Christian History Home > Issue 81 > Eyewitness
Eyewitness
Wesley's word to a condemned malefactor.
posted 1/01/2004 12:00AM
Life in eighteenth-century England was not for the faint of heart. Thugs ruled the night streets. Lacking an organized police force, royal authorities substituted harsh penalties ruthlessly carried out in dramatic public ceremonies. More vigilante justice than due process, the system condemned even petty pickpockets to hang.
Economic conditions worsened crime. London streets teemed with 20,000 to 30,000 hungry, disaffected apprentices—some reduced to stealing bread.
In a William Hogarth engraving from 1758, one such "idle 'prentice" prepares to meet his fate. But riding along in the cart, a follower of John Wesley exhorts the man to repent and believe in Christ.
Wesley himself had begun preaching to condemned criminals during his Oxford years, under the influence of his friend William Morgan, a devout and compassionate Irishman.
In a 1745 tract, "A Word to the Condemned Malefactor," Wesley writes as he preached to such men: "WHAT a condition you are in! The sentence is passed; you are condemned ...
To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
|
If you ARE a member
of ChristianHistory.net…
Please login:
| |
If you are NOT a member
of ChristianHistory.net…
Please click here to see our membership options. As a member, you will be able to have access to all of the content on ChristianHistory.net.
|
|
Browse More ChristianHistory.net
Home | Browse by Topic | Browse by Period | The Past in the Present | Books & Resources
| |
|
