While the attention flattered John, he soon found himself confused by it, especially when he tried to talk to the women about loving God and about loving them. The situation grew complicated very fast, and before John knew it, he found himself unofficially engaged to be married to Sally Kirkman. Or at least he thought he was, but he could not be sure, because he was unable to bring himself to openly discuss his feelings for her. As a result, the relationship soon soured, and Sally eventually shunned John and married a local schoolteacher.
John was shocked and bewildered by the situation. He had come to rely heavily on Sally’s insights and missed not being able to discuss all manner of things with her as he had once done. Eventually John somehow managed to salvage his friendship with Sally and the other three women. Before long he was writing to each of them, seeking their advice on matters and offering them advice when they asked for it. In one letter, Sally suggested that John read a book called The Imitation of Christ by the medieval German monk Thomas à Kempis. John took her advice and got a copy of the book from the library. The book challenged John’s thinking and led him to the understanding that being a Christian meant having a complete change of heart and that there was no such thing as a half-hearted Christian—a person was either moving toward God or moving away from Him. As a result, John determined to do whatever was necessary to become a “whole” Christian with a heart completely changed by the love of God. With this goal in mind he wrote out a new set of guidelines to live by:
A General Rule in All Actions of Life
Whenever you are to do any action, consider how God did or would do the like, and…imitate His example.
General Rules for Employing Time
1. Begin and end every day with God; sleep not immoderately.
2. Be diligent in your calling.
3. Employ all spare hours in religion, as able.
4. Make all holidays holy days.
5. Avoid drunkards and busybodies.
6. Avoid curiosity, and all useless employments and knowledge.
7. Examine yourself every night.
8. Never on any account pass a day without setting aside at least an hour for devotion.
9. Avoid all manner of passion.
General Rules as to Intention
1. In every act reflect on the end.
2. Begin every action in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
3. Begin every important work with prayer.
4. Do not leave off a duty because you are tempted to do it.
Twice a day and every Saturday night John took time to read through his list and make notes on how well he was doing in living up to his rules.
On October 19, 1725, at twenty-two years of age, John was ordained as a minister in the Church of England. He had a bright future ahead of him, though at that time the question weighing on his mind was whether to become a curate in some Anglican parish or apply to become a fellow at Lincoln College. Located in Oxford, Lincoln College was dedicated to giving young men from Lincolnshire an education. Accordingly, several teaching positions at the college could be filled only by teachers from Lincolnshire. And since Epworth was located in Lincolnshire, John had a good chance of being awarded a teaching position, even though he was still working on his master’s degree.
Eventually John decided in favor of applying for a position at Lincoln College. He spent the following summer visiting influential churchmen in and around Lincolnshire whose favor could help him win the position he sought. Then he headed home to Epworth to visit his family. All was not well when he arrived there.
Earlier in the year, John’s twenty-eight-year-old sister Hetty had fallen in love with a local lawyer. Samuel Wesley did not approve of the match and banned his daughter from seeing the man, but Hetty refused to accept her father’s decision. The ugly situation grew worse when the lawyer, whom Hetty expected to marry, suddenly ran off, leaving her in disgrace. Samuel Wesley, now furious, ordered his daughter to marry the first man who asked for her hand. Unfortunately for Hetty, that man was a traveling plumber named William Wright, who happened to come to the rectory. Much to his amazement, the man walked away from the place with a new bride. As Hetty left, Samuel forbade her from ever returning to the rectory, telling her he would rather she had died than put the family through such an ordeal.
Susanna Wesley was heartbroken by what had happened. The other Wesley sisters were outraged by the harsh treatment of Hetty and stood up to the heavy-handed ways of their father. As a result, it was not a happy or harmonious home that John returned to.
To make matters worse, Samuel Wesley’s health was deteriorating, and while John was home his father suffered a stroke that rendered his right hand useless. Doggedly, though, Samuel set about learning to write with his left hand.
At the end of summer John returned to Oxford, accompanied by his brother Charles, who had also enrolled at Christ Church. Back in Oxford John continued to study for his master’s degree while he waited to see whether he would be appointed to a position at Lincoln College. The election to choose a new fellow for the college was postponed twice, and it was March before John learned that the position was his. By then the winter term was ending, and it was time for summer recess. John decided to return to Epworth and give his parents the good news. He had little money at the time and could not afford to take the stagecoach home, so he decided to walk the seventy-five miles. This took some time, but John was in fine physical shape when he finally arrived.
Back home in Epworth, John performed duties as the curate in the parish of Wroot, and he also helped his father finish the huge commentary he was writing on the book of Job to replace the manuscript burned in the rectory fire years before. During this time John took interest in a pretty, young woman. Sizing up the situation, Samuel banned the young woman from visiting the rectory in an attempt to keep his son’s mind on his spiritual work. In addition, Samuel was still adamant that he would never again speak to his daughter Hetty, even though she was stuck in a miserable marriage and had lost a baby.
