travelling expenses (Tyerman, iii. 615), but his income from his publications was by this time considerable, and was all spent on purposes of religion and charity. By the sale of cheap books and tracts for the people, he says (1789), ‘I unawares became rich.’ When he thought himself dying in 1753, and wrote his own epitaph, he made a point of his ‘not leaving, after his debts are paid, ten pounds behind him.’ To the commissioners of excise in 1776 he gravely returned the amount of his plate as ‘two silver teaspoons at London, and two at Bristol.’ His charities often exceeded 1,000l. a year (Tyerman, iii. 616).
His journal of missionary travel would serve as a guide-book to the British Isles, and is replete with romantic incident and graphic pictures of life and manners. Forty-two times (from 1747) he crossed the Irish Sea (the first Irish conference was held at Limerick on 14 Aug. 1752). A mission tour in Holland was a recreation of his eightieth year. In Scotland, which he constantly visited (from 1751), his religious apart from his theological influence was greater than is generally allowed; in 1772 he received the freedom of the city of Perth (28 April) and the town of Arbroath (6 May). He was several times in the Isle of Man, and rejoiced to find there neither papist nor dissenter, but would have made an end of the Manx language. That he encountered much rough and even violent usage was a consequence of his determination to reach the lowest stratum of the population and compel a hearing. His perception that his ‘building materials’ (Tyerman, iii. 325) were to be found in the neglected classes was justified by results. More has been made of his exclusion from churches than the facts warrant. As the real nature of his movement became apparent, prejudice declined (see the instructive story regarding Richard Cordeux, of St. Saviour's, York, Tyerman, ii. 571).
Secker admirably describes Wesley's aim as ‘labouring to bring all the world to solid, inward, vital religion’ (Moore, ii. 475). Throughout his work he was the educator and the social reformer as well as the evangelist. His brother Charles said of him that he was ‘naturally and habitually a tutor, and would be so to the end of the chapter’ (Hampson, iii. 37). He found ‘more profit in sermons on either good tempers, or good works, than in what are vulgarly called gospel sermons’ (Works, xiii. 34). His ‘Christian Library’ (1749–55) in fifty handy volumes (‘if angels were to write books, we should have very few folios,’ Arminian Magazine, 1781, pref.) gave the cream of English practical divinity. With amazing industry and versatility he provided his followers with manuals of history, civil and religious, physics, medicine, philology (including ‘the best English Dictionary in the world’), abridging Milton to suit their capacity, and condensing for their use a novel, ‘The Fool of Quality’ (1766), by Henry Brooke (1703?–1783) [q. v.] (see anecdote in Everett, Adam Clarke, 1844, ii. 83). The marriages, dress, diet, and sanitary arrangements of his community were matters of his constant vigilance, along with the care of the poor, a system of loans for the struggling, provision for orphans, institution of Sunday schools (in which he was one of the first followers of Robert Raikes [q. v.]). It must be owned that, with the exception of Thomas Tryon [q. v.], no educator had a worse system with children; they were neither to ‘play nor cry’ (Gordon, Christian Developments, 1853, p. 110); Tryon would not let them even laugh. Wesley's treatise on medicine, ‘Primitive Physic,’ was published in 1747, reached its twentieth edition in 1781, and its thirty-sixth in 1840. It contains definitions of diseases, followed by prescriptions for their cure, many of which are taken from the writings of Sydenham, Dover, Mead, Cheyne, Lind, and Boerhaave. The only efficient remedy for ague, chinchona bark, is omitted as ‘extremely dangerous,’ while onions, groundsel, frankincense, yarrow, and cobwebs are prescribed. In the edition of 1760 and thenceforward the use of electricity is recommended in several diseases.
By 1763 Wesley was practically the only itinerating clergyman, and the need of clerical provision for his societies began to be acutely felt. His lay preachers were ready for separation as early as the conference of 1755. The celebration of the eucharist by lay preachers had already begun at Norwich in 1760, while Wesley was in Ireland [see Wesley, Charles]. Earlier than this he said to Charles (19 Oct. 1754) ‘We have in effect ordained already,’ and ‘was inclined to lay on hands’ (Tyerman, ii. 202). Maxfield, who quitted Wesley in 1763, had been ordained by William Barnard [q. v.], bishop of Derry, ‘to assist that good man, that he may not work himself to death’ (Journal, 23 April 1763). His place as Wesley's London assistant was taken by John Richardson, a curate from Sussex. In April 1764 Wesley projected in vain a union of methodist clergy; the Calvinists held aloof. In and about November 1764, Wesley obtained ordination for several of his preachers from a certain Erasmus, bishop
