of valid sacraments. This clear-cut doctrine of Church, sacraments and salvation was and is widely attractive. Newman was its most skilful advocate, and his wonderful sermons did much to commend it. Even his secession could not quite kill it. Pusey stepped into the breach, and he and many others adorned their doctrine by the devotion of their lives and their splendid ministry to the poor.

Like early Methodism, Anglo-Catholicism was cradled in holiness and derived much of its strength from its fine spirit of service and self-sacrifice. For a time it saved the Church of England and proved a real revival of religion by faith and works.

It found its parallel in the practical application of Christianity which characterised all the Churches during the nineteenth century. Nonconformity, gradually relieved of all its disabilities, grew apace and devoted itself more and more to missionary effort and educational and social reform. The founding of the Salvation Army by William Booth drew attention to the needs of the submerged tenth of the populations of the large towns and set an example of social service which was greatly needed and has been widely followed. In spite of their many faults, the Churches of all denominations of this period have no need to shrink from the test " By their fruits ye shall know them."

In the first quarter of the twentieth century the religious condition of the country seems at first sight to be one of confusion, reaction and decline. But there are forces at work of a positive and constructive kind which are big with promise for the future. It is a seed time essentially, and the harvest is not yet. Conspicuous among these new features is the movement towards Christian reunion. The Free Churches have come together in a very remarkable way and may be said to have practically attained the ideal of unity amid diversity.

The Anglican Church, too, has moved. The Lambeth Conference of 1920 took up an entirely new position in recognizing the Free Churches as Churches and their ministers as real ministers of the Word and sacraments. That this admission has not yet been followed up to its logical conclusions is due mainly to the desire on the part of Anglo-Catholics to do nothing which might make union with Rome more difficult.