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CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

 

In Memory of
DAVID AUSTIN HOWARD ’11

Presented by his sister
Mts. Andrew S. White
Nom d’ Artiste
Mme. Claire Alcée

 

 

 

 
BX 8276.G82
Side lights on the conflicts of Methodis
SIDE-LIGHTS

ON THE

CONFLICTS OF METHODISM.
SIDE LIGHTS

ON THE

CONFLICTS OF METHODISM

DURING THE SECOND QUARTER OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
1827—1852

Taken chiefly from the Notes of the late Rev. Foseph Fowler
of the Debates in the Wesleyan Conference

A CENTENARY CONTRIBUTION TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY
OF METHODISM. WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

BY

BENJAMIN GREGORY, D.D.

President of the Conference, 1879

“T have great confidence in one individual who has been accustomed
to take from year to year copious notes of the proceedings of Conference." —
Dr. Buntina (Speech on Reporting, at Conference, 1849).

CASSELL anp COMPANY, LIMITED

LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE
1898

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
DEDICATION

Co
ALL FAIR-MINDED METHODISTS

This Contribution
To

THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF METHODISM

Is Dedicated

IN THE
CENTENARY YEAR OF ‘‘ THE PLAN OF PACIFICATION ”’
AND THE

‘‘LEEDS REGULATIONS.”

December, 1897.
CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

THE REASON FOR THIS WRITING .

CHAPTER II,

Tue Rev. JoszrPH FOWLER

CHAPTER III.

THE LEEDS CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES .

CHAPTER IV.

Dr. CLarKe’s IRISH SCHOOLS—HiIs ENFORCED SUPERNUMERARYSHIP
WITHOUT THE COGNISANCE OF CONFERENCE .

CHAPTER V.

THE CONFERENCE OF 1834—THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION

CHAPTER VI.

THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION

CHAPTER VII.

THE GATHERING STORM

CHAPTER VIII.

Tue Fiy SHEETS AND THE PaPeR War OF 1848-49 .

PAGE

48

100

133

262

381

433
vili CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IX.
PAGE
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849 444
CHAPTER X.
Dr. Buntine’s Poricy . z “ P » 495
CHAPTER XI.

DirEcT CAUSES OF THE DISRUPTION OF 1849 . . : - 546
SIDE LIGHTS

ON THE

CONFLICTS OF METHODISM.

(1827—1852.)

 

CHAPTER I.
THE REASON FOR THIS WRITING.

“It was a summer’s evening,
Old Kaspar’'s work was done;

And by him sported « «* ¥#*
His little grandchild *# « +#
Then, looking up, she said:
‘Now, tell us all about the war,
And what they killed each other for ?’"
—Southey’s ‘‘ Battle of Blenheim.”

Ir seems a strange predicament to have to apologise for con-
ferring a great boon on one’s contemporaries and posterity by
saving them from serious loss. But such is my position. No
sooner was it known that it was proposed to publish extracts
from the Conference Journals of the late Rev. Joseph F owler,
than there came forth the strongest remonstrances against any
such a perilous procedure. The objections were that: (1) “It
would do harm,’ by which I found was meant—that it might
modify to an extent the views which some had entertained and
sought to propagate with regard to the merits of the questions in
dispute and of the policy pursued in those disastrous times, which
have left so little to be garnered, but the lessons they may teach.
But it seems to me that those lessons should not be wastefully
swept into the gulf into which the melancholy wreckage dropped.
Even should the fresh historic light involve a readjustment of
the balance of blame, why should not the readjustment be

B
2 History or METHoDISM.

allowed in the interests of historical truthfulness and ecclesiastical
fair play? The due dispensing of blame and praise, of warning
and encouragement, is a province of history as well as of
administration.

We are told again that the lessons to be learnt from these
discussions are not those which are needed at the present time,
but, on the contrary, are inopportune and dangerous. I think it
will be found that the practical inductions which flow naturally
from the inner history of those troublous times are applicable
at all times, and that most if not all of them are specially
significant and admonitory now. Again, it should be borne in
mind that if the materials for the authentic history of those times
are not secured and set in order very soon, a partisan and
pamphleteering presentation of the matter will take possession of
the field. Some years ago we were assured by an eager partisan
that “the time has not come for an history of our last great
conflict,” the context plainly showing that a history written
in the interests of his own projects would be premature so long
as anyone still lived who was capable of confronting one-sided
statement with unchallengeable records and painfully remembered,
because so deeply inburnt, personal observation and experience.
I believe there are but three survivors of those terrible catastrophes
who were behind the scenes at the time of their enactment. Of
them my old friend Dr. Rigg has already broken ground upon
the site of these rich historic excavations. In doing this he has
déserved well of Methodism. But he has not found time to dig
far below the surface, or to exhume and put zz situ and in
juxtaposition, the figures and historic tablets he has partly brought
to light. My own spade will still further clear the ground, and
confirm and carry on his shrewd researches.

It is the bane of human history that it has been written to
such a large extent with an apologetic purpose, or from a party
point of view, or to sustain some one political hypothesis and
discredit or explode some other. This misleading and bewildering
perversion is not confined to domestic and contemporary
chronicles. Thus Mitford, from amidst the arches and the
columns of the Abbey which had become his ‘country seat, turns
old Greek history into one pictorial philippic against the nascent
democracy of his native land. This, in turn, stirs up the
Lombard Street M.P., the plodding and persistent Grote, to try
his hand at a History of Greece from the view-point of a modern
English Liberal. Thus the simple-minded earnest student is
THe Reason For THIS Wririne, 3

reduced to the perplexing task of striking a rough average
between two one-sided statements. But this is very far from the
Divine idea of writing history. To anyone who gets up such
a case and labels it as “ History,’ the single-minded student
may well remonstrate as did the bewildered patriarch with his
dramatising friend : “How hast thou counselled him that hath
no wisdom? and how hast thou plentsfully declared the thing
as tt 1s ? (Job xxx. 3.) Yes, that is the true function of all
honest, serviceable history, to “' plentefully declare the thing as
at zs.”

It is objected again, ‘‘ These discussions may include matter
which might impinge on the susceptibilities of very worthy
people.” But, on the other hand, should there not be, in the
interests of history and of posterity, some Statute of Limitation
to such restrictions on the freedom and impartiality of authenti-
cated testimony? Surely forty-seven years after the very latest
of the recorded discussions is an ample interval to satisfy all the
reasonable requirements of sentiment and feeling. What a loss
to English history if from 1826 to 1850 ‘‘ Hansard " were a sealed
book ! -

The self-same objectors, with more persistence than con-
sistency, then take up the directly opposite position. They say
these Journals should have been made public, if at all, whilst
individuals were yet alive who might have shown the various
speeches to be capable of a different significance from that which
they seem naturally to bear. Thus history is effectually deprived
of its legitimate materials, and posterity is wronged of its in-
estimable heritage of information and instruction! First, you
must not publish while certain individuals are living: for that
might hurt their feelings ; then you must not publish after they
are gone, for possibly they might have supplied a different
meaning from that which the words are ordinarily taken to
convey.

But the man who would be most aggrieved and injured by
the suppression of these, sspeechesywould be the orator who
made them. It was his almost continuous complaint, and that
of his devoted followers, that he was of: all men the most mis-
represented and the most misconceived. What is the remedy
for this injustice? Surely to let him represent himself. He
was one of the greatest speakers of the time. Let him speak
for himself—no one else can do it half so well. If Dr. Bunting’s
policy has. been misunderstood and wilfully or blunderingly

B 2
4 Alistory oF METHODISM.

misstated, who is the best man to set the matter right? Who
but the mighty man himself? His speeches, now for the first
time published, give the most explicit and emphatic statement
of his real Church principles and of his working hypothesis as
a great ecclesiastical statesman. The suppression of Dr.
Bunting’s speeches in the Conference would be a wanton
waste ; for the debates in Conference consist mainly of his
epigrammatic and incisive utterances. A rich anthology of
Buntingiana might be collected from these records.

Once more, it is suggested by those who misdoubt the value
of these records that they were not taken by the expert and
accurate reporter with a view to publication. To this I con-
fidently answer: They were intended for whatever useful
purpose they might serve—to rescue from oblivion conversa-
tions of enduring value and of sterling interest. At the close
of Mr. Fowler’s Memoir in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine
the existence of these invaluable documents was stated, and
the expectation raised that they would in due time be pre-
sented to the public. That both Dr. Bunting and his filial
biographer assumed that these precious papers would be some
day utilised, and not consigned to mice and mildew, I know
from their own lips. The former, in a large London Com-
mittee, spoke of their publication as a matter to be taken for
granted. He said: “When Mr. Fowler's Conference Journals
shall come out,” etc.; and at a Pre-Conference Committee
of Review, when Mr. T. P. Bunting was asked how soon
we might expect the second volume of his father’s life,
he answered, ‘When Mr. Fowler’s Conference Journals come
to light.”

The entire trustworthiness of these most interesting annals
cannot be questioned ; they were obviously taken at the time
and on the spot. If a man becomes inaudible the fact is noted.
And Mr. Fowler was an expert at reporting. He, if any man,
could wield “ the pen of a ready writer.” His organs and his
faculties were alike quick, clear, sensitive, alert. Mr. Everett,
in his picture of him in the “ Wesleyan Centenary Takings,”
chose as his characteristic text, “ The hearing ear and the seeing
eye, the Lord hath made even both of them” (Prov. xx. 12).
Sweft-sure wom have been his most descriptive designation.
Mr. Fowler's intentness on his journalism, and the fact that it
was done upon the spot, together with his gracious self-
suppression, accounts for the comparative infrequency of his
THE REASON FOR THIS WRITING. 5

speaking, and the fact that even when he did speak his words
were unrecorded. But he took a very important initiative in
some memorable discussions; for instance, in the successful
movement for ordination by imposition of hands, and in the
starting of the remarkably successful effort for the diminution
of chapel debts, two millions and a half of debt being since
discharged.

Mr. T. P. Bunting, during the preparation of his father’s
life, spent a week at Sir Henry Fowler’s house for the purpose
of consulting these Journals; but the inexorable restrictions
involved in the compression of the incidents of so many most
eventful years into so few pages left scant room for Conference
discussions.

I must surely have as much right, and I am as much bound,
to defend an honoured Superintendent and intimate friend from
unjust aspersions as anyone could have to cast upon him these
aspersions.

The aim of every honest writer of history is to meet the
ardent wish of every earnest reader, the wish expressed
by Daniel: ‘Then I would know the ¢ruth, of that horn
that hath eyes, and a mouth speaking great things, whose
look was more stout than his fellows.’ To those who would
have even Church history handled in the interests of some
present-day party or project, I would administer the rebuke
administered by the now reigning Pope to one who bitterly
complained to him that a Catholic should make public so
many things which had better not be known, as are to be
found in a recent “Life”: “In history the first and great
thing is the truth, even though it be about a Pope.” I have
striven throughout this writing to maintain the spirit which
‘nought extenuates and sets down nought in malice.’ If I
have failed, it has been from infirmity, but not intention.
CHAPTER II.
THE REV. JOSEPH FOWLER.

“T have long deeply and religiously loved Joseph Fowler, and con-
ceived of him as of one of the princes of the Wesleyan pastorate, both in
the pulpit and out."—ReEv. W, M. Buntine, Wesleyan Methodist Magazine,

1852, p. 243.

Tue Rev. Joseph Fowler was for many years a representative
man in the Wesleyan Methodist Conference and the Con-
nexional Committees, and he was a model of a Wesleyan
Methodist Circuit Minister. Born at Bradford, Yorkshire, in
the year 1791, he retained through all the changes of his
life the strongly marked characteristics of the genuine York-
shireman. He was shrewd, frank, self-reliant, and outspoken,
warm-hearted, practical, appreciative, and wide-awake. In
manner he was sometimes bluff, and on occasion brusque,
but in catholic appreciativeness, in helpful sympathy and in
high-toned honour, and in all the fealties of friendship, he
was as good as gold and as true as steel.

