John Wesley was a complex person with an unusual personality. He has always impressed me as an evangelist in tension and turmoil. He stirred up commotion most everywhere he went, even though he appeared to have remained calm himself. The real paradox of John’s outlook involved the intensity he brought to a joyful message that declared “good news for the poor and release to the captives.” How could he so intently and sternly go about preaching a theology in which holiness is accompanied by happiness? Why was he so severe and stern in proclaiming salvation for all? These preaching positions are truly Good News where God takes initiative in reaching out to people, and the people respond in faith. Yet, in his tone, style, delivery and appearance he did not reflect the happiness and goodness and its inner effects that he so emphatically preached.
In his WORKS a curious entry is recorded for January 19, 1764. He was preaching at Henley, where he found the people to be a “wild staring congregation” with little common sense or decency. “I spoke exceeding plain to them all and reproved some of them sharply.” Obviously something happened in that service that just struck him as all wrong.
Was Wesley just in a bad mood that day? Were the people really as he characterized them? Four days after preaching at Henley, he wrote, “I rode to Sundon and preached in the evening to a very quiet and stupid people …. After all our preaching here, even those who have constantly attended, no more understand us than if we had preached in Greek.” Clearly those folks at Sundon did not impress him.

Craven E. Williams
President
Greensboro College
Greensboro, N.C.