- 5 :
. ,5
ESTABLI' 0 IN
0RMNJ3FJHE NORTH CAROLINA CONFERENCE, M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH.
1855.
RALEIGH, N. C, DECEMBER 13, 1899.
Ml;
Gro.r
? North Carolina Conference.
:i Wkkki.y at Raleigh, n. C.
Rev.
Rev.
One
A':l
.V.i :
W.V
-.ul-ci iss matter in the post-office at Raleigh.
X. IVEY, D. D Editor.
M. WATSON, Business Manager.
New Series. Vol. 1, No. 43.
of
TEARS OF SUBSCRIPTION.
.... - S1.50. 1 Six Months, -Cash
in Advance.
.75
of the gospel and wives of deceased
' .oo.
::ing
preachers in
hori.ed agents
the North Carolina
will receive the
1. It shows the date up to which
has been paid. Change in label
i-s is ordered changed, both old and
:v.:t be given.
::uney, be sure to state whether it is
Mibseription.
o:ters and make all checks and money
o io the
.EIGH CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.
fiS' wlly not in the great works
I do not know a single one of the eter
nal, trnths of the Christian religion on
which Victor Hugo' has not caTt some
light, either by elaborate treatment of a
character or by a line or a single word.
. He pleasantly tells us of his first read
ing of the Bible, how h a t,:
; brothers were playing in an attic, they
saw on the top of a shelf an "inaccessi-
uie cook." They managed, however, to
take it down "and opened it on their
knees." Then they read, and "from the
very first word it appeared to us so
sweet, that forgetting our play we gave
ourselves up to reading. We read all the
morning of Joseph and Ruth and the
Good Samaritan, and were more and
more charmed. In the evening we read
it again; we were like children who have
in their hands a bird of the skies, who
laugh and wonder and stroke its plumes."
Thirty years after, as he saw his two
daughters poring over that book, he said,
riom tms nook one is learning to read
another to think." Again he says:
this Holy Book there is a salvation
HTORIAL
I lome-Maker's Reward.
v
men who had served the Lord
- heaven's gate for their reward,
soul had her fair record brought
viee for the Master wrought, i
7
"In
so
profound that a God was needed to dic-
i sei
. u whose life was full and long.
i. ar inn had slain
a giant wrong.
"iiiiT children
this one's life was
.U ss outcasts hope that presence lent.
:ri. d and stunted souls those labored
low's blessings in the prison cell.
" humanity,' sin-cursed and lost,
v tlirir lives, and counted not the cost.
.'.;.' bright and beautiful to see !
:'..!! u- had crowned them ere their souls
:n e
was who lone and trembling
;s throng of women great and good.
.-t
recording
. !i'u her
'.ngel,
among the
spe;u
ble
acre these
T T
lit
:ing said,
:sed dead
thou nothing done
their crowns of glory
uiic li. wavs. e .snenscs or I'wnpti
the Bible dazzled the world." Though
he writes as a poet, he always writes as a
believer, and is ever showing his rever
ence and love for the inspired Word. In
more than twenty of his works he makes
reference to the "august text, where
hearts reading with fervor drink in
truth, beauty, righteousness."
With him life is no playground, it is a
place of combat between good and evil.
It is the duty of all to side with virtue
against vice, for all are free. Duty is a
divine word. "Dutv is a God that will
have no atheist "
God alone is the sure oracle; faith that
takes him at his word is the torch that
never goes out, and always guides right.
Hope comes with faith. "Hope, child,
to-morrow, and then to-morrow still. Be
lieve in the future and hope. Every time
the sun rises, let us be there to pray, as
God is there to bless." We know his
mercy; he is the God of Calvary."
What God wants is love. "To adore,
i that is at once to love and to admire. As
God is infinitely above man, how shall
this infinite distance be overcome?" One
day, the poet says, a phantom met him
and offered to bridge over this separating
abyss. "What is thy name?" He re
plies, "My name is Prayer." "To bring
by thought the infinitely low in contact
v.'irh the infinite-lv high, that is Draver."
