Category Archives: Essential John Wesley

Documenting America, Essential John Wesley, self-publishing

So Little Progress on a Weekend

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Saturday just past dawned clear, but went cloudy quite fast. Then the sun broke through. I was up around 8:30 AM, as usual for a Saturday. Read my devotions, then went outside for my normal yard work. The sun was out, then behind clouds, then out again. The wind blew in gusts, then it was dead calm, then it blew again. I did such minor things as clean a little in the garage, then pick up sticks from the front yard (a rock yard), then pull weeds from the front yard. Then I was ready for my weekly sawing on the downed tree on the wood lot next to us.

Prior to my current health kick, improving both weight and blood sugar, I was lucky to be able to saw one section from this tree. The diameter is only 8 inches or so where I’m sawing. Then, two weeks ago, I was able to saw two sections, and felt good at the end. Saturday I decided to shoot for three sections, which would finish the tree. And I was able to do it, feeling at the end that I could have done another if I wasn’t down to the stump. That was such a good feeling: to finish the tree, and to see my arm strength and stamina built up from even a month ago.

So then it was inside to see what else I had to do and to write. I pulled up my latest Documenting America file, and decided to have one more go at the Introduction. I knew I needed to add something about how I came to select the documents included in the book. So I did that, then went on to some work on Essential John Wesley. Two hours later I found it was time to head to Wal-Mart for the weekly acquisition of groceries.

Saturday evening was devoted to my Wesley studies, as well as preparing to teach Life Group on Sunday. The Wesley reference book I have out on inter-library loan was due Monday, and I was determined to get my $2.00 ILL fee’s worth. So I read through the slim book again, taking some different notes. This continued into Sunday. To make sure I “got my money’s worth,” I wrote a review of that book for this blog, and posted it Saturday. I may have spent too much time on the slavery writings of Wesley, but I consider the research not only for EJW but also for future articles or essays.

Sunday afternoon I went through the work of formatting and uploading Documenting America for and to the Kindle Store. It’s there, not live yet (as of this writing), but in the review queue. Should go live Monday evening or sometime on Tuesday. I still don’t have a decent cover, so I’m just using the one I developed with my limited graphics skills. But I can change the cover at any time, so I decided to upload. Upon review I realized the spacing in the Table of Contents was messed up, but I decided to run with it. The Kindle uploading software allows for a separate TOC upload. Somehow I sensed that wouldn’t be easy, so I decided to put it off.

Sunday evening was devoted to Wesley studies, in an old article I found about him as a literary man, and in his journals. That meant I did not do any writing in the Wesley book. That gave me a feeling of lack of accomplishment. All together, this weekend I wrote less than 1,000 words, including the blog post. I need to get in 3,000 on the weekends to have a prayer of ever finishing anything. Other things I wanted to do was to look into Amazon’s CreateSpace, to have a physical book for Documenting America. I have a feeling it’s not too difficult. I also wanted to look into the Barnes & Noble e-book tool, and SmashWords, so as to have my stuff available on multiple e-reader platforms. Alas, I didn’t get to any of that.

Why is it so difficult to make writing progress on the weekends? With Saturday evening and Sunday all day being rainy, I couldn’t walk, so I had plenty of time to write. Yet production was minimal. All I can do is try harder in the future.

Oh, and I was right about creating a TOC for Kindle. Just did some research into it, and it involves HTML code—simple stuff I think, if any HTML can be considered simple. Well, I’ll let the book get up, then see what I can do.

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Review of "John Wesley and Slavery"

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As part of the research for my John Wesley small group study book, I have spent time looking at his position on slavery. This is best stated in his long tract/short book Thoughts Upon Slavery, printed in 1774. My research led me to an article a 2008 issue of the Wesleyan Theological Journal, which in turn led me to other references. One of those is the book John Wesley and Slavery by Warren Thomas Smith, Abingdon Press, 1986 [ISBN 0-687-20433-X, Library of Congress No. 85-15796].

An older book, you say, and not worth the time to take up band width in reviewing. I think not, however. This thin volume (160 pages including index and a copy of Wesley’s 1774 work) is a treasure trove of information. Smith starts with the story of the ending of slavery in the British Empire, in 1838, and a little bit on how they got there and what it meant to millions of manumitted slaves. He asks,

“How did all this come to pass? Who was responsible for the eradication of this intolerable institution of slavery? Indeed, many! One name, however, must be mentioned. He contributed much more than most people have ever recognized—more than he himself ever knew. It is long past time that he received his due recognition. His name is John Wesley!”

A bit of hyperbole, perhaps, but Smith makes the case that Wesley’s contribution to the eventual end of the slave trade and the abolition of slavery is huge, perhaps even essential. Smith traces first the establishing of the trade and the institution of slavery, then Wesley’s part in bringing it down. The importance of the writings of Anthony Benezet, a Philadelphia Quaker, are shown. Thoughts Upon Slavery is analyzed (see my review of Thoughts Upon Slavery here).

Smith documents some contacts that John Wesley had with African, both during his stay in Georgia and in the years in England after his evangelical experience. I believe Smith is trying to say that these encounters were important to Wesley’s coming to an understanding that slavery was wrong. In journal entries and letters, in the few times he mentions blacks, he always presents them in a good light. It was clear to Wesley that this racist garbage that people were writing—that Africans were lazy, unreliable, untruthful, without feelings, and somehow less than human—was wrong. Blacks were as human as whites. And actually, when he speaks of slave traders and owners, he doubts the full humanity of those. For Wesley humanity was defined by mercy and justice, not by skin color. I would have liked for Smith to be more forceful in developing this strain of his research. It’s in the book, but the reader has to come to conclusions about it, rather than seeing a forceful statement by Wesley.

