English society was deeply stirred; multitudes were converted,
while among those who were not converted violent and sometimes cruel
antagonism was aroused. The party had two wings, the Evangelicals,
people of the wealthier class or clergymen of the Church of England,
who remained within the Establishment; and the Methodists, people of
the lower middle class or peasants, the personal converts and followers
of Wesley and Whitefield, who, like their leaders, without a positive
secession, soon found themselves organizing a separate spiritual life
in the freedom of Dissent. In the early stages of the movement the
Evangelicals were to be counted at most by hundreds, the Methodists by
hundreds of thousands. So far as the masses were concerned, it was in
fact a preaching of Christianity anew. There was a cross division of
the party into the Calvinists and those whom the Calvinists called
Arminians; Wesley belonging to the latter section, while the most
pronounced and vehement of the Calvinists was "the fierce Toplady.
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