The Bradford of young Fowler's time was, in respect of
population, architecture, and extent, a much less imposing
centre than it is to-day. Since that time its population has
increased tenfold and more. Its palatial streets and public
buildings were, as yet, undreamt of. The gaunt old weather-
beaten parish church stood solitary sentry over a cluster of
unpretending houses, shops, and mills, the whole expanse of
which could be commanded at one eye-sweep from its bare
churchyard. A quarter of a century later, from whatever
point you entered it, if you walked straight on, you were
out of it full soon. Where now the parks expand were at
that time either leafy lanes or wind-swept, stone-fenced fields.
But the commercial, social, and religious virtues on which its
prosperity is founded were already in full force. Even then
it had won a high reputation among the marts and manu-
facturing hives of Yorkshire for the vigour, promptitude, and
THe Rev. Josera Fowler. 7

shrewdness which held sway in its well-thronged Piece-hall
and its old Exchange.

Mr. Fowler was, in the best respects, a genuine Bradford
man. He had all the quickness, the activity, the readiness, the
regularity, the calculableness, the assiduity, which have been the
commercial making of the town.

Even at that early time Methodism had a mighty grip of
Bradford. With the exception of the Baptists, three diverse
forms of Methodism had possession of the worshipping and
professing population of the place. The Vicar, the venerable
Mr. Crosse, was himself a veritable Methodist, the friend
and kindred spirit of John Wesley, Fletcher, and Grimshawe.
Wesley preached repeatedly in the parish church, and Crosse
changed vicarages with Fletcher for some successive months.
He would have none but Methodist curates; such as the
devoted Mr. Morgan, Charlotte Bronté’s uncle. Thus the
Church folks were Methodist Churchfolk : conversely, the
Methodists returned the compliment, and were just Church
Methodists. No Methodist services were held in church
hours, and the’ Methodist societies took the sacrament at the
parish church. Three or four services on the Sunday were not
too much for the devotional and homiletic appetite and the
spiritual alimentiveness of the Bradford Methodists at the begin-
ning of thecentury. This accommodating state of things subsisted
till the year 1811, in which Mr. Fowler was called into the
ministry. On the building of the capacious Kirkgate Chapel,
in what was then the main street, the Methodists decided that
they should have the sacraments administered in their own
sanctuaries by their own ministers.

The Bradford Independents also were at that time Methodists
in doctrine, though Congregational in polity.

. Mr. Fowler received his first deep religious convictions under
the ministry of the Vicar, Mr. Crosse. Thus the substructure of
his character was laid in regular and solid blocks, according to
the plan and plumb-line of Anglican Evangelicism. The effect
of this was noteworthy in his ministerial life, in “his love of
order and decorum and solemnity and seemliness in public
worship, and his invincible dislike of late-coming, slovenliness,
and irreverence in any form. To him a clattering and distracting
mode of entering a place of worship, or a slovenly, indecorous
joining in the conducting of the service, was offensive to the last
degree. “Keep thy foot when thou comest into the House of
8 History oF METHODISM.

God,” was graven on the entablature of the sanctuary. One
of his most frequent characteristic petitions was: ‘‘ Look upon
Zion, the city of our solemnities ; may our eyes behold Jerusalem
a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down.”

A wonderful Methodist revival took place in Bradford during
Mr. Fowler's youth—a popular rush into the Kingdom of God,
but he was not borne in by the pressure of the multitude. He
joined the church when it was in its steady, normal state of
planting, watering, and ingathering. This was in keeping with
his temperament and mental habitude. Though an admirer of
the genuine revivalism, and the ministry of Benson, Bramwell,
and Bunting in his mightiest moods, yet he placed more con-
fidence in a sustained and continuous ministerial efficiency
and the regularly repeated strokes of battering-ram, than in
extraordinary appliances and agencies. He was an admirable
yokefellow with a revivalist like Robert Young; he knew how
to pick up those whom his colleague had brought down, and
to fold and tend the home-brought wanderers.

Young Fowler was soon impressed into the service as a local
preacher, and the scholarly, sagacious Superintendent, Joseph
Sutcliffe, was not:slow in noting the Divine designation to the
ministry of the Word enstamped upon the character and gifts of
the retiring, self-depreciating youth.

Mr. Fowler’s first appointment was recognised by him
throughout his ministerial life as made beneath Divine direction.
It was to Kettering, then at once a stronghold and a pleasaunce
of the Evangelical revival. The secluded little woodland town
was favoured with the ministrations of two of the greatest
Nonconformist preachers of the time—Andrew Fuller and
Thomas Toller. Fuller's name belongs to Church History as
the originator of the great Evangelical missionary movement of
modern times by founding, in 1792, the Baptist Missionary
Society. He was a great man, worthy to take rank among
the leaders of the Church Universal. His sermons were replete
with wisdom, and with solid, striking, fresh, and individual
thought, and were marked by a tenderness of treatment most
notable in an intellect so sturdy and robust. Like some of the
greatest Methodist preachers—Bradburn, Dixon, and George
Steward—his weeknight sermons were quite equal to his greatest
efforts on the most exacting occasions. Young Fowler never
lost a chance of hearing him, and he loved to tell of the
homeliness of Fuller’s manner in dispensing his wholesome, yet
THE Rev. JoserpH FOWLER. 9

most tasty teaching. He had acquired an easy, artless English,
which makes his ‘ Gospel its own Witness,” a sterling Christian
classic. He was a masterly expounder of Scripture narrative
and character, as may be seen in his handling of the history of
Joseph in his comment on the Book of Genesis. It was in
hearing him that Mr. Fowler first became aware that this was
his own especial gift of grace.

Toller’s preaching showed a richer culture and a wider
range of reading. For fifty years he catered sumptuously for
a large congregation, changed only by transplantations to the
heaverily Eden, and by fair upgrowing of the children of his
people, and by new intakes from the outfield of the world
around.

The simple dignity or dignified simplicity of these pre-eminent
Dissenting ministers cast a potent charm upon young Fowler’s
mind, and left a life-long impression upon his own preaching and
his pastoral principles and habits. For, noble preachers as they
were, they did not satisfy themselves with preaching to their
people, but followed it up by assiduous pastoral visitation.

After two years at Kettering, Mr. Fowler’s next appointment
was to Banbury, which then included the Kineton Circuit, and
took up all the ground between the Coventry and Oxford Circuits.
After this appointment a filial yearning induced him to desire
a station nearer to his widowed mother. This commendable
wish was granted. He was stationed at Pontefract, where he
laboured for three most pleasant and productive years. He was
greatly favoured in his early Superintendents. His first, Thomas
Dowty, was a serviceable, kindly, cheerful brother, who took a
hearty interest in his people and his work ; stout-hearted, brave,
and buoyant, so as to make one think that the original ortho-
graphy of his name was Doughty. His Superintendent during
the greater part of his term at Pontefract was still more capable
and prominent. Robert Prlter ranked already amongst the
notabilities of Methodism. In his foregoing circuit, Leeds, along
with George Morley and Jabez Bunting, he had taken a large
share in the formation of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary
Society. He was a most earnest, tender, and effective preacher,
and overflowed with sympathy, benevolence, and humour.

Whilst in this circuit, Mr. Fowler became well known to and
well acquainted with a number of our ablest men, who at that time
were thick upon the ground in the Leeds District, of which
Pontefract was part: Leeds itself was an adjoining circuit, and
Io History’ oF MerHovism.

there, during this period, were stationed such magnates as Jabez
Bunting, Walter Griffith, John Stephens, Jacob Stanley, David
McNicoll, and Edward Hare. In another contiguous circuit were
Robert Newton, Thomas Jackson, and Thomas Stanley. The
impression produced on Dr. Bunting by what he saw of Mr.
Fowler may be gathered from the fact that when he was requested
by hi friends at Halifax to recommend the most suitable minister
for their circuit he suggested ‘‘ Mr. Fowler, now at Pontefract.”
Mr. Fowler was accordingly invited and appointed.

His next circuit after Halifax was Huddersfield, where both
his colleagues were men of rare mark and worth. The Super-
intendent, Cleland Kirkpatrick, had lost an arm in the engage-
ment with Paul Jones the pirate,.and in his roving youth he had
cultivated the strange natural gift of ventriloquism. He some-
times entertained the social circle by the exercise of this weird,
amusing power, but it does not seem to have occurred to him to
turn his gift into an evangelistic appliance, or even as a congrega-
tion-drawing expedient on missionary platforms. ‘Pleasant
Sunday Afternoons” were not yet in fashion, or this Rev.
Valentine Vox would have been in wonderful request. To a
professional like Caughey, it would have been an endowment of
incalculable worth. But Kirkpatrick’s ghostly mantle did not
falt upon any of his younger brethren. Mr. Fowler’s other
colleague, John Story, was famous as a preacher for subduing
pathos and overawing unction.

Mr. Fowler, who had been early left a widower, married
Miss Bentley, the daughter of the principal Methodist in
Huddersfield, but after a year of happiness he was again
bereaved. One of her sisters was subsequently married to
the Rev. W. M. Bunting, and another to the Rev. Je G
Leppington.

Having fulfilled his course at Huddersfield Mr. Fowler moved
to Chester, and thence to Manchester (Oldham Street), having for
his colleagues no less mighty orators than Theophilus Lessey
John Anderson, and “ Captain Hawtrey,” brother of Dr. Hawtrey,
Head Master of Eton. These “three mighties” were then in all’
their glory, and afterwards came George Marsden and Robert
Wood.

_ From 1826 to 1829 Mr. Fowler was stationed at Birmingham.
His youngest colleague during the two later years, the Rev. S. D.
Waddy, has borne, in his personal recollections, a high testimony
to Mr. Fowler’s character and usefulness at this period of his.
THE Rev. JosepuH FOwLer. It

ministry. He records that Scripture narratives were the staple
subjects of Mr. Fowler's preaching.

Mr. Fowler’s next circuit was Sunderland (1829-31) as Super-
intendent. From Sunderland he came to Leeds (Brunswick)
at a very critical time in the religious history of that town
(1832-5). The Anglo-Catholic Revival was putting forth the
utmost strength of its Herculean infancy to strangle what it
regarded as the dragon of Dissent ; and it was part of its deep-
laid policy to get possession of the strongholds of Nonconformity,
by placing there the most energetic leaders of their party when-
ever incumbencies fell vacant. They had their eye especially on
Leeds, the vicarage of which was soon to be at their disposal, and
they shrewdly saw in it a grand strategical position, like some
lofty fortress which commands a mountain-pass. The Congrega-
tionalists, on their part, were not at all remiss. They resolved on
building two new chapels, much larger than any they possessed
already, and on bringing into Leeds one of the strongest men of
their community, John Ely, a most captivating and commanding
orator.

It was obviously of great importance that Methodism should
have a strong appointment at its central chapels, Brunswick and
the mother chapel, the Old Chapel, or the Boggard House.

. And this assuredly it had in John Anderson, Joseph Fowler,
and Francis A. West. And “their labour was not in vain in
the Lord,’ although the after-swell of the tempest of 1828-29
had not yet quite subsided, and the thousand dissidents had
organised themselves into an active community in 1833.

Mr. Anderson’s time having expired, Mr. Fowler took the
Superintendency and Mr. Young came as second minister. The
Leeds East then included what is now comprised in St. Peter’s
Circuit and many populous villages and neighbourhoods.

The venerable Old Chapel being crowded out, a large new
chapel in that thickly-peopled portion of the town seemed
absolutely necessary. Yet two points were clear: First, the
old mother chapel was so endeared to the Society and con
gregation that nothing could induce them to swarm into a
larger building ; and secondly, they could not bear any increase
to its throttling chapel-debts.

I can bear testimony to the fact that the opening of this
enormous sanctuary in nowise depleted either the Brunswick
Chapel or the Boggard House. I spent the Christmas holidays of
1834 in Leeds.) The Sunday morning congregation at Brunswick
12 History oF METuHobism.

was simply magnificent ; the Sunday evening crowded out. The
old chapel was in like manner packed, although the new one was
so near that the two congregations could hear each other's
singing. At Brunswick the congregation was a sight to bless
one’s eyes with, such promise did it give of permanent prosperity.
When Mr. Fowler moved to Bristol in 1835 he left his circuit in
superb condition.

