Methodism Warmed

One of the most famed religious conversions since that of St. Paul, and probably the best-documented in modern times, was that of John Wesley, founder of Methodism. To a recent Roman Catholic student of Wesley, Rev. Maximin Piette, this conversion was "a gust of feeling so unimportant that Wesley might well have forgotten all about it had he not recorded it at the lime." Nevertheless, Wesley did record it, in words which Methodists have treasured to this day:

"In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all my might. . . ."

Before his heart-warming at 34, John Wesley had for twelve years been an Anglican divine, conscious of failure in his missionary trip to Georgia in the Colonies. At Oxford, where Wesley spent much of his time, Methodism was a derisive name applied to members of a "Holy Club" which Hymn Writer Charles Wesley founded and in which his brother became a leader. John Wesley never left the Church of England. In essence his doctrines were: justification by faith alone; freedom of the human personality; purity of heart; the reception of the Holy Spirit by man. Methodism today strives to implant the Christian faith not only in personal but in business and social life.

To 12,000,000 Methodists the world over, this week was Aldersgate Week, and fit 8:45 p.m. on May 24, the 200th anniversary of the warming of John Wesley, many a Methodist church was to hold special services. In England, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York were to preach in recognition of Wesley's contributions to their church. Last Sunday, throughout the U. S., some 5,000 churches of all denominations picked up an NBC broadcast dramatizing John Wesley's life.

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