its great embarrassments, its maintenance of its spiritual work, its moderation and mutual forbearance, notwithstanding its own diversities of opinion, its firmness in executing discipline, as in the case of Kilham, all tended to secure it public respect and confidence. Its moral power advanced with every concession of its ecclesiastical power; it was beloved and revered by its people; and preachers and people, grasping hands, were substantially united forever.

Thus did the tossed and driven bark come forth from the prolonged storm, with its sails fully set, and its colors displayed, to pursue its destined course, confounding the predictions of its enemies and disappointing gratefully even its most sanguine friends. The result of the struggle was not only beneficial in the restoration of harmony, but, if possible, more so, as giving a consolidated government to Methodism, by which it has not only survived later strifes, but has extended its sway, with increasing energy, more or less around the world; a government which in our day, after more than half a century of labors and struggles, remains as effective a system of Church polity as Protestant Christendom affords.

We have passed rapidly over these eventful struggles. More agreeable scenes now ensued, and through the first five years of the new century the energies of the connection were increasing and consolidating in a remarkable manner, preparatory for the new missionary development to which the denomination was about to be providentially summoned as its next and grandest historical phase. It had been well tried, and being found worthy, it was now to be led forth conquering and to conquer. We cannot detail the successive stages of this new progress; we need not, for it is read of nearly all men and in nearly all parts of the world to-day. But its first indication, next to the spiritual revivals which prevailed at the beginning of the century, was the great representative men who entered the field about this period, and who for many years conducted the new development. As these important men continued almost down to our day, and their personal history thus became a history of the connection from this new epoch, we cannot perhaps better conclude our paper than by "sketching" some of them as exponents of the subsequent course of Wesleyan Methodism. Six of them may be said to be specially

entitled to this distinction, three of the higher order of mind, and three of lowlier but of hardly less effective position; for Methodism was still to be, and may it ever be, a field for the humblest and for the highest intellects.

RICHARD WATSON, a young man who was to be pre-eminent above all the lay preachers hitherto received by the conference, was first recorded on its roll in 1796, the time of the climax of its agitations. Morally great, brilliant and profound in intellect, successful in the most important labors of the Church through a ministerial life of thirty-seven years, his brethren were to deplore his death, at last, as "one of the most mournful bereavements which any Christian Church ever suffered," and to bear testimony that "to his understanding belonged a capacity which the greatness of a subject could not exceed; a strength and clearness which the number and complexity of its parts could not confuse; and a vigor which the difficulty and length of an inquiry could not weary." (Minutes, 1833.) He was to become one of the greatest preachers of his age, combining the imagination of the poet with the understanding of the philosopher; one of the most commanding legislators of his Church, whose judgment was to be recognized as little short of infallible; its greatest theological writer, whose works were to be its text-books wherever it extended; and the eloquent advocate and manager of its missions, directing their foreign operations, defending them by his pen, representing them before the authorities of his country, and commanding for them the respect and patronage of the British people. He was born at Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, in 1781, and was, therefore, but about sixteen years old when he entered the Conference, the youngest candidate which it has ever received. He was remarkable from his childhood for the precosity of his faculties, and suffered the usual penalty of such superiority, life-long feebleness of constitution. He was seldom exempt from pain, and his wasted appearance in the pulpit appealed to the sympathies of the admiring audiences, which were struck with wonder at the contrasted and majestic strength of his intellect. His education included the elements of the classic languages; but he afterward mastered them, as also the Hebrew tongue, and acquired a comprehensive knowledge of literature and the sciences.

In the midst of his usefulness he was led, after traveling about five years, to forsake the ministry, by unjust reflections on his orthodoxy among his brethren. He joined the New Connection Methodists, but returned to the Wesleyan body deeply regretting the haste of his youthful indiscretion. Thenceforward his career was determined; no man better appreciated the capacity of Methodism; none more fully consecrated his powers to its promotion. He now especially became eminent as the representative of its foreign missionary enterprise. At the death of Coke, who had embodied that great interest in his own person, it required thorough reorganization. Watson by his splendid eloquence in the pulpit and on the platform, and by his counsels in the Conference and in committees, was one of the chief men who conducted it through that crisis and founded its present effective scheme. An epoch in his life was his call, in 1816, to plead for this cause in the metropolis. He preached in City Road Chapel; he paced its vestry, before the sermon, in deep agitation, oppressed by the burden of his theme and the sense of his inadequacy to represent it justly. On ascending the pulpit he announced for his text: "He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet." "It is hardly possible," says his biographer, "to conceive of argumentation more lucid and powerful, sentiments more sublime, imagery more beautiful, diction more rich, than characterized this wonderful discourse."

