Arnold Dallimore was a Canadian Christian author and wrote a number of biographies, all of which make worthwhile and interesting reading. He is unfailingly fair in what he writes and displays none of the bias sometimes evident in this kind of writing. This biography of Charles Wesley displays these fine qualities as it unfolds the life and times of the Wesley brothers, Whitefield and the Countess of Huntingdon too. For the cause of Christ this was a most significant period of history. We have been impacted by these men and women in no uncertain way and should be deeply thankful to God. The evangelical churches of today owe so much to that which God did through them. Obviously this particular book focus’s on Charles the poet, preacher and co-leader of Wesleyan Methodism. The struggles, the fire, the revelation, the mistakes, the humbling, the learning and the processes through which he passed are all recorded faithfully. His interaction with his brother and with others is instructive to say the least! Though we are insignificant as compared with them, we can nevertheless trace similarities in the paths that we take. There are several benefits from reading books like this. Firstly, those ignorant of the debt today’s churches owe to those who have gone before will be humbled as they see the cost entailed in the fight for God’s truth. Secondly, the way God takes up His vessels in their variety of personalities, using them whilst changing them and correcting them but not over ruling and crushing them is very clear. The differences of temperament, the tendency to opinionated-ness and the mellowing of attitudes are helpfully brought out in this history. Thirdly the stages through which a work of God passes and its decline into the second and third generation period is evident and the way its history is shaped by elements of the dominant persons involved is both encouraging and sobering. It appears to me that a serious deficiency among Christian people is their want of reading books like this and giving serious thought to what is revealed in them. The idea that we have arrived at something better in our day corrupts good judgment and nourishes a dreadful superficiality. Reading books like this one will help knock that tendency to trivialization right out of us, inspiring a serious-minded following after Christ and humbling us to see ourselves in the proper context of that which God is doing throughout this day of grace. We are but a small part of a great whole!
