Early Methodist Philanthropy

"The Muse of History," remarks Henry Esmond, in introducing his own life story, "hath encumbered herself with ceremony as well as her Sister of the Theatre. She too wears the mask and cothurnus and speaks to measure. She too, in our age, busies herself only with the affairs of kings; waiting on them obsequiously and stately, as if she were but a mistress of Court ceremonies, and had nothing to do with registering the affairs of the common people." This was, indeed, a just reproach upon the conduct of Clio in the reign of good Queen Anne, but now-a-days she has pulled off her periwig and become "familiar rather than heroick," as Esmond desired, and readily admits that Mr. Hogarth and Mr. Fielding do give us a much better idea of the manners of eighteenth century England than the Court Gazette and the court newspapers.

While the present study of early Methodist philanthropy cannot claim the artistry of a Mr. Hogarth or a Mr. Fielding and, indeed, in the studiously scientific mood of modern history would repudiate any intimation of it, it does endeavor to contribute its small share to the "familiar" history of the days of Anne and the Georges. The homely but far-reaching beneficence of the early Methodists, which it seeks to describe, is a part of the great river of common human life, whose sources even yet are but dimly perceived and upon whose banks the historical student stands watching the movement of leaves and chips upon its surface and gazing upstream in the effort to comprehend the direction and power of the many currents that surge past his feet toward the broader, deeper reaches of the future. To two of these currents early Methodist philanthropy is vitally related. It may be considered as a section of the history of English philanthropy in the eighteenth century, a story which is yet to be written with the care and acumen which the political and the industrial

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