Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. All other spelling andpunctuation remains unchanged.
AGED FORTY.
From a scarce Engraving published in 1743.
Engraved by J. Cochran.
THE
LIFE AND TIMES
OF THE
Rev. JOHN WESLEY, M.A.,
Founder of the Methodists.
BY THE
Rev. L. TYERMAN,
AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE AND TIMES OF REV. S. WESLEY, M.A.,”
(Father of the Revds. J. and C. Wesley).
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1872.
PREFACE.
Six Lives of Wesley have been already published, besidessketches almost innumerable. What then justifies the presentwriter in publishing another?
Hampson’s, ready for the press when Wesley died, is extremelymeagre, and was the work of an angry writer. Cokeand Moore’s, issued in 1792, was a hasty publication, writtencurrente calamo, to get possession of the market; and, likemost things done in haste, was exceedingly imperfect.Whitehead’s, dated 1793-6, was composed in the midst ofdisgraceful contentions, and was tinged with party feeling.Southey’s, printed in 1820, has literary charms; but, unintentionally,is full of errors, and, for want of dates and chronologicalexactitude, is extremely confusing. Moore’s, publishedin 1824, is the fullest and most reliable; but, to a great extent,it is a mere reprint of Whitehead’s, given to the public aboutthirty years previously. Watson’s, issued in 1831, was notintended to supersede larger publications, but was “contractedwithin moderate limits, and” avowedly “preparedwith special reference to general readers.”
These are the chief Lives of Wesley. Smaller ones are toonumerous to be mentioned; and, besides that, they are notlives, but sketches.
The publications of Hampson, of Coke and Moore, ofWhitehead, and of Moore, have long been out of print. TwoLives are still on sale,—Southey’s and Watson’s; but theformer is defective in details, and is incorrect and misleading;and the latter, as already stated, was never meant to occupythe place of a larger work.
It has long been confessed that a Life of Wesley, worthyof the man, is a desideratum. Hampson, Coke, Moore, andWhitehead used, with a sparing hand, the materials which[Pg iv]were already accessible to all, and added a few originalpapers, for the preservation of which every one feels grateful.Southey acknowledges that he “had no private sources ofinformation”; and, in the list of books from which hismaterials were chiefly taken, we find nothing but what is inthe hands of most Methodist students. Watson says, he had“the advantage of consulting unpublished papers”; but itis not injustice to Watson, to say that ver