Later English Reformers
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John and Charles Wesley, after being ordained to the ministry,
were sent on a mission to America. On board the ship was a company
of Moravians. Violent storms were encountered on the passage, and
John Wesley, brought face to face with death, felt that he had not
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the assurance of peace with God. But the Germans, on the contrary,
manifested a calmness and trust to which he was a stranger.
“I had long before,” he says, “observed the great seriousness of
their behavior. Of their humility they had given continual proof, by
performing those servile offices for the other passengers which none
of the English would undertake; for which they desired and would
receive no pay, saying, it was good for their proud hearts, and their
loving Saviour had done more for them. And every day had given
them occasion of showing a meekness which no injury could move. If
they were pushed, struck, or thrown down, they rose again and went
away; but no complaint was found in their mouth. There was now an
opportunity of trying whether they were delivered from the spirit of
fear, as well as from that of pride, anger, and revenge. In the midst of
the psalm wherewith their service began, the sea broke over, split the
mainsail in pieces, covered the ship, and poured in between the deck
as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming
began among the English. The Germans calmly sung on. I asked
one of them afterward, ‘Were you not afraid?’ He answered, ‘I thank
God, no.’ I asked, ‘But were not your women and children afraid?’ He
replied mildly, ‘No; our women and children are not afraid to die.’”
Upon arriving in Savannah, Wesley for a short time abode with the
Moravians, and was deeply impressed with their Christian deportment.
Of one of their religious services, in striking contrast to the lifeless
formalism of the Church of England, he wrote: “The great simplicity
as well as solemnity of the whole almost made me forget the seventeen
hundred years between, and imagine myself in one of those assemblies
where form and state were not; but Paul, the tent-maker, or Peter, the
fisherman, presided; yet with the demonstration of the Spirit and of
power.”
On his return to England, Wesley, under the instruction of a Mora-
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vian preacher, arrived at a clearer understanding of Bible faith. He
was convinced that he must renounce all dependence upon his own
works for salvation, and must trust wholly to the “Lamb of God that
taketh away the sin of the world.” At a meeting of the Moravian so-