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Fellow o f Lincoln College, after a contest o f more than ordinary severity. His recently adopted seriousness o f deportment and general religiousness were used as a handle against him by his adversaries. But his high character carried him triumphantly through all opposition, to the great delight o f his father. Tried as he apparently was at the time in his temporal circumstances, he w rote: “Whatever will be my fate before the summer is over, God knows; but, wherever I am, my Jack is Fellow of, Lincoln.” The eight years following John Wesley’s election to his fellowship o f Lincoln— from 1726 to 1734— form a remarkable epoch in his life, and certainly gave a tone and color to all his future history. During the whole o f these years he was resident at Oxford, and for some time at any rate acted as tutor and lecturer in his college. Gradually, however, he seems to have laid himself out more and more to try to do good to others, and latterly was entirely taken up with it. His mode o f action was in the highest degree simple and unpretending. Assisted by his brother Charles, then a student of Christ Church, he gathered a small society o f like-minded young men, in order to spend some evenings a week together in the study o f the Greek Testament. This was in November, 1729. The members o f this society were at first four in number;, namely, John Wesley, Charles Wesley, Mr. Morgan o f Christ Church, and Mr. Kirk- man o f Merton. At a somewhat later period they were joined by Mr. Ingham o f Queen’s, Mr. Broughton o f Exeter, Mr. Clayton o f Brazenose, the famous George Whitefield o f Pembroke, and the well- known James Hervey o f Lincoln. •This little band o f witnesses, as might reasonably have been expected, soon began to think o f doing good to others, as well as getting good themselves. In the summer o f 1730 they began to visit prisoners in the castle and poor people in the town, to send neglected children to school, to give temporal aid to the sick and needy, and to distribute Bibles and Prayer-books among
those who had not got them. Their first steps were taken very cautiously, and with frequent reference to John Wesley’s father for advice. Acting by his advice, they laid all their operations before the Bishop o f Oxford and his chaplain, and did nothing without full ecclesiastical sanction. BIRTH OF TH E NAME Cautious, and almost childish, however, as the proceedings o f these*young men may appear to us in the present day, they were too far in advance o f the time to escape notice, hatred and opposition. A kind of persecution and clamor was raised against Wesley and his companion as enthusiasts, fanatics, and troublers o f Israel. They were nicknamed the “Methodists” or “ Holy Club,” and assailed with a storm o f ridicule and abuse. . Through this, however, they manfully persevered, and held on their way, being greatly encouraged by the letters o f the old Rector o f Epworth. In one o f them he says, “ I hear my son John has the honor o f being styled the Father o f the Holy Club. I f it be so, I am sure I must be the grandfather o f it, and I need not say that I had rather any o f jny sons should be so dignified and distinguished than have the title His Holiness.” The real amount o f spiritual good that John Wesley did during these eight years o f residence at Oxford is a point that can not easily be ascertained. With all his devotedness, asceticism, and self-denial, it must be remembered that at this time he knew very little o f the pure gospel o f Christ. His views o f religious truth, to say the least, yere very dim, misty, defec tive, and indistinct. No one was more sen sible o f this than he afterwards was him self, and no one could be more ready, and willing to confess it Such books as “Law’s Serious Call,” “Law’s Christian P e rfe c-. tion,” “Theologia Germanica,” and mystical writers, were about the highest pitch of divinity that he had yet attained. But we need not doubt that he learned experience at this period which hie found useful in afterlife. A t any rate, he became thor oughly trained in habits o f laboriousness,
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