While moderate and just spectators
of the Johnson type could recognize the sincerity of men, who,
like Wesley, travelled 'nine hundred miles in a month, and
preached twelve times a week' for no ostensibly adequate reward,
there were others who saw in Methodism, and especially in the
extravagancies of its camp followers, nothing but cant and
duplicity. It was this which prompted on the stage Foote's
'Minor' (1760) and Bickerstaffe's 'Hypocrite' (1768); in art the
'Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism' of Hogarth (1762); and
in literature the 'New Bath Guide' of Anstey (1766), the
'Spiritual Quixote' of Graves, 1772, and the sarcasms of Sterne,
Smollett and Walpole.
It is notable that the most generous contemporary portrait of
these much satirised sectaries came from one of the originals of
the 'Retaliation' gallery. Scott highly praises the character of
Ezekiel Daw in Cumberland's 'Henry', 1795, adding, in his large
impartial fashion, with reference to the general practice of
representing Methodists either as idiots or hypocrites, 'A very
different feeling is due to many, perhaps to most, of this
enthusiastic sect; nor is it rashly to be inferred, that he who
makes religion the general object of his life, is for that sole
reason to be held either a fool or an impostor.
Pages:
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371