At Bristol Mr. Fowler had as his second in command an
altogether kindred spirit, the eloquent John Lomas, with whom
he formed a life-long friendship ; when Mr. Lomas’s three years
expired he was succeeded by the great revivalist John Smith (3), ’
second only to the first John Smith as a successful soul-winner.
Mr. Fowler’s next appointment was to Hull, with Richard Reece
for Superintendent. Here, too, he—

1

‘Worthy proved to see
God's saints in full prosperity.”

Mr. S. R. Hall, who was the young minister during Mr.
Fowler’s second year in Hull, describes the swarming congrega-
tions and the lively, prosperous condition of the work of God.
He says that sometimes on a Sunday evening three thousand
people would be crowded into Waltham Street Chapel. Amongst
the trophies of his own ministry in that noble sanctuary was
William Morley Punshon.

Mr. Fowler’s next appointment was Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
with George Steward as his colleague. Thus originated another
of Mr. Fowler’s dearest friendships. At this time began the
architectural stateliness of the Newcastle of to-day, called into
existence by the genius and energy of the Methodist Mr. Grainger.
Beside the town of fisherfolk and colliers and their masters, and
of narrow streets with unpretending shops, sprung up, as by the
wave of an enchanter’s wand, one of the finest cities in England.

I remember Grainger well, as a most active, energetic, and
withal most pleasing personality ; a Nebuchadnezzar of a builder,
he was remarkably approachable and affable. It was felt that
it was time for Newcastle to be a Conference town, and it fell
to Mr. Fowler’s lot, as Superintendent of the chapel where the
Conference of 1840 must be held, to take the lead.

Mr. Fowler’s next appointment was to the Second London
(Great Queen Street), with his dear friend William M. Bunting
as his colleague, and after that his beloved old Leeds colleague,
the noble preacher William Barton. I have elsewhere described |
THe Rev. Joseru Fowter. 13

Great Queen Street as it was in the third year of Mr. Fowler's
Superintendency, when I had the inestimable honour and
advantage of serving under him as a son in the Gospel. It
seemed to me then, as it still seems, as nearly an ideal Methodism
as I can well imagine.

On completing his term in the Second London in 1845,
Mr. Fowler returned to Hull as Superintendent of Hull West.
Here I joined him in 1847. In 1848 the first Hull Con
ference took place, Mr. Fowler being elected Secretary. In
1848 he was stationed in London (City Road) as Superintendent,
and as Chairman of the enormous district, which was at that
time one and undivided. The circuit itself was very over-
grown, and had then five ministers, including John Rattenbury
and Alfred Barrett. During his term at City Road the St. John’s
Square and Jewin Street Chapels were built. Mr. Fowler died
in the third year of his superintendency of this circuit.

I first saw Mr. Fowler in 1832, when he brought his eldest
son, Robert, to Woodhouse Grove School. I was much struck
with his appearance as he stood and took a long, silent, broad,
‘observant view of the hundred boys and the five masters. This
gave me the opportunity of making a careful observation of
the observer himself. His tall figure was perfectly erect. He
seemed rather spare, but vigorous and wiry. His square, forensic
brow, with massive eyebrows, somewhat overshadowed his keen
and searching eyes. He impressed me as grave, strict, earnest
to the very verge of sternness and austerity. This impression
deepened as I saw him on “Committee days.”

And, on intimate acquaintance in the after years, I found
the impression to be true, although these qualities were wonder-
fully softened, sweetened, and subdued by other characteristics.
No doubt the basis of his character was seriousness and an in-
domitable serviceability. On no man’s countenance and habits
did I ever see more deeply stamped the strong, effective motto:
“Life is real, life is earnest.” He evidently felt: We are
placed in this world to do and dare. His hypothesis of human
nature was a working hypothesis. ‘I must work” was his
supreme conviction. 'I know he carried this conviction to an
incurable excess, till work became to him an absolute necessity,
and a holiday a weariness. I might give many touching
instances of this absorption in his work.

With this impression of the strong, grave minister, it was
with tremor and misgiving that I approached the “ Preacher’s
14 HAltsrory oF MErHopism.

house” adjoining the “Old Chapel,” Leeds, where I had been
directed to spend the night on my return to Woodhouse Grove
from Belper after the vacation of 1833.

In those days it took eight hours by four-horse coach to do
the sixty-four miles between my starting point and Leeds; eight
miles an hour being reckoned then a splendid rate of travelling
even with horses from Earl Fitzwilliam’s stud. It had been a
sweltering, almost sickening, day in the blazing midsummer,
and nine continuous hours outside a coach was far worse in
respect of nausea than a rough night passage in a steamer. For
sea-sickness was a treat in comparison with coach-sickness on
the close-packed back seat of the swinging, jolting, bumping
Royal Mail. It had been Sheffield Cheese Fair and Wors-
borough Feast ; both of them Saturnalia, which absolved from
regularity guards and coachmen, at a date when people rather
lived to drink than drank to live. So we were an hour late
when we drove into the yard of the “Bull and Mouth,”
Briggate, Leeds. I had tasted neither bite nor sup since I
choked down the very “humble pie” of a supernumerary’s
luncheon, and then hauled my luggage three uphill Derby-
shire miles to catch the coach at its nearest stopping place.

I was a squeamish, home-fond little lad, twelve years of
age; and as with aching head and heart, and with lean,
cramped shanks, I let myself down from the coach, I secured
the services of a porter to take me and my belongings to
the Old Chapel Preacher’s house, and to my dismay found
it all dark and silent. The family had evidently gone to
bed, as there was neither light nor sound. After vigorously
knocking, however, a voice was heard from an upper window
demanding the cause of this untimely disquieting. I explained
the situation as briefly as I could. The reply was addressed
to the porter: “Take this young gentleman to the ‘Bull
and Mouth,’ and give Mr. Fowler's respects to Mr. Master-
man (the landlord), and ask him to give my little friend a
good supper and a comfortable bedroom, and I will come to
fetch him in the morning.” As mine host of the “Bull and
Mouth” was a Brunswick pewholder, I was attended to with
the utmost care and kindness. I found it well with me
“both for bed and board.”

The next morning I resolved to save Mr. Fowler trouble,
and started early enough, I thought. But I only walked a
few yards before I met him, radiant with kindliness and
THe Rev. JoserH FOwLer. 15

cheerfulness. His free and hearty manner put me at ease
at once. At breakfast he treated me much more like an
equal and coeval than a schoolboy. Had I been the scion
of a noble house instead of a supernumerary’s son I could not
have been treated with more marked consideration and regard.
Throughout the meal he kept me in continuous conversation—
about my father and the Belper ministers, the state of
Methodism in the town and circuit, my school work, and my
voluntary reading. I had never met with anything like the
same cordiality and, above all, respect, as I did from this
grave, solemn-seeming man.

On bidding me good-bye he left in my hand a sum equal
to a quarter’s pocket-money, and insisted on my making his
house my home as long as he remained at Leeds. In after
years I found that this was but the ordinary habit of the man.
With the exception of his early Superintendent, Robert Pilter,
I never met a man whom J could bracket with him for taking
an apparently instinctive pleasure in giving himself trouble to
serve other people in trouble. The noblest of Newfoundlands
could not with a more earnest spontaneity plunge into the
water to bring to land a drowning man or child than that
with which this man, so seeming stern, would commit himself
to the case of a struggling, sinking fellow-creature.

And Mr. Fowler’s kindness to the belated little Grove-lad was
not ephemeral. He invited me to spend my Christmas holidays
at his house. The second Christmas was a memorable time.
The family had removed from the sombre Preacher’s house,
in the gravestone-paved burial-ground at the Boggard House
Chapel, to the brighter Methodist rectory, over against the
Brunswick Chapel. This was the greenest Christmas of my life.
We had a houseful of delightful company. For Mrs. Fowler’s
mother (Mrs. Hartley, of Sunderland, the mother of Mr. James
Hartley, the M.P. for Sunderland, and Mr. John Hartley, the
great ironmaster of South Staffordshire), in all the sweet serenity
of a saintly, honoured widowhood, a perfect picture of the ideal
Methodist matron ; and Mrs. Fowler’s sister, Miss Louisa Hartley
(afterwards Mrs. John Perks, of Wolverhampton), just as perfect
a representative of a graceful, sunny, Methodist maidenhood,
were also spending Christmas at the house. One genial evening
gave me my initiation into another mystery of Mr. Fowler’s
varied character: his racy and redundant humour. His col-
leagues and their wives were bidden to a Christmas tea and
16 fftstory oF MeruHopism.

supper, and when, after tea, the ladies were withdrawn to
enjoy their own communications, Mr. Fowler, with characteristic
considerateness and kindliness, asked me whether I should like
to spend the evening with the ministers. This was to me a
privilege, as unexpected as delightsome. I grasped the privilege
with eager gratitude. After a few rounds of sharp-shooting
amongst “the grave and reverend seniors,” the brethren, Young
and Barton, began to press “the brotherly question” on their
Superintendent, who was nothing loth to answer. He was
most willing to communicate his hoards of reminiscences of
Methodism at the end of the last century and the beginning
of the present. He had the indispensable pre-requisites of
effective tale-telling. He threw himself into his story with an
abandon of enjoyment. He hit off the salient points, and left
the listener to draw the moral. It was a kind of necromancy
of narrative. One had but to say: Bring me up Bramwell, or
John Barber, or Timothy Crowther, or other of the older
worthies, and the old prophet stood before one.

With congenial colleagues the self-severe, hardworking man
would unbend completely. And after supper was his “ time to
laugh” and his time to talk.

Another amiable feature in Mr. Fowler was his fondness for
dumb creatures, and his interest in their ways and whims. He
had a pet canary; towards the end of dinner time it would
be let out of its cage, and wing its way to its favourite perch
upon its master’s chin, and peck the food from out its master’s
mouth. It was a very pretty sight.

The window of the room in which we held our ministers’
meeting in Harpur Street, Bloomsbury, looked out upon some
tall houses, which seemed to serve the sparrows of the neigh-
bourhood as a kind of Stock Exchange. As our colleague was
a most pre-occupied Secretary of Connexional Committees, he
was allowed some minutes’ grace in his attendance at the
meeting. When that happened Mr. Fowler loved to recreate
himself and me by speculating on the inscrutabilities of
sparrow-life : as to whether, for example, they had any rule
of procedure or discussion; what might be their politics and
what their etiquette.

Mr. Bovaler could be, upon occasion, the most resolute of
men. “I like your Mr. Fowler,” said Mr. Prest to me; “he
can say ‘No’ better than any other man I ever met with.”
I once said, with regard to an attempt to secure a confab with
THe Rev. Josepx Fow cer. 17

Mr. Fowler with a view ¢o talk him over to some plausible
plan which had no prospect of success : “If you try to negotiate
that with Mr. Fowler, you will find yourself at the meeting
place where Sanballat asked to meet Nehemiah: ‘on the plain
of O-no!’” His temperament was not sanguine, or like Peter's ;
but rather sceptical, like that of Thomas. I have noted that a
man’s customary exclamation, when some wonderment is told
him, often indicates his constitutional cast of mind and way
of viewing things. If anyone brought to Mr. Fowler an item
of intelligence stamped with extravagant unlikelihood, he in-
stinctively met the announcement with a round, relentless
“No.” It greatly added to the interest of a missionary speech
to be sitting opposite to Mr. Fowler on the platform. When
areturned missionary was regaling a transported audience with
travellers’ wonders, Mr. Fowler would look at me across the
platform with uplifted eyebrows, and wide-open eyes, and an
audible suspiration on his circling lips ; and then, with a back-
ward nod of dissent, turn round again to listen with the
unmistakable inquiry on his face: “‘ What next ?”

Of course, this was more than three-fourths fun, but it
none the less bewrayed the innate scepticism of his keen and
searching intellect. Yet there was an essential moral difference
between this humble, earnest man and your self-inflated intel-
lectualist, who assumes to represent ‘“‘the most advanced minds
of the age.” Like young Hallam, he “ fought his doubts”
and did not fondle them, much less flout them in the face of
other people.

Mr. Fowler’s seeming snappishness was also obviously to
me, for the most part, a strong and kind man’s playfulness,
like that of some shaggy, philanthropic, great St. Bernard, who
in sheer affection might pretend to worry some playmate of
a child. Who has not seen and heard a doting parent, who,
having exhausted the vocabulary of fondness on his bewitching
little child, finds himself compelled to borrow from invective
such epithets as these: “ You dad boy!”

