Christ himself has been well called a Constructive Revolutionary,[47] yet each single element of His teaching can be found in Jewish tradition; and the noblest of His followers have the same character.

Thus St.Francis of Assisi only sought consistently to apply the teaching of the New Testament, and St.Teresa that of the Carmelite Rule.

Every element of Wesleyanism is to be found in primitive Christianity; and Wesleyanism is itself the tradition from which the new vigour of the Salvation Army sprang.

The great regenerators of history are always in fundamental opposition to the common life of their day, for they demand by their very existence a return to first principles, a revolution in the ways of thinking and of acting common among men, a heroic consistency and single-mindedness: but they can use for their own fresh constructions and contacts with Eternal Life the material which this life offers to them.

The experiments of St.Benedict, St.Francis, Fox or Wesley, were not therefore the natural products of ages of faith.
They each represented the revolt of a heroic soul against surrounding apathy and decadence; an invasion of novelty; a sharp break with society, a new use of antique tradition depending on new contacts with the Spirit.