History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

like Wesley, betrayed his ignorance of business methods, and was fleeced by selfish friends until he
surrendered his whole copyright to the Conference for a nominal sum before he set sail for India.
Bereft of his last companion, approaching his seventieth year, much of the missionary work of
the Conference now consolidated and settled on a secure basis; as he saw the sun of his life nearing
its setting, he turned his face resolutely toward its rising in the east. A mission to India had long been
a favorite idea with him, and he had secured much useful information bearing upon it. He appeared
before the Conference of 1813, and Stevens says, "pleading even with tears to be sent himself as a
missionary to Asia." No one may doubt the perfect sincerity of this proposal, separated from all other
considerations, for he gave proof of the singleness of his purpose by his final arrangements for the
India mission. It will not be forgotten, however, that he was an extreme Churchman, and at heart
attached no importance to his third ordination by Wesley. An aspiration to the bishopric he believed
legitimate, nor did he doubt his qualifications for it. The expiring embers of an almost extinguished
ambition flamed up once more only to die into the white ashes of a hopeless desire. He had learned
that the British Foreign Office proposed to send a Bishop to India that this great empire of the Crown
might have the benefits a National Church is supposed to confer upon a country; but he had also
learned through Wilberforce that Parliament was "set against granting any countenance to Dissenters
or Methodists in favor of sending missionaries to India." But Dr. Coke could not be deterred by such
trifles. He pressed his application. He wrote to the Earl of Liverpool, but received no answer. He
next addressed Wilberforce, then in the bloom of his Parliamentary career, a letter characteristic of
him. It is not given by Stevens except such fragments as answered the bias of his "History" in favor
of all that Coke did and apologetic of his "imprudence" and "weaknesses," as his apologist calls his
proposals to Wilberforce. Drew, his biographer, does not refer to it at all, though a copy must have
been found among Coke's papers, unless, like his letter to the Earl of Liverpool, he would have had
to make the confession, "I have either mislaid the copy of it, or destroyed it at the time, for fear of
its falling into improper hands." It was the misfortune of Dr. Coke in this as in kindred previous
transactions — his letter to Bishop White of America suggesting his ordination as a true Bishop, and
the union of the American Societies with the Protestant Episcopal Church, as another example —
to make the conditions with his correspondents, "burn this letter," or "let this be kept secret."
Nothing of the kind can be found in all the correspondence of the Wesleys, of Whitefield, or of
Asbury. It is not forgotten that charity demands that of two constructions of another's language or
motive the extenuating one should be followed, or, as Stevens puts it as to the letter to Wilberforce,
"his life and character forbid any ungenerous interpretation of the correspondence."
Church historians are squeamishly sensitive to the charge of ambition against their favorites, as
though it could have no excusable place in the career of a Christian man. An American statesman
has aptly said, "When you eliminate ambition from the human soul, you shut out the visions that
entice men upward." This letter to Wilberforce did not see the light until the Correspondence of that
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eminent British statesman was published, and it must stand upon its own merits. The full text of
it is given in Appendix B. A digest of it may be given. It was written at Leeds, April 14, 1813. The
opening paragraph makes it plain that Coke entered upon it with some misgivings lest its exposure
should involve him with the British Methodists in an inconsistency that could not be explained. Two
sentences must be set over against each other; to wit, "Could I but close my life in being the means
of raising a spiritual church in India, it would satisfy the utmost ambition of my soul here below."
"I am not conscious, my dear, respected sir, that the least degree of ambition influences me in this