IN CHURCH HISTORY. 121 



has also had opportunity to become a great mis' 

 sionary nation, and has been the agent for carrying 

 the Gospel to the four quarters of the globe. India, 

 Africa, America, Australia and the islands of the 

 seas have become the scene of her missionary 

 enterprises. Her missionary bishops and clergy 

 have rivalled the heroism of the primitive heralds 

 of the faith, and millions of the heathen have had 

 opportunity to know of Christ and His salvation 

 through the zeal of this Church. Her history at 

 home has ever been an eventful one, and has had 

 its periods of agitation. 



A strange coldness seemed to benumb hei 

 members in the period about the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century. Her grand services were render- 

 ed in a perfunctory manner, and the glow of enthusi- 

 asm was exchanged for mere formalism. Of course 

 there were exceptions. Not all, and it may be not 

 a large proportion were under the spell of indiffer- 

 ence, but it was sad indeed that a Church with 

 such a noble history, going back to apostolic days, 

 should ever lose her power and should slumber. 



Some young students at Oxford, desiring to culti- 

 vate among themselves a more earnest piety than they 

 found prevailing, met together frequently to encour- 

 age each other in fervor of devotion and in holiness 

 of life. The result was a great awakening, led 

 by the Wesleys and others. These men never 

 intended and never labored to promote any separa- 



