op the subject and refuse to discuss it further,
but in Boehler he found a clearness of argument, and power of persuasion
which convinced without irritating him.

Having passed through many stages with the guidance, sympathy, and
encouragement of Boehler, Wesley at last found the assurance of
salvation he had sought for so many years, and three weeks after Boehler
left London, he records that at a meeting of their society "I felt I did
trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given
me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law
of sin and death." A few days previously his brother Charles had made
the same happy experience, and this gave to their religious life the
warmth and fervor which, added to the zeal, industry and enthusiasm that
had always characterized them, made their labors of so much value to
England, and founded the denomination which has grown so rapidly in
America, still bearing the name once given in derision to the little
group of Oxford "Methodists".

But Wesley's mind was not one of those which can rest contentedly upon
one vital truth, he must needs run the whole gamut of emotion, and
resolve every point raised by himself or others into a definite negative
or affirmative in his own life. Once settled in a position to his entire
satisfaction, he was as immovable as a mountain, and this was at once
the source of his power and his weakness, for thousands gladly followed
the resolute man, and found their own salvation therein, while on the
other hand the will which would never bend clashed hopelessly with those
who wished sometimes to take their turn in leading. So he became an
outcast from the Church of England, alienated from Ingham, Whitefield,
and other friends of his youth, estranged from the Moravians, even while
he was one of the greatest religious leaders England has ever produced.

At the time of Toeltschig's sojourn in London, however, he was in
the early, troubled stage of his experience, rejoicing in what he had
attained through Boehler's influence, but beset with doubts and fears.
And so, as he records in his Journal, he determined "to retire for a
short time into Germany, where he hoped the conversing with those holy
men who were themselves living witnesses of the full power of faith, and
yet able to bear with those that are weak, would be a means, under God,
of so establishing his soul, that he might go on from faith to faith,
and from str