When Dean Stanley, in 1876, unveiled the memorial tablet erected in Westminster Abbey to the memory of John and Charles Wesley, consisting of medallion profiles of these great men, he said: "John Wesley is presented as preaching on his father's tomb, and I have always thought that it is, as it were, a parable which represented his relation to national institutions. He took his stand on his father's tomb--on the venerable and ancestral traditions of the country and the Church. That was the stand from which he addressed the world; it was not from points of disagreement, but from the points of agreement, with those in the Christian religion that he produced those great effects which have never since died out in English Christendom. It is because of his having been in that age, which I am inclined to think has been unduly disparaged, the reviver of religious fervor among our churches that we all feel we owe him a debt of gratitude, and that he ought to have this monument placed among those of the benefactors of England. These men had a perfect right to this national and lasting honor." Mr. Augustin Birrell, queen's councilor and member of Parliament, in a lecture before the Royal Institute of London, says of John Wesley: "The life of John Wesley, who was born in 1703 and died in 1791, covered, practically, the whole of the eighteenth century, of which he was one of the most remarkable and strenuous figures, and his Journals were the most amazing records of human exertion ever penned by man. Those who have ever contested a parliamentary election know how exhausting was the experience; yet John Wesley contested the three kingdoms in the cause of Christ, and during the contest, which lasted forty-four years, he paid more turnpike toll than any man who ever lived. His usual record of travel was eight thousand miles a year [we think this an overestimate], and even when he was an old man it seldom fell below five thousand miles. Wesley was a great bit of the eighteenth century, and was, therefore, a great revealing record of the century. He was a cool, level-headed man, and had he devoted his talents to any other pursuit than that of spreading religion he must have acquired a large fortune; but from the first day of his life, almost, he learned to regard religion as his business." "A greater poet may rise than Homer or Milton," says Dr. Dobbins, "a greater theologian than Calvin, a greater philosopher than Bacon, a greater dramatist than any of ancient or modern fame; but a more distinguished revivalist of the churches than John Wesley, never."