God has wisely and graciously hidden the future from us. We may form guesses concerning it; but we have not the slightest certainty that our guesses will be realised. Who, in 1732, could have foretold the future career of the Oxford Methodists? If the members of the Methodist fraternity could have seen beforehand the events of the next fifty years, what would have been the issue? Would the fellowship of the Hanoverian and Jacobite, the Methodist and Moravian, the Churchman and Dissenter, the Arminian and Calvinist, the itinerant Evangelist and the parish Priest, have been continued? That fellowship was of incalculable importance; but its maintenance depended upon the shortsightedness of those who were united in it. The drawing aside of the veil of futurity would, in all likelihood, have converted the loving brotherhood into an Ishmaelitish band, endangering, not only its future usefulness, but its present existence, by its own internecine fights. As it was, there went forth a number of brave-hearted men, all of them the better for their godly meetings in Wesley’s comfortable room in Lincoln College; and, though their courses were divergent, yet, in the main, they continued faithful to the cause of truth, and, with few exceptions, were always loyal to their great Master, Christ. In a qualified sense, we may apply to Oxford Methodism the words of the sacred text: “A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads” (Gen. ii 10). Let us follow one of the out-flowings:— John Clayton was the son of William Clayton, a bookseller in Manchester;[15] was born in 1709, and was educated by the Rev. John Richards, M.A., at the Grammar School in that important town. He entered Brazenose College in 1726, and became Hulme’s exhibitioner in 1729.[16] He was introduced to Wesley in 1732; and, by his recommendation, the Oxford Methodists took another important step, that of fasting twice a week. Wesley writes,—