John Wesley and Modern Methodism. By Frederick Bookie, M.A. Fourth
edition, mach enlarged. (Itivingtons.)—No one who is at all conversant with the subject has any doubt that John Wesley was throughout his life a Churchman, and that from first to last he implored the Methodists not to separate from the National Church. He was inconsistent, no doubt, in this respect, but he was never insincere, and had as little sympathy with the principles of Dissent as a modern High Churchman. If proof of this be needed, the reader will find ample evidence in Canon Hookin'e volume. There, too, he will also find illustrations of Church views held by Wesley which the modern Wesleyan utterly repudiates. Wesley, it must be admitted, was arbitrary, and ruled while he lived with a firm hand ; but a will most be strong indeed that can fully hold its sacendeney a hundred years after a man's death ; and if the modern Wesleyan objects, as be well may, to Wesley's system of confession, he is also not very sinful if, despite his great founder's injunctions, he refines to build octagon chapels with seats without backs to them. Canon Makin writes with a bitter feeling, and injures his case by giving almost equal prominence to great matters and to small. If it be tree, as he affirms, that a prominent controversialist in the Wesleyan body has wilfully suppressed evidence that fella against him, and that certain his- torians and biographers of Methodism are guilty of the same fault, the charge is no doubt sufficiently serious. The intolerance of religions controversialists is proverbial, and while giving instances of it, Canon Hoskin unwittingly exhibits a similar defect. The reader, if he accepts the facts, may fairly object to the tone in which they are stated.
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