e middle and lower classes, the effects of which
last to this day.

[Sidenote: Whitefield.]

Whitefield was not so learned, or intellectual as Wesley. He was not
so great a genius. But he had more eloquence, and more warmth of
disposition. Wesley was a system maker, a metaphysician, a logician.
He was also profoundly versed in the knowledge of human nature, and
curiously adapted his system to the wants and circumstances of that
class of people over whom he had the greatest power. Both Wesley and
Whitefield were demanded by their times, and only such men as they
were could have succeeded. They were reproached for their
extravagances, and for a zeal which was confounded with fanaticism;
but, had they been more proper, more prudent, more yielding to the
prejudices of the great, they would not have effected so much good for
their country. So with Luther. Had he possessed a severer taste, had
he been more of a gentleman, or more of a philosopher, or even more
humble, he would not so signally have succeeded. Germany, and the
circumstances of the age, required a rough, practical, bold, impetuous
reformer to lead a movement against dignitaries and venerable
corruptions. England, in the eighteenth century, needed a man to
arouse the common people to a sense of their spiritual condition; a
man who would not be trammelled by his church; who would not be
governed by the principles of expediency; who would trust in God, and
labor under peculiar discouragement and self-denial.

[Sidenote: Institution of Wesley.]

Wesley was like Luther in another respect. He quarrelled with those
who would not conform to all his views, whether they had been friends
or foes. He had been attracted by the Moravians. Their simplicity,
fervor, and sedateness had won his regard. But when the Moravians
maintained that there was delusion in those ravings which Wesley
considered as the work of grace, when they asserted that sin would
remain with even regenerated man until death, and that it was in vain
to expect the purification of the soul by works of self-denial, Wesley
opposed them, and slandered them. He also entered the lists against
his friend and fellow-laborer, Whitefield. The latter did not agree
with him respecting perfection, nor election, nor predestination; and,
when this disagreement had become fixed, an alienation took place,
succeeded by actual bitterness and hostility. Wesley, however, in his
latter days, manifested greater charity and l