His father’s attitude infuriated John so much that he preached a sermon on loving others, finishing it with the story of his sister and how his father was not living up to Christian standards in the way he was treating her. Of course Samuel was furious with his son for doing so, and John dutifully apologized, only to deliver a more scathing sermon the following Sunday. After this second sermon, months passed before father and son could again speak civilly to each other.
Relationships at the rectory were so tense that everyone breathed a sigh of relief when John returned to Oxford to begin his new position at Lincoln College. In theory John was responsible both for the spiritual welfare of a group of students and for teaching the students Greek, Latin, and philosophy. In reality, the college did not stress spiritual values, and John’s classes met irregularly. This gave John plenty of time to finish his master’s degree and take long trips to visit his family or other parishes.
The easy life came to a halt, however, in October 1729 when, on one of his trips away, John received a letter instructing him to return to Lincoln College and take a more active role in overseeing the spiritual well-being of the students or else resign his post as fellow.
The reason for the college’s renewed interest in the spiritual welfare of the students was partly related to an upsurge in two fashionable but troublesome teachings. One, known as Arianism, denied that Christ was God, and the other, known as deism, stated that God does not communicate with mankind or intervene in mankind’s affairs. The governors of Lincoln College were concerned that these two heresies were gaining followers in their midst, and they needed the college’s fellows to intervene. Little did they know that John Wesley’s required return to the college would not only change the moral climate there but also set off a series of events that would change the entire nation.
Chapter 6
A New Challenge
In response to the letter he received, John returned to Oxford, where he discovered that his younger brother Charles had started the “Holy Club” at Christ Church. The club was tiny; in fact, it had attracted only three other members: an Irish student named William Morgan, John Gambold, and Sally Kirkman’s brother Robert. The aims of the club were simple: the members studied the classics and the Bible together on a Sunday night and attended Communion once a week at Oxford Cathedral. Even though everyone else involved in the Holy Club was younger than he, John was glad for the Christian fellowship and eagerly joined the group. Soon he was their leader—and reformer—and he decided that it would be good for the young men to follow his ideas regarding godly living. To this end, John added two more nights of study each week. He continued to add more meetings until the group was convening each night from six to nine o’clock.
All of these hours together gave the members of the Holy Club more than ample time to examine their own behavior as well as that of the other members of the group, according to a list of questions John gave them to review each day.
1. Have I embraced every probable opportunity for doing good and of preventing…evil?
2. Have I thought anything too dear to part with to serve my neighbor?
3. Have I spent an hour at least every day in speaking to someone?
4. Have I in speaking to a stranger explained what religion is not…and what it is, the recovery of the image of God?
5. Have I persuaded all I could to attend public prayers, sermons and sacraments?
6. Have I after every visit asked him who went with me: Did I say anything wrong?
7. Have I when someone asked my advice directed and exhorted him with all my power?
8. Have I rejoiced with and for my neighbor?
9. Has goodwill been…the spring of all my actions toward others?
Before long, other students at Oxford got ahold of this list of questions and began to mock the efforts of the members of the Holy Club. Sarcastically they called them Bible Moths, Bible Bigots, or Methodists. The name Methodists seemed to stick because the group appeared to have a method for everything. Someone even made up a rhyme about them.
By rule they eat, by rule they drink,
Do all things else by rule, but think—
Accuse their priests of loose behavior,
To get more in the laymen’s favor;
Method alone must guide ’em all,
Whence Methodists themselves they call.
Despite the mocking of others, John and his followers in the Holy Club were undaunted. In fact, John was secretly pleased with the “persecution.” It made him feel that he must be on the right track, since Jesus said, “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake” (Matthew 5:11). From time to time other young men joined the Holy Club, though its total number of members during the first year never grew past fifteen.
In early August 1730, William Morgan went to Oxford’s Castle Prison to visit a man imprisoned for murdering his wife. At the overcrowded prison he discovered that debtor prisoners and general criminals, like the man he was visiting, were all locked up together. Although Castle Prison was dank and dirty, William was surprised at how the inmates were encouraged by his visit. Many of the prisoners had not had a single visitor since being locked up.
Following his visit, William told John and Charles about the situation at Castle Prison. The brothers were moved by his description of the conditions inside the jail and of the prisoners’ hunger for comfort and contact with outsiders. Surely, William argued, such prisoners needed the comfort of the Christian message. John and Charles agreed, and on August 25, 1730, they accompanied William to Castle Prison.
John was deeply touched by what he saw in the jail and by how open the prisoners were to talking to him. In the process of these conversations, John learned that debtor prisoners were in jail basically for two reasons. Either they had been locked up because some misfortune had befallen them and their families, making it impossible for them to repay their debts, or they were locked up for not repaying their debts because of laziness or indifference. John was moved by the plight of the former and decided that perhaps the members of the Holy Club could pool their money to help pay the debts of some of these people or support their families while the men were locked up.