. r- i x
X.)
-he weeping, said: "Let me return
: -ir earth, for which I surely yearn;
- that loved me all my service got;
-ervice for the Lord I wrought.
called John Wesley to teach a conscious
salvation. The great doctrine of Meth
odism is the doctrine of the witness of
the Spirit. This is that supernatural
fire that strangely warmed John Wesley's
heart. This is that inborn sense, down
deep in consciousness, deeper than logic,
more certain than reasoning, that we are
accepted of God, whereby we cry, "Abba,
Father." Have you this witness? Brother,
ask yourself; sister, ask yourself, "Have
I this all-satisfying witness?" I am on
trial for my soul. My case is being made
up. The jury will soon goout. Its ver
dict is final. I must know beyond a doubt
what their verdict wxi-be. It will either
set me free to walk with open face and
glad heart about the city of God, with
the good and great of all ages forever,
or it will assign me to that lone land
where mercy and hope never come. I
cannot trust my own judgment; am little,
ignorant, and often easily decieved, much
prejudiced; I may be wrong; I may have
an iufaiible testimony. This I may have
in the witness of the Holy Spirit ? You
may have. Pray mightily that this may
come to you and be the rich enduement
of power for the whole Church-
This is the supreme gfft. Jesus said:
"It is expedient for you that I go away."
What could make it exnedient for the
infant Church to have Jesus leave them?
He had been all things unto them. He
had been to them the peasant of Naza
reth, Prophet of God, Son of God, and
God over all, blessed for evermore. Yet
it was expedient for them to have him
go away. For Jesus says, "If I go not
awav, the Holv Ghost will not come un
to you." The Spirit is the promise of
the Father. Let every Methodist, man,
and stand by the rocks and the natural
amphitheatres in Cornwall and Northum
berland, in Lancanshire and Berkshire,
where he preached his gospel to the heath
en. Exertion so prolonged, enthusiasm
so sustained, argues a remarkable man,
while the organization he created, the
system he founded, the view of life he
promulgated, is still a great fact among
us. No other name than Wesley's lies
embalmed as his does. Yet he is not a
popular figure. Our standard historians!
have dismissed him curtly. The fact is,
Wesley puts your ordinary historian out
of conceit w7ith himself, How much
easier to weave into your pages the gos
sip of Horace Walpole, to enliven it with
a heartless jest of George Selwyn's, to
make it blush with sad stories of the ex
travagance of Fox, to embroider it with
the rhetoric of Burke, to humanize it
with the talk of Johnson, to discuss the
rise and fall of administrations, the growth
and decay ct the constitution, than to fol
low' John Wesley into the streets of Bris
tol, or on to the bleak moors near Bur
sleni, when he met, face to face in all
their violence, all tlie r ignorance, and all
their generosity the living men, women,
and children who made up the nation.
It was perhaps also to be admitted that
to found great organizations is to build
your tomb a splendid tomb, it may be,
a veritable sarcophagus, but none the less
a tomb. John Wesley's chapels lie a lit
tle heavily on John Wesley. Even so do
the glories of Rome make us forgetful of
the grave in Syria.
It has been said that Wesley's charac
ter lacks charm, that mighty antiseptic.
It is not easy to define charm, which is
not a catalogue of qualities, but a mix-
woman and child, pray for the personal iture. Let no one deny charm to Wesley
witness of the Spnit and for the baptism
of the Holy Spirit upon the whole church.
This will secure the power of the church
and the supreme and acceptable Twen
tieth Century Thank Offering. Give
yourself, then you will gladly give what
ever God" wants. Put your hand between
the King's hands, and he will secure the
rest. Bishop Foivlcr.
JOHN WE:JLEY.