At an evening party Mr. Fowler tried to start some highly-
interesting and profitable discussion on questions with which he
knew some members of the party to be conversant, and would
thus put in pleasant requisition the mental stores of men like
William Barton or Dr. Sandwith, or, as William Bunting phrased
it, “uncork the bottled-up magnificence” of such a genius as
George Steward, or the reminiscences of Thomas Stratten, the

c
18 History of Meruopism.

great Dissenting minister, or the learning and intelligence of the
eloquent John Lomas. It was as beautiful as it was refreshing
and enriching to hear him quote the sayings of great preachers
whose gifts were so contrasted with his own as those of John
Lomas, and George Steward, and William Bramwell, and the
eloquent Nonconformist, the elder Thorpe of Bristol.

No word could so fittingly describe the mannerism which
by some was misinterpreted, than that chosen by the writer of
the Obituary: “abruptness.” And the explanation so given
is most just, though somewhat incomplete. It resulted mainly,
doubtless, from his constitutional quickness, alertness, wide-
awakeness, and promptitude. It must be confessed that he
found verbosity or expansive and obtrusive egotism, or wanton
waste of time and words most difficult to bear. I have known
him when in the Chair of a meeting, like Professor Sedgwick at
the British Association, abruptly remind a wordy speaker that
there were other men to follow. Of course the men whose very
forte was verbiage did not quite appreciate such checks on their
meanderings,‘but it comes well within the province of a chairman
to economise the meeting’s time and to protect the rights of the
later speakers.

Mr. Fowler had, moreover, what was then in Yorkshire
called ‘‘a scunner,” an zustinctive antzpathy to everything which
looked like uppishness or self-conceitedness in young and
inexperienced men. He was apt to be very short and some-
times rather sharp with these “young pretenders” to authority.
He could also be most bitingly satiric on young people who
appeared indifferent to their fleeting opportunities of self-
improvement. On the other hand, he rejoiced over genuine
excellence of any kind ‘‘as one that findeth great spoil.” I

_cannot easily forget the warmth of admiration with which he
would speak to me of Mr. Arthur, or the glowing estimation
with which he exclaimed on first hearing a brief, brave speech
from John James: “ What an able man !”’

The fact that such colleagues as John Lomas, W. M. Bunting,
G. Steward, and Francis West, clave to Mr. Fowler throughout
life with such loyalty of affection and respect was a con-
clusive refutation of the unworthy, pitiful detraction which was
circulated by an over-eager faction to keep him out of the
Presidential chair.

Mr. Fowler and Mr. West, “ like kindred drops, blended into
one.” The self-manifestation of the former in his letters to the
Tae Rev. Josern Fow er. 19

latter is touching in its genuineness. It is an interesting fact that
one letter refers to Dr. Bunting’s engagement to Leeds (Brunswick)
for the year 1833, which had been put in sorest peril by
Dr. Bunting’s nomination by the Missionary Committee as
Richard Watson’s successor at the Mission House. Dr. Bunting
says: “I was honourably engaged to Leeds” (‘ Life,” p. 641).
But, of course, the exigencies of the Connexion took precedence
of all provisional, local, and personal arrangements. But Leeds
protested in a document signed by a large number of office-
bearers. Mr. Fowler was commissioned to look after their case.

Mr. Fowler writes :

“I have seen Mr. Bunting, but can get little from him. Mr. Newton
says: ‘They cannot have Mr. Bunting; but any disposable man they might
obtain. There has been a strong feeling on the question of President. I hear
it whispered in the chapel-yard that the conservatives are disappointed.

However, all are glad that the worthy R. Treffry isin the Chair. I have no
doubt the Platform Brethren expected to see Mr. Grindrod in that situation.’”

The next letter refers to the opening of St. Peter’s Chapel,
Leeds, and describes the enormous crowds assembled simul-
taneously in the three chapels on the occasion, at St. Peter's,
Brunswick, and the ‘ Old Chapel.’ Of the St. Peter’s congrega-
tion he says :

‘‘T never saw so many human beings together before. Mr, Bunting’s
text was: ‘I am not ashamed of the Gospel,’ etc. It was an admirable
discourse and a mighty unction attended it, particularly towards the close.
So pointed, piercing, irresistible an application I have seldom heard. I was
strongly reminded of Mr. Benson. Mr. Dixon's text was: ‘Ye are come to
Mount Zion,’ etc. A first-rate sermon, just such a production as you would
expect from a man who had studied to approve himself to God, a workman,
etc. Many of the sentiments produced a most thrilling effect, and I think
will never be forgotten, Mr. Lessey’s was an eloquent discourse.”

This is very characteristic of Mr. Fowler’s generous and
catholic appreciativeness : he rejoiced over a good sermon or
speech, ‘as one that findeth great spoil.” He adds:

“I was present the whole of the day of the seat-letting. At the close of
a toilsome, but most pleasant day, to the astonishment of all, there were only
nine sittings in that stupendous gallery untaken, and those would have been
let but for the fact that they were quite behind the preacher. The seat-rents
paid for the ensuing half year amounted to £220 17s. The proceeds of the
Old Chapel (the overflow of which St. Peter's was constructed to
accommodate) never exceeded £108, for the same period of time, and only
once reached that sum.”

Another characteristic letter is dated “ Bristol, Sept. 29th,
c2
20 History or METHODISM.

1835.” He thus apologises for not having spent a night at
Mr. West’s in Stockport, on his way back from Conference :

“The weariness of Conference, absence from home, etc., took such
possession of my mind that I felt as if it were impracticable to come round
by Manchester, though I well knew that a short sojourn under your friendly
roof would have been a great relief in my wilderness of cares. I have entered
on my new scene of labour with feelings similar to what I usually endure on
a change of circuit, and though I have not been to every place on the plan,
I have itinerated sufficiently to make very painful and depressing discoveries.
Never in my whole course did I meet with a society ‘so uniformly dead.
This seems strange considering the character of last year's appointment, arid
for some time before. At our principal chapel we have a tolerable congrega-
tion in the evening. It has a debt of £2,500. We have two places in the
country called chapels; but, alas! they are almost without -congregations.
We are minus eighty of the number of members printed in the Minutes. The
division of the circuit was most unfair. But, more than enough on this un-
pleasing topic. My colleague Lomas is, you know, of first-rate talent, but not
sufficiently appreciated. -He is certainly held in great estimation, but not
followed as he deserves. He is far too good a preacher to be popular in the
ordinary sense. No, 3 is, I believe, nearly as high in the judgment of the
people as in his own. But I remember your admonition, and I hope to profit
by it. J am doing but poorly. My preaching is not perhaps altogether un-
acceptable; but there is not that effect, which I know to be indispensable.
But, ‘we are saved by hope.’ I am quite out of the way of any Methodist
news. I seldom or never hear the name of Dr. Warren mentioned, but
I have discovered that several of our principal friends take the Christian
Advocate.”

In January, 1836, he writes on Connexional matters :

“I have heard nothing of the Committee appointed to revise our Rules,
In corresponding with stewards about a circuit, ‘Let your yea be yea and
your nay nay.’ I have bought Grimshaw's ‘Cowper,’ as the only complete
edition, and am much charmed with his Correspondence. It is evident that
the letters now introduced were excluded from former editions, They were
too Whiggish and pious for Hayley and others. Have you seen Everett’s
‘Wallsend Miner’? Really I cannot find his claim to notoriety. I think
that some of the sayings and sentiments of the biographer were in shocking
taste. Can this be a specimen of the piety—certainly not of the intelligence,
of Methodists in the North? Does not Mr. E, allow his imagination too
much play? ;

“I am still repenting that I did not come to Stockport in August. I think
I shall not commit the like fault again, I hope I may never receive from you
a shorter letter than I have written. I wish you were within fifty miles.
I would take a journey of half a day to talk with you on the subject of the
two Editors, and the question of breaking, modifying, or rescinding our
positive rule against any man remaining in any office for more than twelve
years. No one who has lived fifteen years in London will be will

ing to
leave it.” 8

o Oar “ Bristol, Mar. 8th, 1836.
“T have received an invitation to assist at the Missionary Services in
THe Rev. Joseru Fowcer. 21

Birmingham. You know my unfitness for such occasions, and my reluctance
to engage in them. However, on mature consideration, I thought I could
practise no deception on a people with whom I had laboured three years.
They ought to know what they are about. At all events we must so manage
that we shall have one day together at least.

“I quite agree with you that Methodism should have nothing to do with
politics. But the Watchman does not think so. The Government has
strengthened itself much by its measure of municipal reform. I do not see
why Methodists should wish it out. It has shown us great kindness in
granting £3,000 to our West Indian Mission. The Wellington Administration
would neither have proposed nor permitted any such a measure.”

« Birmingham.

“‘T am decidedly opposed to the junction of the Chapel Fund and
Education Collections, Our Second London Trustees intend memorializing
Conference about it, and nothing that I can do shall be unattempted to
preserve the Chapel Fund intact. I wonder that Mr. —-—— consented to
be put down as your Super., knowing that a remonstrance and probably a
removal would follow.”

I had no difficulty whatever in accounting for the partiality
for Mr. Fowler which was so strongly manifested by refined and
cultivated ladies like Mrs. Ince, the mother of the Regius Professor
of Divinity at Oxford, and Mrs. Sandwith, mother of the heroic
Dr. Humphrey Sandwith of Kars, and Mrs. George Steward.
My own young wife, highly educated and accomplished, but shy
and shrinking to a fault, regarded Mr. Fowler as one of the most
charming of imaginable men. For a genuine woman will always
recognise and render homage to a genuine man: to strength
of character, resolution, independence, energy, and faithfulness.
Moreover, there was in Mr. Fowler’s bearing and address towards
the other sex a kind of knightly courtesy and deference very
pleasant to observe.

The first sermon I ever heard from Mr. Fowler surprised and
struck me as much as did my first conversation with him. It was
on, to me, a great occasion, the first Watchnight ever held in
St. Peter’s Chapel, Leeds, some three months after its erection.
The building was well filled with a hearty, earnest congregation.
As usual in those days, we began at nine, and had discourses from
different speakers, relieved by lusty singing and impassioned
prayer. At the Watchnights I had heretofore attended the
prevailing tone was solemn, penitential, awe-inspiring. Mr.
Fowler, on the other hand, gave to the whole service a character-
istic festive; animating spirit. His text was: “Thou crownest
the year with Thy goodness.” He showed how the closing year
had been dignified and decorated by Divine benignity, so that its
22 History oF METHODISM.

successive months had been like the sumptuous courses of a
coronation banquet. He touched first on personal mercies, both
commonplace and special, including consolation in the conflict
of conscience, in commercial loss, in bereavement, or even In
estrangement ; household mercies, social mercies, and above all
Church mercies. He finished by showing that the capacious
sanctuary in which they were then worshipping was itself a noble
monument of the Divine beneficence ; since of God's own they
had given Him, and it was of God’s own unspeakable gift that
they had been able to give after this sort.

It was a heavenward-lifting homily.

Mr. Fowler was followed by that ideal ‘‘fine old English gentle-
man,” Mr. Gilyard Scarth, at that time, and for long, both before
and after, the foremost Methodist in that great Methodist
cathedral town. In stature and in countenance he was worthy
to stand side by side with grand Joseph John Gurney. His text
was: “Go to now, ye that say, To-day or to-morrow, we will go
into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell
and get gain. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the
morrow. For what is your life? It is even as a vapour, that
appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away. For that
ye ought to say: If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or
that.”

It showed the serious side of business life, and smartly, and
in St. James’s fashion, exposed the foolishness of self-confiding
business speculation, and the tentativeness of all the best con-
certed plans of trade and commerce ; the precariousness alike
of property and life, and the wisdom and the manliness of acknow-
ledging God in all our ways, in the shop as well as in the sanc-
tuary. It was an admirable commercial discourse, very striking
as it sounded from the lips of a shrewd, successful Yorkshire
manufacturer, to a vast midnight congregation in the heart of a
great industrial centre.

