"April 27. At Mr. Belinger's plantation I met with a half-caste Indian and several negroes, who were very desirous of instruction. One of them said: 'Though I am so lame I cannot walk, yet if there was any church within five or six miles I would crawl thither.'"

Mr. Wesley then adds, and the words are remarkable, for he might be here sketching an outline for the future guidance of West India missionaries:

"Perhaps one of the easiest and shortest ways to instruct the American negroes in Christianity would be, first, To inquire after and find out some of the most serious of the planters. Then, having inquired of them which of their slaves were best inclined, to go to them from plantation to plantation, staying as long as appeared necessary at each. Three or four gentlemen of Carolina I have been with, that would be sincerely glad of such an assistant, who might pursue his work with no more hinderances than must everywhere attend the preaching of the gospel."

From this quotation, it is highly gratifying to find that some of the planters were friendly to godliness, and desirous of having their negroes instructed in the principles of the Christian religion; and that they would be ready to afford facilities, and not oppose obstructions, to any minister who might engage in so good a work. It is only fair to testify that in most slave countries there have been gentlemen similarly disposed, although this fact has been sometimes too much lost sight of in the heat of public controversies. The last mention of negro teaching he gives in the following extracts; he was then on his voyage to England: "December 26, 1737. I began instructing a negro lad in the principles of Christianity." And again: "January 8, 1738. I began to read and explain some passages of the Bible to the young negro. The next morning another negro who was on board desired to be a hearer too." These are the first instances on record in which Methodism, in the person of its founder himself, came in contact with slavery; and we see that its influence was wholly of a religious character, similar to that which was afterward exerted by the Wesleyan missionaries who labored among colonial slaves. Nothing is said by him concerning their social condition. His brother Charles, who was in the country at the same time, speaks in terms of strongest indignation in his Journal, of certain horrid cruelties that he had both heard of and seen. But John Wesley does not seem to have met with anything of the kind; his intercourse lay with milder men, who were sincerely desirous of the welfare of their slaves; for beside Mr. Belinger, already noticed, he mentions, in his "Thoughts on Slavery," one Hugh Bryan, whom he knew, and extols, though a large master of slaves, as a man of high benevolence and virtue. By comparing these accounts, we shall perceive that Methodism,

from the beginning, exercised a wise discrimination; and this has marked its proceedings in every stage of its operations on slavery. It was willing to allow that in some instances men were better than the system; and that the considerate humanity of some worthy masters kept its hideous evils in abeyance, and made the condition of the slave not only tolerable, but in some respects comfortable. It was by adducing such cases, the truth of which no honorable opponent would wish to deny or conceal, that the planters endeavored to prove that the negroes were better off than many of the hardworking laborers in the free cities of Europe. But still the slave had no legal security as to the continuance of such advantages, nor, in fact, any legal right to them at all; everything depended on the sole will of one man, on the preservation of that kind master's life; and on his prosperity, so as not to be compelled to indemnify his losses by trenching on the comforts allowed his slaves. In the beginning, however, of Methodistic operations for the benefit of the enslaved, far less was known about their civil condition than in subsequent years.

When the Wesleys returned from Georgia and Carolina to England, they seem to have lost sight of the slave population, in the multiplicity of labors in their own country. For full twenty years after, Methodism had no kind of connection with a slave community. But about that time, Nathaniel Gilbert, Esq., who was speaker of the House of Assembly, in the Island of Antigua, and owner of two large plantations, visited England for the benefit of his health, taking with him two or three of his negro servants. This was some ten years before the decision of Lord Chief Justice Mansfield (for which we are indebted to the legal knowledge and untiring activity of Granville Sharpe) settled it forever as the law of the land, that a slave on touching British soil is free, even though he were in the colonies legally a slave. Mr. Gilbert heard the Rev. John Wesley preach on Kennington Common, and became deeply concerned for the salvation of his soul. He invited Mr. Wesley to his house, and from that time an intimacy and correspondence was maintained till Mr. Gilbert's death. In his Journal, January 17, 1758, Mr. Wesley writes:

In

"I preached at Wandsworth. A gentleman come from America [he means from the West Indies] has again opened a door in that desolate place. the morning I preached in Mr. Gilbert's house. Two negro servants of his and a mulatto appeared to be much awakened. Shall not His saving health be made known to all nations ?"

Again, November 29, 1758, (that is, ten months later :)

"I rode to Wandsworth, and baptized two negroes belonging to Mr. Gilbert, a gentleman lately come from Antigua. One of these is deeply convinced of sin, the other rejoices in God her Saviour, and is the first African Christian

I have known."

We mark this last clause because of its weightiness in regard to the future of Methodism. "Surely a little one hath since become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation; the Lord hath hastened it in his time."

Thus it appears, that as Mr. Wesley preached to slaves in America long before Methodist missionaries were sent to them, so he himself baptized the earliest converts of that class, and received them into his society in England. And what is more remarkable still, the master and slaves were made partakers of the same grace by his instrumentality, and in their master's house; so that Mr. Wesley's position in regard to Mr. Gilbert was somewhat analogous to that of Paul to Philemon. Mr. Wesley did not discuss with him the general question of freedom or slavery; indeed, it does not seem to have occurred to their mind on either side. All parties were so intent on securing salvation, that a secondary matter, however important, entered not into their calculations. Nor shall we probably err if we conclude that at that time a providential direction was given to the current of their thoughts, whereby hostility was not provoked by premature debates, which might have formed a barrier to that blessed sphere of missionary operations which God was about to open in the West Indies. The germinant principle of freedom was left to grow up under the shadow of the Gospel; and it was effectually, though incidentally, guarded by those excellent Rules, which equally applied to Gilbert and his slaves as members of "the United Society" of "the people called Methodists."

