History of the M.E. Church, Vol. IV - Media Sabda Org

HISTORY OF THE
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH
By Abel Stevens
CHAPTER XIII
AUXILIARY PLANS AND INSTITUTIONS
LITERARY, EDUCATIONAL, MISSIONARY, ETC.
Practical Adjuncts of the Methodist system -- Its Use of the Press -- Wesley the Founder of the
System of "Cheap Publications" -- Great Variety of his Literary Works -- Publishing Enterprise of
American Methodism -- Robert Williams begins it -- Early Legislation respecting it -- Origin of the
Book Concern -- Beauchamp's "Christian Monitor" -- "Zion's Herald" -- Progress of the Book
Concern -- Its present Condition and Usefulness -- The Sunday-School -- Wesleyan Methodism First
Incorporates it in the Church -- Asbury Establishes the First in America -- Early Legislation of the
Church respecting it -- Sunday-school Union -- Results -- Education -- Early Attempts for It --
Asbury's Devotion to it -- Rescue Missions -- The Position of Methodism in their history -- Coke --
Sketch of the Progress of American Methodism in Domestic and Foreign Missions -- German
Methodism
The practical, of Disciplinary, as well as the Theological, system of Methodism has been minutely
defined its appropriate place. But a Church must, in this age, have other, not to say
extra-ecclesiastical, means of labor if it would meet the ever varying walks of the world, and not
stagnate and die. Methodism has habitually been adding such auxiliaries to its working system. They
have been noted in their due time, as they have, one after another, sprung up; but their fuller
consideration has been reserved till the present stage of our narrative, when their series -- literary,
educational, and missionary -- had become substantially complete. In order to estimate them
adequately, their results, beyond our chronological limits, must be, and can legitimately be, briefly
anticipated. They afford some of the most important and startling facts of the history of the Church.
American Methodism from its organization, and even before that date, appreciated the importance
of the press. The example and injunctions of Wesley kept the denomination, not only in England,
but wherever it extended, zealous in the diffusion not only of religious literature, but of "useful
knowledge" in general. He was the founder of the system of "cheap publications;" cheap prices
[2]
sustained by large sales. The literary labors of Wesley would seem, aside from all his other
services, to be sufficient for the lives of half a score of men. A German historian of Methodism [3]
classifies, with German elaborateness, the great variety of his literary works, as Poetical,
Philological, Philosophical, Historical, and Theological. Though he probably wrote before Wesley's
death, he states that many of these writings, after ten or twenty editions, could not be obtained
without difficulty, and the whole could not be purchased for less than ten guineas, notwithstanding
they were published at rates surprisingly cheap. A catalogue of his publications, printed about 1756,
contains no less than one hundred and eighty-one articles, in prose and verse, English and Latin, on
grammar, logic, medicine, music, poetry, theology, and philosophy. Two thirds of these publications
were for sale at less than one shilling each, and more than one fourth at a penny. They were thus
brought within reach of the poorest of his people. "Simplify religion and every part of learning," he
wrote to Benson, who was the earliest of his lay preachers addicted to literary labors. To all his