HOW METHODISM BEGAN

During the last hundred and fifty years that little band of young men at Oxford derisively called "The Holy Club" has grown into a worldwide Christian communion. Its regular clergy numbers twenty thousand, its actual membership over three million, and its adherents about twelve million souls.
Methodism is supernatural. Such historic marvels as the Empire of the first Napoleon may be accounted for on natural principles, with a liberal mixture of the infernal; but the rise of this vast religious empire cannot be referred to the operation of any laws or forces known to state-craft or philosophy: science did not discover it, logic did not deduce it, kings did not will it, nor legislators enact it; but, like the new Jerusalem of the Apocalypse, it came down out of heaven: a divine benefaction of spiritual light, and joy, and power.
To worthily record the sweep of this divine movement would require the inspiration of a prophet and the experience of an apostle. Human sight is too slow to discover, and human speech
too weak to portray, the majesty and glory of this work of grace; and whoever thoughtfully approaches such a task must ever be oppressed to think how far this theme transcends his powers.