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John Wesley   /dʒɑn wˈɛsli/   Listen
John Wesley

noun
1.
English clergyman and founder of Methodism (1703-1791).  Synonym: Wesley.






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"John Wesley" Quotes from Famous Books



... century should be an Oxford movement, and Newman's pulpit at St. Mary's and the chapel of Oriel College are sacred in the eyes of Anglicans all over the world. In the interval between Laud and Newman, Church principles had found a different development in another Oxford man; John Wesley's character and spiritual life were built up in Oxford, till he went forth to do the work of an Evangelist during more than half of the eighteenth century. Wycliffe, More, Hooker, Laud, Wesley, Newman, these are not the names ...
— The Charm of Oxford • J. Wells

... to take any of my children by death, I hope it may be Isaac," said the father of Dr. Isaac Barrow. "Why do you tell that blockhead the same thing twenty times over?" asked John Wesley's father. "Because," replied his mother, "if I had told him but nineteen times, all my labor would have been lost, while now ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... book read for the first time not as a book, but as a revelation; it may be the first realization of the extent and moment of what physical science has to teach us; it may be, like Carlyle's "Everlasting Yea," an ethical illumination, or spiritual like Augustine's or John Wesley's. But whatever it is, it brings with it new eyes, new powers of comprehension, and seems to reveal a treasury of latent and unsuspected talents in the mind and heart. The history of mankind has its parallels to these moments of illumination in the life of ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair

... John Wesley, whose appeals to religious emotionalism filled the fields of England with tens of thousands of weeping, shouting men and women, vastly excited as to the state of their souls, is a type of faith beginning in a small way ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... above the hills of Judah." When the gospel was to be borne to the Gentiles the divine finger fell upon a young tent-maker of Tarsus. Fourteen centuries later a miner's son, Martin Luther, won Germany for the Reformation, and John Wesley "while yet a student in college" started his mighty world-famous movement. At fifteen John de Medici was a cardinal, and Bossuet was known by his eloquence; at sixteen Pascal wrote a great work. Ignatius Loyola ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given

... remaining in custody for eighteen months. He died at Albano on the 8th of July 1803, and was buried in Ickworth church. Varying estimates have been found of his character, including favourable ones by John Wesley and Jeremy Bentham. He was undoubtedly clever and cultured, but licentious and eccentric. In later life he openly professed materialistic opinions; he fell in love with the countess Lichtenau, mistress of Frederick ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... be better than other people' (smiling); that he believed he sincerely meant well, but had a mixture of politicks and ostentation: whereas Wesley thought of religion only. [Footnote: That cannot be said now, after the flagrant part which Mr John Wesley took against our American brethren, when, in his own name, he threw amongst his enthusiastic flock, the very individual combustibles of Dr Johnson's Taxation no Tyranny: and after the intolerant spirit which he manifested against our fellow Christians of the Roman ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... have promised, when father and mother forsake, you will take the deserted one. Won't you take her now?" And God did take her; from that hour she was safe in the cleft of the Rock of Ages. When she addressed twelve hundred inmates of Auburn prison, a reporter said: "Never did John Wesley, John Knox, or Martin Luther do greater work for the Master." When laid in her casket in the Door of Hope Mission a few years later, a New York paper said: "Never did a fairer face or more eloquent tongue do work in slum life than ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... angular and frigid disquisitions which were rapidly losing their connexion with vital religion. It has been left for the scholars of the present century to give us a picture of St. Paul as he really was—a man much nearer to George Fox or John Wesley than to Origen or Calvin; the greatest of missionaries and pioneers, and only incidentally a great theologian. The critical study of the New Testament has opened our eyes to see this and many other things. Much new light has also been thrown by studies in the historical geography ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... the example of their Christian behaviour made itself felt, and as the years went by parents became sufficiently ashamed of their old beliefs to give up telling them to their children. This change took place between about 1800 and 1840, but the influences that lay behind it date from the days of John Wesley. ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home

... the world ever saw. In the front of this chapel, on the opposite side of the street, are the celebrated Bunhill Field's burying ground, among whose memorable dead rests the dust of the venerable Isaac Watts, John Wesley's mother, John Bunyan, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... contemporaries at Oxford. There, and there only, have I seen practised what Dr. Johnson believed to be an essential to good talk, the ability to stretch one's legs and have one's talk out. It may be remembered that Dr. Johnson, in praising John Wesley as a talker, sadly admitted that his great qualities in this respect were all marred because Wesley was always in a hurry, always had some pressing business in hand which cut him short when ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey

... bank account, was silenced forever. Likewise, it was a foregone conclusion that every disciple of Christ whose spirit was to be set aflame by His—like St. Francis, and Savonarola, Wycliffe, Luther (at the first), and John Wesley—should turn in pity to the living foundations and in horror of spirit from ...
— Is civilization a disease? • Stanton Coit

... he acquires his professional fitness for commanding fleets. Is this right or is it wrong? Perhaps it is wrong, but it has gone on so for a long time. Well, why may not a preacher be formed on the same plan? John Wesley was not a greater man in preaching, than Nelson in seamanship. Take, then, a youth of thirteen from the school. Apprentice him to the minister of a parish. Let him make at once preparations for clerical work. Let him store his memory with sermons, ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... therefore, I returned with a brain full of strange discords, in a huddled mixture of 'Endymion' and the Book of Revelation, John Wesley's hymns and 'Midsummer Night's Dream'. Few boys of my age, I suppose, carried about with them such a confused throng of immature impressions and contradictory hopes. I was at one moment devoutly pious, at the next haunted by visions of material beauty ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... to making Delftware in Staffordshire. This was about the middle of the Eighteenth Century. And it seems that, a little before this time, John Wesley, a traveling preacher, came up this way on horseback, carrying tracts in his saddlebags, and much love in his heart. He believed that we should use our religion in our life—seven days in the week, and not save it up for Sunday. In ridicule, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... caught fire one night, and all the inmates were rescued except one son. The boy came to a window, and was brought safely to the ground by two farm-hands, one standing on the shoulder of the other. The boy was John Wesley. If you would realize the responsibility of that incident, if you would measure the consequences of that rescue, ask the millions of Methodists who look back to John Wesley as the ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody

... down, and stomped and trampled on, by noise and confusion. And I dare presoom to say that she had named them children a-hopin' and a-expectin' some of the high and religious qualities of their namesakes would strike in. But to set and hear Martin Luther swear at John Wesley wuz a sight. And to see John Wesley clench his fists in Martin Luther's hair and kick him wuz enough to horrify any beholder. But Peter Cooper wuz the worst; to see him take everything away from his brothers he possibly could, and devour it himself, and want everything himself, and ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... and Clairaut Survivals of the superstition—Joseph de Maistre, Forster Arago's statistics The theories of Whiston and Burnet, and their influence in Germany The superstition ended in America by the lectures of Winthrop Helpful influence of John Wesley Effects of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... the other hand, my father believed that she had, at Richard Tresidder's bidding, ill-wished his cows. She had on several occasions cured terrible diseases which the doctor from Falmouth said were incurable, and I have heard it said that when Mr. John Wesley visited Cornwall, and was told about her, the great man looked very grave, and expressed a belief in her power. This being so, it is no wonder I did not like to offend her; neither had I any reason for doing so. She had been kind to me, and once, when ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking

... stop at some acts which, though they were righteous enough, were unlawful. It was unlawful to harbor runaway slaves, but they did it gladly, and they appealed to the passions as well as the consciences of men in their hate of the sum of all villainies, as John Wesley called slavery. They not only met their foes half way, they carried the war into the hearts and homes of the enemy. From time to time wicked and sorrowful things happened to fret their fanaticism and keep it at a white heat. Peaceable negroes were attacked in their ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... the world. There were born within fifteen years of Jonathan Edwards a wonderful array of thinkers along religious and philosophic lines, men who have molded the thought and lives of a multitude of persons. Among these intellectual giants born within fifteen years of Mr. Edwards were John Wesley, George Whitefield, ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship

... judgement, to strengthen his will, to subdue his baser passions, and to fill his soul with the breath of life. It is only upon truth that the soul feeds, and by means of knowledge that the character grows. "It cannot be that people should grow in grace," writes John Wesley, "unless they give themselves to reading. A reading people will always be a knowing people." Reading makes one mighty in action when it gives one knowledge, since "knowledge is power," and since power has but one way ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy

... They vary but in power to apprehend, and this may be more easily hindered than helped by the conceit begotten of finite knowledge. I shall even dare to quote of this Universal Truth, the words I once hardily put into the mouth of John Wesley concerning divine Love: 'I see now that if God's love reach up to every star and down to every poor soul on earth, it must be vastly simple; so simple that all dwellers on Earth may be assured of it—as all who have eyes may be assured of the planet shining yonder ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... Nelson, making unfavourable comparison of John Wesley with a prominent religious teacher of the day; and Nelson replied, "He has not stayed in the upper room like John Wesley." We need our silent preparations for speech; to go forth, like Ezekiel, into the plain to find ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris

... wardrobe, its narrow washstand, its odd bonnet-boxes, its trunk, its skirts hung inside-out behind the door, its Bible with the spectacle-case on it, its texts, its miniature portraits, its samplers, framed in maple, and its engraving of the infant John Wesley being saved from the fire at Epworth Vicarage, framed in gold, was eloquent of the habits of the woman who had used it, without ambition, without repining, and without hope, save an everlasting hope, for more ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... so in the colonies of North America, a great evangelical revival took place towards the middle of the eighteenth century. John Wesley the Arminian, and George Whitefield the Calvinist, were the great apostles of this movement, and the latter especially was very influential in America. The English revivalists were not alone, however; among the most powerful leaders in the colonies ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant

... little cloud busted. Water riz in de second story of de wicked king's palace. He sont fer de northern lady. When she come a-shaking and a-twisting in de room de king fell back in his chair. He say dat he give her anything she want, all she got to do is ask fer it. She say to cut off John Wesley's head and bring it to her. De king had done got so suluctious dat he done it. Dat king and all of dem got drowned. Nora put a lot of things in de ark dat he could have left out, sech as snakes and other varments; but ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... the celebrated John Wesley, "is the vilest beneath the sun!" Of the truth of this emphatic remark, no other proof is required, than an examination of the statute books of the American slave states. Tested by its own laws, in ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... it that we glorify Channing, who at an earlier period was cast out of the best religious society of the world for what he believed to be a great principle? Why is it to-day that we lift John Wesley on such a lofty pedestal of admiration? He left the Church of England, or was cast out of it, went among the poor, preached a great religious reform, led a magnificent crusade, teaching a higher and grander spiritual religion, a religion of ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage

... the moisture of God's blessing—the dew of the Spirit. Whatever is gained in quantity is lost in quality whenever one engagement follows another without leaving proper intervals for refreshment and renewal of strength by waiting on God. No man, perhaps, since John Wesley has accomplished so much even in a long life as George Muller; yet few have ever withdrawn so often or so long into the pavilion of prayer. In fact, from one point of view his life seems more given to supplication ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson

... emphatically agree with John Wesley who, in 1769, wrote, "The English in general, and indeed most of the men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts of witches and apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am sorry for it, and I willingly take this opportunity of ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... now protect me," &c.—I remember John Wesley, and also his saying the "Devil should not have the best tunes." There was a pretty love-song, a great favourite ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various