15Y AUGUSTINE BIRKELL.
her
lamb
and the
calls
Lord
c W:e
: - j r j j
too short for
me; when
Death had
U.l hut made on ear:h a happy home."
iwst thou so, thou well-beloved
Ay!
lKv,vgxu-v of heaven, go in among the rest.
that loved thee thou shalt have
X
Va:n:
:ie I:
th
air i in
y return, but thou shalt lose thy pain,
shalt breathe in heaven ihynat.ve
s glorious mansions, great and fair,
- .":.? iliar all its joys shall come;
n - 'vhaMhou hast left a happy home
Fninroi FAkln Alliaon, in the Inte.ior.
77
T r ft
HUGO
AS
A PREACHER.
SIOMAS DGGGKTT, D. E
"1
not surprising that ministers
ad much in Victor Hugo's writ
luVtrate their sermons and give
v the essential truths of Chris
N,r is it surprising that some,
i ter to congregations in which
numbers who are familiar with
ikrature, should frequently take
t -e gieat moral and inteilec-
(. ions as furnishing subject
r ili..- vivid enforcement of vital
; .! verities. The wonder is that
i ne
;tr cone. 1 ne jiuic :
ieu the living characters of a
The sheep comes when
i her: I called the Lore,
came."
"If men seek pleasure only, they find
joys without happiness, sorrows without
consolation. Happiness leaves in my
soul regret, but impure pleasure, thou
leavest remorse."
Nothing better has been said of im
mortality than "without it nature would
be a mournful and cowardly impostor.
Life would not be worthy of God who
gives it, nor of man who receives it."
At the tomb of Balzac he said: "I will
not cease repeating it no, it is not night,
it is light; it is not the end, it is the be
ginning; it is not nothingness, it is eter
nity." At the foot of the coffin of a
young girl he said: "Emily has gone to
seek suoreme serenity above. She has
gone vouth to eternity, beauty to the
fdeal, hope to certitude, love to the in
finite, the pearl to the ocean, the spirit to
God.
They who have fed on Victor Hugo
have no relish for the moral anatomy and
the irreligious realism of most of the
novelists of cur day. Victor Hugo
preaches; would that there were more
such preachers!
THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT.
Let me sneak to the great hosts of the
rank and hie cf our membership. Is it
not true that many live on and on in the
Church on a plane below their privilege.'
a fl-.nr.o not manv who fail of the rich
on,
used
to throw an
sacred page. The
lit upon the
i' rv and the incidents of com-
v.hich the daily press presents,
u upon as a matter of course to
the Psalms and Prophets and
md Epistles, and no objection is
:d why not the works of one
' d has endowed with more than
insight into life and character,
i more than an ordinary power
111 ulml linnifin life and charac-
and v
to set
r
cranes irom
..:;hcq nf the Spirit t i ney piou
better experience, inuigiy
tualiy Having a sai-
,,i.i
Iiy viHJ v.uuii!
. 1 ,1 x nurtimtU liT
to nave tue utrcp
God's witnessing op" -. , ,
rm the purpose lor which
Methodism v.as cal.ea .mo f;
s;orld to teacn aim i'Huo
religion. The world was
days of Wesley, with Old
wlio li aa oniy a
. r i. r,nH wanted a Uiurcn
hope oi a hujjc. v-
with a knowable experience.
assurance of faith that
of
for a
in heart, yet never
isfactory experience m
rrb'id to have
Gc
experience ici
Met hod ism
are in the w
a knowable
full, in the
Testament believers,
John Wesley?, born as he w7as in 1703,
and dying as he did in 1791, covers as
nearly as mortal man may, the whole of
the eighteenth century, of which he was
one of the most t pical and certainly the
most strenuous figure. He began his pub
lishecl journal on October 14, 1735, and
its last" entry is under date Sunday, Octo
ber 25, 1790, when in the morning he ex
plained to a numerous congregation in
Spitalfields Church "The Whole Army of
God," and in the afternoon enforced to a
still larger audience in St. Paul's, Shad
well, the great truth, "One thing is need
ful," the last words of the Journal being
"T hone manv even then resolved to
- r j
choose the better part."