It was all the more telling because it was utterly unconven-
tional and unassumingly colloquial. It was the practical talk of a
kind old neighbour to his fellow-townsmen. The “ Go to now”
tone of it was very marked. Though mighty little Greek he
knew, yet his mother-wit taught him that the real rendering was
“ Come now," or, as Grimm translates: it lead by laying hold of.
He took us each and all by the jacket, and said in effect, “ If you
only come to think, you know that this is so, as well as I can
tell you.”
THe Rev. Joseru Fowcer. 23

To him succeeded Robert Young with his round, effective
elocution.

It was a most cheering, animating vigil, reminding one of that
passage ; ‘‘ Ye shall have a song as in the night when a holy
solemnity is kept, and gladness of heart as when one goeth with a
pipe to come to the mountain of the Lord.” And, in after years,
I found that Mr. Fowler’s ordinary ministrations were of this
hearty, heartening, helpful, hopeful kind. Their motto seemed
to be: “ Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written
for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the
Scriptures, might have hope.’’ They seemed to breathe the spirit
of the text: “ Zhy statutes are my songs, in the house of my
pilgrimage.” Beginning the week, after a Sunday under his
ministry, one might well sing :

‘Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet !
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope's true gage,
And thus I take my pilgrimage.”

No minister I ever saw more closely answered to these lines:
“Who then is that faithful and wise steward whom his Lord hath
made ruler over his household to give them their portion of
meat in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his Lord,
when He cometh, shall find so doing.” Assuredly that blessed-
ness was his. For many years he was the great preacher of
sacred biography and Scripture characters and narratives. He
brought the truth home to men's businesses and bosoms, and
gave both leaders and members something to talk of in their
class-meetings. He, if any man, fulfilled the Apostolic charge :
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that
needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

The following letter to Mr. West is very illustrative of Mr.

Fowler’s character :
‘Hull, Dec. 29, 1838.

‘At our Quarterly Meeting I felt myself in a somewhat painful and per-
plexing situation, as my reply to the request to stay a third year must depend
upon thedivision of the circuit, and my reply was asked before that business
was brought on. I resolved to act, as I hope I ever shall do, a straight-
forward, honest, honourable part. So I said: ‘If the resolution to divide
the circui: be pleasantly and harmoniously carried out, I consent to stay ; if not,
no consideration could induce m2 to remain.’ The Superintendent rose and
stiffly opposed the division of the circuit. His speech was heard in solemn
24 Hlistory oF METHODISM.

and expressive silence, but it was moved and seconded that the circuit should
be divided. A dispassionate discussion followed—no clamour or excitement ;
the show of hands was in favour of division. The minority included two of
the ministers. I took no part either by speech or vote, as was the case with
others, out of respect to the feelings of the Superintendent. The day succeeding
he meeting brought me invitations from two of my old circuits. I assure
you it was a hard struggle to avoid saying ‘ Yes’ to one or other of my old
circuits. But I had rather suffer anything than depart in the slightest
degree—or even appear to do so—from a strictly honest, honourable
course. May I be divinely directed!"

‘Hull, May 25, 1839.
‘I know well that it is easy for you to write; and that it is very grat}
fying to receive and peruse what you have written. |

“We have bought ground for a new chapel (Kingston), but no trustees can
be appointed till the division of the circuit -be settled.

‘Our Connexion has been kept clear of politics; but I fear the propia
to agitate will involve us. The Watchman rejoiced at the downfall of the
Ministry and regretted the failure of Sir Robert Peel; yet her Majesty's
Government was supported in the Jamaica Bill by all the anti-slavery parly.”’

It must be noted that Mr. Fowler was less a bringer-in| or
a breaker-down than a builder-up. He was acknowledged to be
the pattern of pastoral visitation. ‘Publicly and from housé to
house” he taught and warned and cheered and fed. No one ever
more assiduously fulfilled the pastoral injunction, according
to the exquisite Dutch version: “ Be diligent to know the fare
of thy sheep; se¢ thine feart upon the flock.’ The immerse
success of Cyrus was accounted for by the fact of his pers
acquaintance with and recognition of each private in his army.
But all this means hard and honest labour, and to know the face
of thy sheep, thou must set thine heart upon the flock. There psed
to be in my young days a soundingly cynical and canstic
distinction between sastoral visitation and pastural visitation.
Now fastural visitation may be and, so far as I know, has been
a most important part of pastoral visitation. The family meal,
when followed by family worship, forms a most tet cat and

often a most enduring bond between the pulpit and the
family pew:

 
 

‘ How pleasant is the meeting
With friends at close of day ;
The smiles, the fireside greeting,
The tales that pass away,

The kneeling down to pray!"

Village Methodism was built up at first to a very great extent
by the institution of “taking in the preachers.” But; in the
THE Rev, Josepu Fowler. 25

older time, this was taken advantage of as a facility for tender
and affectionate conversation with individual members of the
household as to their religious state and prospects. I have met
with many who owed their early conversion to this kindly
pastoral fidelity. Indeed, by a genial and judicious ministerial
spirit, the “Dinner Plan” may be made no_inconsiderable
accessory to the Circuit Plan.

But Mr. Fowler made systematic household visitation an
essential and most important part of his ministerial duty. His
very conception of a Christian church seemed to lay upon him
this necessity. He had learnt from Holy Scripture that the
“ flock of God,” ‘the household of faith,” should not be a loose
and incidental aggregate of atoms ; not a sandhill at the mercy
of the passing gust. It should be a structure and an organism.
And he saw and felt that this could in nowise be accomplished
without plan, and purposeful, painstaking, and continuous
and assiduous oversight. This minute and detailed oversight
he gave.

This could only be done by one who took a real, deep, vital
interest in the people of his charge. And his interest in them
made this duty his delight.

Of course, such labour is impossible to the slothful or
preoccupied: to the man who has “other irons in the fire”
or is “busy hither and thither,” scattering his ways in pursuit
of social fads or socialistic reconstructions. No one can accom-
plish this unless he heed the Apostolic mandate: ‘“ Give thyself
wholly to” thy own responsible, exacting, and engrossing work.
Mr. Fowler would not lose the race by running after golden
apples tossed temptingly athwart his course.

But did this labour pay? Did it prove by practical results
that it was well laid out? Having enjoyed the inestimable
advantage of being Mr. Fowler’s colleague in two of the, at
that time, finest circuits in the kingdom, I can testify “It did ;
a hundred-fold.” Not indeed statistically. But did you ever
stand on the top of the steep hill to the North of the Tay,
near Perth, and look down upon the Carse of Gowrie? If you
have, you know what is meant by Scotch farming. How the
cared-for, cultured glebe, the clean and comely stretch of fertile
soil, bears witness to the unspared labour and sagacity of its
conscientious cultivators. After all “the Northern Farmer”
might feel some honest satisfaction on his death-bed, when he
could truly say: “ J done my duty boy the lond.”
26 History oF METHODISM.

And such “a field which the Lord hath blessed” because it
was a field by which man had “done his duty,” was the Second
London Circuit when Mr. Fowler left it two-and-fifty years ago ;
and such was Hull (Waltham Street) when he left it the year
before the devastating thunderstorm of 1849.

None I ever knew, but the great preacher and scholar
Thomas Galland, and the Rev. Samuel Fiddian, could compare
with Mr. Fowler in the establishment and cultivation of mutual
recognition, and close personal relations between the pastor and
his flock. Of course, this could not be done without a self-denial
bordering on heroism ; and denial not only of ease and idiosyn-
crasies and hobbies, but also to a severe extent, of collateral
interests, pursuits, preoccupations, publicities, ay, and even of
secular and social undertakings of undeniable importance.

Mr. Fowler always felt that as a man is bound to be just
before he is generous, to pay his own debts, and feed and educate
his own children, before he indulges in expensive hospitalities
and philanthropies, so no truly conscientious and enlightened
minister of Christianity can postpone or slacken the spiritual
oversight of his flock in order that he may be pushing forward
the plans and projects of his party, or even prosecute biological
investigations or critical conjecture and hypothesis.

Mr. Fowler did his interviewing in the homes of his people ;
without distinction of gentle or simple, servant or mistress,
cultured or untaught. To him the Christian ministry was “ the
cure of souls.” We was a signal instance of the large and fruitful,
and spiritually speaking, richly remunerative possibilities of
home-visitation to a Methodist minister, who makes a conscience
of it and acquires and cultivates a taste for it. For Mr. Fowler
is in evidence that the taste may not only be acquired, but even
nourished into a passion. Mr. Fowler's principle, to begin with,
first for himself and then for his colleagues, was simply that of
Richard Baxter in his ‘Reformed Pastor :” ‘We must do the
work to which the Lord.has appointed us, whatever we leave
undone.”

It was to Mr. Fowler a mystery how a Christian pastor
can go thrusting his ten fingers into ten different pies before
breaking the crust of personal acquaintance with the spiritual
condition of the members of his flock.

A serious increase of these labours resulted from the fact
that the Stranger’s Friend Society had its head-quarters at
its birth-place, our chapel in Great Queen Street. Our circuit
THe Rev. JosepH Fow er. 27

included a large section of Central London, from Paternoster
Row and St. Paul's Churchyard, to Piccadilly and the Hay-
market, and from the Thames northward, to Northaw and
Potter's Bar, with such thoroughfares as the Strand, Fleet
Street, Holborn, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon Street
to the New Road, and the whole Bedford Estate, with its
stately squares. It claimed along with this a great stretch of
what may be termed intestinal London.

No one really knows the British capital who knows nothing or
little of this immense systemless system of lanes, and courts, and
“Buildings,” and gruesome “Gardens” and “ Paradises” which
Eve might have left without a sigh. A most appropriate desig-
nation of these nests of parasitic life was ‘‘ Rents,” inasmuch as
it betokened their primal purposes and their ultimate intention.
It was a grim pleasantry of an enormously wealthy Duke of
Bedford, who described the chief portion of his patrimony as
“a few lodging houses in London.”

Amongst the inestimable parts of my education in the real
humanities which I owe to Mr. Fowler, is the initiation into
this weird wonderland of hid-away humanity. Thomas Arnold
breaks out into the apostrophe: ‘‘London! grand above all
earthly grandeur, sublime with the sublimity of the mountains
and the sea/’’ But little could that great and tender heart
imagine how tragic was that sea-like sublimity of the capital
of commerce and of civilisation and philanthropy. How often
have I quoted to myself in plying my pastoral work amongst
these dim and dingy refuges “‘ where lonely want retires to die,”
what Mrs. Hemans says of Ocean :

“To thee the love of woman has gone down,
Dark flow thy tides o’er manhood's noble brow,
And youth’s bright locks, and beauty’s flowery crown.”

The visitors of the Stranger’s Friend Society were inde-
fatigably devoted to the work, and never slunk or shrunk from
duty, but the dying would often wish for a minister to pray
with them. Thus the Queen Street ministers became conver-
sant with such squalid settlements as Clare Market and
Bedfordbury, being significantly called the Rookery, with
Baldwin's Gardens, the since famous site of St. Alban’s Church
and the scene of Mr. Mackonochie’s experiments and enterprises,
and with the five-storied haunts in the crowded courts of Drury
Lane, and with streets like Cursitor Street, which retain their
28 History or MErHopism.

ancient names as the sanctuaries of vagabondism, and the close,
unsightly coves in which collect the driftwood and the decom-
posing sea-weed of society. Our richest day school gathering
ground was the region of St. Giles’s and the Seven Dials, the
Jews’ quarter of Monmouth Street, and the adjacent slums.

Besides all this we had two chapels, Societies, and Sunday
schools, in what might be called back-London, one in Harp
Alley, serving as the meeting place for worship, fellowship,
and child-teaching to the swarming humanity which lay huddled
and hustled together between Fetter Lane on the West, and
Shoe Lane on the East. That on Saffron Hill, approached from
Holborn by Field Lane, was not the only district over which
Charles Dickens threw the glamour of his genius, which
lay within our pastoral beat. This will suffice to show that
the sheep-walks over which this brave and faithful shepherd
daily climbed were not all dewy downs, with tufted thyme and
breezy outlook.

