PREPARATION

     The class-meeting came into existence, not as the product of human device or invention, but as the offspring of divine providence. The way was being prepared for its institution for a considerable time before it made its appearance as a part of the economy of early Methodism. As the seed germinates and grows for a season beneath the soil before the blade appears above the surface, so the preparatory stage for the development of the class-meeting idea antedates the organization of Methodist societies, and must be looked for in connection with what was called, in derision, during Wesley's student life in Oxford University, "The Holy Club."

     Here began, in 1729, that great revival of pure and undefiled religion out of which Methodism was born. At this period the state of religion and morals in Great Britain was deplorable in the extreme. Infidelity was widely diffused, and had taken a strong hold in particular upon the educated classes. The decay of conscience was general and lamentable, "and public morals suffered from the abandonment of religious principles and from the example of those high in authority." While there were some notable exceptions, the clergy of the Established Church were to a large extent ignorant, and even loose in respect to their morals. Men like Swift and Sterne, though characterized by ability, brought the pulpit into much discredit by unbridled wit and licentious humor, while many of their brother clergymen spent the most of their time in hunting, gaming and drinking.

     Doctrinal views were also greatly unsettled, and Arianism and Socinianism found able advocates in such men as Doctors Clarke [not Adam Clarke], Priestly and Whiston, while true, evangelical piety was frowned upon and derided as fanaticism. "Both among dissenters and churchmen," said Dr. Watts, the eminent poet and hymn-writer, "there was a general decay of religion in the hearts and lives of men." Bishop Burnett, Archbishop Secker, the excellent Leighton and Dr. Watts are all quoted in the "Cyclopedia of Methodism" as bearing testimony to the fearful degeneracy of the times which characterized Great Britain generally -- to the almost utter decay of religion and virtue within the Established and Dissenting Churches, and to the abounding floods of ungodliness, vice and crime characterizing the unchurched masses.

     In the midst of these degenerate times John Wesley entered Oxford University, in the prevailing atmosphere of which he found practically nothing helpful to one who desired to flee from the wrath to come and lay hold on eternal life. Shortly before his return to the university in 1729, according to Dr. O. P. Fitzgerald, some one addressed to him the following words, which appear to have been divinely sent, and which in no little degree helped to give direction to his future career: "Sir, you wish to serve God and go to heaven; remember you cannot serve him alone; you must therefore find companions, or make them; the Bible knows nothing of solitary religion."

     During that year the organization which was soon to be nicknamed the "Holy Club" was formed, and with its formation the Methodist revival began. It commenced among a few students in Oxford University, who formed a society to read the Holy Scriptures in the original languages, and to aid each other in mutual spiritual improvement. They sincerely desired to please God and conform their lives strictly to the precepts of His word. They received the Lord's Supper weekly, and fasted twice a week; they systematically arranged their time for self-examination, meditation, prayer and religious reading. They attended scrupulously upon public worship and all the ordinances of the church; they also stimulated each other to active benevolence; they instructed the children of the neglected poor, visited the sick, and the inmates of prisons and almshouses, and gave to them, to the utmost of their power, temporal as well as spiritual aid. Their fellow-students ridiculed their piety, called them Sacramentarians, Bible-bigots the Godly Club and the Holy Club.

     "They were young men of more than ordinary intellectual power and culture. John Wesley, who was then twenty-six years of age, was a Fellow of Lincoln College, had been ordained a priest, and had acted as a curate for a short time; he was an accomplished scholar and a forcible writer. His brother Charles was twenty years of age, a Bachelor of Arts and a college tutor, and was then developing that genius for poetry which marked his subsequent life. Mr. Morgan, who died in a few years, was a curator of Christ's church, the son of an Irish gentleman. Mr. Kirkham was a member of Merton College. Of these John Wesley was acknowledged the leader, and was called by those who ridiculed them 'the curator of the Holy Club.' Other students joined them in 1730, and in 1732 Hervey, the author of the 'Meditations,' and Ingham of Queen's College, united with them. The famous George Whitefield joined this company in 1735.

     "They were so faithful in redeeming their time and so methodical in attending to all their duties that one of the students, partly from this fact and partly in derision, termed them 'Methodists.' This name had a century before been applied to those who were very earnest on religious topics, and who were plain in their manners. One writer speaks of the 'Anabaptists and plain packstaff Methodists;' and a pamphlet is on record attacking the principles of the 'New Methodists.' This term, though often used reproachfully, and to express enthusiasm or fanaticism, has become the acknowledged name of one of the largest branches of the Christian Church.

