Methodist Message (MM) has invited the Rev Dr David Lowes Watson and Dr Tong Hoo Ing to write a series of paired articles on early Methodist preachers from the UK and Singapore respectively. This biographical series aims to trace the movement of the Holy Spirit in grassroots evangelistic preaching, reminds us of the evangelistic fervour of Methodism worldwide, and demonstrates the fruitfulness of the Gospel when preached with spiritual power and integrity. As you read the biographies of our Methodist forebears, may you too be inspired to preach the Gospel – not only within the church, but going beyond to reach our community.
Next to the Scriptures, there is no richer source of spiritual guidance and nurture in the Christian life than the witness of those who have gone before us. John Wesley acknowledged this when he asked some of his preachers to provide personal accounts of their calling for The Arminian Magazine which he launched in 1778.1
One of these preachers was Christopher Hopper, who came from a village in the North of England. He was born on Christmas Day 1722 to parents who were farmers and faithful members of the Church of England – though, in his own words, they were “strangers to vital religion”.
So when John Wesley visited the nearby city of Newcastle upon Tyne in May 1742, Hopper was not sure what to make of this clergyman who preached in the open air. “He made a short blaze, soon disappeared, and left us in a great consternation.”
Charles Wesley also came to the area, and Hopper “ran with the multitude to hear this strange preacher … Some said, ‘He is a good man, and is sent to reform our land.’ Others said, ‘Nay, he is come to pervert and deceive us.’ I said, ‘If he is a good man, good will be done. But if he is an impostor, he can only leave us as he found us, without hope and without God in the world.’ I cannot tell what induced me to go so far; but I found I was in danger of being called a Methodist.”
The seed of these encounters bore fruit when Hopper became a Methodist later that year and, as so often happened, soon experienced persecution. “Some said, ‘Ah! what think you? Christopher Hopper is converted.’ Others said, ‘He hath received the Holy Ghost.’ Others said, ‘He is mad; keep far from him.’ Some pitied me, but all agreed I had renounced my baptism, left the Church, and was in a dangerous situation.”
Soon after, John Wesley formed a Methodist society near Hopper’s village and made him a class leader. He began to exhort, one of the first steps toward becoming a preacher; and as invitations came to preach farther afield he began to sense a call.
“As yet, I had not considered the consequences of such an undertaking. I was sweetly carried on with a loving desire to promote the glory of God … But the devil was highly displeased. He saw his kingdom was in danger, and immediately proclaimed war against me.” This caused him to question his call. Did he have the right to preach, since he was not an ordained clergyman?
One night he went for a walk to pray it through, and the answer came: “If God has called me, I must bear a public testimony, and leave the event to him.”
So he pressed ahead, never to turn back. To support his family he taught school, but continued to give his “soul, body, and substance” to Christ. “I commonly preached, or met a class, every evening after I had dismissed my scholars … and preached twice or thrice, often four times, every Sabbath day … I was frequently in great jeopardy. Indeed, I did not much regard a little dirt, a few rotten eggs, the sound of a cow’s horn, the noise of bells, or a few snowballs in their season; but sometimes I was saluted with blows, stones, brickbats, and bludgeons. I sometimes lost a little skin, and once a little blood, drawn from my forehead with a sharp stone.”
In 1748, he gave up teaching, and devoted himself full-time to work with the Methodist societies. The following year, he became an itinerant preacher for Wesley, and proved to be one of his most trusted colleagues, often travelling with him and sharing in the preaching.
Hopper ceased to itinerate in 1790 and died on 5 March 1802, duly honoured as one of Methodism’s foremost early preachers.1 These accounts were later edited by Thomas Jackson and published as The Lives of Early Methodist Preachers. London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 3rd ed., 1865-66, 6 vols.
The Rev Dr David Lowes Watson is an eminent Wesleyan scholar, author and Methodist minister of the Tennessee Conference, the United Methodist Church, USA. He was keynote speaker at the Aldersgate SG 2014 Convention.