Methodist Church

“ The great body which he thus founded numbered a hundred thousand members at his death, and now counts its members in England and America by millions. But the Methodists themselves were the least result of the Methodist revival. Its action upon the Church, as we shall see later, broke the lethargy of the clergy who, under the influence of the "Evangelical" movement, were called to a loftier conception of their duties; while a powerful moral enthusiasm appeared in the nation at large. ”

“ Now the work you’re doing at present is inspiring to many fine young men, but it is single-handed—it has no permanence. When you go, much of the good you have done dies, because there is no institution like the living church to carry it on. You ought to be in one of the large denominations, and of these I feel, for all my admiration of the Baptists, that the Methodist Church is in some ways the great exemplar. ”

“ As with them religious emotion constitutes the essence of religion, they make use of all means of producing it, and especially the excitement which comes from sympathy. The Methodist Church has, perhaps, gone farther than any other towards making this a principle. This great and noble body has done its vast work for Christianity by making prominent the love-principle in all its operations. If the Church party stands at one extreme, Methodism, in all its forms, stands at the other. ”

“ I soon learned, however, that life in the Methodist Church was all uphill or downhill at a smart spiritual canter. In these days it is nearly as easy to be a Methodist as it is to be an Episcopalian.
One rarely sees now the hallelujah end of a human emotion in a Methodist church. Recently, when an old-fashioned saint gave way and scandalized the preacher by shouting in one of our fashionable city churches, the stewards took her out, put her in an ambulance and sent her to the hospital. ”

“ I am confident that I but state a simple fact, when I express our belief that the Methodist Church, in its doctrines, ministry, and institutions, furnishes as formidable a barrier against the irreligion and infidelity of the times as any other section of Protestantism. ”

“ It is certainly most desirable that there should be one vigorous, united, and prosperous [Pg 397] Methodist Church; in which the pure doctrines of Methodism, and of the Gospel, shall be preserved, and a refuge for those who really want to be saved shall be presented—to all those, I mean, who prefer our religious system to any other. Now, my dear sir, allow me to say, that I think that the only two men in the world who can effect this most desirable object, are yourself and Dr. Alder. ”

“ Her religion was a deep, smooth, current without fluctuation. My father was religious more by spells, but still he never went to extremes, and could never "get religion" at the altar, in the Methodist fashion. This lifelong failure of his discouraged him, causing him at times to become somewhat skeptical and indifferent. But he died, rejoicing in the faith of Christ as held by the Methodist Church.
When about ten years of age I joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. A great revival was in progress at La Grange, and over one hundred persons united with the church. ”

“ If today a minister feels that he can no longer believe in the articles of faith of the Baptist Church, he can turn Methodist, and if for some reason he ceases to believe in the creed as laid down by the Methodist Church, he can become a Unitarian or a Catholic or a Jew, or for that matter, a [113] Hindoo or a Turk. The world is wide. The door is open. There is no one outside his own hungry family to say him nay. ”

“ If I go to live in any country on the face of the earth, I have to be subject to its laws, and if I am a reasonable, intelligent man, I acknowledge the propriety of my being so. If I join the Methodist church, I have a right to be a good Methodist, and to submit to their discipline. ”

“ They cannot resist it, they are overwhelmed by it.”
The fact is, that there is little or no healthy religion in their most numerous and influential churches; it is all excitement. Twenty or thirty years back, the Methodists were considered as extravagantly frantic, but the Congregationalists and Presbyterians in the United States have gone far ahead of them; and the Methodist church in America has become to a degree Episcopal, and softened down into, perhaps, the most pure, most mild, and most simple of all the creeds professed. ”

“ Very well, all these sects have their own peculiar ideas of church government. The Methodist has his Discipline—a system got up by the ministers of that church that all its members have to be governed by. They must come within the purview and be under the influence thereof. If you ask a Methodist to become a Latter-day Saint, he might say, and truly, "I have not the privilege of being Methodist and Latter-day Saint at the same time." A man can not be a Baptist and a Methodist at the same time, neither can he be a Methodist and a shaking Quaker. ”

“ She professed faith when but fifteen years old and joined the Methodist Church. For three years she faithfully followed its teachings, but, as she grew older and read more, she analyzed her feelings to find that the Christian Church opened the path. ”

“ They differ a little in their creed from the rest. They do not believe that God does everything. They believe that he does his part, and that you must do the rest, and that getting to heaven is a partnership business. The Methodist Church is adapted to new countries—its ministers are generally uncultured, and with them zeal takes the place of knowledge. They convert people with noise. In the silence that follows most of the converts backslide.
In a little while a struggle will commence between the few who are growing and the orthodox many. ”

“ In that way the people see what Methodism is; in this, they do not. We finally agreed that each would affirm that the polity and practice of the church with which he was identified are authorized by the word of God.
An immense crowd attended the debate. The weather was beautiful, and we had dinner on the ground. Each affirmed for three days. My affirmation closed Saturday afternoon. The President Moderator announced that the debate would be resumed at 10 o'clock Monday, on the polity of the Methodist Church, Mr. Fitch affirming. ”

“ He was much troubled in his youth by religious perplexities, but ultimately joined the Methodists, and in 1798 was appointed a preacher “on trial” in a New York circuit. In the following year, however, he crossed the Atlantic and preached as a missionary to the Catholics of Ireland, and thereafter was never connected officially with the ministry of the Methodist Church, though he remained essentially a Methodist in doctrine. Everywhere, in America and Great Britain, he attracted great crowds to hear and see him, and he was often persecuted as well as admired. ”