In the chair of a leaders’ meeting, no one ever less forgot
Dr. Bunting’s admonition: “Act not as the mere chairman
of a meeting, but as the pastor put in charge, etc.,” than did
Dr. Bunting’s steadiest interrogator, Mr. Fowler. Nothing could
be more pastoral, or more well-beseeming, than the gentle, quiet
dignity with which he would preside over the proceedings of
the sub-pastorate of a large Society. In Great Queen Street
we had more than a thousand members represented in that one
Leaders’ meeting, and, including the four stewards, I have counted
more than eighty office-bearers at one meeting. Nothing could
be finer than Mr. Fowler’s conduct of a delicate and difficult trial,
or in the treatment of an emergent awkwardness. His self-
control was absolute, and this rendered much more facile his
absolute control of others. There was nothing fussy, nothing
office-conscious, or self-conscious, but all was ministerial and
paternal dignity, the “dignity of love.”

In a guarterly meeting it was just the same. In quarterly
meeting, or in district meeting, we never hove in sight of
any hitch, with Mr. Fowler in the chair. As an administrator,
as well as pastor, it can be truly said of him: ‘‘ He fed them
according to’ the integrity of his heart, and guzded them by
the skilfulness of his hands.”

Mr. Fowler had a rare readiness of reply. A Local-preacher
who had gone out with Mr. Eckett, after seven years’ appren-
ticeship in that firm, had requested re-admission into the
THe Rev. JoserH FOWLER. 29

Old Body. Before granting this request, Mr. Fowler required
from him a promise that he would not renew his agitation, but
either remain quietly, or leave quietly, if the spirit of dis-
satisfaction and unrest should once more claim possession of him.
This undertaking he gave faithfully, but did not always bear in
mind. Mr. Fowler, on his own part, felt bound in honour to
check relapses into the old habit, for the sake of his successors.
At a Local Preachers’ Meeting the ex-Associationist broke out
into a denunciation of some change in the order and form of
business which had occurred during the period of his own
parenthetical Associationism. He protested that things were
not mismanaged this way when he joined the Methodist Society.
On this Mr. Fowler quietly interjected : “ Well, but, Mr. :
you must remember that you have not been so very many
years a Methodist, thes last t2me.” The litigious brother found
himself, to use his favourite expression, without a /ocus stand.

Mr. Fowler’s neat and prompt despatch of routine business
left us leisure for instructive conversation ; and he was wont to
utilise the time thus gained by asking: ‘‘ Has any brother, in
his reading or his thinking, met with any doctrinal difficulty ?
Perhaps some other member of the meeting might be able to
throw light upon it.” Some most instructive conversations were
thus initiated both in London and in Hull. Now, in Queen
Street, we could boast of what was then a rare distinction, a
Local-preacher with a well-won literary diploma. This brother
most worthily filled the honourable post of librarian to one of
the richest collections of books and MSS. in London. He was
not in the least unappreciative of his own acquirements and
distinctions, and in the course of his well-rounded life achieved
no little reputation as a bibliographer. But his effectiveness in
public speaking was materially discounted by a vixenish falsetto.
His voice was on the true pitch for the cynicism and censorious-
ness which he evidently felt to be his forte. He cultivated and
avowed an aggressive contempt for the worthiest workman in
the Ministry of the Word who would stoop to receive his meat
and hire, and for any one who preached the Gospel, and yet let
himself down so far as to “live on the Gospel.” In his theology,
it was the muzzled ox alone who could with dignity or self-respect,
tread out the corn. It was as good asa play to see him draw up
his inches and stretch out his puny palms, and with a lofty look
claim for himself the only apostolical succession by saying:
“These hands have ministered to my necessities.”

 
30 History or Mernovism.

At a well-remembered Local Preachers’ Meeting; this erudite
librarian replied to Mr. Fowler’s question as to doctrinal
difficulties by an elaborately ready-made harangue, in an irritating
tone, in the course of which he thus deposed: “ Mr. Fowler,
a friend of mine assures me that you have in several instances
preached the same sermon twice in King’s Cross Chapel.” To
this electric telegram Mr. Fowler answered, without a movement
of the facial muscles, and in the tone of a man just propounding
some nice point in theoretic casuistry: ‘‘ Mr. + whether
of the two should you think to be the worse man—he who
tnvents a mischievous and silly untruth, or the man who loves
it and lends himself to propagate it? The next time you
indulge your appetite for fault-finding, you should fix on some-
thing that might possibly have happened.” Mr. Fowler then
showed how the habit of so many years of preaching-life shut
out the credibility of such a story; inasmuch as he always
carried in his coat pocket a littte memorandum book containing
the texts from which he had preached at every place in his
circuit, with the dates of preaching. The big little man looked
small as he faced the problem. .

Inever met with Mr. Fowler’s match for the zeat and quick
despatch of business ; the getting so much clean and thorough
work accomplished in so short a time. I never knew a late
meeting when he was in the chair. At the Hull May District
Meeting (1848), although we had evening services, the whole
business was completed in the most careful and _ satisfactory
state in two days. It was noted that he read the Morning
Liturgical Service in five minutes less time than any of his
colleagues, and yet no man ever read it with more solemnity,
feeling, and exactness. It was this alertness and expeditious-
ness which enabled him to do so much work and to do it all
so well.

It might readily be thought that he took small interest in
public matters, and was therefore more at leisure to mind his
own business. On the contrary, he was decidedly one of the
strongest public-spirited men I ever had to do with.

I had been but a short time in London with Mr. Fowler
before I was made most pleasantly aware of his vivid interest
in and minute acquaintance with both public men and public
matters. In 1845 Sir Robert Peel resolved to reimpose the
Income Tax, which he had brought out three years before as
a temporary, or at least a tentative, expedient. He had also

 
THE Rev. JoserH Fow cer. 31

declared his purpose to readjust the incidence of taxation to a
sweeping and even startling extent. Hence his speech upon
the Budget was looked forward to with vast excitement. Mr.
Fowler kindly asked me whether I should like to hear it. Of
course, I was but too eager for the privilege, having never yet
been inside the House of Commons. He therefore obtained
an order from Sir James Graham.

In order to secure a seat at all, we had to be upon the
spot some hours before the Speaker took his seat. By degrees
the House was crowded ; and I found, to my astonishment, that
my mentor knew the Commons off by heart, and had them
siugulatim at his fingers’ ends. As they dropped in by twos
and threes, he turned to me, with an eagerness of appreciative
recognition, and told me all their names. It was a goodly sight
to see the men of note from either side cross the floor and chat
together with a chummy cordiality. I saw Sir Robert Inglis and
John Bright, the wild Tory Colonel Sibthorp and the wild
Radical Tom Duncombe, hob and nob together in the cosiest
fashion. ;

A very characteristic observation dropped from Mr. Fowler's
lips as the Chaplain of the House was moving backward out of
the House, bowing to the Speaker all the time: ‘“ What a
wonderful man that is,” said Mr. Fowler. “ Did you ever hear
a man read like that before?” It was, indeed, the finest feat
of fast reading I ever listened to. It was a marvel of celerity,
clearness, and distinctness of articulation. He had read a couple
of collects and the Lord’s Prayer in an incredibly short time.
Yet all was done in a tone and manner the most devout and
decorous. It was also very edifying to note the perfect rever-
ence of the members during this brief prayer-time, both in
attitude and air.

Mr. Fowler showed the like familiarity with all the courts of
law. To him no recreation could compete with listening to a stout
debate or a well-conducted pleading and a sage decision in the
Law Courts. If he felt jaded, or run down, or worried, he would
say to me: ‘Let's go to Lincoln’s Inn to hear the pleadings in
such-and-such a case before Lord Lyndhurst, and what he has
to say about them; or to Westminster Hall. There’s sure to
be some interesting cause on.” He would tell me who was
who, without fail or hesitation.

The advantage of all this to me was inestimable. It formed
a most telling part of a beral education. It was no mean
32 History or MerHopism.

advantage in reading the debates in Parliament or the reports
of Law Courts, to be able to call up the speakers, and to see
them in their proper persons ; to hear the decisions from every
judge upon the Bench, including men like Lyndhurst, Denman,
Tyndal, Park, Alderson, and Coleridge. To see such men was
worth a pilgrimage. The leading barristers too were well worth
hearing or even seeing, such as Sir Charles Wetherall, Sergeant
Wilde (Lord Truro), Thesiger, Talfourd, Pollock, and the rest.
I thus heard some memorable pleadings, especially one before
Chancellor Lyndhurst, in favour of the release of Cobbett’s son
from the Fleet Prison, where he had been confined for years.

On leaving the Second London Circuit Mr. Fowler resumed
his pastorate in Hull. Here he enjoyed three more years of
unstinted and successful labour. His second term was signalized
by an event of great importance:in the Methodistic history of
that thriving port: its elevation into the rank of a Conference
town. To his absorption in and his devotion to his work I
can here, too, bear honest and admiring testimony, and also to
its rich results.

As to Mr. Fowler’s preaching during his consummating years
of ministry, I can safely testify that it was as true of him in Hull
as in the Second London ; he never in his life “preached with
more freedom and feeling.” Freedom and feeling were indeed
amongst the chief characteristics of his strenuous ministry. No
young Yorkshire preacher could put more soul into his sermons
and his services than did Joseph Fowler, to the very last.

In 1848 his name stood first upon the Minutes of the Con-
ference as Superintendent of the City Road Circuit, which then
reached a high standard of prosperity and hopefulness. His four
colleagues were : Israel Holgate, John Rattenbury, Joseph
Hargreaves, and Alfred Barrett—an admirable combination. The
next year Dr. Jobson took the place of Mr. Rattenbury, and
J.G. Wilson that of Mr. Barrett, with the addition of Mr. Fowler’s
successive assistants, Joseph Chapman and James Allen. Through
his judicious administration, the large circuit, though not with-
out explosive elements, was kept in peace and harmony.

Soon after the beginning of 1851 Mr. Fowler began to feel and
show clear signs of bodily decline. The death-rate amongst
ministers of mark since the preceding Conference had been
unusually heavy, to which calamity our Connexional troubles
had doubtless contributed in no small degree. First fell Leonard
Posnett, a Revivalist all the year round ; a strong man in body,
Tue Rev. JosepH Fow cer. 33

mind, and spirit, whose sudden death was closely connected with
the agitation in his circuit.

Next fell the Senior Editor, George Cubitt, then Jacob Stanley,
sen., then William Atherton, and then Joseph Fowler. That
the closing days of these most serviceable men were shortened as
well as darkened by the harassment and havoc of our Church
contentions, there can be little doubt. Atherton was so affected
that he found himself unable to write to his old friend, Harrison
of Wakefield, the notice of his expulsion, and was obliged to
depute the duty to his second in command. And the Con-
nexional devastation, even more than the consciously unmerited
and the utterly unprovoked personal detractions and election-
eering practices, told perceptibly upon Mr. Fowler’s sensitive
and high-toned nature. His constitutional reserve and reticence
aggravated much more than it allayed the smart and throb of
wounded sensibility and bespattered honour. His was not the
light Greek nature which can let unmerited abuse drip heedlessly
from off its oily plumage. He bore—

“A heart overcharged to express,
He never complained, but his silence implied ‘
The composure of settled distress.”

I spent a morning with him in the City Road house some
three weeks before his death. He was evidently not without
premonition of his approaching end. The Master’s footsteps
were neither unlistened to nor unlistened for. He unbosomed
himself to me with the most touching frankness. He told me
that all his lifetime he had shrunk with even more than
ordinary repugnance from the physical experience and the
spiritual solemnity of dying ; but he trusted that the Master’s
grace would be sufficient for him. He quoted with great
feeling Bunyan’s beautiful description of the death of Standyfast,
which forms the fitting close of his immortal work.

“Now there was a great calm at that time in the river, and he stood
and talked to his companions, and said: ‘This river hath been a terror
to many; yea, the thoughts of it have often frightened me; now, methinks
I stand easy; my foot is fixed upon that on which the feet of the priests
that bore the ark of the covenant stood while Israel went over this Jordan.
The waters, indeed, are to the palate bitter, and to the stomach cold; yet
the thoughts of what I am going to, and of the conduct that awaits for
me on the other side, be as a glowing coal in my heart. My toilsome days
are ended. I am going to see that Head that was crowned with thorns, and
that face that was spit upon for me. His words did I use to gather for

D
34 HlrstoryY oF METHODISM.

my food, and for antidotes against my fainting. He has held me, and
has kept me from mine iniquity. Take me, for I come unto Thee. Then

he ceased to be seen of them.”

