es_, pp. 248, 313.
'The strictness of Puritanism, without its strength or piety, was
beginning to reign among Dissenters.']

[Footnote 701: _Life of Archbishop Sharp_, by his Son, edited by T.
Newcome, p. 214.]

[Footnote 702: Id. p. 217.]

[Footnote 703: See _The History of the Present Parliament and
Convocation_, 1711; and Cardwell's _Synodalia_, vol. ii. for the years
1710, 1712, 1713, 1715.]

[Footnote 704: See Secker's _Charges, passim_.]

[Footnote 705: The circumstances in the Isle of Man were of course
exceptional. For specimens of the rigour with which good Bishop Wilson
maintained ecclesiastical discipline there see Stowell's _Life of
Wilson_, pp. 198, 199, &c.]

[Footnote 706: _Le Clerge de Quatre-vingt-neuf_, par J. Wallon, quoted
in the _Church Quarterly Review_ for October 1877, art. v., 'France in
the Eighteenth Century.']

[Footnote 707: W.M. Thackeray, _English Humorists of the Eighteenth
Century_.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER IX.

THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL.

(1) THE METHODIST MOVEMENT.

The middle part of the eighteenth century presents a somewhat curious
spectacle to the student of Church history. From one point of view the
Church of England seemed to be signally successful; from another,
signally unsuccessful. Intellectually her work was a great triumph,
morally and spiritually it was a great failure. She passed not only
unscathed, but with greatly increased strength, through a serious
crisis. She crushed most effectually an attack which, if not really very
formidable or very systematic, was at any rate very noisy and very
violent; and her success was at least as much due to the strength of her
friends as to the weakness of her foes. So completely did she beat her
assailants out of the field that for some time they were obliged to make
their assaults under a masked battery in order to obtain a popular
hearing at all. It should never be forgotten that the period in which
the Church sank to her nadir in one sense was also the period in which
she almost reached her zenith in another sense. The intellectual giants
who flourished in the reigns of the first two Georges cleared the way
for that revival which is the subject of these pages. It was in
consequence of the successful results of their efforts that the ground
was opened to the heart-stirring preachers and disinterested workers who
gave practical effect to the truths which had been so ably vindicated.
I