Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Oh poor, lovely England!


It makes you weep.

I actually rather approve of the Wesleys, and wish that the Methodist thing had had more traction in the Anglican Church. I think things would have gone better in the long run had the Anglos taken the Wesleyan thing on board. Which would have meant that things would have gone better for England in general.

The part of Cheshire my family is from has lots of Methodist chapels and Methodism was quite a force up there among the labouring classes. In fact, my Mum and Uncle Mike were both baptised and raised Methodist, and I think it did a lot towards making them both the deeply kindly and essentially true-hearted and innocent people they grew up to be.

Tattenhall, of blessed memory, has a large and very beautiful Methodist chapel on the High Street that has a plaque on the front saying that John Wesley himself once preached there. In the year I lived there, it was converted into an expensive semi-detatched. I peeked in the windows and the person who lives there seems quite posh, as one might expect in that part of Cheshire. Furniture very modern.

Poor, poor England.






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1 comment:

DP said...

Love the Wesleys--then again, I was raised a Methodist before I poped.

John's decency can be seen in his interminable battles with Calvinist opponents. He became so frustrated with the predestination arguments that one of his responses consisted simply of a hymn about salvation being open to all.

While I haven't read it, I understand Knox's "Enthusiasm" paints a very sympathetic portrait of the Methodists, which wasn't what Knox expected when he began the book.

Oh, and as to Charles: he's simply the finest hymn writer produced by the Anglosphere.