Life
John Wesley (1703–1791), an Oxford-educated Anglican, underwent a transforming experience of assurance and thereafter preached tirelessly across Britain — often in the open air to the poor and working classes — traveling perhaps a quarter-million miles on horseback. He organized converts into disciplined "methodist" societies, emphasizing personal holiness, social service, and God's grace freely offered to all. Though he never left the Church of England, the movement he founded became the global Methodist family of churches.