unremembered contemporaries followed in their steps with issues not
less disastrous to themselves, however unimportant to others--to the
Oxford where young men swore to observe laws which they never read,
and renewed a solemn promise when they had discovered the
impossibility of keeping it--that Wesley, about a score of years after
his entrance to the University, poured forth from the pulpit of Saint
Mary's such burning words as must have reached many a conscience in
the congregation.

"Let me ask you," he said in his university sermon for Seventeen
Hundred Forty-four, "in tender love and in the spirit of meekness, is
this a Christian city? Are we, considered as a community of men, so
filled with the Holy Ghost as to enjoy in our hearts, and show forth
in our lives, the genuine fruits of that Spirit? I entreat you to
observe that here are no peculiar notions now under consideration:
that the question is not concerning doubtful opinions, but concerning
the undoubted fundamental branches (if there be any such) of our
common Christianity. And for the decision thereof I appeal unto your
own consciences. In the presence of the great God, before whom both
you and I shall shortly appear, I pray you that are in authority over
us, whom I reverence for the sake of your office, to consider (and
that not after the manner of dissemblers with God), are you living
portraitures of Him whom ye are appointed to represent among men? Do
you put forth all your strength in the vast work you have undertaken?
Let it not be said that I speak here as if all under your care were
intended to be clergymen. Not so: I speak only as if they were
intended to be Christians. But what example is set us by those who
enjoy the beneficence of our forefathers, by Fellows, Students,
Scholars, and more especially those who are of some rank and eminence?
Do ye, who are of some rank and eminence--do ye, brethren, abound in