manner of the missionary was as
startling as his matter. The sermons of the time were almost always
written, and the prevailing taste was cold, polished, and fastidious.
The new preachers preached extempore, with the most intense fervor of
language and gesture, and usually with a complete disregard of the
conventionalities of their profession. Wesley frequently mounted the
pulpit without even knowing from what text he would preach, believing
that when he opened his Bible at random the divine Spirit would guide
him infallibly in his choice. The oratory of Whitefield was so
impassioned that the preacher was sometimes scarcely able to proceed for
his tears, while half the audience were convulsed with sobs. The love of
order, routine, and decorum, which was the strongest feeling in the
clerical mind, was violently shocked. The regular congregation was
displaced by an agitated throng who had never before been seen within
the precincts of the church. The usual quiet worship was disturbed by
violent enthusiasm or violent opposition, by hysterical paroxysms of
devotion or remorse, and when the preacher had left the parish he seldom
failed to leave behind him the elements of agitation and division.

We may blame, but we can hardly, I think, wonder at the hostility all
this aroused among the clergy. It is, indeed, certain that Wesley and
Whitefield were at this time doing more than any other contemporary
clergymen to kindle a living piety among the people. It is equally
certain that they held the doctrines of the Articles and the Homilies
with an earnestness very rare among their brother-clergymen, that none
of their peculiar doctrines were in conflict with those doctrines, and
that Wesley at least was attached with an even superstitious reverence
to ecclesiastical forms. Yet before the end of 1738 the Methodist
leaders were excluded from most of the pulpits of the Church, and were
thus compelled, unless they consented to relinquish what they considered
a divine mission, to take steps in the direction of separation.

Two important measures of this nature were taken in 1739. One of them
was the creation of Methodist chapels, which were intended, not to
oppose or replace, but to be supplemental and ancillary to, the
churches, and to secure that the doctrine of the new birth should be
faithfully taught to the people. The other, and still more important
event, was the institution by Whitefield of field-preaching. The idea
had occurr