“JOHN WESLEY.”[289] Having spent nine days in London, Wesley set out, on June 30, on a preaching tour which occupied the whole of the ensuing month. Proceeding by way of Buckingham, he visited Oxford, Witney, Stroud, Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Worcester, Malvern; and then passed through Wales to Bristol, which he reached on July 28. Here, on August 5, he opened his annual conference, and writes: “As the report had been spread far and wide, I now particularly inquired of every assistant, ‘Have you reason to believe, from your own observation, that the Methodists are a fallen people? Is there a decay or an increase in the work of God where you have been? Are the societies in general more dead, or more alive to God, than they were some years ago?’ The almost universal answer was: ‘If we must know them by their fruits, there is no decay in the work of God among the people in general. The societies are not dead to God: they are as much alive as they have been for many years. And we look on this report as a mere device of Satan, to make our hands hang down.’ “‘But how can this question be decided?’ You can judge no further than you see. You cannot judge of one part by another; and none but myself has an opportunity of seeing the Methodists throughout the three kingdoms. “But to come to a short issue. In most places, the Methodists are still a poor, despised people, labouring under reproach, and many inconveniences; therefore, wherever the power of God is not, they decrease. By this then, you may form a sure judgment. Do the Methodists in general decrease in number? Then they decrease in grace; they are a fallen, or, at least, a falling people. But they do not decrease in number; they continually increase; therefore, they are not a fallen people.” These are weighty words. They show Wesley’s deep anxiety to maintain the genuine character of the work in which he was engaged; and the test which he instituted was, unquestionably, under existing circumstances, logical and conclusive.