It was inexpressibly affecting to listen to the subdued and
gentle cadences of the voice which had so often rung through
our largest chapels in edifying exposition, or in manful, frank
discussion ; as he lay languid on the sofa, and in half-soliloquy
rehearsed a favourite passage of the mighty theologian, who
lay at rest within the eye-sweep of the window by the side of
which I sat. It seemed like the tranquillising whisper of a strong
but peaceful Jordan as it rippled through the valley. No one
could deserve the name, or more fittingly receive the meed of
Mr. Standfast than could Joseph Fowler ; or that of “ Mr. Honest,”
who also passed the river peacefully, “for he had spoken to
one Good-conscience to meet him on the bank, and whose last
words were: ‘Grace reigns.’”

Mr. Fowler's wish and hope with regard to his decease were
realised to the very full. His endeared and loving friend and
former colleague, William Bunting, who witnessed it, gave an ex-
quisite account of it in the Magazine. It was the kind of death
which the true disciple most of all desiderates and prays for ; that
““by which he may glorify God”; and one by which, in passing,
he may deal a blow at Death and impair the prestige of the King
of Terrors for those who have to follow. It was a death of which
the record may well “‘ be for a memorial stone to the children of
Israel for ever,’ a wave-smoothed mass carried forth from the dry
bed of the refluent and awestruck Jordan, like those whereon
“the priests’ feet stood when its waters were cut off before the
ark of the covenant of the Lord, until the people were clean
passed over.” It was a death to make one sing: ~

“Thine arm, Lord, is not shortened now,
It wants not now its power to save :

Still present with Thy people, Thou
Bearest them through Death’s disparted wave.”

It was, moreover, a death which seemed in its very naturalness
so supernatural. I never knew a dying which so seemed to strip
the spectre of his weird unnaturalness. All the sharp, clear-cut
individuality of a unique manhood was there, almost to the last
struggling gasp, in the fullest force and with the freest play. The
very piquancy and pungency of his sportive satire were with him
to the close : enough to wake in the golden sickled reaper close
at hand, that angelic laughter which Addison imagines,
THe Rev. JoserpH FOw Ler. 35

Of course, like every other strong-built man, Mr. Fowler had
the drawbacks of his talents and the weakness of his strength,
but I never knew a case which so signally expounded the Spirit’s
saying through St. James, “ Let patience have her perfect work,
that ye may be ferfec¢ and entire, wanting nothing.” With her
sharp, artistic chisel, the sculptress Patience struck off and smoothed
over all the asperities and angularities of a right noble character.

Mr. Fowler was promoted to the restful yet unresting service
of the heavenly temple on March 17th, 1851, from the house in
which Wesley died, and a few days after the sixtieth anniversary
of Wesley’s death. He lies in the truest “ glory” amongst the
sepulchres of our Methodistic kings, and his monumental tablet
is to be seen to-day on the inner wall of Wesley’s Chapel, hard by
the pulpit where he had preached with the finest Methodistic
fervour, the identic Gospel which the Wesleys had proclaimed
both there and to gathered thousands on the commons and in
the thoroughfares throughout the land. The honour fell to
Mr. Steward of writing the inscription for his tablet.

His Obituary in the Minutes contains some felicitous and
forceful touches. pe bevihe

I give an illustration of Mr. Fowler's absorption in his work.
After our last Ministers’ Meeting in Hull, before his removal to
the First London and I to the Third, I stayed to tea with him as
usual. When I rose to go, he said, “I'll walk with you.” I
answered, “‘But Iam not going straight home. It is full moon
and spring-tide, and the Zzon’s going out (the Zzoz was at that
time the largest ship afloat with but two exceptions). I must not
miss my last chance of that splendid spectacle.” THe said, “I'll go
with you.” When we reached the pier, he lifted his hands in
astonishment and exclaimed, “I never thought that there was
such a sight as this within ten minutes’ walk of my own house. I
don’t remember having been upon the pier before, excepting to
embark or land, or to meet friends or see them off.” And this
was wholly characteristic of the man’s absorption in his work.

It must be confessed that he carried this absorption to excess.
Through denying himself of‘ holiday and change, in the interests
of his circuit and Connexional work, his capacity for holiday-
making became at last so atrophied and shrunken that when he
was ordered to Brighton for change and rest he found himself
unable to prolong his enjoyment of it beyond a very short time.
The sentiment, “I dwell among mine own people,” had become
to him a kind of overmastering passion.

D2
36 History or MErwHovism.

This presents a striking obverse to the experience of devoted
men of an opposite designation and habit of life. To Dr. Newton,
for- example, incessant change became an almost tyrannous
necessity, insomuch that he could not stay at home for many
days in succession without experiencing a restlessness most
distressing to himself and others. In Mr. Fowler’s case the text
“J must work” seemed cut into his very constitution as with the
graving of a signet. He must work “as the duty of every day
required.” The nearest approach to a thorough rest I ever knew
him to allow himself was but a short time before his death, when
wishing to place himself under the treatment of his elder son,
a very skilful medical practitioner in Leeds, he accepted the offer
of his friends Mr. and Mrs. George Steward to place at his
disposal a house of theirs at Chapel Town. Mr. Steward was
then residing in the house near Brunswick Chapel. Mrs. Steward
still delights to dwell upon the recollection of his cheerful patience
under what proved to be his fatal illness—his ‘ tenderness,
affectionateness, and warmth of friendship.”

Mr. Fowler’s reading habits.were of great use to a junior
impecunious colleague. He always got the best new books
which cast light upon the more recent history of religion in
England. It was at his house that I read the then new “ Life
of Hannah More” and the complete edition of her poems ; the
“Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon”; the ‘ Life
of Wilberforce,” by his two sons. From his library I borrowed
the then new “ Life and Letters of Cowper” and the “ Life of
Arnold,” by A. P. Stanley. His conversation on such works was
instructive in a high degree.

His anxiety to leave a savour of Divine truth on the minds of
those he visited was very marked and fruitful. In our evening
parties, both in Hull and in London, he always took good care to
quietly and gently turn the conversation into a profitable channel
by adroitly starting some particular subject of interest.

In no more fitting place could Mr. Fowler have died than
where Wesley died, and few more fitting men been laid to rest
in the precincts of John Wesley’s Chapel. For was he not a
“helper” and “ assistant” after Wesley’s own ideal of a Christian
minister? Did he not “watch over souls” as one that must
‘give account,” to feed and guide the flock of God? Was he
not fully qualified for this great work by “having hzs work
greatly at heart, by understanaing and loving every branch of
our discipline”? Was he not “diligent”? As to fidelity to the
THe Rev. JosepH Fow rer. 37

fifth Rule of a Helper I can safely testify : “ Believe evil of no one
unless fully proved. Put the best construction you can on every-
thing. Tell everyone what you think wrong in him. Make all
haste to cast the fire out of your bosom.” It was this very out-
spokenness and free-spokenness that compelled him to ask those
who were impatient of investigation and two-sidedness : ‘‘ Am I
become your enemy, because I have told you the truth?” And
no one Iever knew came so closely up to the injunction: “ Be
punctual. Do everything exactly at the time. . . . Spend and be
spent in this work of saving souls, . . . A Methodist preacher
is to observe everything great and small in the Methodist
discipline; therefore you will need all the sense you have,
and to have all your wits about you.”

It will be seen from Mr. Fowler’s most confidential unbosom-
ing in his letters to his friend West, and the whole tone of his
speeches and tenor of his conduct, that Mr. Fowler was a sensitive,
high-minded Christian gentleman, the very soul of truthfulness
and honour. He could truly say: “ My rejoicing is this, the
testimony of my conscience, that with simplicity and sincerity,
not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, I have my
conversation in the world, and more abundantly in the Church.”
He was pre-eminently a fair, both-sided man.

This translucent truthfulness and faithfulness of character
and habit stamps with authority his Journals of the Conference
discussions, and, in conjunction with Dr. Bunting’s testimony,
refutes and repels the utterly unfounded insinuation that Mr.
Fowler's Journals are one-sided. Such a suspicion could never
enter the mind of anyone who knew “the man and his commu-
nications,” or had read the records as they stand. This book is
not intended for anyone who sees in Church chronicles a feat of
sinister suppression on the one hand and dexterous obtrusion
on the other. It is dedicated to the truth-seeking student of
the past.

In his strenuous effort to serve his generation by the will of
God, he was wonderfully aided by his admirable wife. It was my
privilege to live with them for six weeks before a suitable
domicile could be found for me, and I came to regard her as the
very model of true wifehood. If ever man was blessed with “a
helpmeet for him” it was Joseph Fowler. She was at once his
counterpart and his complement. His sober views of things
were sometimes apt to deepen and darken into sombre views,
and he had a constitutional tendency to undue reserve and
38 History or Mernonpism.

reticence and introspection. But Mrs. Fowler was blessed with
arare and gently buoyant Aealthiness alike of mind and temper-
ament. Her whole nature seemed beautifully balanced. She
exhaled a perennial cheeriness and quiet lightsomeness, like the
still and softened lustre of a well-trimmed, well-placed house-
lamp, giving “light to all that are in the house.” Her voice
retained the musical modulation which can only be acquired by
refined natives of the banks of Tyne or Wear. But no one ever
less liked to hear herself talk than she did. It was only in a
téte-a-téte that one could draw out her keenly observant, quick,
and shrewd intelligence. She would on such occasions display
an arch and inoffensive humour most frequently expressed in
some sparkling Northern proverb. Yet ‘on her lips was the
law of kindness.”

The noiseless and the seemingly intuitive selfmanagement of
household matters gave a reposeful regularity to domestic
sequences. Without fuss or friction, meals were on the table
to the minute, and “the lamp went out” in comfortable sitting-
room and cosy kitchen as if by clockwork literally. Yet there
was not the slightest feeling of rigidity or relentless reign of
law :—

“For all that smacked of 'noyance or unrest
Was driven far from that delicious nest.”

Mrs. Fowler's view of things was as clear and roseate as her
complexion. And she could match her husband in considerate-
ness and care for others. Her gentle mothering of myself when
I was a poor, thin, pale, little motherless Smzke of a Super-
numerary’s son, and of my dear young shrinking wife when
I brought her as the bride of the young minister, can never
be forgotten.

Mr. Fowler left four children, the eldest and the youngest
daughters, and the two others sons. The elder daughter wore
most gracefully “the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit.” She
had withal a strong, firm character, an individuality right well
defined, with deep and warm affection and a thoughtful and
unflagging earnestness. She became the wife of Mr. Witty, who
held an important office in the Corporation of Hull. He was
brother of the well-known Methodist Mayor of Hull, who brought
such honour to his family and Church. The younger daughter's
baptism I had the honour of attending. It was most impressively
solemnised by the Rev. F. A. West. She grew up a lively and
THE Rev. JosePH FOWLER. 39

most winsome sprite, yet a most exemplary and devoted Christian.
She became the wife of the now lamented Rev. W. D. Tyack,
some years after he had lost his former wife, the daughter of
Dr. George Smith of Camborne. Alike in girlhood, in wifehood,
and in widowhood she was a model of the Christian graces, and
was one of those of whose character I can truly say, If this be not
Christian perfection, I can form no idea of what it would be like
when presented realistically in this work-a-day world. When
I saw her last she was the crippled captive of acute though
chronic rheumatism, and yet retained the sprightliness and
unconquerable joyousness of the springtime of her life.

