wfn.org | At the Roots of Methodism: Wesley set example in aiding poor

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Dec. 6, 1999 News media contact: Tim Tanton·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
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NOTE:  This is a regular feature on Methodist history by John Singleton
especially for distribution by United Methodist News Service.

A UMNS Feature
By John Singleton*

In common with thousands of inner-city Methodist churches in Britain, the
United States and across the world, many congregations in my part of East
London are involved in huge social projects in the name of Christ. 

Our people are feeding the homeless and providing them with medical
facilities; helping the jobless get work; fighting for the rights of
refugees and asylum seekers; helping young people break out of the drug
cycle; establishing credit unions; working with ethnic minority people; and
linking up with lonely and elderly citizens.

And there is much more, all of it grounded in Christian discipleship and
aimed at making our hard-pressed communities and neighborhoods better places
in which to live. This concern for the poor has always been a priority for
Methodists, a concern that goes back to the example of Methodism's founder,
John Wesley.

In 1746, in London, Wesley founded the first really free medical dispensary
in England. "I mentioned to the society my design of giving physic to the
poor," he noted in his journal. "About 30 came next day, and in three weeks
about 300. This we continued for several years, till the number of patients,
still increasing, [and] the expense [were] greater than we could bear.
Meantime, through the blessing of God, many who had been ill for months or
years were restored to perfect health."

On some occasions, usually in the midst of a harsh winter, Wesley and the
early Methodists were, by cooperative methods, feeding 100 to 250 people
daily in a single place. And constantly, in conjunction with their amazing
network of prison, sick and poor visitation ministries, they raised money to
clothe and relieve prisoners and to buy food, medicine, fuel or tools for
stricken people. The universal collection of clothes for the elderly and
other needy people was such a continuous and persistent feature of their
work that generally it passed unnoticed.

When the opportunity arose, Wesley was also a promoter of cooperative
industry among the poor. He had no sympathy with an industrial and economic
system that, in the sweatshops of cellars and attics, or in the dark,
stifling depths of a coal or tin mine, could reduce men, women and children
to walking skeletons and finally hurl them on the scrap heap when they were
no longer a source of profit.

"After several methods proposed for employing those who were out of
business, we determined to make a trial of one which several of our brethren
recommended to us," he wrote in 1740. "Our aim was, with as little expense
as possible, to keep them at once from want and from idleness; in order to
which we took 12 of the poorest, and a teacher, into the society room, where
they were employed for four months ... in carding and spinning of cotton." 

They were employed and maintained with "very little more than the produce of
their own labor," he wrote. This was but one of his endeavors to provide
wholesome, remunerative employment for the needy.

His efforts in this realm extended to women as well as men. Part of a
journal entry in 1741 reads: "My design, I told them, is to employ, for the
present, all the women who are out of business, and desire it, in knitting.
To these we will give first the common price for what work they do; and then
add according as they need."

It seems that, to Wesley, such industrial terms as "hand" and "boss" were
degrading. All faithful, productive "workers" were to him honorable, while
conversely, no one commanded his respect who did not engage in some honest,
creative service for the common good. His journal is loaded with biting
references to the so-called "rich and genteel." His cause was often backed
by rich people, and he counted many of them among his friends, but he had no
time for those who exploited others or expected privileges because of their
wealth.

Wesley's Benevolent Loan Fund and his Strangers' Friend Society were aimed
at stimulating initiative and independence on the part of under-privileged
people, and that of social responsibility on the part of the privileged. In
1748, he wrote: "I made a public collection towards a lending stock for the
poor. Our rule is to lend only 20 shillings at once, which is repaid weekly
within three months. I began this about a year and a half ago; 30 pounds and
16 shillings were then collected and out of this no less than 255 persons
have been relieved in 18 months." With later collections, the capital of
this fund was raised in 1772 to 120 pounds and the borrowing limit to 5
pounds.

The Strangers' Friend Society was one of the last of Wesley's social
enterprises. It wasn't founded until 1787, yet even before his death in 1791
it had branches in every populous center of the country.

A casual entry in the journal in 1790 explains the society's purpose. "In
the morning I met the Strangers' Society, instituted wholly for the relief
not of our society, but of poor, sick, friendless strangers," Wesley said.
"I do not know that I ever heard or read of such an institution till within
a few years ago. So this also is one of the fruits of Methodism." 

And still is.

# # #

*Singleton is assistant editor of the weekly Methodist Recorder newspaper in
London. He can be contacted by e-mail at: editorial@methodistrecorder.co.uk.

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