For a long time he would not permit his co-workers to administer the sacrament of the Lord's supper; as he considered they did not possess the requisite authority. Wesley saw with wonderful clearness a fact that no one of that age perceived or, if he did, had not the moral courage to declare. He perceived the universal as well as the total apostasy of the so-called Christian church. In his 94th sermon he says; "The real cause why the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were no longer to be found in the Christian church was _because the Christians were turned heathens again, and had only a dead form left_." In another place he says: "A string of opinions is no more Christian faith, than a string of beads is Christian holiness." The justifying faith which he considered so essential and taught so earnestly, implied a personal revelation--an inward evidence of Christianity. Thus he unconsciously yet logically taught the insufficiency of the ancient scriptures as a guide to salvation. It also implied the need of new and continuous revelation as necessary for the vitality and growth of the church. Wesley continued his labors for upwards of fifty-two {153} years, traveling and preaching until within a short time of his death, which occurred in his eighty-eighth year. At the time of his death, his followers numbered more than one hundred thousand. Now they are estimated at nearly eight millions. [Image: John Wesley.] It was the teachings and practices of the Puritans, the Quakers and the Methodists that gave to England that great moral impulse which led to the establishment of Sunday schools by Robert Raikes of Gloucester, the reforming of prisons by John Howard, and the abolition of the slave trade by William Wilberforce. The ardor and perseverance which these men showed in behalf of the poor, the wronged and the afflicted, excited a wave of human sympathy throughout the length and breadth of the civilized world. It is from this time that may be dated the commencement of charity schools, foundling hospitals, insane asylums and other institutions {154} of benevolence for which English-speaking people are now so famous. While the moral and religious movements were in progress, others of a political or scientific nature, were pressing forward with rapid strides. Amid the tumult of these times, James Brindley was quietly making England a net work of canals. Watt was silently perfecting his invention of the steam-engine and Adam Smith was working out the great problem of political and industrial economy, which has made England and her colonies the leading commercial and manufacturing countries of the world.