Also included is Wesley’s efforts against slavery after the publication of Thoughts Upon Slavery. In other tracts, letters, and published journals, Wesley does not seem to miss an opportunity to speak out against slavery. By this time in his life, Wesley was well known and somewhat popular. His publishing platform was huge, and he had a distribution network though Methodist preachers that writers of today dream about. Smith develops this well.

I could pick at the book a little. Smith included a chapter on Wesley’s ancestry. It’s short, a mere four pages, but it wasn’t necessary. He has a few typos, such as claiming something written by Wesley in 1755 was written in 1743, and one time placing Thoughts Upon Slavery as published in 1744 instead of 1774. These aside, another bone I have to pick with Smith are some statements made without references that really need references. Without those references, they are assumptions presented as facts. A couple of examples:

p. 42 “Charles [Wesley] had written it, and doubtless discussed it with his brother.” This concerned an entry in Charles’ journal about barbaric treatment he had seen of slaves. Can we assume that each brother shared everything with the other? While this is an assumption, it’s probably correct.

p. 38 “The Wesleys vigorously applauded the original ban on slavery [in Georgia].” This might be, but I’d like to know what writing shows this.

p. 41 “Of course they had read much on the subject [or slavery], and they would have seen Africans in England, but now it came home to them.” Where is the evidence that the Wesley brothers had “read much on” slavery? I find no documentation on that, and Smith presents none.

I could go on, but those should show the nit-picking I could do, but I will end there. The book is worth reading. The last twenty-five pages is a facsimile reproduction of Thoughts Upon Slavery, and not a particularly good copy. In 1986 that might have been the only way for a reader to easily find it. Today it is in many places on the Internet.

Well, I took up the bandwidth. This book is of interest to Wesley scholars, and dabblers such as me. I obtained it through inter-library loan; it goes back on Monday. If you ever come across it at a used book sale, it is worth having. For someone whose interest is piqued, it’s probably worth buying through Amazon or ABE Book Exchange.

Essential John Wesley

"Thoughts Upon Slavery" by John Wesley

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As part of the research required for the small group study I’m writing, tentatively titled “Essential John Wesley”, I’m reading his works right now. I’ve done enough to outline the book, and to have an idea of how long the study will last and how long the book will be. I was kind of amazed when I went through a bibliography of his works. I knew the major ones (well, not really all of them), but was surpised just how much he had produced.

I was familiar in general with Wesley’s stand on slavery. He was against it. The last letter he wrote, six days before he died, was to William Wiberforce, encouraging him to remain firm to the end in his struggle to end the slave trade. But as I researched Wesley’s writings, I found he had written a short book titled “Thoughts Upon Slavery”, written in 1774. I found an on-line copy of it, printed it, and finally over the last few nights read it.

It is a great read. Not terribly long by book standards, about 9,000 words, so it could almost be called a tract. Wesley took some of his material from a book by American abolitionist Anthony Benezet. Those who have read both works say that about 30 percent, though Wesley re-did some of that. He begins with a description of slavery as it existed at that time, including how slaves were procured and transported. He claimed it was the English and other Europeans who set the African nations warring against each other, resulting in prisoners of war who were then sold as slaves. Kings were offered bribes and, once corrupted by the Europeans, sold out their villagers for slavery.

This idea that the Africans willingly sold their own people to the slave traders is something I hear a lot lately, as if that made what the Europeans and their New World colonists did somehow better. It wasn’t a mitigating factor, and Wesley said as much.

He contrasted the behavior of the Africans in their native environment to that of the slave traders, and found the latter wanting, inferior to the black man. To the slave traders he wrote:

Are you a man? Then you should have an human heart. But have you indeed? What is your heart made of? Is there no such principle as compassion there? Do you never feel another’s pain? Have you no sympathy, no sense of human woe, no pity for the miserable? When you saw the flowing eyes, the heaving breasts, or the bleeding sides and tortured limbs of your fellow-creatures, was you a stone, or a brute? Did you look upon them with the eyes of a tiger? When you squeezed the agonizing creatures down in the ship, or when you threw their poor mangled remains into the sea, had you no relenting? Did not one tear drop from your eye, one sigh escape from your breast? Do you feel no relenting now? If you do not, you must go on, till the measure of your iniquities is full. Then will the great God deal with you as you have dealt with them, and require all their blood at your hands. And at “that day it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you!”

We always want our heroes to be on the right side of history, as we currently judge what that right side is. It seems John Wesley was. It took him a few decades from when he first saw slavery up close in Georgia until he began making opposition to it a part of his public pronouncements. I suppose we could fault him for the delay, but he did have a lot on his plate. That he eventually stepped out front, encouraged by the works of Benezet and others, is a good thing. That he inspired Wilberforce and others, even better.

I’m now at the point where I’m excerpting Thoughts Upon Slavery, then will write some analysis to go around that, plus questions for the class, plus a list of references and further reading. I think I’ll have all that done by Sunday evening. One exception: I have ordered a reference from interlibrary load, and purchased another one on-line. Until I have these in hand and can digest them, I won’t really be “done” with the chapter.The last couple of sections are Wesley’s own writing, his statement how a Christian—indeed, a human being with a real heart—could not possibly engage in the slave trade, could not possilby own slaves. They are the best part of the book. He was everything wrong with the world as the result of sin. It’s hard to argue with that. Certainly this “execrable villany” was a sin against God and against man. That it took “Christians” so long to recognize that is shameful.