... just sufficed to reveal to him the ghosts, without teaching him how to master or dispel them. Thus, Cowper's sweetness, which charmed her, became to him Cowper's dejection and despairing sadness, perplexing enough to his young brain. Where she took up and fed her soul upon John Wesley's conclusions, the boy found himself involved in John Wesley's perplexities, and struggling in desperate wrestle with the haunting shapes to which John Wesley had given successful battle. Thus prepared, no wonder my eager little ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... in the proposed descent. The names given to the boats were, for the small one, Emma Dean, the pilot boat (after Mrs. Powell), Kitty Clyde's Sister, Maid of the Canyon, and No-Name. The members of the party, together with their disposition in the boats at starting, were as follows: John Wesley Powell, John C. Sumner, William H. Dunn—the Emma Dean; Walter H. Powell, G. Y. Bradley—Kitty Clyde's Sister; O. G. Howland, Seneca Howland, Frank Goodman—the No-Name; William R. Hawkins, Andrew ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... come to this pass, an English clergyman, named John Wesley, had been striving to awaken people to a more religious life; but he did not sufficiently heed the authority of the Church; and his followers, after his death, quite separated themselves from her, ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... sower going out into the field, telling us that the field is the world. Israel in the preceding age was spoken of as a vineyard with a fence about, but in this age there is no more vineyard, no more special place where labor is to be done; but as John Wesley used to say, ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein

... I will hallow thee for this thy deed.' 2 Henry VI, act iv. sc. 10. John Wesley's mother, writing of the way she had brought up her children, boys and girls alike, says:—'When turned a year old (and some before) they were taught to fear the rod, and to cry softly; by which means they escaped abundance of correction ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... pudding-cloth was fatal. Cleanliness is another of the cardinal virtues of Cookery. The very thought of anything else would be repulsive. By the way, that fine old saying, "Cleanliness is next to Godliness," does not come from the Scriptures, as many suppose, but from one of John Wesley's sermons. ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)

... of Christ's Gospel, and become the father of a Reformation that brought down the Romish pride, for all time and raised the banner of personal liberty in Him who is the Only One to save every soul that cometh unto Him without the necessity of a priest? That such men as John Wesley, Moody, and a number of others, to accomplish great things for the advancement of God's kingdom? And the greatest religious living man, General William Booth, who, with his ingenious and prototype system, is doing more for God and humanity, than all religious bodies ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden

... Frederick the Great, were a defence of it, is as absurd as the opposite notion that Frederick was Antichrist and Torquemada and Ignatius Loyola men after the very heart of Jesus. Neither they nor their exploits had anything to do with him. It is probable that Archbishop Laud and John Wesley died equally persuaded that he in whose name they had made themselves famous on earth would receive them in Heaven with open arms. Poor Fox the Quaker would have had ten times their chance; and yet Fox made rather a miserable ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw

... Romans, the Greeks, the Asiatics—all have their games of chance. There was, indeed, a period in the history of the world when gambling was the amusement and recreation of kings and queens, professional men and clergymen. Even John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, played cards. The Rev. Caleb C. Colton was one of the luckiest of gamesters. He was a graduate of Cambridge, and the author of "Lacon, or Many Things in a Few Words." ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... find, by looking over the biography of the great men of every age, that those who have possessed the clearest and most powerful minds, neither drank spirits nor indulged in the pleasures of the table. Sir Isaac Newton, John Locke, Dr. Franklin, John Wesley, Sir William Jones, John Fletcher, and President Edwards, furnish a striking illustration of this truth. One of the secrets by which these men produced such astonishing results, were enabled to perform so much intellectual ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... extremely slight. Harry, the future Earl of Moreland, was stolen from his parents by an uncle in disguise; and the five volumes of the work consist almost entirely of an account of the education of the child, and the various incidents which affected or illustrated his mental growth. One day John Wesley chanced to meet with it, and although he required his followers "to read only such books as tend to the knowledge and love of God," he was tempted to look into this particular novel. The "whimsical title" at first offended him, but as ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... visible political forms. But any movement that makes for larger spiritual life makes for the strengthening of the entire life of the nation. The mere figures of the early Wesleyan movement are almost appalling. Here was a man, John Wesley, an Oxford scholar, who spent nearly fifty years traveling up and down and back and forth through England on horseback, covering more than two hundred and fifty thousand miles, preaching everywhere more than forty ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... Edwards's career has the simplicity and dignity of tragedy. Born in a parsonage in the quiet Connecticut valley in 1703—the year of John Wesley's birth—he is writing at the age of ten to disprove the doctrine of the materiality of the soul. At twelve he is studying "the wondrous way of the working of the spider," with a precision and enthusiasm ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry

... [1] John Wesley, after having pointed out what he considered the grand source of all her mistakes; namely, the being guided by inward impressions and the light of her own spirit rather than by the written Word, and also her error in teaching that God never purifies a soul but by inward and outward suffering—then ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... said that intelligence was the only lever capable of raising mankind. His followers, to say the least of them, are as good as the followers of Christ. Bishop Newman is a Methodist—a follower of John Wesley—and he has the prejudices of the sect to which he belongs. We must remember that all prejudices ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... living by a marriage with a lady who stood in some questionable relation to Lord Scoutbush's father, and who had never had a thought above his dinner and his tithes; and all that the Aberalva fishermen knew of God or righteousness, they had learnt from the soi-disant disciples of John Wesley. So Frank Headley had to make up, at starting, the arrears of half-a-century of base neglect; but instead of doing so, he had contrived to awaken against himself that dogged hatred of popery which lies inarticulate and confused, but ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... observable on one side of a main street; while nearly adjoining is the church of St. Paul. There are thus every Sunday, in simultaneous local devotion, the ceremonial Catholics, the moral Unitarians, the metaphysical Calvinists, the serious disciples of John Wesley, and the spiritual members of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 403, December 5, 1829 • Various

