and beautiful verse; and the wild throes of hysteric enthusiasm gave way to a fondness for hymn-singing, so that a new musical impulse was aroused in the people of England which gradually changed the character of public devotion. The preaching of Whitefield and his colleagues also aroused a fierce hatred in their opponents, and these preachers' lives were frequently imperiled. They were mobbed, ducked, stoned and even smothered with filth. The magistrates frequently allowed the mobs to do as they pleased, and in one place the prosecuting attorney of the county headed the mob. All sorts of ridiculous stories were told about John Wesley. He was said to have been imprisoned for selling gin; to be a Quaker, a Catholic, an Anabaptist; to be going to join the Spaniards, and to have hanged himself. Persecu- tion of ists. John Wesley's Personal of the tion. Wesley's powers were directed to building up a great religious society which might give practical and permanent form to the new enthusiasm. The Methodists were grouped in classes, assembled in love-feasts, puri- Direction fied by the expulsion of unworthy members, and supplied with a change Methodist of settled clergymen and itinerent preachers; while the entire body was Organizaplaced under the absolute government of a conference of preachers. But as long as John Wesley lived, the direction of the new religious society remained with him alone. To those who objected to his Church government he replied: "If by arbitrary power you mean a power which I exercise simply without any colleagues therein, this is certainly true, but I see no hurt in it." John Wesley strongly condemned the conduct of the Anglo-American colonists in severing themselves from their Mother Country, and regarded them as rebellious and undutiful children. Church Govern ment. The Methodist body-numbering one hundred thousand at the time Despotic of Wesley's death, and now amounting to millions in England and America-bears the impress of John Wesley in more than in its name. Of all Protestant Churches it is the most rigid in its organization and the most despotic in its government. Moral Results of ism. The Methodist Church itself was only a small outcome of the Metho- Beneficial dist religious revival. Its action broke the lethargy of the clergy of the Established Church and made the fox-hunting parson and the ab- Methodsentee rector impossible. In this age no body of clergy surpasses that of the Established Church in piety, in philanthropic energy or in popular regard. A new moral enthusiasm took hold of the English nation, thus improving the morals of the upper classes and purifying English literature from the foulness which had infected it since the Stuart Restoration in 1660. But the noblest results of the Wesleyan movement were its philanthropic effects, which are still felt. The Sunday-schools, established Philanthropic Effects of Meth odism. Other New Protest ant Sects. French cism and Rational ism. Social by Robert Raikes of Gloucester in 1781, were the beginnings of popular education. Attempts were made to ameliorate the condition of the poor, to alleviate physical suffering, to improve the degraded and the profligate. Hannah More, by her writings and her personal example, drew the sympathy of England to the poverty and crime of the agricultural laborer. The passionate impulse of human sympathy with the wronged and the afflicted led to the erection of hospitals, the endowment of charities, the building of churches, the sending of missionaries to heathen lands. This sentiment supported Burke in his plea for the Hindoo and sustained Wilberforce and Clarkson in their crusade against the iniquitous slave trade. It also upheld Sir Samuel Romilly in his efforts to improve the English penal laws and the noble-hearted John Howard in the cause of prison reform. Other Protestant sects arose during the eighteenth century; such as the Swedenborgians, or New Christian Church, founded by the great Emanuel Swedenborg, Sweden's great divine and philosopher; the Dunkards and Amish in Germany, who in many points of faith, such as simplicity of dress and manners, aversion to military service and the use of law, coincide with the Mennonites and Quakers, and many of whom have settled in the United States of America; the Unitarians, who, like the ancient Arians and like the Socinians of the time of the Reformation, deny the divinity of Christ; and the Universalists, who reject the doctrine of a future punishment and who arose in England and America. In France the writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu and the Encyclopedists made skepticism in religion almost universal among the German intelligent classes. In Germany at the same time the writings of Kant, Nicolai and others also undermined religious faith and gave rise to the Rationalists, who denied all divine revelation and supernaturalism. During the last half of the eighteenth century the social condition Improve- of the masses exhibited a marked improvement. The new inventions brought within the reach of the poorer classes many more of the comforts and conveniences of life. Public libraries, mechanics' institutes, clubs, coöperative societies and Sunday-schools were now introduced. About the close of the eighteenth century gentlemen cast aside their hanging cuffs and lace ruffles, their cocked hats and wigs, their buckles and swords. ment. Navigation, Exploration and Discov eries. During the eighteenth century British navigators were making explorations and discoveries in the Pacific Ocean, or South Sea. Commodore Anson circumnavigated the globe between 1740 and 1742. Numerous discoveries were made by British navigators, such as Byron, Wallis, Cook, Vancouver and others. Captain Cook discovered a number of small islands in the Pacific, the most important being the Sandwich, or Hawaiian Islands, in 1778, where he was killed in a dispute with the natives in 1779. The Sandwich Islanders have since been largely converted to Christianity by Christian missionaries, and many Americans have settled in those islands, while the native population has been diminishing. Behring's Strait was discovered in 1741 by Captain Behring, a Dane in the Russian naval service. The Wahabees in the Moslem In the Mohammedan world, about 1760, Abd el Wahab, of Kurdistan, founded the sect of the Wahabees, or Wahabites, who disclaimed the divine nature of Mohammed, rejected the mediation of saints and denied the obligation of vows in time of danger. His disciples were highly world. intolerant and were continually involved in feuds and wars with the neighboring tribes in the East of Asiatic Turkey and Arabia, but were suppressed in Arabia in 1818 by Mehemet Ali, the powerful Pasha of Egypt. The English conquest of India and the extension of the British dominion in other parts of the world brought about more frequent communication and a more enlarged intercourse between all parts of the globe, and thus led to a diffusion of European civilization, especially of Anglo-Saxon civilization-the highest type of civilization yet attained by man. Thus, when England had established free institutions on a solid basis in her own home, she was preparing the way for the extension of the same boon to other peoples in remote parts of the earth and thus elevating and improving the races which she had conquered. Diffusion of AngloSaxon Civiliza tion. |