THE LIFE OF WESLEY; AND THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF Methodism. BY ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq. POET LAUREATE, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL SPANISH ACADEMY, OF THE ROYAL SPANISH ACADEMY Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; THE SECOND EDITION. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LORD BACON. LONDON: PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW. METHODISM had now taken root in the land. Meeting-houses had been erected in various parts of the kingdom, and settled, not upon trustees, (which would have destroyed the unity of Wesley's scheme, by making the preachers dependent upon the people, as among the Dissenters,) but upon himself, the acknowledged head and sole director of the society which he had raised and organised. Funds were provided by a financial regulation so well devised, that the revenues would increase in exact proportion to the increase of the members. Assistant preachers were ready, in any number that might be required, whose zeal and activity compensated, in no slight degree, for their want of learning; and whose inferiority of rank and education disposed them to look up to Mr. Wesley with deference as well as respect, and fitted them for the privations which they were to endure, and the company with which they were to associate. A system of minute inspection had been established, which was at once so contrived as to gratify |