... among the survivors, is a grandson of John Wesley Harper, one of the founders of the Harper publishing business. H. Sleeper Harper was himself an incorporator of Harper & Brothers when the firm became a corporation in 1896. He had a desk in the offices of the publishers, but his hand of late years in the management of the business has been very ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... self-interest; so when he wrote of love or friendship or any other noble sentiment he was dealing with matters of which he had no knowledge. The best he could offer was a "counsel of prudence," and many will sympathize with John Wesley, who declared that worldly prudence is a quality from which an honest man should ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... in common use are imperfect and erroneous by making new translations. There is scarcely an English sect or priesthood of any note in existence that has not produced a new translation of the Scriptures. John Wesley translated both the Old and New Testament. His translation of the New Testament continues to be used in the Methodist body to this day. Adam Clarke, in his 'Commentary,' translates afresh almost every important passage in the book. Many passages he translates in such a way as ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts

... communicate every week, to fast regularly on Wednesdays and Fridays, and on most days during Lent; to read and discuss the Bible in common, to abstain from most forms of amusement and luxury, and to visit sick persons and prisoners in the gaol. John Wesley, the future leader of the religious revival of the eighteenth century, was the master-spirit of this society. The society hardly numbered more than fifteen members, and was the object of much ridicule at the university; ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... neither priest nor playwright have customarily any such peculiar gift of spiritual daring as might render them unsafe mentors of their fellows; and there is not wanting the deterrent of common-sense to keep them in bounds. Yet it can hardly be denied that there spring up at times men—like John Wesley or General Booth—of such incurable temperament as to be capable of abusing their freedom by the promulgation of doctrine or procedure, divergent from the current traditions of religion. Nor must it be forgotten that sermons, like plays, are addressed to a mixed audience ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... of a separate episcopacy west of the Atlantic was accompanied by the further separation of the Methodists as a distinct religious society. Although John Wesley regarded the notion of an apostolical succession as superstitious, he had made no attempt to separate his followers from the national church. He translated the titles of "bishop" and "priest" from Greek into Latin and English, calling them "superintendent" and "elder," but he did not deny the ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... of having a conceited clerk at Epworth, who not only was proud of his singing and other accomplishments, but also of his personal appearance. He delighted to wear Wesley's old clerical clothes and especially his wig, which was much too big for the insignificant clerk's head. John Wesley must have had a sense of humour, though perhaps it might have been exhibited in a more appropriate place. However, he was determined to humble his conceited clerk, and said to him one Sunday morning, "John, I shall preach on a particular subject this morning, and shall choose my own psalm, ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... significant fact that again and again religious leaders who really cared for the condition of the people, have tried to create a genuine leadership for them along the same lines; Francis of Assisi gathered his "little brothers"; Peter Waldus his Bible teachers; Wycliffe his "poor preachers"; John Wesley his local preachers and itinerants; William Booth his ensigns and captains with the big bass drum; and the entire foreign mission propaganda calls for leaders who will go to the people and offers them nothing ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch

... number of the rest were wretchedly poor. The Church was roused to a sense of its duty to society by methodism and evangelicalism, two movements for a time closely connected, though after 1784 methodism became a force outside the church. By 1760 the persecution to which John Wesley and his fellow-workers had sometimes been exposed was over, and methodism was gaining ground. It very slightly touched aristocratic society, chiefly through the efforts of the Countess of Huntingdon, who, in spite of her quarrel with Wesley's party, must be regarded as one ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... of the Keltic character; the religious atmosphere that John Wesley had spread over Cornwall, even among those who did not enrol themselves among his followers; the ability and sensitiveness hereditary in the Martyn family, together with the strong influence of a university tutor,—all ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... John Wesley—"the brand plucked out of the burning," as he termed himself—when a boy was remarkable for his piety. At eight his father admitted him to the Holy Communion. He had thus early learned the lesson of self-control; for his mother tells us that having smallpox at this age he bore ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross

... three delegates sent by the Psychical Society to sit up in a haunted house. It was one of these poltergeist cases, where noises and foolish tricks had gone on for some years, very much like the classical case of John Wesley's family at Epworth in 1726, or the case of the Fox family at Hydesville near Rochester in 1848, which was the starting-point of modern spiritualism. Nothing sensational came of our journey, and yet it was not entirely barren. On the first night nothing occurred. ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle

... sent a delegate to the British Conference, proposing a United Conference which should demonstrate to the world the essential oneness in doctrine, spirit, and principle of all the Churches which historically trace their origin to John Wesley; such a manifestation, it was hoped, would strengthen and perpetuate ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... imagine. The idea and the hope are old as the hills. Cicero proclaimed a universal society of the human race. Seneca declared the world to be his country. Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius declared themselves citizens of the world. St. Paul explained that there is neither Jew nor Greek. John Wesley looked upon the world as his parish. "The world is my country, mankind are my brothers," said Thomas Paine. "The whole world being only one city," said Goldsmith, "I do not care in which of the ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... John Wesley had there been such a re-awakening of religious, really religious, feeling in the country. Just as the rich Italians brought their treasures of gold and silver and jewels and heaped them up under the pulpit of Savonarola ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith

... would have enjoyed the task of entertaining me for a day or two in his chambers! But one ought not, I confess, to be so wedded to one's own habits; and I feel, when I complain, rather like the rich gentleman who said to John Wesley, when his fire smoked, "These are some of the crosses, Mr. Wesley, that ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... for His Life-Work. Even at the time of his writing (1858), John Wesley Powell was being prepared to bring Ives's words to naught. Born March 24, 1834, at Mount Morris, Livingston County, New York, he found himself in 1858 at Wheaton, Illinois, engaged in making a conchological collection for the Illinois State Natural History Society. While engaged ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James

