THE MYSTICISM OF WESLEY
The Life of Wesley. By Robert Southey. (Oxford Edition of Standard Authors. 2 vols. 7s.) To some English people who are passing through a phase of benevolent atheism, interest in such a man as John Wesley is almost dead. But though many ignore him, or recognize him only with distaste, none can deny the fact that he was a rare being, of a vitality that by its consciously developed sources of nourishment amounted to genius. We must admit our inability to measure the effect which this genius had upon the swiftly changing society of the eighteenth century. The preliminary agues, the pains and shudders, of the fever of Romanticism were troubling the people. The feudal conscience was disappearing finally ; and the demand for individualism, first raised by Luther, was now becoming formulated and directed to a political purpose. It was to convert Hodge, the agricultural serf, into the factory drudge, slave of this new theory of liberal competition, and the emancipation of the individual from the dogmas of religious and social duty. The people, therefore, were ripe for any influence. They laboured and groaned in their effort to voice this new desire for personal dignity. The country was peopled with Werthers, whose spiritual eccen- tricities drove them from the collectivism of an organized Church. Anything might have followed. There might have been a revolution such as occurred in France. Instead, there was a religious revival- of such a fervid temper as is
beyond our comprehension to-day. Codes and spiritual formulations were swept away like straws on a stream : while conventional creeds and civilized dogmas were rejected, to give place to the one Romantic faith of personal contact with God. Each man was the sole occupant in his spiritual world. His only relationship was with his Creator. No other was needed, for he was the only Creature.
We see, then, that the spirit of the age was awaiting its special prophet. John Wesley was that prophet. He could certainly have done his work at no other time. Had he lived a century earlier he would have been a High Church doctrinaire, working with the great divines, such as Hooker, Fuller, and Donne, in building up, incidentally, our tradition
of English prose. The influence' of the spirit of an age on the minds of men, howeven, we cannot estimate with any
certainty ; so we will attend to something more tangible the inherent quality of the man. But if we judge Wesley by his works, we must admit this factor, for it provided the 'medium in which he worked, and forced him along paths which the impulse of his soul might not have urged him to take. He was, we think, fortunate in this influence, for it made the most spectacular use of his personality ; and in doing so, probably magnified his character to proportions it would not otherwise have assumed.
Before considering Wesley's character, we must acknow- ledge his extraordinary practical ability. He was a born administrator. He had the necessary physical and mental 'tirelessness which should prevent him ever from approaching with a jaded mind any of the myriad problems that arise chronically within every organization. As the Methodist brotherhood grew from dozens to millions, and began to fester by reason of that anaemia due to over-largeness, the aged Wesley took a new lease of life, and proved to be an effectual physician until the day of his death. He was swift to act, and he crushed disaffection before it had opportunity to work.
But in spite of this enormous achievement ; in spite of the honoured old age ; his inward life, like that of all men, was unrounded and never completely consistent. There was, to begin with, that Savonarolean clement of spiritual division in his soul, dragging always at him, deterring him from the larger gesture which is to salute God in all things. In his childhood he was narrowly rescued from fire during the destruction of his father's house. The experience seems to have cauterized out the spirit of spontaneous joy. But it is even doubtful if he was born with that spirit. He was a man of action ; and that implies an authoritative heart and a logical mind working together empirically, suspicious always of the unexpected, even of the Divine. This is well in itself ; but the tragedy of his life lies in the fact that his experience, and more particularly his desire, led him towards a mysticism from which his consciousness revolted. His was a divided nature ; and that is the secret of his intolerance. A divided nature means fear—a cruel and rending fear which is indes- cribable. In Wesley it took the form of an exclusive emphasis on the necessity of " faith in Christ." He reiterated that cry, exceeding even the Moravian in putting that " faith " before good works. He could not define that faith. To his father's and his brother Samuel's merciless inquiries he became only more incoherent and emphatic. He damned those who had it not ; but he could not say what it was. He claimed, therefore, a prerogative in Christ. He consumed Christ, as it were ; in his own agony mutilating his Beloved. And yet, in spite of all this conscious and artificial mysticism, he was a man of good works. This sounds like an appalling schism, and yet it is familiar to all evangelicals. It may be good that human nature is built in this way, so that the right hand deprecates what the left hand performs. Did both work together, we might over-balance. But if, in the crossing of purpose and achievement, we maintain our equilibrium, it is at the
expense of the utmost agony. .
This disordering " faith," while it goaded Wesley on, also broke up the unity and single organization which alone could make his life superb. • Page by page, Southey, in his slow yet massive way, shows us this process of disruption. Coleridge, too, said I am persuaded that Wesley never rose above the region of logic and strong volition. The moment an idea presents itself to him, his understanding intervenes to eclipse it, and he substitutes a conception by some process of deduc- tion. Nothing is immediate to him."
And yet we find Wesley rejoicing in those apparently hypnotic orgies of the earlier converts to Methodism. As members of his congregations ." fell into these frightful fits," or " dropped down as dead, presently to roar and beat themselves against the ground," Wesley only rejoiced in these pathetic demonstrations, and never seemed to realize the cruelty of flooding his strong potion over narrow-necked bottles.
Where is the true conception of God it is not that one which is built by a proportionate mind out of the whole of a sane and ordered- universe ? But Wesley, untrue to his own nature, chose the more immediate method. Here was the life-long scholar,the logical thinker, deliberately trying to make bricks without straw, and giving for his authority a mystical belief that, because of the emphasis he laid upon it, was to be suspected. He wilfully worked up this spurious philosophy of negation—and tla►t is why, in the end, his influence has been towards the sterilization rather than the growth of human nature. In his bonfire of vanities he maimed his own soul.
There is no space to mention Southey's Life. No book could be more praised, however, than to be picked, as this was, to be Coleridge's lifelong companion. It is, indeed, a great work, magnificently written by this finest pedestrian
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