crowded to hear him; and by the increase of their number, as well as by their earnest and deep attention, they insensibly led him to go farther than he had at first designed. He began to preach; and the Lord so blessed the word, that many were not only deeply awakened and brought to repentance, but were also made happy in a consciousness of pardon. The Scripture marks of true conversion, inward peace, and power to walk in all holiness, evinced the work to be of God." But however successful his preaching, it was represented to Wesley as an irregularity, which it required his presence to put a stop to, and he hastened to London for that purpose. His mother lived at that time in his house adjoining the Foundery, and she perceiving marks of displeasure in his countenance when he arrived, enquired the cause. He replied, "Thomas Maxfield has turned preacher, I find.” Mrs. Wesley looked at him seriously, and said,

John, you know what my sentiments have been; you cannot suspect me of favouring readily any thing of this kind; but take care what you do with respect to that young man, for he is as surely called of God to preach as you are. Examine what have been the fruits of his preaching, and hear him also yourself." Wesley, like Loyola, was always ready to correct any part of his conduct, or system, as soon as he discovered that it was inconvenient or erroneous. He was too wise a man to be obstinate, and too sincere in all his actions to feel any reluctance at acknowledging that he had been mistaken. He heard

Maxfield preach, and expressed at once his satisfaction and his sanction, by saying, It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth Him good. He saw that it was impossible to prevent his followers from preaching, and with admirable readiness resolved to lead the stream which it was beyond his power to turn. From that time, therefore, he admitted volunteers whom he thought qualified to serve him, as "sons in the Gospel ;" but always upon the condition that they should labour where he appointed, because otherwise they would have stood in each other's way.

If this determination had not been occasioned by Maxfield's conduct, it would have been brought about by the service of another labourer, who in like manner anticipated the system about the same time. This person was a Yorkshire mason, by name John Nelson, one of those men who found in Methodism their proper sphere of action. He grew up under a pious father, who read the Scriptures in his family, and died with a settled reliance upon the mercy of God, and in full trust that Providence would provide for his widow and children. He married early and happily; his labour amply supported him, and he and his wife lived, he says, " in a good way, as the world calls it; that is in peace and plenty, and love to each other." But his first religious impressions had been of a frightful character: he formed resolutions which he was unable to keep; uneasiness of mind produced a restless desire of changing place; whereever he was he felt the same disquietude; and

though he had experienced neither sorrow nor misfortune of any kind, being in all respects fortunate beyond most men of his condition, still he thought that rather than live thirty years more like the thirty which he had passed, he would choose to be strangled. The fear of judgement made him wish that he never had been born, and yet there was a living hope in his soul. "Surely," said he, "God never made man to be such a riddle to himself, and to leave him so! There must be something in religion that I am unacquainted with, to satisfy the empty mind of man, or he is in a worse state than the beasts that perish." Under such feelings he wandered up and down the fields after his day's work was done, thinking what he should do to be saved, and he went from church to church but found no ease, for what he heard exasperated the distemper of his mind instead of allaying it. When he heard a clergyman expatiate upon the comfort which good men derive in death from the retrospect of a well-spent life, it led him to reflect that he had never spent a single day wherein he had not left undone something which he ought to have done, and done something which he ought not to have done.

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Oh," says he, "what a stab was that sermon to my wounded soul! It made me wish that my mother's womb had been my grave." And when at another church he heard it affirmed, that man had no right to expect any interest in the merits of Christ, if he had not fulfilled his part, and done all that lay in his power, he thought that if that

were true none but little children could be saved, for he did not believe that any who had lived to years of maturity had done all the good they could, and avoided all the evil they might. “Oh,” he exclaims, "what deadly physic was that sort of doctrine to my poor sin-sick soul!”

He went to hear dissenters of divers denominations, but to no purpose. He tried the Roman Catholics, but was soon surfeited with their way of worship, which of all ways was the least likely to satisfy a spirit like his. He attended the Quakers, meeting with no better success. For names he cared nothing, nor for what he might be called upon to suffer, so that he might find peace for his soul." "I had now," he says, " tried all but the Jews, and I thought it was to no purpose to go to them;" so he determined to keep to the church, and read and pray, whether he perished or not. A judicious minister, who should have known the man, might have given him the comfort which he sought; but the sort of intercourse between the pastor and his people which this would imply, hardly exists any where in England, and cannot possibly exist in the metropolis, where Nelson was then residing. At this time Whitefield began his campaign in Moorfields, and then it might have been thought that he would have found the right physician, but Whitefield did not touch the string to which his heart accorded." He was to me," says John Nelson, " as a man that could play well on an instrument, for his preaching was pleasant to me, and I loved the man; so that if

any one offered to disturb him, I was ready to fight for him; but I did not understand him; yet I got some hope of mercy, so that I was encouraged to pray on, and spend my leisure hours in reading the Scriptures." While Nelson was in this state he seldom slept four hours in the night, — sometimes he started from his sleep as if he were falling into a horrible pit; sometimes dreamed that he was fighting with Satan, and awoke exhausted and bathed in sweat from the imaginary conflict.

Thus he continued, till Wesley preached for the first time in Moorfields. "Oh!" says he, “that was a blessed morning for my soul! As soon as he got upon the stand, he stroked back his hair and turned his face towards where I stood, and I thought he fixed his eyes on me. His countenance struck such an awful dread upon me before I heard him speak, that it made my heart beat like the pendulum of a clock; and when he did speak, I thought his whole discourse was aimed at me." Nelson might well think thus, for it was a peculiar characteristic of Wesley in his discourses, that in winding up his sermons, in pointing his exhortations and driving them home, he spoke as if he were addressing himself to an individual, so that every one to whom the condition which he described was applicable, felt as if he were singled out; and the preacher's words were then like the eyes of a portrait which seem to look at every beholder. "Who," said the preacher, "Who art thou, that now seest and feelest both thine inward and outward ungodliness? Thou art the man! I want thee