Love Divine (1997)

his is Martyn Wade's three-part radio play about the life of the founding father of Methodism, John Wesley.

No matter what you may think about religion, there's no denying that John Wesley was a fearless and charismatic man who led a truly extraordinary life. When I first read his journals I was amazed by his courage and stamina.

He was regularly beaten, thrown in gaol, insulted, abused and plotted against.

He though nothing of riding his horse through freezing cold and driving rain for days on end to preach in the open air to crowds of twenty thousand and more.

Yet in spite of his toughness, he had a deep mystical streak that distinguishes him from many of the loud but shallow "muscular Christians" who fulminated from the pulpits of his day.

The play does an excellent job of dramatising his life but I recommend reading the journals as well. Wesley's account of his travels across Britain is full of excitement and incident. Drunken farm labourers crack open his skull with a rock; Corrupt magistrates conspire to have him gaoled; At Bristol, he preaches to a crowd of 3,000 of the roughest most godless coal miners imaginable. The effect was amazing, as scores of those hard men fell to their knees with tears of penitence and sorrow coursing down their coal begrimed cheeks.

There's never a dull moment.