66 race, Appear with belly gaunt, and famish'd face: "Never was fo deform'd a babe of grace." Their fermons "Are olios made of conflagration, "Of gulphs, of brimftone, and damnation, "The nicknames which Old Nick we call. DRYDEN. DEAR FRIEND, ALTHOUGH Mr. Wesley was poffeffed of a very great share both of natural and acquired abilities, yet I fuppofe it scarcely neceffary to inform you, that this is by no means the cafe with his preachers in general; for although there are amongst them fome truly fenfible, intelligent men, yet the major part are very ignorant and extremely illiterate: many of thefe excellent fpiritual fpiritual guides cannot even read a chapter in the bible, though containing the deep mysteries which they have the rathness and prefumption to pretend to explain. cannot write their own names. Many others But fo great is the ignorance of Mr, Wefley's people in general, that they often neglect the more rational and fenfible of their preachers, and are better pleased with fuch as are even deftitute of common fenfe; really believing that the incoherent nonfenfe which they from time to time pour forth, is dictated by the Holy Spirit; for which feveral reasons may be affigned, It is always obfervable, that the more ignorant people are, the more confidence they poffefs. This confidence, or impudence, paffes with the vulgar, as a mark of their being in the right; and the more the ignorance of the preachers is difcovered, the more are they brought down to their own standard. Again, the more ignorant preachers having very contracted ideas of real religion and manly virtue, of course fupply the want of it with a ridiculous R 3 ridiculous fufs about trifles, which paffes with the ignorant for a more fanctified deportment, and hence arifes much of the mifchief which has been fo juftly charged on the methodists. For by making the path to heaven fo very narrow, and befet with ten thousand bugbears, many defpairing to be eyer able to walk in it, have thrown off all religion and morality, and funk into the abyfs of vice and wickednefs. Others have their tempers fo foured as to become loft to all the tender connexions of hufband, wife, father, child, &c. really believing that they are literally to hate father, mother, &c. for Christ's fake. Many have in a fit of defpondency put a period to their exiftence, it hav ing become a burthen too intolerable to be borne. Some have been fo infatuated with the idea of fafting to mortify the flesh, that their ftrict perfeverence in it has been productive of the moft ferious confequences: Two inftances of which lately occurred in one family, in the City Road-The mistress was deprived of her fenfes, and the maid literally literally fafted herself to death; and Bedlam and private mad-houfes now contain many, very many melancholy inftances of the dreadful effects of religious defpondency; not to mention the hundreds that have died from time to time in fuch places, and the numerous fuicides which have been traced to the fame fource. Mr. Bentley fays, in his letter to the members of the house of commons, dated May 12th, 1791, that although he had a fortune of one thoufand pounds, and naturally liked good living, yet that he lived on horfe and afs flefh, barley bread, flinking butter, &c. and when he found that his eating fuch things gave offence to his neighbours, he left off eating afs flefh, and only lived on vegetables, as the common fort of food by their dearnefs hurt his confcience. A few years fince I faw in a field not seven miles from China-hall, a man toffing up his bible in the air. This he often repeated, and raved at a strange rate. Amongst other things, R 4 things, (pointing to a building at fome 66 distance) That (faid he) is the devil's house, and it fhall not ftand three days longer!" On the third day after this I faw with furprize an account in one of the public papers of that very building having been fet on fire, and burnt to the ground, and thus the poor itinerant difciples of Thefpis loft the whole of their wardrobe and scenery. This religious maniac foon after preached very often in Smithfield and Moorfields; but he did not wholly depend on the operations of the Holy Spirit, as at last he feldom began to preach until he was nearly drunk, or filled with another kind of fpirit, and then he was 66 a very powerful preacher indeed.” But the good man happening several times to exert himself rather too much, had nearly tumbled headlong out of his portable pulpit ; thefe accidents the mob uncharitably ascribed to the liquor that he had drank, and with mud, ftones, dead cats, &c. drove him off every time he came, until at last our preacher took his leave of them with faying "that he |