e Holy Sacrament of His Body and Blood. The
name is a corruption of the Latin word _mandatum_, meaning a
command, in allusion to the "New Commandment" of mutual love.

MESSIAH, _see_ Trinity, The Holy.

METHODISTS. The original Methodists are the Wesleyans, but already
this sect has split up into numerous sections, or "Churches," as
they call themselves. The leading sub-divisions will each have a
separate notice. The leading idea of Methodism is a revival of
religion by a free appeal to the feelings, and the method adopted
is an elaborate system of "societies," and preaching the doctrine
of "sensible conversion."

The "people called Methodists," or Wesleyans, are the followers of
John Wesley, who was born in 1703. He took his degree at Oxford,
and was ordained in 1725. He held a Fellowship at Lincoln College
until his marriage in 1752. While at Oxford, he, with his brother
Charles, of Christ Church, and his friend Whitefield, of Pembroke,
and some twelve others, determined to live under a common rule of
strict and serious behaviour; to receive frequently the Holy
Communion; and to adopt a methodical and conscientious improvement
of their time. After ordination, these two brothers, John and
Charles, set to work to revive a spirit of religion in the Church
of England, of which they were priests, and were aided by the
good-will and sound paternal advice of some of the Bishops.

In 1735 John Wesley went out as a missionary to Georgia, in America,
but the settlers rejected his services, and his mission to the
Indians was a failure. On his voyage out, he unfortunately came
under the influence of some Moravians; and on returning to England,
after a three years' absence, he became a regular member of the
Moravian Society in London. It was here he learnt the two peculiar
doctrines of subsequent Wesleyanism, viz.: (1) instantaneous and
sensible conversion, (2) the doctrine of perfection, _i_._e_., of
a Christian Maturity, on attaining which, he that is (in the
Wesleyan sense) "born again," "born of God," sinneth not. If,
however, we take into view Wesley's own persistent affirmation in
later times, "I have uniformly gone on for fifty years, never
varying from the doctrine of the Church at all;" and many other
such passages, we cannot escape the inevitable conclusion that
the very doctrine on which his modern followers have built their
separation from the Church, is nothing else than a transient and
_foreign_ element in thei