"The number of members in the London Society on the 12th of April, 1746, was 1939, and the amount of their quarterly contributions 113_l._ 9_s._, upon an average fourteenpence per member. Considering the high price of money, and that nearly the whole of the London Methodists were extremely poor, the amount subscribed was highly creditable. Wesley also believed its use to be injurious. He tells us that when he first went to Oxford, with an exceedingly good constitution, and being otherwise in health, he was somewhat surprised at certain symptoms of a paralytic disorder. His hand shook, especially after breakfast; but he soon observed that if for two or three days he intermitted drinking tea, the shaking ceased. Upon inquiry, he found tea had the same effect upon others, and particularly on persons whose nerves were weak. This led him to lessen the quantity he took, and to drink it weaker; but still for above six and twenty years he was more or less subject to the same disorder. In July, 1746, he began to observe that abundance of the people of London were similarly affected; some of them having their nerves unstrung, and their bodily strength decayed. He asked them if they were hard drinkers; they replied, 'No, indeed, we drink scarce anything but a little tea morning and night!' ... Having set the example (of abstinence from tea) Wesley recommended the same abstinence to a few of his preachers; and a week later to above a hundred of his people, whom he believed to be strong in faith, all of whom, with two or three exceptions, resolved by the grace of God to make the trial without delay. In a short time he proposed it to the whole society. Objections rose in abundance. Some said, 'Tea is not unwholesome at all.' To these he replied that many eminent physicians had declared it was, and that, if frequently used by those of weak nerves, it is no other than a slow poison. Others said, 'Tea is not unwholesome to me; why then should I leave it off?' Wesley answered, 'To give an example to those to whom it is undeniably prejudicial, and to have the more wherewith to feed the hungry, and to clothe the naked.' Others said, 'It helps my health, nothing else will agree with me.' To such Wesley's caustic reply was, 'I suppose your body is much of the same kind with that of your grandmother, and do you think nothing else agreed with her, or with any of her progenitors? What poor, puling, sickly things must all the English then have been till within these hundred years! Besides, if, in fact, nothing else will agree with you--if tea has already weakened your stomach, and impaired your digestion to such a degree, it has hurt you more than you are aware. You have need to abhor it as deadly poison, and to renounce it from this very hour.' What was the result of Wesley's attempt to form a _tea_-total society? We can hardly tell, except that he himself abstained from tea for the next twelve years, until Dr.