     "Notwithstanding the purity and regularity of their lives, these students were subject to reproach, persecution, and even indignities. Whitefield was sometimes pelted with stones by his fellow-students, and subsequently some of the most religious students were expelled from the university." ^[1]

     As yet these young men were only such as "desired to flee from the wrath to come." They "feared God and wrought righteousness," and so were no doubt "accepted of Him," but accepted as servants rather than as sons, and knew not the blessed witness of the Spirit to the forgiveness of sins and to their adoption into the family of God. Whitefield for a time fell into the error of the "Quietists," neglected the meetings of the Club, and wandered about the fields in solitude, praying alone rather than joining with his fellow-students: but owing to his natural cheerfulness, the healthy character of his religion, his teachable spirit, and the wise counsels of others, he was soon recovered.

     John Wesley, too, through the writings of the Mystics, "who substituted reveries for duties, and self-analysis and introspection for social religious labors and enjoyments," and who "so construed the first commandment as to make it exclude the second, which is like unto it," was for a time near being wrecked on the shoals of Mysticism; but, through the goodness and grace of God he was prevented from being effectually carried away with this subtle and ruinous error. How, he could scarce tell himself, and therefore said: "Nor can I at this hour give a distinct account of how or when I came a little back toward the right way; only my present sense is this -- all the other enemies of Christianity are triflers; the Mystics are the most dangerous; they stab it in the vitals; and its most serious professors are most likely to fall by them."

     With the story of John Wesley's final conversion most people in Methodist churches are more or less familiar, but it will bear another repetition here. He had long been dissatisfied with his own religious state, felt his want of harmony with God and of inward conformity to the divine will, and questioned himself as to the possibility of attaining unto such a state, and as to such attainment, if possible, being a matter of consciousness. These perplexing problems were happily solved for him on Wednesday, May 24, 1738.

     As he opened his Testament in the early morning his eyes fell on 2 Peter 1:4, "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." A little later, as about to leave the room, he opened to the words, "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." In the evening of the same day he somewhat reluctantly attended a meeting of the society in Aldersgate street. Here a layman was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Galatians. As Wesley listened to Luther's description of the change wrought by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of true believers, the crisis came, and Wesley consciously and instantly passed from death unto life, and became a happy and victorious child of God. His own relation of this experience is so much better than any one else has given of the same that we reproduce it here, as follows:

     "I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I did trust in Christ -- Christ alone -- for salvation, and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I then began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there, what I now first felt in my heart. But it was not long before the enemy suggested, 'This cannot be faith, for where is thy joy?' Then I was taught that peace and victory over sin are essential to faith in the Captain of our salvation; but that, as to the transports of joy which usually attend the beginning of it, especially in those who have mourned deeply, God sometimes giveth, sometimes withholdeth them, according to the counsels of His own will. After my return home I was much buffeted with temptations, but cried out, and they fled away. They returned again and again; I as often lifted up my eyes, and He sent me help from my holy place. And herein I found the difference between this and my former state chiefly consisted. I was striving, yea, fighting, under the law as well as under grace. But then I was sometimes, if not often, conquered; now I was always conqueror." ^[2]

     It will now readily be seen that in all the foregoing experiences of the great founder of Methodism there was a preparation for, and even a foreshadowing of, the institution of the class-meeting, as also of other prudential regulations and means of grace which have figured so largely and effectively in the development of Methodism as an evangelizing agency. The "Holy Club" at Oxford was to all intents and purposes a class-meeting -- the prototype of the fully developed class-meeting of later Methodism -- though it had never then been dreamed of as such. The ends for which the Club held its weekly sessions were practically the same as those for which, when the class-meeting idea was fully developed, Methodists were accustomed to meet from week to week in their respective classes. Those student gatherings in Oxford, sneered at, derided and nicknamed as they were, contained the potential life of Methodism, and largely prepared the way for the institution of the class-meeting, which has ever been a peculiar and most effective agency in conserving and promoting the spirituality and fruitfulness of all Methodist bodies.

1 "Cyclopedia of Methodism," Art. "Methodism."

2 Works, Vol. III., page 74.