... for one's country; but how about killing for our country? killing innocent men, too? for the soldiers on either side honestly believe they are doing their duty in shooting and stabbing as many as possible! "The business of war," said John Wesley, "is the business of devils." So it would seem; but at heart few are ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague

... of this great raid, there are many other historical incidents connected with this portion of the country. Savannah itself was the first settlement in the State, being laid off in the year 1733. It was here where the great John Wesley first officiated as minister. And it was the scene of many revolutionary incidents; where General Lincoln fought the British in October, 1779; where Pulaski fell, and ...
— History of the Eighty-sixth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, during its term of service • John R. Kinnear

... Norwich (1790). He was a great satirist, but most of his pamphlets against men like Adam Smith, Swedenborg, and Hume, were anonymous, as in the case of this one against Newton. He was so liberal in his attitude towards the Methodists that he would not have John Wesley forbidden to preach in his diocese. He was ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... of the early Franciscans bore a very remarkable likeness to that devised by John Wesley for his itinerant preachers, if indeed the former did not suggest the latter. They were not to supersede the parochial system, only to supplement it. They were not to administer the sacraments, only to send people to their ordinary parish priest for them, save in the rare cases of friars in full ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake

... board. But I will be revenged of him. I have ordered him to be tied hand and foot, and to be carried to the man-of-war that sails with us. The rascal should have taken care how he used me, for I never forgive."—"Then I hope, sir," said John Wesley, looking calmly at him, "you never sin." The General was quite confounded at the reproof, and putting his hand into his pocket took out a bunch of keys, which he threw at Grimaldi, saying, "There, villain! Take my keys, and behave ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... among the number, and proved a valuable acquisition to the colony. The former had fled hither from Austria, for "conscience' sake." Having founded a little colony among the pine forests of Georgia, they named it Ebenezer,-taking as their motto "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." When John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, came to America as a missionary with his brother Charles, they were greatly charmed with the fervent piety of this simple people. The celebrated George Whitfield afterward founded ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.

... leading a lovefeast in Shelley Chapel (where it is said that the Rev. John Wesley once preached), and one of the speakers had been a backslider, but had determined to return to the Lord. This man was telling the meeting his bitter sorrow, and how he had drunk of the wormwood and gall of repentance, and as he spoke tears ...
— Little Abe - Or, The Bishop of Berry Brow • F. Jewell

... death fossils were referred for their origin to a certain "plastic power" in Nature—mere idle whittlings of bone that had never known an outfit of flesh and blood. Then came a long and motley procession of cosmogonies, every speculator, from John Wesley down to Pye Smith, insisting warmly on what seemed good in his own eyes. The last stand was made on the antiquity of man, and it is only a dozen years since the ablest of British—perhaps since Cuvier of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... Johnson was never in a hurry, especially in the later days, when he had done his work and was enjoying his fame. Mrs. Thrale says that conversation was all he {47} required to make him happy. He hated people who broke it up to go to bed or to keep an appointment. Much as he delighted in John Wesley's company, he complained that he was never at leisure, which, said Johnson, "is very disagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have out his talk as I do." The world has perhaps grown a more industrious place since those days, though nobody yet has managed to put so much into ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey

... John Wesley, when fully acquainted with American slavery and the slave trade, pronounced the latter as "the execrable sum of all villanies," and he inveighed against the former as the wickedest of ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... not simply the new year, that had set in. Then, faintly, through walls and shut windows, came the sound of bells and of steam syrens and whistles. The superintendent minister opened his hymn-book, and the hymn was sung which had been sung in Wesleyan Chapels on New Year's morn since the era of John Wesley himself. The organ finished with a clanguor of all its pipes; the minister had a few last words with Jehovah, and nothing was left to do except to persevere in well-doing. The people leaned towards each other across the high backs of ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... fellow-servants, queen-consorts, three-per-cents, he-goats, she-bears, jack-a-dandies, jack-a-lanterns, piano-fortes. The following mode of writing is irregular in two respects; first, because the words are separated, and secondly, because both are varied: "Is it unreasonable to say with John Wesley, that 'men buyers are exactly on a level with men stealers?"—GOODELL'S LECT. II: Liberator, ix, 65. According to analogy, it ought to be: "Manbuyers are exactly on a level with manstealers." J. W. Wright alleges, that, "The phrase, 'I want two ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... rate the name is quite new and Gorla is new as far as the public are concerned, and that is enough to establish the novelty of the thing. Among other things she does a dance suggesting the life of a fern; I saw one of the rehearsals, and to me it would have equally well suggested the life of John Wesley. However, that is probably the fault of my imagination—I've either got too much or too little. Anyhow it is an understood thing that she is to ...
— When William Came • Saki

... the sense of granting him any infallibility of judgment or power over their consciences.... 'Papa,' as the simple Moravians call their great man, Count Zinzendorf: 'Founder,' as Methodists denominate good John Wesley; 'Holy Father in God,' as bishops are sometimes called; 'Pope,' which is the same as 'Papa'; 'Doctor of Divinity,' the Christian equivalent of the Jewish 'Rabbi,' are all dangerous titles. But it is not the employment of a name which Jesus denounces, it ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... accommodations are not extensive, but sufficient. There are cottage accommodations also at cheaper rates. Hotels and cottages are well patronized summer and winter. Upon the rim are unique rest-houses, in one of which is a high-power telescope. There is a memorial altar to John Wesley Powell, the first explorer of the canyon. There is an excellent reproduction of a Hopi house. There is an Indian camp. The day's wanderer upon the rim will not lack entertainment when his eyes turn for rest from ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... with a beggar beneath a hedge, or a tinker,' he added, smiling; 'it was those superfluous ceremonies, those surplices and white neckcloths, and, above all, the necessity of strictly regulating his words and conversation, which drove John Wesley out of the church, and sent him wandering up and down as you see me, poor Welsh ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow

