Primitive Methodism had much of the enthusiasm and devotion and joyousness of the Franciscan brotherhood. Francis’ friars and Wesley’s helpers had a common unworldliness, joyousness, and passion for the souls of men. But even as the Franciscan movement diverged from the ideals of St. Francis, so Methodism soon developed on lines of its own. It has preserved much of the evangelical fervor and the practical helpfulness of its original inspiration. Considered in its direct and indirect effects, its union of evangelicalism, mysticism, and practical kindliness, there has been no other Christian movement which has combined such a measure of purity with such vastness of influence. In genuine Christian influence it has surpassed even the Reformation. Modern Christianity (and there is a distinguishable modern Christianity) is of all forms that Christianity has assumed the nearest to the Christianity of Jesus, and in its fashioning the Methodist Revival has been the chief agency. Yet Methodism has not realized the ideals of its human founder. It did not perpetuate his unworldliness. It failed, as R. W. Dale pointed out, to the great loss of Christendom, to develop the ethical implications of his great doctrine of perfect love. It cherished his memory and his organization, but it refused to inherit his dread and hatred of riches. Its very thrift and industry and morality have been its undoing. It became, in great measure, like Protestantism in general, a _bourgeois_ religion, eminently suited for people who want to get on in the world. Its chief abhorrence has never been of social inequality and injustice but of the wasteful frivolities and vices, dancing, card-playing, theatre-going, and, pre-eminently, intemperance. The Report already cited shows, however, a new spirit at work in the Methodism of Canada, a spirit in which Wesley would rejoice, and it is not in Canadian Methodism only that it is at work. A still closer resemblance obtains between the Franciscan order and the Salvation Army than between the former and Methodism. No two movements, perhaps, so widely apart in time and methods are so closely akin. Poverty, humility, obedience, love are the dominant features of them both. Francis is a more winsome figure than General Booth but incomparably less intelligent and efficient. Francis awakened a great religious revival but probably wrought little improvement on the face of Europe--on its ferocity, chronic warfare, sensuality, oppression of the poor. The Salvation Army has redeemed countless victims of poverty and vice. It has probably proved itself the most effective agency in all history for the salvation of the down and out. The Order and the Army have the same limitations.