On returning to Antigua Mr. Gilbert and his servants carried with them that true godliness which they had obtained in England. And now for the first time, Methodism, as a system, began to take root in a slave soil, and in the midst of a slave population. In the West Indies, as in England, the Methodists attended service in the Established Church. But there being no service in the church on the afternoon of the Sabbath, Mr. Gilbert expounded the Scriptures to his own domestic household, and allowed such of his neighbors as desired to join with them. He next proceeded a step further, and preached the Gospel to the slaves on his own plantations. About the same time his brother Francis became converted to God, and was made useful at St. John's, the capital of the island, where he resided, and probably formed the first society. Of their proceedings Mr. Gilbert informed Mr. Wesley from time to time, who

ness.

published some of his letters in the Arminian Magazine. The first of these is dated May 10, 1760, which Mr. Wesley designates "A copy of a Letter from Antigua, giving an Account of the Dawn of a Gospel Day." Of the slaves Mr. Wesley had baptized, Gilbert says: "My negro woman, Bessy, whom you baptized at Wandsworth, has been kept ever since, and is still able to rejoice in God." September 18, 1764, Mr. Gilbert writes of the society as having been then some time established. "When my brother," says he, "left this island, I determined to meet this people twice or thrice a week; but after meeting them a few times, I was hindered by sickBefore I had entirely recovered I went twice to St. John's, where I stayed several days each time, and endeavored to get a house, and designed to continue meeting the society three times a week." But, fearing his own incompetency, he informs Mr. Wesley that he had relinquished that purpose; he adds, however: "The members meet among themselves thrice a week; and, as far as I can understand, they are going on much in the same manner as when my brother left them." Within that society were raised up two or three individuals of considerable ability as class-leaders, who were instrumental in keeping the society together, and even increasing it, till more efficient provisions could be made for their spiritual necessities. This did not take place till after Mr. Gilbert's death; but the labors of that good man, and his brother, had been the means of gathering two hundred souls into the fold of Methodism, the greater portion of them being of the colored and slave population.

A

Here we may pause, to dwell upon a fact which some might wish to conceal from any particular observation. But historic truth requires us to mark the instrumentality which God chose to employ in the introduction of Methodism into the West India Isles. planter and slaveholder was himself the first preacher, and, with his brother, the founder of the first society; a great part of them were his own slaves; and as there was no missionary during his lifetime, he was in some sort their spiritual overseer or bishop, on whom they chiefly depended for guidance in the way to heaven. However ardently any one may love freedom and hate slavery, still no intensity of feeling or strength of party should induce a distortion of undoubted facts; for fairness and candor will most effectually win over opponents to the cause of liberty and truth. What Mr. Wesley remarks of the vehement Reformer, John Knox, may be here applied to the excellent Mr. Gilbert. God did not employ him to do good because he was a slaveholder, but he made him useful, notwithstanding he occupied such an objectionable position in relation to his fellow-men. He certainly was a gentleman of high respect

ability, of sincere piety, of disinterested benevolence, and greatly beloved by his slaves, which says much for his worth; and though more than seventy years have passed away since his decease, his name and memory are reverenced in Antigua to the present day. Nor is it a little remarkable that as a slaveholder introduced, so far as Methodism is concerned, the Gospel which undermines slavery; so, when emancipation came, the slave masters of that same island were the most forward to accept it; the Legislature of Antigua assigned as a reason for immediate emancipation, that missionary teaching had well prepared the slaves of that island for freedom. We are thus brought to the conclusion of the first period, the formation of a society, chiefly of slaves, about the year 1760. One fact more, remotely connected with this period, is worthy of being preserved from oblivion. On some unknown occasion, the Rev. George Whitefield had been led to visit the island of Bermuda, where he preached a few sermons. Some years ago a very aged member of the Methodist Society, who was then awakened under Whitefield's ministry, died in peace, and gave to the missionary stationed there a frequent account of her conversion through the instrumentality of that servant of God. The precise date of Whitefield's preaching in Bermuda is not mentioned; but probably it was before Gilbert had heard Mr. Wesley in England. He sowed the seed, and left for the continent; and Methodism, many years afterward, gathered in some of the fruit of his labors.

II. We now proceed to the second period of nearly half a century; from the formation of the first society in a slave community to the abolition of the slave-trade, extending from 1760 to 1807. To exhibit clearly the growing influence of Methodism on the anti-slavery movement in so large a portion of time, it will be necessary to incorporate a few events that properly belong to America, while the United States were British colonies.

We have seen that the Rev. John Wesley preached to slaves on that continent in 1736. It does not appear that his brother Charles ever had an opportunity of instructing them, deep as were his sympathies for that oppressed race. But of Mr. Whitefield in 1740 it is remarked, that "an incredible number of people flocked to hear him, among whom were abundance of negroes." His ministry prepared the way for the large success which, thirty years afterward, attended Methodist preachers on that continent, both among "the bond and free." Indeed, they only entered upon their work in America a few months before his removal to heaven. And though there was no direct connection between them and Whitefield's converts, yet, as they traveled to a great extent among the same popu