... has been the source of very numerous courses of lectures by ministers of all denominations; and has been turned into a handsome volume of hymns, adapted for public worship, by the late Mr. Purday, a friend of John Wesley's, and a laborious preacher for more than ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... Bible, taken for and by itself, and I no longer wonder at these paradoxes. I only object to the inconsistency of those who profess the same belief, and yet affect to look down with a contemptuous or compassionate smile on John Wesley for rejecting the Copernican system as incompatible therewith; or who exclaim "Wonderful!" when they hear that Sir Matthew Hale sent a crazy old woman to the gallows in honour of the Witch of Endor. In the latter instance it might, I admit, have been an erroneous (though ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... ancient Hatton Hall, with its large, low rooms, its latticed windows and beautifully carved and polished oak panelings, was very dear to him. Every room was full of stories of Cavaliers and Puritans. The early followers of George Fox had there found secret shelter and hospitality. John Wesley had preached in its great dining-room, and Charles Wesley filled all its spaces and corridors with the lyrical cry of his wonderful hymns. There were harmless ghosts in its silent chambers, or walking in the pale ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... course. There was a good deal of truth in what he said, but he used words I didn't like; they came out of some blackguard's dictionary, so I told him to be quiet, and when he wouldn't be quiet, we sung him down with a verse out o' John Wesley's hymn-book." ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... before sunrise. She returned to London. Not long after, it so happened that she went to a small church in the city one Sunday afternoon. The preacher was such as we have often heard; but not so this poor woman, in her day of sapless theology, ere John Wesley waked the snoring church. Instead of sending a dry clatter of morality about their ears, or evaporating the Bible in the thin generalities of the pulpit, this man drove God's truths home to the hearts of men and women. In his hands the divine virtues were thunderbolts, not ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... means of this he discovered, lying asleep on the threshold, a lad who was apprentice to the new English silversmith of the town and a lodger at the minister's—the bond of acquaintanceship being the memory of John Wesley who had sprinkled the ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen

... turned preacher, I find." Great was his surprise to receive the rejoinder, "Take care what you do with respect to that young man, for he is as surely called of God to preach as you are." Such testimony from such a source could not fail to move John Wesley. He wisely heard for himself, and expressed his judgment in the words of Scripture—"It is the Lord: let Him do ...
— Excellent Women • Various

... the door, and the top of the chest of drawers and the bureau were all covered up with a perfect litter and lurry of old china. Not sets of anything, but different basins and jugs and cups and plates and china spoons and the bust of John Wesley and Elijah feeding the ravens in a red gown and standing on a green crockery ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit

... part," said Cynthy Ann, as she walked home with Jonas, "fer my part, I don't believe none of his nonsense. John Wesley" (Jonas was a New-Light, and Cynthy always talked to him about Wesley) "knowed a heap more about Scripter than all the Hankinses and Millerses that ever was born, and he knowed how to cipher, too, I ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... John Wesley Edward Bowen was born in New Orleans. His father, Edward Bowen, went to New Orleans from Washington, D. C. He was a free man, a boss carpenter and builder by trade, and able to read, write and cipher. He was highly esteemed, was prosperous in business, accumulated some money and lived in comfort. ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... authors as the minister went on. The clergyman gave an extract without any credit to the author, and the man in the audience cried out: "That's Jeremy Taylor." The speaker went on and gave an extract from another author without credit for it, and the man in the audience said: "That is John Wesley." The minister gave an extract from another without credit for it, and the man in the audience said: "That is George Whitefield." When the minister lost his patience and cried out, "Shut up, you old fool!" the man in the audience replied: ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... Friend, who, with the perverse ingenuity of patrons of Wax-works, has been endeavouring to identify the Rev. JOHN WESLEY among the Cabinet in Downing Street). Oh, never mind all that lot, BETSY; they're only the Gover'ment! Here's dear Mr. and Mrs. GLADSTONE in this next! See, he's lookin' for something in a drawer of his side-board—ain't that natural? And only look—a lot of people have been leaving ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various

... days later, when Cap'n Jacka walked up to his own door, he carried the cinder-sifter under his arm; and that, before ever he kissed his wife, he stepped fore and hitched it on a nail right in the middle of the wall over the chimney-piece, between John Wesley and the weather-glass. ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... Chiswell, the printer of much of Dryden's poetry, died, and his business passed into the hands of Charles Rivington, anative of Chesterfield, Derbyshire. Thoughtful and pious himself, Charles Rivington threw himself with ardour into the trade for religious manuals, and not only succeeding in persuading John Wesley to translate "Kempis" for him, but also in publishing the saintly Bishop Thomas Wilson's "Short and Plain Introduction to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper," the first edition of which bears Charles Rivington's name on the imprint, and which ...
— Printers' Marks - A Chapter in the History of Typography • William Roberts

... this, for they incited the negroes to insurrection. Nor do I think that the question is affected by the fact that many of the abolitionists were upright, earnest, and devout. A good man is not necessarily a wise man, and I remember that Samuel Johnson and John Wesley supported King George against ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... after the occurrence, took him from his cart and after considerable rough handling, threw him into the little stream that in those days and indeed for many years thereafter, took its way along the north side of the old John Wesley Church, then located at a spot directly opposite the north corner of the Convent of the Sacred Heart on Connecticut Avenue, between L and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... the flourishing condition of Methodism at St. Ives, it is important to remember that John Wesley paid the town as many as twenty-seven visits, beginning in 1743 and ending in 1789. There was already a society of his followers here when he began his visits, but they were very unpopular with the majority of the townsfolk, who accused them of sympathy ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... their own discipline, dress as extravagantly and as fashionably as any other class? Do not the ladies, and even the wives and daughters of the ministry, put on 'gold and pearls and costly array'? Would not the plain dress insisted upon by John Wesley and Bishop Asbury, and worn by Hester Ann Rodgers, Lady Huntington, and many others equally distinguished, be now regarded in Methodist circles as fanaticism? Can any one going into the Methodist church in any of our chief cities distinguish the attire of the communicants from that of the ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith

... treated as sinful, and are punished; or else the teacher pits his or her will against the child's will, considering that the latter must be 'broken.' "Break your child's will, in order that it may not perish," wrote John Wesley. "Break its will as soon as it can speak plainly—or even before it can speak at all. It should be forced to do as it is told, even if you have to whip it ten times running. Break its will, in order that its soul may live." Such will-breaking is always a scene with a great deal of nervous ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... Asses" were written by Rev. James Murray (1732-1782), anoted dissenting minister, long pastor of High Bridge Chapel in Newcastle-on-Tyne. They were published in London in 1768 and dedicated to G.W., J.W., W.R. and M.M.—George Whitfield, John Wesley, William Romaine and Martin Madan. The English people are represented as burden-bearing asses laden with oppression in the shape of taxes and creeds.[64] They are directed against the power of the established church. It is needless ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer

... was no doubt as to the existence of witches, that it was established by all history and expressly taught by the Bible. The woman was hung and her body was burned. Sir Thomas Moore declared that to give up witchcraft was to throw away the sacred scriptures. John Wesley, too, was a firm believer in ghosts, and insisted upon their existence after all laws upon the subject had been repealed in England, and I beg of you to remember that John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Church. In New ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll

... Dr. Johnson's hatred of the excise reminds us of John Wesley's wailing philippic against turnpike gates, which he denounced as the most cruel of impositions on ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... from its rudeness, and when the people were half barbarous and wholly irreligious—one of half a dozen that are now worth more than if made of the rarest china, the Blue Wesley Tea-pot; rude little objects, yet formed by loving, reverential hands, to commemorate the apostolic labors of John Wesley in that almost savage district. His likeness was on one side, and on the other the words, so often in his mouth, "In God we trust." Phyllis looked at it reverently; even in that poor portraiture recognizing ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... been quite simply the foundation of Mr. Warlock's history. In the middle of the eighteenth century it expressed itself in the formula of John Wesley's revival; the John Wesley of that day preached up and down the length and breadth of Westmoreland, Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham, and being a fighter, a preacher and a simple-minded human being ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... But the same crowd, if composed of newly-arrived Poles, Hungarians and Slovaks, would fail utterly to respond to some patriotic appeal that might move an American crowd profoundly. You may sway a Methodist congregation with a tale of John Wesley that would leave Presbyterians or Episcopalians cold. Try a Yale mob with "Boola" and then play the same tune at Princeton, and watch ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick

... which can only be arrested by the infusion of a higher spiritual life. Strong alcoholic liquors had taken the place of beer in England (to avoid the excessive tax imposed upon it) and the grossest intemperance prevailed in the early part of this reign. John Wesley introduced a regenerative force when he went about among the people preaching "Methodism," a pure and simple religion. Not since Augustine had the hearts of men been so touched, and a new life and new spirit came into being, better than all the ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele

... drove them out of their house at last were of the ordinary poltergeist type that date back to the days of John Wesley. The Slippertons had a fat and very stupid cook, whom I suspected of being an unconscious medium; but they were so attached to her that they refused to give her notice, as I strongly advised them to do. They ...
— The Psychical Researcher's Tale - The Sceptical Poltergeist - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • J. D. Beresford

... more popular than the sentiment of Milton, but he obtained no commensurate remuneration. Wycherley kindly endeavoured to interest Buckingham on his behalf, and had almost succeeded, when two handsome women passed by, and the Duke left him in pursuit of them. John Wesley's father has written Butler's epitaph in ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... practically the whole of the eighteenth century, of which he was one of the most typical personalities, as he was certainly the most strenuous figure. His career was absolutely without parallel, for John Wesley, as an itinerating clergyman, and as the propagator of that mission of Methodism which he founded, travelled on his preaching tours for forty years, mostly on horseback. He paid more turnpike fees than any man that ever bestrode a horse, and 8,000 miles constituted ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... of books was strongly colored by a religious cast,—John Wesley's sermons, Charles Wesley's hymns; a treatise presenting a biblical proof that negroes have no souls; a little book called "Flowers Gathered," which purported to be a compilation of the sayings of ultra-pious children, all of whom died ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... style Brorson's hymns in some ways strikingly resemble the work of his great English contemporaries, the Wesleys. Nor is this similarity a mere chance. The Wesleys, as we know, were strongly influenced first by the Moravians and later by the German Pietists. Besides a number of Moravian hymns, John Wesley also translated several hymns from the hymnbook compiled by the well-known Pietist, Johan Freylinghausen. The fervid style and varied metres of these hymns introduced a new type of church song into the English and American churches. But Freylinghausen's Gesang-Buch ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... part of the city, who desired first-rate instruction. He soon became the object of persecution, though he was a man of courtesy and excellent character. His school-house was finally set on fire and consumed, with all its books and furniture; but the school took, as its asylum, the basement of the John Wesley Church. The churches which they had been forced to build in the days of the mobs, when they were driven from the white churches which they had aided in building, proved of immense service to them in their subsequent struggles. Mrs. Fletcher kept a variety store, which was destroyed ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... destroys the base of the deistical system. Another writer is notable: William Law's Serious Call is one of the books which has made a turning-point in many men's lives. It specially affected Samuel Johnson and John Wesley, and many of those who sympathised more or less with Wesley's movement. Law was driven by his sense of the aspects of the rationalist theories to adopt a different position. He became a follower of Behmen, and his mysticism ended by repelling ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen

