METHODIST CHURCHES OF THE WORLD. A group of 25 organized bodies which represent an evangelical type of the Christian religion, and which, rising under the Wesleys in England, in the 18th century, has been spread to all countries and has become one of the great Christian Communions.
History of English rise of Methodism was on this wise. John and Charles Wesley, clergymen of the Church of England, as their 'father was before them, formed, 1729, at Oxford University, with oth ers, a club for the promotion of personal reli gion. earnest young men, they pro ceeded to draw a series of rules of conduct, which were somewhat strict for the times, and observed so carefully that they were called in derision, ((Methodists,° and their little company was termed the "Holy They prayed much, read devotional books and visited the sick and unfortunate. The age was one of lax ness in religious observance and of indulgence in gambling, drinking and other vices and im moralities, which invaded church circles. This tended to deepen the earnestness and enthu siasm of the young reformers and a revival was the natural outcome, the sweep and influ ence of which no one of them could have im agined. Three men of remarkable power were at the head of the movement, John Wesley (born in 1703), preacher, leader, organizer, au thor, indefatigable worker; Charles Wesley (born in 1707), pupit orator, unequaled hymn writer; George Whitefield (born in 1714), evangelist, whose fiery zeal and persuasive elo quence won tens of thousands on both sides of the ocean. All of them great preachers, John was pre-eminently the organizer. His reli gious experience passed through several stages, the last of which was in 1738; when at a Mo ravian meeting in London, he ((felt his heart strangely warmed)) The next year he began to organize converts into societies, which was the actual epoch of Methodism. Opposi tion in the Church of England, which closed its churches to him, compelled him to resort to open-air preaching which multiplied his hear ers and made the movement a people's move ment. The preaching was clear, direct, simple,
setting forth the doctrine of a free, full, pres ent salvation from sin by faith, and presenting religion of the heart rather than of the head. The Wesleys never severed their relation with the Church of England, nor abandoned its doc trinal and ecclesiastical systems. Methodism in England was a movement within the Church, to which the societies looked for the sacraments until after the death of the founder.
The Methodist system was a gradual de velopment out of the conditions which forced Wesley to take steps contrary to his High Church ideas. Consecrated places being shut to Methodist meetings, he had to build chapels and hold services in schools, private houses and barns, and in the open air; ministers being too few to do the preaching, he called to his aid laymen; societies increased so rapidly that it was necessary to plan for their care, hence the annual conference; changes in appointments be ing necessary, the itinerancy was developed to regulate them. Other distinctive features of Methodism, the lass meeting for testimony and prayer; bookrooms for the publishing and sale of a growing body of denominational literature, and the conference study for the training of preachers not college bred, were likewise in answer to the demand of a rapidly expanding propaganda.
British Methodism did not, after the death of John Wesley, escape the fate of division. Indeed, radical doctrinal differences developed between him and Whitefield, and a separation took place, the latter being a pronounced Cal vinist and the former a strong Arminian. One cause or another brought a number of separa tions, with 9 or 10 different branches. By the process of union several of these have disap peared and there are now five distinct bodies, not including the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church which affiliates with the Presbyterian churches.