Among the duties expected and required of the members are all kinds of beneficence, diligence, frugality, {59c} self-denial, and attendance on all the ordinances of God, among which is specifically mentioned fasting. If any member habitually break any of these rules he is admonished; and if he do not then repent, expulsion follows. “Marrying with unbelievers,” and bankruptcy, if the party has not kept fair accounts, are also followed by expulsion. No one I think can doubt that much good was effected by the first preaching of Wesley and his disciples, for at that time our church was in a lethargic state, and the lower orders shamefully neglected in spiritual matters in many parts of England. Yet there are some things which excite one’s regret in their practices, and of these none displeases me more than the familiar use of Scripture language, which when properly and judiciously applied is striking and solemn; but to hear every notion of enthusiastic ignorance, every rise and fall of the animal spirits, expressed in the language of the Apostles and Evangelists, and even of our Lord himself; to witness their familiarity with the Almighty, their full trust and confidence in the reality of small miracles wrought at their request;—must always be painful to a soberly religious mind. In a book entitled “The Bank of Faith,” the author asserts, that a dog brought him mutton to eat, that fish died at night in a pond on purpose to be eaten by him in the morning, and that money, clothes, &c. in short every thing he could desire he attained by prayer. {61} An old woman of Wesley’s society, named Mary Hubbard, would often wash her linen, hang it out to dry, and go away to work in the fields or to Taunton Market four miles from her house, and when blamed for thus leaving her linen unprotected, she would reply that “the Lord watched over her and all that she had, and that he would prevent any person from stealing her two old smocks, or if He permitted them to be stolen, He would send her two new ones in their stead.” I seriously assure you, says the author who relates this tale, and who at one time went even greater lengths {62} than this old woman, “that there are many thousand Mary Hubbards among the Methodists.”