They were also vigorous
opponents of negro slavery.
[Sidenote: Methodists]
The Methodist movement did not come until the eighteenth century. By
the year 1740, a group of earnest Oxford students had won the nickname
of "Methodists" by their abstinence from frivolous amusements and their
methodical cultivation of fervor, piety, and charity. Their leader,
John Wesley (1703-1791), was a man of remarkable energy, rising at four
in the morning, filling every moment with work, living frugally on L28
a year, visiting prisons, and exhorting his companions to piety. The
Methodist leaders were very devout and orthodox Anglicans, but they
were so anxious "to spread Scriptural Holiness over the land" that they
preached in open fields as well as in churches. Wesley and other great
orators appealed to the emotions of thousands of miners, prisoners, and
ignorant weavers, and often moved them to tears. It is said that John
Wesley preached more than 40,000 sermons.
The Methodist preachers gradually became estranged from the Anglican
Church, established themselves as a new dissenting sect, and dropped
much of the Anglican ritual.
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