WESLEY, JOHN, the founder of Methodism, born at Epworth, in Lincolnshire, son of the rector; was educated at the Charterhouse and at Lincoln College, Oxford, of which he became a Fellow; while there he and his brother, with others, were distinguished for their religious earnestness, and were nicknamed Methodists; in 1735 he went on a mission to Georgia, U.S., and had for fellow-voyagers some members of the Moravian body, whose simple piety made a deep impression on him; and on his return in two years after he made acquaintance with a Moravian missionary in London, and was persuaded to a kindred faith; up to this time he had been a High Churchman, but from this time he ceased from all sacerdotalism and became a believer in and a preacher of the immediate connection of the soul with, and its direct dependence upon, God’s grace in Christ alone; this gospel accordingly he went forth and preached in disregard of all mere ecclesiastical authority, he riding about from place to place on horseback, and finding wherever he went the people in thousands, in the open air generally, eagerly expectant of his approach, all open-eared to listen to his word; to the working-classes his visits were specially welcome, and it was among them they bore most fruit; “the keynote of his ministry he himself gave utterance to when he exclaimed, ‘Church or no Church, the people must be saved.’” Saved or Lost? was with him the one question, and it is the one question of all genuine Methodism to this hour (1703-1791).

WESSEL, JOHANN, a Reformer before the Reformation, born at Groeningen; was a man of powerful intellect; taught in the schools, and was called by his disciples Lux Mundi (1420-1489).

WESSEX, a territory in the SW. of England, inhabited by Saxons who landed at Southampton in 514, known as the West Saxons, and who gradually extended their dominion over territory beyond it till, under Egbert, their king, they became supreme over the other kingdoms of the Heptarchy.

WEST, BENJAMIN, painter, born near Springfield, Pennsylvania, of Quaker parentage; was self-taught, painted portraits at the age of 16, went to Italy in 1760, and produced such work there that he was elected member of several of the Italian academies; visited England on his way back to America in 1763, where he attracted the attention of George III., who patronised him, for whom he painted a goodly number of pictures to adorn Windsor Castle; he remained in England 40 years, painting hundreds of pictures, and was in 1792 elected President of the Royal Academy in succession to Sir Joshua Reynolds; among his paintings were “The Death of General Wolfe,” “Edward III. at Crecy,” and “The Black Prince at Poitiers” (1738-1817).

WEST AFRICA, name given to the region SW. of the Sahara, consisting of low lands with high lands behind, and through the valleys of which rivers flow down, and including Senegambia, Upper Guinea, and Lower Guinea, the coast of which is occupied by trading stations belonging to the French, the English, the Germans, the Belgians, and the Portuguese, and who are severally forcing their way into the inland territory connected with their several stations.