Between these two Octobers there lies
the most amazing record of human exer
tion ever penned or endured. I do not
know whether I am likely to have among
my readers any one who has ever contested
an English or bcotisli county in a pariia
mentary election since household stiff rage
If I have, that tired soul will know how
severe is the strain of its three weeks, and
how impossible it seemed at the end of
tlip first vcppk that vou should be abie to
keen it eoiugf for another fortnight, and
how when the last night arrived you felt
that had the strife been accidentally pro
longed another seven days you must have
perished by the wayside. Well, John
Wesley contested the three kingdoms in
the cause or Christ during a campaign
whioh Listed fortv vears. He did it for
- " - - - - rf-r
the most part on horseback, lie paid
more turnpikes than any man who ever
bestrode a beast. Eight thousand miles
was his annual record for many a
war. dnrino- each of which he
preached less frequently than five thous
and times. Had he but preserved his
scores at all the inns where he lodged,
they would have made by themselves a
So he
I01
1 1
seldom
who has not read his journal. Southey's
life is a dull, almost a stupid, book, which
happily there is no need to read. Read
the journal, which is a book full of plots
and plays and novel, which quivers with
lite and is crammed full of character.
John Wesley came of a stock which had
been harassed and put about bv our un-
happy religious difficulties. Politics, bus
iness, and religion are the three things
Englishmen are said to worry themselves
bout. 1 he Wesley 3 early took up with
eligion. John Wesley's great-grandfather
and grandfather were both ejected from
their livings in 1662, anel the grandfather
was so bullied and oppressed by the Five
Mile Act that lie early gave up the Ghost.
Whereupon his remains were refused
what is called Christian burial, though a
holier and more primitive man never drew
breath. This poor, persecuted spirit left
two sons according to the flesh, Matthew
and Samuel; and Samuel it was who in
his turn became the father of John and
Charles Wesley.
The mother of the Wesleys was a re
markable woman, though cast in a mould
not much to our mind nowadays. She
had nineteen children, and greatly prided
herself on having taught them, one after
another, by frequent chastisements to,
what do you think? to cry softly. She
had theories of education and strength of
will, and of arm, too, to carry them out.
She knew Latin and Greek, and though a
stern, forbidding, almost an unfeeling,
a
parent, she was successtul. m winning
and retaining not only the respect but the
affection of such of her huge family as
lived to grow un. But out cf the nine-
teen, thirteen early succumbed. Infant
mortality was one of the great facts of
the eighteenth century whose Rachels
had to learn to cry softly over their dead
babes. The mother of the Wesleys
thought more of her children's sculs
than of their bodies.
John Wesley received a sound classical
education at Charterhouse and Christ
Church; and remained all his life very
much the scholar and gentleman. Nc
company was too good for John Wesley,
and nobody knew better than he did that
had he cared to carry Ins powerful intel
ligence, his flawless constitution, and his
infinite capacity for taking pains intoany
history of pr
gnout it an
1-
.1 i i
ices. riuu iuro
: l r : . - 4. ,
wiiai depression 01 spirub
-though lie nad
much to try him,
and a leaions wile.
lib
ne nevt-'i icuc
meant t h o 1 1 g 1 1
suits in chaucei
In the course of this unparalleled con
test Wesley visited again and again the
most out-of-the-way districts the remot
est comers of England places which to
day lie far removed even from the searcher
after the picturesque. In 1S99, when the
map of England looks like a gridiron of
railways, none but the sturdiest of pedes
trians, the most determined of cyclists can
retrace the steps of Wcsiey and his horse
eludes m
J. i
of the markets cf the world, he must
have earned for himself place, fame, and
fortune.
Weslev's motive never
his early manhood, after being greatly
affected by Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Liv
ing and Dying" and the "Imitatio
Christi," and by Law's "Serious C;
and "Christian Perfection," he met "a
serious man," who said to him, "Sir, you
wish to serve Goel and go to heaven
Remember vou cannot serve Him alone
You must, therefore, find companions or
make them. The Bible knows nothing
of solitary religion." He was very confi
dent, this serious man, and Wesley never
forgot his message, "You must find com
panious or make them. The Bible knows
nothing ot solitary religion." These
words forever sounded in Wesley's ears,
determining his theology, which rejected
the stern individualism of Calvin, and
fashionitig his whole polity, his famous
class-meetings and generally gregarious
methods.
