How Great a Flame (1940s)

[music] [music] [music] >> Until I, an American who hopes one day, God willing, to become a Methodist preacher, began a new experience at the Methodist Central Hall I couldn't tell what their church meant to British Methodists. I knew only what Methodism meant to me. But with the experience that began with my meeting Dr. Sangster, minister of the Central Hall, I came to learn at least what their church ought to mean to British Methodists. My own Methodism took on a greater significance and value. I began to see with increasing clarity how great was the heritage I shared in through the fellowship of faith which is Methodism. I found myself in Bristol, the Horsefair. With the 100,000 Methodist chapels throughout the world I'd heard of and the 13,000 in Britain, I wanted to see where it all began, this great religious fellowship of which I grew so proud to be a member. The New Room in the Horsefair, John Wesley called it. No Methodist and surely no Christian could look on this, the oldest Methodist shrine in the world, without reverence and awe. From this plain and simple, yet lovely fane, with its gallery and high pulpit, sprang one of the greatest religious organizations, one of the greatest Christianizing forces the world has seen. How much is here to remind us of John Wesley and the noble work for God he here began, and even of the dangers he faced. The pulpit from which he and his brother preached daily. The communion table, still in use, at which they observed the sacrament of the Lord's Supper with hundreds of communicants every Sunday. And the clock that then recorded, as it still records, the passing hours. There are no windows on the ground floor, no direct way from the ground floor to the pulpit. A reminder, perhaps, of how often preachers and congregations in the New Room were exposed to the fear of an unthinking rioter's mob, as when in 1788, he, then 84 years old, John Wesley, in this building, denounced the slave trade as the most execrable of villainies. It was in this little room that the second conference of the people called Methodists was held in 1745. 11 people were present. In 1771, Francis Asbury, the great apostle of American Methodism, was dedicated and sent on his mission to the New World. These are old houses now. They must have looked down on John Wesley as he preached in the open air. Just as today they look down on the statue of his brother Charles preaching. These are the original doors, and you see the old poor box with its cover plate still attached. Two months after he had first preached in the open air, so beginning the evangelical revival of the 18th century, John Wesley laid the foundation stone, and in June of that same year, the original one-story building was opened, 2,500 people gathering about it to hear John Wesley preach. In 1748, the New Room was rebuilt to its present height and otherwise enlarged. This is the only building existing which spans the whole of John Wesley's evangelical mission. In the 50 years of his far journeying and mighty labors in his master's cause, Wesley spent more time in the chapel and his rooms upstairs than anywhere else. The common room, in which he and the preachers he taught shared their simple meals. John Wesley's study, with the bust of him by Enoch Wood, which Wesley considered the best likeness of himself ever made. And off the study, the tiny bedroom, where more than once he lay sick and near to death. At the small desk sloping from the window sill, Wesley wrote many of his famous and innumerable letters. In this, surely in all its simplicity, one of the greatest Christian shrines, how deeply must the mind and heart of the Methodist, or of any believer, be stirred? To that borrowed light in the cupola overlooking the chapel pulpit, John Wesley would sometimes steal from his work to listen to the preachers of his teaching. So much to awaken recollections and to stir the imagination. The chair in which at Winchelsea, shortly before his death, being too feeble to stand, the devoted old man sat to preach his last sermon in the open air. Seeking inspiration, I sat in it, asking what John Wesley, could he speak, would say to his followers of the present day. And it seemed to me, You think, young soldier, that for this world of yours, so different from that in which I had earthly being, the Christian's task and message must be different, too. That was my thought, sir. Is it not manifest how manifest in the years just past as hatred and malice still exist? Are all men pure of heart, seeking only God and his righteousness? Sir, then as the evil still exists, so does the need of salvation. The Christian task and message remain the same in their simplicity. Tell the glad tidings of salvation. Preach perfect love. Call all men to that holiness without which none shall see the Lord. Convict men of sin. Point him to a savior. That was the message you, sir, carried all over England. I and my brethren, and under God, whom I humbly thank, it saved the England of our day. I believe, sir, it still is the one message to save our sorely stricken world. Believe that, young soldier, and you will win many victories for Christ. Be compassionate as your God is compassionate. Give succor to the poor, the sick, and the friendless stranger. Make your Christianity practical, as here, from this room, we made it practical. But while you and the brethren in your far country unite with the brethren in this, and with Methodists the world over, to relieve avoidable distresses and to right social wrongs, beware of too absorbed an interest in the material things of life that pass away. For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. Love ye one another in the love of Christ. Farewell. And there was the little stable where John Wesley and his first preachers put up their horses, simple, but with the practical simplicity that made John Wesley great. God's highwayman, who called you that, John Wesley? Whoever it was, he named you aptly. You with your 5,000 miles a year on horseback for 40 years, with your Bible in hand, making men and women stand and deliver their hearts to God. >> [bell] [music]