John Wesley and Halle

Of John Wesley's whole life, Halle's part is a single thread, and a single day. By church history's common assessment, Halle's Pietism both revived a church grown cold and influenced Count Zinzendorf and the Wesley brothers: August Hermann Francke's (1663–1727) school produced Zinzendorf, Zinzendorf founded the Moravian Brethren, and the Moravians in turn entered Wesley's life.

In 1738, after Aldersgate, Wesley's journey through Germany brought him to Halle. He was admitted to the orphanage Francke had left behind — an undertaking that had begun with no money at all, only a man utterly convinced that God hears prayer, and the gifts had indeed poured in from every quarter. What Wesley saw was a house built on prayer.

In his journal he called it “that amazing proof” — proof of what? “That all things are still possible to him that believeth.” He then asked to meet Francke's son.

This thread runs on from Halle; downstream lie Methodism and the evangelical Great Awakening. The visitor standing in the orphanage in 1738 could hardly have foreseen what would follow, but laid out end to end, the chain reads: Halle, Zinzendorf and the Moravians, Wesley, Methodism and the Great Awakening — Halle stands upstream of the upstream.

That orphanage still stands in Halle: the historic buildings were restored in 1995, and today some 4,000 people learn, work, and live within them. Wesley's words read with particular warmth to the fellowship that gathers in this city today — what he saw in Halle was not grandeur but the evidence faith leaves behind. The evidence still stands; we stand beside it, and go on praying.