Pope John
Alan Gibson
John Wesley and his World John Pudney (Thames and Hudson £4.50)
It is difficult to write a good life of John Wesley, as it must be of anyone who has produced his own voluminous and famous journal. The material, though readily available, is not fresh. There is the added difficulty, in Wesley's case, that the life of an itinerant preacher makes a repetitive tale, even when he was outfacing the mob, as he often had to do in his early years of evangelism. One mob is much like another, one horseback journey on a turnpike is much like another, one sermon is much like another: or so you begin to feel, as they mount up, day after day, year after year.
The best lives of Wesley, or such as I have read, have been the shorter ones, to which John Pudney has now made an admirable addition. It was the last work of this prolific and pleasing writer. That it is mostly a picture-book did not prevent him from giving of his best in the accompanying text. The unhappy title is not his fault, but that of the publishers, who are running a series called 'So-and-So and his World'. Apart from the familiar remark that all the world was his parish, Wesley would never have considered this world his true home. As brother Charles put it, Our life is a dream; Our time as a stream Glides swiftly away And the fugitive moment refuses to stay.
The arrow is flown, The moment is gone, The millenial year Rushes on to our view, and eternity's here: The temptation to which the less hagiographical writers most easily succumb is to dwell too much on Wesley's relations with women, even if only because they make a change from the travelling and preaching. Certainly he gave them some scope. His formidable mother provided him with many valuable qualities, but an understanding of what is appropriate either to courtship or matrimony was not among them. He was close to marriage at least twice in his earlier years. On his unsuccessful (or so he says: it was before his conversion) mission to Georgia, when he was 33, in 1736, he brought himself to say 'Miss Sophy, I should think myself happy if I was to spend my life with you', not quite the kind of declaration to sweep away a young girl's heart. When he was 45, and the acknowledged leader of the Methodists, he went through a ceremony of betrothal with Grace Murray, one of his preachers. His words of love this time had been 'If I should ever marry, I think you will be the person.' This might have been a wise marriage, for she would have been prepared to undertake his long journeys with him, and was spiritually akin. But there was a muddle, in which Charles did not play a helpful part — this was one of the few times he and John quarrelled — and she married another Methodist preacher. Then, at 48, Wesley married a termagant, who is said to have dragged him around the room by his hair (he was a small and peaceable man). She must have had a brighter side, but the itinerant life was too much for her. Wesley made no concessions. His duty was to God only, hers to God in him.
All this of course is good stuff for a biographer, but it amounts only to a small part of his life. Questions of theology, the long (and still not entirely resolved) battle between the Arminian and Calvinist elements in Methodism, make sterner reading, but preoccupied him much more than women ever did. Here the paradox is that Wesley, the Arminian, called with a touch of truth 'Pope John', ultimately founded a denomination outside the Church of England, to which he was devoted, and that the followers of his friend George Whitefield, the Calvinist, remained substantially within the fold, as what came to be called Low Churchmen. Wesley was in most respects a High Churchman. Charles's , Eucharistic hymns declare something very like the doctrine of the Real Presence. 'Victim Divine, thy grace we claim' (Victim: the word of the Mass) is still, in a shortened form, in The Methodist Hymn Book.
He was a saintly man, and also an exceptionally tough one. Despite the rigours of his life, he was 87 when he died. He had immense moral courage and physical endurance. Because of his intense dislike of wasting time, he would continue to read even on horseback, letting the reins lie slack, with the result that he frequently fell off. The bruises were always treated in the same way, with warm treacle and brown paper. He had much faith in old-fashioned remedies, and published a little book of them, with asterisks to indicate those he had tried himself.
He does not, at least for me, have the warmth of other Protestant heroes, such as Luther or Bunyan or even Cromwell. 'I have been in all the counties of England', said Cromwell, 'and I judge the husbandry of Devonshire to be the best.' Wesley was also in all the counties of England, but I doubt if he noticed the husbandry, zealously though he husbanded his souls. The vast success of his preaching has always been something of a mystery, for his manner was plain, and so was his matter. The word 'magnetism' has often been used, but does not take us much further. Lucidity, industry, goodness — many others have had these qualities. Perhaps he was right in attributing the mighty consequences to the Holy Ghost.
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