“ The Methodists claim the right for their conferences to prescribe to Methodist communicants what books they ought not to read, and seldom will you find a strict Methodist or Presbyterian reading a Catholic book. It is much the same with all Protestants who belong to what they call the church as distinguished from the congregation--a distinction which does not obtain among Catholics, for with us all baptized persons, not excommunicated, belong to the church. ”

“ Our hosts have been won, by the power of the Gospel manifested in a real, religious experience, from the vast classes of unconverted persons. We have regarded these, wherever we found them, as legitimate prey. We count it a special honor that our millions are trophies won for Christ from the masses of godless, indifferent, unconverted persons. The late Dr. John Hall once said that he specially honored the Methodist Church for the importance it attaches to conversion. The power of Methodism is spiritual in its nature. ”

“ The magnificent Methodist organization, unequalled outside the Roman Catholic Church, has developed within the century, and its aggressive forces have been felt throughout Christendom. All the denominations have received an impetus from its abundant energy and each in its measure has caught the contagion of its activities. In country districts, in the great cities and in foreign lands, its representatives, loyal to their Church and the principles of its founder, are pressing forward in self-denial and apostolic fervor foremost everywhere in the van of the Christian army. ”

“ The Catholic church has never made a secret of doing good—for we believe in the potency of example. If we elevate the moral condition of one man, it is well that another man should know it. The Methodist holds his revival and implores the sinner to come forward and kneel at the altar. And as it were, I am holding a revival—I am persuading the negro and the white man as well to kneel under the cross. ”

“ But while calling attention to the spiritual wealth and the beneficent overflow of Methodism, we would not be unmindful of the debt which Methodism owes to other Churches, and in special of its obligations to those Anglican divines of our day who have enriched the whole Church of Christ by their scholarly contributions to sacred literature; and we would ascribe all the praise of Methodist achievement to the almighty Author of good, whom the spirit of ostentation and vain glorifying must displease, while it would surely hinder His work. ”

“ Thus the great Methodism of the Old World in 1791, with its 313 ministers and 76,968 members, in 1901 has become the greater Methodism, with 64,550 preachers and 1,201,663 members.
Let the point of view now be changed from City Road Chapel, London, to John Street Methodist Episcopal Church, in New York city, for a survey of the New World Methodism. To the north is the Methodist Church of Canada, with 11 Conferences and a mission in China, with a ministry, traveling and local, of 4,322, and a membership of 284,901. ”

“ Similar proceedings were taken against others, who appealed to the General Conference of 1860, but their expulsion was confirmed. It was the purpose of the founders to conserve the usage and the spirit of primitive Methodism. The government of the Church is simple, in all but the Episcopacy and its adjuncts resembling that of the Church whence it sprang. The Free Methodist Church had, in 1907, 1032 ministers, 1106 churches, and 31,376 communicants. ”

“ The Methodist Reformation, while it had found no practical sympathy within the established church, left a deep sense of its reason and purpose in the minds of the more devout Episcopalians, and this feeling, instead of taking form in popular revival methods, prompted them to deeper sincerity and more spiritual fervor in their traditional rites of worship. Many of the next generation inherited this pious ecclesiasticism, and carried their loyalty to the old Christian culture to the extreme of devotion till they saw in the sacraments the highest good of the soul. ”

“ Years ago the social position of the great majority of the Methodists and Baptists was distinctly below that of the Episcopalians and Presbyterians. In recent years many Methodists and Baptists have grown prosperous. Instead of being bare barns, their church edifices are often the most ornate and costly in the town or city. A Methodist or a Baptist can have none of the former feeling of martyrdom now, when in numbers and wealth his denomination is so powerful. 1 ”

“ When the young man leaves the parental roof of a Methodist family for some distant city, or some foreign land, the [pg 301] pangs of anxiety are alleviated by the knowledge that wherever he may be, there will be some Methodist Church where he will find friends, and some Methodist class-leader who will look after his most important interests. ”

“ Another woman, who has a good home, said, “We are so glad to have you back, so we can have our prayer meetings again; for we like those quiet meetings, without any fuss; and we like a leader in whom we have confidence, to instruct us.”
One of the pupils in our school urged me to start a Sunday-school in the Methodist church, of which she is a member. I went three or four times, accompanied by one of our teachers. The colored pastor gave us a hearty welcome; said he was proud that we had come to help, and that he was no respecter of persons. The number increased each week. ”

“ They carry their religion into their whole life, while the Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Baptists sit on different sides of the fence, and quarrel like fun about High Church and Low, Old School and New, close communion and open communion, and all that sort of thing. I tell you, Rose, if I am ever converted—and mother thinks I will be—I shall be a roaring Methodist, and ride the Circuit at once! ”

“ Receive the Sacrament at every opportunity. Warn all against niceness in hearing, a great and prevailing evil; against calling our society a Church or the Church; against calling our preachers ministers and our houses meeting-houses: call them plain preaching-houses. Do not license yourself till you are constrained, and then not as a Dissenter, but as a Methodist preacher.' In 1766, 'We will not, we dare not, separate from the Church, for the reasons given several years ago. We are not seceders.... Some may say, "Our own service is public worship." ”

“ Is it too much to calculate Methodist hearers only at the rate of twice the number of Methodist church members? If not, the estimated result is as follows:
We thus make a total of more than twelve millions of persons receiving Methodist instruction, and, from week to week, meeting together in Methodist buildings for the purpose of [Pg 10] worshipping Almighty God. The statement is startling, but the statistics given entitle it to the fullest consideration.
But rightly to estimate the results of Methodism during the last hundred and thirty years, there are other facts to be remembered. ”