Thomas Hanson, Methodist Preacher

Hanson was born in Yorkshire in 1733. In his early teens he heard some Methodist preaching, but in his early twenties, apprenticeship and work took him to a place where there was none.

Hanson was much devoted to books and study, but in 1756, feeling deep need of Christ, and determined to seek Him until he found Him, Hanson sold all of his books and devoted himself to the ways of God. He notes that, "I now added fasting to all the other means of grace. Soon after this the tempter told me, 'You are good enough.' But a sermon by honest Brother Ash, on Galatians 2:21, and the words of my dear mother, who said, 'Though I gave birth to you, if you do not come to Christ stripped of all, you will never be saved,' tore away all my self-righteousness."

Hanson talks about something common in the early Methodist literature of conversion, of the great weight of misery and conscience of sin that comes before conversion. He said he knew God was calling to him, to expect the great forgiveness of Christ at any moment. "Just before I found pardon, I was miserable beyond description."

And then: "On July 16, 1757, at night, under my brother Joseph's prayer, I yielded, sunk, and as it were died away. My heart with a kind, sweet struggle melted into the hands of God. I was for some hours lost in wonder, by the astonishing joy which flowed into my heart like a loive and joy which flowed into my heart like a might torrent.... From this night, I could not hold my tongue from speaking the things of God."

After some wrestling, he finally gave in to that old Methodist call, the spend and be spent for God. Looking back on his ministry, he said, "I have been in dangers by snow-frifts, by flood, by falls from my horse, and by persecution. I have been in sickness, cold, pain, weakness and weariness.

"The the chief subjects of my preaching has been the lost state of man, depraved, guilty, and miserable by nature; his justification through Christ alone, together with the witness and fruits thereof; the new birth-- the necessity, fruits and benefits of it, in all inward and outward holiness."