At the next Conference he was appointed to London, and became one of the missionary secretaries; in 1821 he was made resident secretary, and thenceforward that great cause was the principal interest of his life. His annual reports, his speeches in many parts of the kingdom, his correspondence with the missionaries, and his consultations with the state functionaries who had charge of the foreign British dependencies, gave it an importance which commanded the public confidence, and animated its operations at home and abroad. At the beginning of his connection with it, its annual receipts were short of £7,000; he saw them raised to £50,000, and he, as much perhaps as any other man, gave them that impulse by which, in our day, they have reached the munificent sum of £140,000; its missionaries were about 60, he saw them multiplied to more than 100; the mission stations comprised 15,000

communicants, he saw them increased to nearly 44,000; he saw the cause extended to South Africa, India, New South Wales, the Tonga Islands, and so thoroughly established abroad and influential at home as to promise to encompass, sooner or later, the whole heathen world.

Meanwhile he found time for important literary labors. His "Observations on Southey's Life of Wesley " effectually vindicated the great Methodist in both the religious and literary worlds. His "Theological Institutes " are an elaborate body of divinity, and have elevated the theological character of Methodism, which has everywhere recognized them as standards in its ministerial course of study. His "Biblical Dictionary" has been a manual to its preachers. His "Catechisms" have formed the religious opinions of its children. His "Conversations for the Young" have instructed its youth. His "Life of Wesley" has been the popular memoir of its great founder. Besides these literary benefactions to his Church, and many occasional pamphlets, he left an incomplete, but able "Exposition" of the New Testament, which has been published; and his collected 66 Sermons are a monument of his genius.

The appearance of Richard Watson in the arena of Methodism at this critical time was one of those providential signs which have always marked its history and foretokened its destiny. His influence was hardly less important on its intellectual than on its moral character, and it is perhaps not too much to say, that no superior mind has ever yet been given to its ministry. "He soars," said Robert Hall, who delighted to hear him, “into regions of thought where no genius but his own can penetrate."

On a Sunday in 1798 a young man stood up in the door of a mechanic, on "Cross Lane," Manchester, and delivered to the people in the street his first public "exhortation." In August, 1799, having been received as a candidate by the Conference, he set out on foot, with his saddle-bags across his shoulder, for his first circuit. He was accompanied some distance by an aged Methodist, who had been his class-leader. At parting they knelt down by the roadside, and the old man, "whose heart was full," implored with tears God's blessing upon, and gave his own to, the young evangelist. Such was the beginning of JABEZ BUNTING's ministry; his subsequent

history is that of Wesleyan Methodism for nearly sixty years.

He became the recognized legislative leader of the connection. Its most important measures were either conceived or chiefly effected by his unrivaled ability and influence. Beyond his own Church he was a commanding guide of many of those great religious interests which have been common to the Protestant denominations of England. An eminent divine of another communion, (Dr. Leifchild,) said at his grave, that "in the extent of his information, the comprehensiveness of his views, the conclusiveness of his reasoning, and the urbanity of his manners, I never saw his equal and never expect to."

He was elected president of the Conference four times; oftener than any other man, except his great compeer, Robert Newton, who joined that body the same year with him. On the death of Coke he became, like Watson, a chief representative of the Wesleyan missions, taking precedence even of Watson, and indeed of all his brethren, in commanding influence for them. He was for some years senior missionary secretary and editor of the Book Room, and on the death of Watson he became resident secretary, and sustained the onerous duties of that office for eighteen years. He was president of the Theological Institution for ministerial education from its commencement to his death.

He had witnessed much of the seven years' war which followed the death of Wesley, and doubtless the lessons of that great controversy influenced his course as an ecclesiastical legislator. If it afforded no other advantage, this was no small compensation to the Church for the protracted trial. Bunting's policy was soundly conservative, but also progressive. He was the first to introduce laymen into the management of the missionary affairs of the connection, and also into the "District Meetings;" for these measures he contended with much opposition from his older ministerial brethren, but he persisted, and advocated so urgently lay co-operation in all the connectional committees which involved financial interests, that at last it became a conceded point that laymen should share equally with the preachers in all such business. A high Methodist authority affirms that he did "more than any other