... Pennsylvania; Charles Wesley remained for four months at Frederica, and then recrossed the ocean, weary of the hardness of the people's hearts; and, except for the painful and humiliating discipline which was preparing him to "take the whole world to be his parish," it had been well for John Wesley if he had returned with his brother. Never did a really great and good man act more like a fool than he did in his Georgia mission. The priestly arrogance with which he attempted to enforce his crotchets of churchmanship on a mixed ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... tint, the same light. There is the family character in all true Christians, with whatever diversities of idiosyncrasies, and national life or ecclesiastical distinctions. Whether it be Francis of Assisi or John Wesley, whether it be Thomas a Kempis or George Fox, the light is one that shines through these many-coloured panes of glass, and the living Church is the witness of a living Lord, not only before it, and behind it, and above it, but living in it. They are 'light' because they are irradiated by ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... a-squint and his slight limp; and sometimes the younger monks fell into a titter, irreverent souls, to hear him so eager in his reading and so unconscious. It was not his eyesight that was at fault: to the end he could read the smallest hand without any glasses, like his great namesake, John Wesley, whom a German traveller noticed on the packet-boat between Flushing and London reading the fine print of the Elzevir Virgil, with his eyes unaided, though at ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... view, and the Moravian Protestants appear to have been the first to see this logical consequence. The Methodists soon followed suit, practically if not dogmatically, and a short time ere his death, John Wesley wrote:— ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... John Wesley says: "By the testimony of the Spirit, I mean an inward impression of the soul, whereby the Spirit of God immediately and directly witnesses to my spirit that I am a child of God; that 'Jesus hath loved me, and given Himself for ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle

... John Wesley said, "Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of ...
— The Art of Soul-Winning • J.W. Mahood

... John Wesley was born at Epworth rectory in Lincolnshire, England, in 1703. He was educated at Charterhouse school and in 1720 entered Christ Church College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1724. He was noted for his classical taste as well as for his religious fervor, and on ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... was, in so young a man, unique, resting on the earnestness and force of his nature. The year 1662 found senior and junior pastors like-minded, and both were among the two thousand ejected ministers. Alleine, with John Wesley (grandfather of the celebrated John Wesley), also ejected, then travelled about, preaching wherever opportunity was found. For this he was cast into prison, indicted at sessions, bullied and fined. His Letters ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... recognized tunes of verse. There is, unquestionably, a natural "iambic" roll in English prose, due to the predominant alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in our native tongue, but when Dickens—to cite what John Wesley would call "an eminent sinner" in this respect—inserts in his emotional prose line after line of five-stress "iambic" verse, we feel instinctively that the presence of the blank verse impairs the ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... can have read him, unless in the Methodist version of John Wesley Among those few, however, happens to be myself, which arose from the accident of having, when a boy of eleven, received a copy of the "De Imitatione Christi" as a bequest from a relation who died very young, from which cause, and from the external prettiness of the book— being ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey

... with brown paper, and a compound of plaster-of-paris and water was poured over it When this had hardened, behold! a snowy reproduction of the original medallion. We all went quite wild about this process, and when the workman filled in the hollowed head in the mould—it was a portrait of John Wesley—with the white preparation, very carefully, by the aid of a small spoon and a camel-hair pencil, we watched with wonder for the next development. The craftsman took a small quantity of chrome-yellow, and, having mixed it carefully with his creamy ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... once more, this time direct southwards; paused on the Sabbath-day in the neighborhood of Tandragee, and went to a field- meeting at a place called Balnabeck—I wonder if I spell it right? This gathering in a church-yard for preaching is held yearly as a commemoration service because John Wesley preached in this same graveyard when he made an evangelistic tour in Ireland. Although this is only a yearly service, and a commemoration service of one whom the people delight to honor, they made it pretty much ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... Episcopal Church, because it was located on a hill. The feasibility of having Negro ministers to preside over Negro churches was proposed in 1849 and was a fruitful theme for several years.[4] In fact, it was due to this effort that the organization of Union Wesley A. M. E., the John Wesley, and Ebenezer Churches followed. John Brent, a member of Mt. Zion, led in the first named movement, and Clement Beckett, another reformer, espoused the organization of Ebenezer in 1856, as a church ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... reported of him at an early age. His sister, Ebie Hawthorne, gave me a bust of John Wesley, in clerical white bib, and of a countenance much resembling Alcott's, even to the long, white, waving hair. Its very aspect cried out, though never so mercifully, "My ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... reason why he took to field-preaching was because no church would hold the enormous congregations which gathered to hear him. He has been several times to the American colonies, where they say he draws larger crowds than John Wesley himself." ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt

... then that William Booth saw nothing to attract him in the Church of his fathers. John Wesley, that giant reformer of religion in England, had been dead some forty years, and his life-work had not been allowed to affect "the Church" very profoundly. His followers having seceded from it contrary ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... and I had been both amused and irritated by the attitude of Eastern men who obtained from Congress grants of National money to develop harbors and yet fought the use of the Nation's power to develop the irrigation work of the West. Major John Wesley Powell, the explorer of the Grand Canyon, and Director of the Geological Survey, was the first man who fought for irrigation, and he lived to see the Reclamation Act passed and construction actually begun. Mr. F. H. Newell, the present Director of the Reclamation Service, began his work ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... [360] 'John Wesley probably paid more for turnpikes than any other man in England, for no other person travelled so much.' Southey's Wesley, i. 407. 'He tells us himself, that he preached about 800 sermons in a year.' Ib ii. 532. In one of his Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill



Words linked to "John Wesley" :   clergyman, man of the cloth, reverend, Wesley



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