Page:Our Hymns.djvu/144

 124

��OUR HYMNS :

��who sailed with them in the same ship. Thus they were brought under the influence of Spangenberg, Zinzendorf, whom they afterwards met, and especially Peter Bohler. Jackson, in his life of Charles Wesley, says, &quot; The Wesleyan connexion owes to the Moravian Brethren a debt of respect and grateful affection which can never be repaid. Mr. John and Mr. Charles Wesley, with all their excellencies, were neither holy nor happy till they were taught by Peter Bohler that men are saved from sin, its guilt, dominion, and misery, by faith in Christ.&quot;

On his return to England, in 1738, John Wesley experienced a great religious change. This he attributed to God s blessing on his association with the Moravian brethren he met with in London, and the immediate cause of it was the reading of Luther s &quot; Preface to the Epistle to the Komans.&quot; He had gone unwillingly on the 24th May to a meeting in London, where this was being read, and in that hour his heart was fully opened to the Gospel of Christ. The same year, he formed, in conjunction with Whitefield and others, the first Methodist society, at the Moravian Chapel, in Fetter Lane, London.

From that period to the end of his long and laborious life, he was constantly engaged in going from place to place to preach the Gospel. He met with much opposition and sometimes with personal violence, but this did not deter him from prosecuting his great work. He also spent much time in preparing his commentaries on the Bible, and his other theological works. But his chief work was the founding and organizing of the great and growing denomination that bears his name, and the provision he made for its introduction to other lands. His principal preaching places were London and Bristol. The ordinary course of his life was sometimes varied by occasional visits for religious purposes to Ireland, Scotland, the Channel Isles, and Holland. He also visited Zinzendorf, and the Moravian settlement at Herrnhut, in Upper Lusatia.

His separation from the Church of England arose from the force of circumstances, and not from choice. His whole system,

�� �