Methodism Opposes Pessimism

The intensely evangelistic career of Wesley and his faith in the gospel of Christ as sufficient for the conquest of the whole world in the Pentecostal dispensation have impressed his followers with an optimistic hopefulness. Hence Methodism opposes pessimism.

The present age has witnessed the uprising of a numerous company of prophets of despair. They go about teaching the dismal doctrine that the world is growing worse and worse, that it is like a ship so badly wrecked that there is no hope of saving her under the management of her present captain and crew, and the best thing to be done is to rescue as many passengers as possible before she goes entirely to pieces. This is Mr. Moody's favorite illustration. In fact it is openly declared that the efforts of our Missionary Boards to save the world are a waste of time and treasure which might be spent more profitably in "preaching the gospel to all nations for a witness" and thus hasten the end of this ineffective dispensation of the Holy Spirit, and the inauguration of the personal reign of Christ on David's throne in Jerusalem. Then Jews and Gentiles will be converted in a wholesale way, and the gospel will speedily dominate the whole world. Nearly all modern millenarians are pessimists.

Christ No Pessimist

Jesus Exultant!

(A Sermon from the late 1800's)

"He shall not fall nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment In the earth." — Isa. xlii. 4.

 "At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said...."  Luke 10:21 (NRSV).

"Jesus exultavit Spiritu Sancto...." — Luke x. 21, Vulgate.

A PEASANT youth went forth one day from a mean and obscure country village in the East with the idea that he would conquer the whole world. The method of conquest adopted by this aspiring mechanic in the humble walks of a private citizen was as novel as his scheme appeared to be chimerical. He did not employ the printing press to laud his merits and create public opinion in his favor. This instrument of power had not been invented and enthroned over civilized society. This young artificer, who had just left the workshop with callous palms, had no intention of raising a new political party to lift him into supreme authority by its votes as a demagogue identifying himself with the "dear people" of whose rights he was, by loud profession, to be the philanthropic champion. It was not in his program to amass vast armies and direct them with Napoleonic strategy over bloody battlefields to the empire of the world. It was not his purpose to intensify race prejudice and to hurl the strongest nation against the weaker ones in accord with the wicked maxim of tyrants, "divide and conquer;" nor did he organize secret leagues sworn to compass his ambitious design. Nor did he plot to crown himself lord of all by the employment of human cunning and Jesuitical intrigue in the cabinets of kings. He relied only on that intangible abstraction which men call truth. This was his victorious sword. His bullets and bombs, his cannon bails, grape and canister shot were words which have been contemptuously defined as mouthfuls of spoken wind. His agents were to be no astute diplomatists skilled in making the worse appear the better reason; no philosophers from the Porch or the Academy, but a company of ordinary craftsmen drilled only in the rudest forms of labor.