It is right to say that Mr. Smith’s discourse is levelled against the Calvinistic Methodists, of whom, however, he unfortunately speaks as though they were all the Methodists that existed. Remembering the recent origin of the Methodist movement, and the unparalleled opposition it had been its lot to encounter, it is somewhat amusing to find the Bethnal Green curate describing the Methodists as “the _overbearing_ sect”; perhaps it was a _lapsus linguæ_; or perhaps the Rev. Mr. Smith began to see, that crushing the system with the iron heel of persecution only diffused its fragrance wider; and that, after all, Methodism, instead of dying, was every year more vigorous than ever. Mr. Smith was severely handled in a pamphlet of 40 pages, with the title, “Letters to the Rev. Mr. Haddon Smith, occasioned by his _Curious_ Sermon entitled Methodistical Deceit; by Philalethes.” Wesley’s own publications, in 1770, were as follows. 1. “An Extract from Dr. Young’s Night Thoughts, on Life, Death, and Immortality.” 12mo, 241 pages. Wesley professed to have left out all the lines in Young, which he “apprehended to be either childish, or flat, or turgid, or obscure”; and appended brief explanations of the words and phrases, which he thought would be scarcely understood by unlearned readers. 2. “Minutes of several Conversations between the Rev. Messrs. John and Charles Wesley and others.” 8vo, 60 pages. This was a new and enlarged edition of the minutes published in 1763, embracing minutes of all the conferences held from that period to the year 1770. 3. “A Sermon on the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield.” 8vo, 32 pages. 4. “Free Thoughts on the Present State of Public Affairs.” 8vo, 47 pages. This was published in the midst of the terrible national confusion, produced by the dissolute and unprincipled anarchist,--the infamous John Wilkes. The pamphlet has been already noticed in a previous chapter.[117]