Wesley's humor is of the species don
nish, and his modes and methods quietly
persistent.
"On Thursday, the 20th of May (1742),
I set out. The next afternoon I stopped
a little at Newport-Pagnell, and then rode
on till I overtook a serious man with
whom I immediately fell into conversa
tion. He presently gave me to know
what his opinions were, therefore I said
nothing to contradict them. But that did
not content him. He was quite uneasy
to know 'whether I held the doctrines of
the decrees as he did ;' but I told him
over and over 'We had better keep to
practical things lest we should be angry
at one another.' And so we did for two
miles till he caught me unawares and
dragged me into the dispute before I knew
where I was. He then grew warmer and
warmer; told me I was rotten at heart and
supposed I was one of John Wesley's fol
lowers. I told him 'No. I am John Wes
ley himself.' Upon which Lnprovi&um
asbris Veluti qui seiiti'nus an? item PrcsscL
hu would have gladly run away outright.
But, being better mounted of the two, I
kept close to his side, and endeavored to
now nun 111s neart 1111 we came into the
street of Northampton."
What a picture have we here of a fine
May morning in 1742, the unhappy Cal-
vinist trying to shake off the Arminian
Wesley ! But he cannot do it ! John
Wesley is the better mounted of the rtv?,
and so they scamper together into Northampton.
Wesley was full of compassion, of a
compassion wholly free from hysterics
and like exaltative. In public affairs, his
was the composed zeal of a Howard. His
efforts to penetrate the dark places were
long 111 vain. He savs, in his dry way :
' They won't let me go to Bedlam because
they say I make the inmates mad, or into
Newgate, because I make them wicked.
The reader of the journal will be at no
loss tcV see what these saoient magistrates
meant. Wesley was a terribly exciting
preacher, quiet though his manner was.
He pushed matters home without flinch-
ing. lie made people cry out and ian
M. A.
down, nor did it surprise him that they
should. You will find some strange
biographies in the journal. Consider
that of John Lancaster for a moment.
He was a young fellow who fell into bad
company, stole some velvet, and was sen
tenced to death, and lay for a whiie in
his hour. A good
Methodist woman, Sarah Peters, obtained
permission to visit him, -though the fever
was raging in the prison at the time.
Lancaster had no difficulty in collecting
six or seven other prisoners, all like him
self waiting to be strangled, and Sarah
Peters prayed with them and sang hymns,
the clergy of the diocese being otherwise
occupied. When the eve of their execu
tion arrived the poor creatures begged
that Sarah Peters might be allowed to
remain withthem, to continue her exhor
tations, but this could not be. In her
absence, however, they contrived to con
sole one another, for that devilish device
of a later age, solitary confinement, was
then unknown. When the bellman came
round at midnight to tell them, "Remem
ber you are to die today," they cried
out, "Welcome news! Welcome news!"
How they met their deaths you can read
for yourselves in the journal, which
concludes the narrative with a true eigh
teenth century touch. "John Lancas
ter's body was carried away by a com
pany hired by the surgeons, but a crew
of sailors pursued them, took it from them
by force and delivered it to his mother,
by which means it was decently interred
in the presence of many who praised God
on his behalf."
If you want to get into the last century,
to feel its pulse throb beneath your finger,
be content se.metime to leave the letters
of Horace Walpole unturned, resist the
drowsy temptation to waste your time over
the learned triflers who sleep in the seven
teen volumes of Niehols; nav even deny
yourself ycur annual reading cf Boswell
or your biennial retreat with Sterne, and
ride up and down the country with the
greatest force of the eighteenth century
in England.
No man lived nearer the centre than
John Wesley. Neither Give nor Pitt,
neither Mansfield nor Johnson. You can
not cut him out of our national life. No
single figure influenced so many minds,
no single voice touched so many hearts.
ttr slu.nhi be? As we find "sermons in