arbitrarily, one hundred out of one hundred and ninety-two preachers to be members of the Conference, though several murmured and thought it hard that preachers of old standing should be rejected, yet when the time came none durst oppose him.  ‘Many,’ writes one of the malcontents, ’were averse to the deed, but had not the courage to avow their sentiments in Conference.  Mr. Wesley made a speech and invited all who were of his mind to stand up.  They all rose to a man.’[729]

It certainly was an extraordinary power for one man to possess; but in its exercise there was not the slightest taint of selfishness, nor yet the slightest trace that he loved power for power’s sake.  His own account of its rise is perfectly sincere, and artless, and, it is honestly believed, perfectly true.  ‘The power I have,’ he writes, ’I never sought; it was the unadvised, unexpected result of the work which God was pleased to work by me.  I therefore suffer it till I can find some one to ease me of my burthen.’  He used his power simply to promote his one great object—­to make his followers better men and better citizens, happier in this life and thrice happier in the life to come.  If it was a despotism it was a singularly useful and benevolent despotism, a despotism which was founded wholly and solely upon the respect which his personal character commanded.  Surely if this man had been, as his ablest biographer represents him,[730] an ambitious man, he would have used his power for some personal end.  He would at least have yielded to the evident desire of some of his followers and have founded a separate sect, in which he might have held a place not much inferior to that which Mahomet held among the faithful.  But he spoke the truth when he said, ’So far as I know myself, I have no more concern for the reputation of Methodism than for the reputation of Prester John.’[731] When he heard of accusations being brought against him of ’shackling free-born Englishmen’ and of ‘doing no less than making himself a Pope,’ he defended his power with an artless simplicity which was very characteristic of the man.  ‘If,’ he said, ’you mean by arbitrary power a power which I exercise singly, without any colleague therein, this is certainly true; but I see no harm in it.  Arbitrary in this sense is a very harmless word.  I bear this burden merely for your sakes.’  It is a defence which one could fancy an Eastern tyrant making for the most rigorous of ‘paternal governments.’  But Wesley was no tyrant; he had no selfish end in view; it was literally ‘for their sakes’ that he ruled as he did; and since he was infinitely superior to the mass of his subjects (one can use no weaker term) in point of education, learning, and good judgment, it was to their advantage that he did so.