[In the following essay, Macdonald suggests that Wesley's moral and religious motivations for writing be taken into account in the critical discourse concerning his works.]

During Wesley's life, and for some years after his death, his countrymen, speaking generally, did not care to claim him as in any sense a national possession. They were quite content to leave him in the private possession of his followers, excellent people, doubtless, but not very interesting or influential. But time is a great readjuster of perspective. The point of view changes; the relative dimensions of men and things alter; great reputations decline and lowly ones enlarge; what was once central in the field of vision passes well nigh out of sight, while the previously obscure moves into the foreground. And this is accomplished, for the most part, not in a definite and formal way, but gradually, we hardly know how; for the process is one of unconscious movement in innumerable minds.

There can be no doubt as to the change that has taken place in the general estimate of Wesley. It is no longer left to his followers to praise him. He is held in honour by men of all forms of belief, and all schools of thought. His name is now a national, not a denominational glory. He is recognised as belonging to that foremost few in whom the best qualities of our race have found expression. His century produced no better man, and few greater men than he. It may be said of him, “We know him now.” His character and his work stand out large and clear, and when the one or the other is criticized, it is with that kind of criticism which is in itself a tribute of respect.

Though Wesley was a copious writer—his collected works occupy fifteen octavo volumes—it was not the literary instinct that drew him to authorship. To write a book was never with him an end in itself. It was always associated with some call or requirement of the work to which his life was given. Notwithstanding his scholarly tastes and poetic gifts, it is pretty certain that he would never have written either prose or verse unless by so doing he thought he could serve the great ends that were ever before his mind. This should be taken into account when judging his literary labours as a whole.

The commencement of his Journal was the result of an impression received in his early days at Oxford from reading Bishop Taylor's Holy Living. It determined him, “to take a more exact account than I had done before of the manner wherein I spent my time, writing down how I had employed every hour.” This rigorous plan was followed for no less than fifteen years, a striking illustration of Wesley's firmness of purpose and devotion to method. But happily it was not to be continued on these lines to the end. From the time when he sailed for Georgia, October, 1735, being then in his thirty-third year, Wesley's Journal becomes a record of his travels, studies, and labours, of varied adventures, and intercourse with persons of all kinds, of his views on questions practical and speculative; and, generally, what had been mainly a religious time-table broadens into an autobiography.

But the religious motive which led him to begin to keep a journal was still his chief motive in continuing it. His career had widened in an altogether unexpected way. He was no longer a college tutor, the religious guide of a handful of University men. He was an evangelist, travelling the country and preaching to vast congregations; a spiritual leader forming Societies throughout the length and breadth of the land for whose administration and teaching he must provide. And his new vocation brought with it controversy, conflicts, and persecution. His more reputable opponents attacked his theology and denounced his procedure. Less scrupulous foes assailed his character and motives—he was a Papist, a Jacobite, a polygamist, and many things beside. The mob in a score of towns broke up his congregations, beat his people and stoned the preacher.

Wesley's attitude towards his opponents was determined by their character and degree. To those who would listen he addressed Appeals and Remonstrances; to those who accused him of various crimes and misdemeanours he knew how to reply—when he replied at all—in a good-tempered but sufficiently pungent manner; and as for the mob, he faced it, and broke its noisy courage again and again by his gentle, fearless presence.

It now occurs to him to make his Journal an Apologia, in which those who have candour and patience may read his own statement of his principles and of his aims. He will give an account of himself, of his manner of life and his religious experience. He will write his own history and that of the work in which he is engaged. The Journal of his life shall be his answer to those who are perplexed or angered by what he is doing. He would not have that which is good to be evil spoken of, or be condemned unheard. He therefore sets himself to give such an account of his stewardship as it is possible to present to one's fellow-men.

There was, moreover, an ever-increasing number of people who looked to him as their leader, we might say, their father. They were exposed to contempt, often to rough handling, from those around them. They needed comfort and encouragement and further instruction. It was only at rare intervals they could hear his voice, and be cheered by his presence. It would be good for them to read of his journeyings and preachings, to know that he was not cast down, but strong and hopeful, and that the good work prospered. They should learn from his Journal his best thoughts on Christian doctrine, and his counsels and exhortations respecting Christian life. By means of it his people should know him in the whole round of his life and labours, and understand the spirit and meaning of the order of things in which they and he were found, he as leader, they as brethren and companions.

With such objects in view Wesley published about 1739 An Extract of the Rev. Mr. John Wesley's Journal, from his embarking for Georgia, to his return to London. Similar Extracts appeared at irregular intervals during the remainder of his life, a period of fifty years, and the Journal as we now have it consists of no fewer than twenty parts or instalments. In Lloyd's Evening Post for January 20, 1772, appears the following notice of one of these issues:

“Those who expect to find in this Journal only the peculiar tenets of Methodism will be agreeably disappointed, as they are intermixed with such occasional reflections on men and manners, on polite literature, and even on polite places, as prove that the writer is endued with a taste well cultivated both by reading and observation; and above all with such a benevolence and sweetness of temper, such an enlarged, liberal, and truly protestant way of thinking towards those who differ from him, as clearly show that his heart at least is right, and justly entitle him to that candour and forbearance which, for the honour of our common religion, we are glad to find he now generally receives.”

Wesley's Journal is still his best biography. It is, as Montaigne said of his Essays, un livre de bonne foi, written in perfect honesty and good faith. It reveals his limitations and defects, but it shows him to be a man of rare powers, of unsurpassed zeal and devotion, and of the loftiest Christian character. One may wish that he had allowed himself a greater variety of topics, for, as Dr. Johnson said of him, “He can talk well on any subject”; that he had said more respecting the public and social life of his time, and the persons whom he met. But he is not a St. Simon, writing the inner history of a court; nor a Horace Walpole, chronicling the scandals and small talk of Mayfair and of Twickenham. He is John Wesley, and we must take him as such, preacher of the Gospel and leader of men, to whom it was given in a sensual and irreligious age to revive the Church and awaken the people, thus bestowing great benefits not only on his own generation but on those that followed.