The history of Methodism . tongue, and tohold the creed of his parents, who were rigid Roman Catho-lics. Southey says that his life might alone convince aCatholic that saints are to be found in other communions aswell as in the Church of Rome. . As a Romanist hemight have retired to a cell or a hermitage, contented withsecuring his own salvation by perpetual austerity and prayerand a course of continual self-tormenting. But he could nothave been more dead to the world nor more entirely possessedby a devotional spirit. But Walshs saintliness was notthus buried in a dark monastic cell, and in hi
The history of Methodism . tongue, and tohold the creed of his parents, who were rigid Roman Catho-lics. Southey says that his life might alone convince aCatholic that saints are to be found in other communions aswell as in the Church of Rome. . As a Romanist hemight have retired to a cell or a hermitage, contented withsecuring his own salvation by perpetual austerity and prayerand a course of continual self-tormenting. But he could nothave been more dead to the world nor more entirely possessedby a devotional spirit. But Walshs saintliness was notthus buried in a dark monastic cell, and in his characterwe find continued the same seraphic piety and practical phi-lanthropy which we see in Fletcher. 709 710 British Methodism When he was eight years old he learned English, and wastaught the rudiments of Latin by his brother. He then wentto Limerick, to gain skill in writing and such branches ofliterature as would fit him to be a schoolmaster, until abouthis nineteenth year, when he set up a school for FROM A COPPERPLATE BY RIDLEY THOMAS WALSH. The perpetual repetition of the Lords Prayer and Ave Mariain Irish and the 130th psalm in Latin, with various prayers,did not satisfy his sensitive soul. An act of stubbornnessdrew from his mother the reproach, You have grieved me. It went like an arrow through my heart, he says; and hefelt the force of the fifth commandment, which he calls thevery firmament and band even of commonwealths. He Speak to them in Irish 711 was convinced that he rightly loved neither his parents norhis God. lie went often to mass; his confessor enjoined more prayers, and to this he added frequent fasts. Inanguish of spirit he struck himself against the earth, feltdriven by the devil, and cried out for light. When eighteen, on the advice of his brother, who hadbecome a Protestant, and also of Philip Geier, one of thePalatine Methodist leaders, he read the Bible. Soon he at-tended Protestant services. On the parade ground at Lim-erick, in 1749
Size: 1447px × 1727px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorhurstjfj, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1902
