Edward Royle

John Wesley's Preachers

History & Biography

“This book offers a fresh approach to the study of early Methodism. Through a detailed analysis of the 800 mainly lay men who served Methodism in the lifetime of John Wesley, John Lenton goes beyond the leader on horseback to do justice to the officers in the field who sustained and developed Wesley's work week by week as they proceeded on horse or on foot around the smaller circuits marked out for their preaching tours. Who these men were, where they came from, how and where they operated, how they married, worked, retired and died, are questions tackled systematically and quantitatively. Their story is here told in a manner which both does justice to their labors and opens up for the reader a new understanding of what Methodism was and how it spread.”