Author Description

Spanning some fifty-five years, John Wesley's voluminous Journal records the daily tribulations experienced in traveling the length and breadth of the British Isles in the 18th century. These selections present an engrossing portrait of Wesley during the course of his travels and evangelical activities, illuminating the preacher's views and opinions on a host of contemporary matters. Begun as a public vindication of his early spiritual and pastoral work in Oxford and America, Wesley's journal became a means of keeping far-flung outposts of Methodism in touch with one another, a device for administering encouragement and rebukes, and a textbook of the experiential religion Wesley spent his life proclaiming. Wesley's eclectic interests and passion for rational analysis also make the Journal a rich source for any reader interested in observing the conditions and values of Augustan society--particularly those of the lower classes--through the eyes of a well-educated and intelligent gentleman of the time.