d also fallen completely under the influence of Boehler, had passed
through a similar change; and Whitefield, without ever adopting the
dangerous doctrine of perfection which was so prominent in the Methodist
teaching, was at a still earlier period an ardent preacher of
justification by faith of the new birth. It was characteristic of John
Wesley that ten days before his conversion he wrote a long, petulant,
and dictatorial letter to his old master, William Law, reproaching him
with having kept back from him the fundamental doctrine of Christianity,
and intimating in strong and discourteous language his own conviction,
and that of Boehler, that the spiritual condition of Law was a very
dangerous one.

It was no less characteristic of the indefatigable energy which formed
another and a better side of his nature, that immediately after this
change he started on a pilgrimage to Herrnhut, the head-quarters of
Moravianism, in order that he might study to the best advantage what he
now regarded as the purest type of a Christian church. He returned
objecting to many things, but more than ever convinced of his new
doctrine, and more than ever resolved to spend his life in diffusing it.
In the course of 1738 the chief elements of the movement were already
formed. Whitefield had returned from Georgia. Charles Wesley had begun
to preach the doctrine with extraordinary effect to the criminals in
Newgate and from every pulpit into which he was admitted. Methodist
societies had already sprung up under Moravian influence. The design of
each was to be a church within a church, a seed-plot of a more fervent
piety, the centre of a stricter discipline and a more energetic
propagandism, than existed in religious communities at large.

In these societies the old Christian custom of love-feasts was revived.
The members sometimes passed almost the whole night in the most
passionate devotions, and voluntarily submitted to a spiritual tyranny
that could hardly be surpassed in a Catholic monastery. They were to
meet every week, to make an open and particular confession of every
frailty, to submit to be cross-examined on all their thoughts, words,
and deeds. The following, among others, were the questions asked at
every meeting: "What known sin have you committed since our last
meeting? What temptations have you met with? How were you delivered?
What have you thought, said, or done of which you doubt whether it be
sin or not? Have you nothing yo