QUOTE: J. R. Green says: “The Methodists themselves were the least result of the Methodist revival. Its action upon the Church broke the lethargy of the clergy. But the noblest result of the religious revival was the steady attempt, which has never ceased from that day to this, to remedy the guilt, the ignorance, the physical suffering, the social degradation of the profligate and the poor.”
No one can tell what the fate of England would have been but for the Great Revival. Mr. Lecky assigns to Methodism a prominent place among those influences which saved this country from the revolutionary spirit which laid France in ruins, and shows how “peculiarly fortunate” it was that the vast extension of manufacturing industry in the later part of the century had been “preceded by a religious revival which opened a mainspring of moral and religious energy among the poor, and at the same time gave a powerful impulse to the philanthropy of the rich.”
NOTE: Wesley also noted, “Our people die well…”
QUESTION:
RESOURCES:
The quote above is from The Life of John Wesley by John Telford – INTRODUCTION and is found at http://wesley.nnu.edu/?id=105. Copyright © 1993-2011. Wesley Center for Applied Theology, c/o Northwest Nazarene University. All Rights Reserved.