RISE OF METHODISM PREACHING OF THE WESLEYS AND OF WHITEFIELD A.D. 1738 WILLIAM E.H. LECKY Next to the founders of the world's great religions, the principal figures in religious history are the leaders of its new movements, the founders of sects or denominations. In this subordinate class few names outrank that of John Wesley, while those of his brother, Charles, and George Whitefield, their eloquent colleague, are inseparably associated with that of the great founder of Methodism, one of the most striking of the epochal religious movements of modern times. Although not intending to break with the Anglican Church, Wesley and his followers were carried out upon independent lines which led to the upbuilding of a distinct type of religious faith and organization, whose power has been especially marked in Great Britain and America, and has been increasingly spread throughout the world. Between Whitefield and John Wesley, in 1741, a separation occurred on points of doctrine, Whitefield adhering to a rigid Calvinism, while Wesley inclined to Arminianism, and thenceforth they followed their several paths. Although Whitefield founded no sect, he exerted a widespread influence by his presence and voice. Before their separation both preachers had been in America, and the personality and eloquence of Whitefield not only wrought a spell upon the multitude, but even exercised a degree of fascination over such a philosophical spirit as Franklin. Wesley's work in America was deeper and more enduring, and is still a growing feature of the country's religious development. Nothing could be happier for the present purpose than the treatment of this great religious movement, in its beginnings, as it is here dealt with by the dispassionate historian of England during the century in which the movement arose. The Methodist movement was a purely religious one. All explanations which ascribe it to the ambition of its leaders, or to merely intellectual causes, are at variance with the facts of the case. The term Methodist was a college nickname bestowed upon a small society of students at Oxford who met together, between 1729 and 1735, for the purpose of mutual improvement. They were accustomed to communicate every week, to fast regularly on Wednesdays and Fridays and on most days during Lent; to read and discuss the Bible in common, to abstain from most forms of amusement and luxury, and to visit sick persons, and prisoners in the jail.