In England, it has had much to do with the almost incredible changes that have taken place in English society during the last hundred years. In Ireland, with Popery so rampant, a people so poor, and emigration so vast, it has some five or six hundred chapels, besides having many hundreds of small congregations in cottages, court-houses, market-places, and village-greens. In Australia, it has more church sittings than any other Christian community, the Church of England not excepted; and has, at least, one twelfth of the colonists attending its places of religious worship. In America, it has become the dominant popular faith of the country, with its standard planted in every city, town, and almost every village of the land, and is building chapels at the rate of nearly two every day.[4] In the early period of its history, it had its fair share of persecution, and was, to an extent sufficient one would think to satisfy its founders, pelted and hooted by vulgar mobs, mistreated by magistrates and courts, reviled by religionists, and assailed by swarms of pamphleteers; it has had no national endowments, and has had no favour from parliamentary legislation; it has had no assistance from the State, and has been looked upon with supercilious contempt by what, in England, is called “the Church;” and yet despite all this, there is hardly a nation where its influence has not been felt; and instead of finding it maimed and lame and injured by fighting its past battles and winning its past victories; or weak and palsied and inactive on account of approaching age, it has never been more vigorous, by the blessing of God, than it is at present; and is putting into motion an amount of machinery the ultimate results of which no man’s mind can grasp. Is all this concerning Methodism strictly true? We believe it is, and hence we believe that the life of Methodism’s founder is a subject well worth knowing. Who was he? What was he? Who were his companions? When and where and how did he pass his time? We will try to show. THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE REV. JOHN WESLEY, M.A. CHAPTER I. _WESLEY AT HOME, AT SCHOOL, AND AT COLLEGE._ 1703-1725. [Sidenote: 1703]