Methodist Church Chartered

‘Wesley you alone can touch; but will you not have the hive about you? When I was about twelve years old, I heard him preach more than once, standing on a chair, in Kelso churchyard. He was a most venerable figure, but his sermons were vastly too colloquial for the taste of Saunders. He told many excellent stories. One I remember, which he said had happened to him at Edinburgh. "A drunken dragoon," said Wesley, "was commencing an assertion in military fashion, G—d eternally d—n me, just as I was passing. I touched the poor man on the shoulder, and when he turned round fiercely, said calmly, you mean 'God bless you.'" In the mode of telling the story he failed not to make us sensible how much his patriarchal appearance, and mild yet bold rebuke, overawed the soldier, who touched his hat, thanked him, and, I think, came to chapel that evening.’

Walter Scott’s recollection of John Wesley are taken from a letter Scott wrote to Robert Southey on April 4, 1819.  They are conveniently located here: http://spenserians.cath.vt.edu/CommentRecord.php?action=GET&cmmtid=2165, along with many other interesting comments.  On February 28^th, 1784, Wesley chartered the Methodist Church.