Mr. Fowler’s elder son, Robert, was my schoolfellow at Wood-
house Grove. He inherited his father’s reticence, sensitiveness,
and constitutional reserve, and was one of those strong natures
which develop slowly. He never liked the Grove; its rough-
nesses were too strong a contrast to the amenities of his happy
home. He was delicately formed, and gave small promise of
robust, hardworking manhood. But he surprised both lads and
masters by his daring expeditions in the dead of night. He was
the hero of one of the nocturnal adventures in our schoolboy
chronicles. But after leaving school he devoted himself to
indomitable study, to prepare himself for the medical profession.
He passed his examinations with distinction, and began practice
in Leeds. But a few years later, being converted to God, by
the instrumentality of my old friend, Benny Pollard, the great
Lay Revivalist of Leeds, he felt constrained to devote himself
to the Ministry. But at that time the enormous loss of members
which followed the expulsion of the three ministers forbade the
taking out any fresh candidates for the home work, so Robert
Fowler offered himself to the Canadian Conference and was
accepted. Here he preached and healed for the rest of his
natural life.

What a contrast in the environment of the two brothers—in the
setting of their labours! The one a leading senator and statesman
in the capital of the Empire, making for his name an honourable
place in the history of that Empire ; while the other was admin-
istering to the settlers in far North-Western wilds the consolations.
of Christianity and the alleviations of science, and was their
veritable “ Medicine man” in a twofold sense. Yet each was
serving faithfully his father’s God, and “his own generation by
the will of God.” .

In Mr. Fowler’s more distinguished younger son, his father’s
40 Fltsrory oF MErHopismM.

strong, fine qualities distinctly reappear. Their mental structure
and their moral habitude were not at all dissimilar.

Mr. Fowler's intellect was of a distinctly legal cast—it was
forensic and judicial, incisive, penetrant, and questioning, most
keen alike in weighing evidence, in appreciating and discrimin-
ating data, and in detecting and exposing sophistry. Sir Henry
Fowler also manifests his father’s caution, and discretion, and
surefootedness, and insight, and dominant determination to do
the right and wise, the fit and safe; and the clear full vision,
which is the exclusive property of the single eye. In studying
Mr. Fowler’s administrative methods and instincts, I was oft re-
minded of the passage : “I, wisdom, dwell with prudence.” “Look
before you leap”’ was with him a principle as well as a proverb.
Wellington’s life-long habit of trying to get to know “ what was
on the other side of the hill” was shared by Mr. Fowler.

Another marked characteristic, common to the Methodist
minister and the Minister of State, shows the immeasurable
distance between a lazy let-aloneism on the one hand—which
imposes on the future the burdens of the present, and takes
its ease at posterity’s expense—and, on the other, a stolid,
sullen, sulky rejection of a large instalment of a desired
benefit because one cannot grasp the whole of it at once.
How many public interests have been sorely backened and
discredited through the over-eagerness of advocates for the
triumph of their own ideas over those of the community !
‘The whole or nothing,” these fanatics say ; and so they go
home hugging their nothing instead of housing their advantages.
One of the sayings of John Wesley which found great favour
with his fellow-labourers and followers was: “If we can’t jump
we must creep.” Peace, with permanence and on a secure
basis, as well as peace with honour and with honesty, is the
true Fowlerian principle. Joseph Fowler acted on the prayer :
ss Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, and Thy glory unto
their chzldren.” Enable us to do our duty manfully, so that
“glory may dwell in our land” long after we are gone.

Mr. F owler was a thorough Liberal, a Liberal worthy of the
name: a liberal Liberal. But he was no revolutionist, and the
same is true of all the Liberals in the Methodist Conference with
whom I had the honour of conversing or the privilege of hearing
talk. Mr. Galland was the mouthpiece of them all when he
said: “J dread extremes; but of the two I think a’ Radical
extreme is worse even than a Conservative extreme.” The
THE Rev. Josern Fowier. 41

statesman with whom Mr. Fowler most commonly agreed
was Lord John Russell. But he was a great admirer of Lord
Morpeth (afterwards Earl of Carlisle). He held property which
made him a voter for the West Riding, and he, with steadfast
loyalty, supported Morpeth in his candidature for that grand
constituency.

Another important particular in which Sir Henry, to use a
Yorkshire phrase, “favours his father,” is a hearty sense of
humour, combined with its very marked suppression in counsel
and in public speaking. A dash of genuine humour is a wondrous
help in business, and it oils and cools the heated wheels of too
impetuous debate, when friction might too soon become ignition.
Hence it has been most mistakenly supposed that Sir Henry
is defective in the sense of humour. In youth, at any rate, his
humour was redundant and perennial.

It is remarkable that two young fellow-worshippers at Great
Queen Street Chapel, London, during Mr. Fowler’s Super-
intendency—the Right Hon. W. H. Smith and Sir Henry Fowler,
—both rose to be members of the British Government. It is still
more remarkable that although on opposite sides of the House,
the public character and life of both were marked by features
which commanded the respect and deference of both parties in
the State ; of all intelligent, sound-hearted, loyal men throughout
the Empire.

Nor is this hard to understand. They were both British to
the core. They revealed the qualities which have made the
British Empire, and which alone can keep it in its might and
majesty : unfeigned, unfaltering faith in the great verities
of Christianity ; a morality, both public and private, derived
from and deeply rooted in the Holy Scripture ; sound, practical
good sense ; fairmindedness and openmindedness, integrity and
honour.

And these were not the only Methodist youths at that same
time and place who have achieved distinction since, who were
“nourished and brought up in sound doctrine.” Among these
were Dr. Ince, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, and Dr.
C. Radcliffe, the eminent physician ; the man who was called in
to alleviate the dying throes of such opposite celebrities as
Frederick Maurice and Cardinal Newman.

The last time I was at Dr. Radcliffe’s house he had just re-
turned from the death-bed of the latter, and whilst I was there an
urgent message was sent from Huxley to come and counsel him as
42 History oF METHODISM.

to the significance of some biological phenomena which had just
emerged within his cognizance. For Radcliffe had long been
the fellow-labourer of Huxley, and had bya full decade gone
before him in his eager explorations. Dr. Radcliffe had enjoyed
a high training in physical and mental science both in France
and in Germany as well as England, and so early as in 1850 had
published the result of his investigations, in his ‘‘ Proteus, or the
Law of Nature.” His object was to set forth “the Unity in the
Forms of Organic Life,” not only in an ideal, but also in a
practical sense, the essential oneness of type, and “ the ultimate
conformity to a common archetypal element.” He went so far
as to postulate “ the potential existence of the same faculty” in
all animated organisms, and to attribute to arrested development
much of the variation in animal forms and organs. This was a
good step toward the sounder, saner part of the Darwinian
hypothesis. He had already collected in Newman Street,
Oxford Street, where he then lived, a most interesting museum
of specimens and data in support of his hypothesis. He was
preparing this book during the whole time of my ministry in
Queen Street Chapel.

Mr. Green, the artist, also worshipped there during the same
period. In the course of my last conversation with him in his
own house, he told me that when, in 1844, he came up to
London as a student in the Royal Academy, he fell among a set
of smart young fellows who were freethinkers and correspondingly
freelivers, that he was saved from making shipwreck of faith
and of a good conscience by the ministrations at Great Queen
Street Chapel, and the counsels he received at the Quarterly
Visitation of his Class. Also there was squeezed in between his
tall father and his tall aunt in a prominent pew a wideawake
young gentleman of some eight years old, who has become
famous as an educationist, a preacher and publisher of sermons,
a most prolific writer and an adventurous exploiting critic, now
known as the Rev. Dr. Abbott, Head Master of the City of
London School. Along with another scion of our Methodism,
W. G. Rushbrooke, he was the author of “The Common
Traditions of the Synoptic Gospels.”

It will be seen that the Rev. Joseph Fowler, so long regarded
as the Standard Bearer, both in Conference and in Connexional
Committee, of the party of freedom of speech, and right of
search—in one word, the Constitutional party in Methodism—
was a high-minded Christian gentleman and a most capable and
THe Rev. JosePH FOWLer. 43

conscientious teacher of our doctrines and administrator of our
discipline. And “they were all gallant knights and true.”

The first of Mr. Fowler’s ‘principles was* freedom of speech,
inquiry, discussion and animadversiop in Conference and Con-
nexional Committee, and the absolute equality of right to the
use of this freedom on the part’ of every member both of
Conference and Committee. A favourite quotation of his was,
“The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream, and he
that hath My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What
is the chaff to the wheat ? ? saith the Lord.” His conviction was
that every subject of importance should be sifted and ,wentilated

_ thoroughly upon the summer threshing-floor of genial, frank, and
free discussion, all the essential data being spread out fairly
on a clear and level area, and winnowed by the.breath of heaven
till the wheat was throughly purged from chaff. And, surely,
he was right. Every question has at least two sides ; to ascertain
its merits and its bearings it must be sifted all round. —

Another of Mr. Fowler’s leading principles was embodied
in a saying’ often quoted in discussion by a counsellor and states-
man of a very different school. Mr. Prest would say: “I agree
with Mr. Fowler. We should not be content with praying,
‘Give peace in our time, O Lord,’ but should add, ‘and in our
children’s and grandchildren’s time as well, until time shall
be no more.’’"’ Mr. Fowler held in dread, one might almost say
in detestation, an inane and idle opportunism and expedience,
which builds big chapels and leaves it to posterity to pay for
them ; which shirks or shelves important matters and lets things
go from bad to worse, beneath the indolent, ignoble policy of
present peace, at any price of detriment and mischief to our
poor successors.

It is now our duty to state conscientiously and clearly the
significance of Mr. Fowler in the constitutional history of
Methodism ; and in order to do this we must glance backward
to the discussions and decisions which took place inevitably on
the death of Wesley. These referred most naturally, first, to the
relations of the preachers with each other ; second, the mutual
relations of the pastors and the people ; and third, the relations
of Methodism to the Established Church on the one hand, and
the “‘ Dissenters ’’ on the other. On all these points there was
sure to be “a dzstinction in the sound” of those who give the signal
for the movements of the host ; both among the pastors and the
people there necessarily ensued in a voluntary association, from —
44 History oF MeEtTHopDisM.

differences of individual temperament, antecedents, associations,
education, reading, habits of thought, and varieties of taste and
refinement. There were, of course, differences of judgment as to
the changes in organisation, and the adjustment of authority
rendered necessary by the death of Wesley. The first anxiety
was to maintain liberty, fraternity, and equality among the
ministers themselves. There was a wholesome dread of the
formation of an oligarchy within the Conference itself, not alto-
gether groundless, as was made clear by the secret conclave at
Lichfield, which was broken up by the promptitude and pluck
of Benson. On the four great questions above mentioned,
there was known to be a pronounced difference of view among
the magnates: Bradburn, Hanby, Thomas Taylor, Pawson and
others inclining to the more popular and independent view.
But young Kilham’s agitation, and his furtive and impatient
mode of rushing on the changes upon which his heart was
set, dealt ‘‘a heavy blow and sad discouragement ” to that side
of the house, and threw back their policy for three-quarters
of a century. The wise and truly statesmanly and pastoral
Plan of Pacification and Leeds Regulations in 1795-97, had
produced, however, the most sedative and satisfactory results,
and were followed by twice seven years of matchless quiet
and prosperity. Jabez Bunting entered the ministry two years
after this, and full soon became a puissant Reformer, to use his
own designation of himself. His immense and manifold ability,
and, above all, his intense spiritual force, and clear and firm
theological convictions, soon gathered into and around his com-
manding personality predominating influence both in council and
in camp. But, as we shall see, there arose up in Conference a
number of high-principled, reflective men, who very often looked
at matters from a somewhat different point of view from that
which was, for the most part, taken by Dr. Bunting and his
nearest friends. To this side of the house Mr. Fowler natur-
ally gravitated, and at last became its leading representative.
This gives to him a special importance and influence in the
Constitutional history of Methodism.

The following sketch was written by me and published in
the Watchman a week after Mr. Fowler’s death:—

“ The late Rev. Joseph Fowler, at about the age of seventeen,
became partaker of the unfeigned faith which dwelt first in his
sainted grandmother and then in his devoted mother. The anni-
versary of his conversion he set apart for holy commemoration to the
Tue Rev. JoserpH Fowcer. 45

last year of his life. He preached his first sermon in 1810, and in
the succeeding year entered the ministry under the auspices of the
Rev. Joseph Sutcliffe. His first circuit was Kettering, an appoint-
ment which materially conduced to the formation of his pastoral
character and his pulpit style. Kettering was at that time
singularly favoured by the ministrations of two eminent Dissenting
ministers, Thomas Toller and Andrew Fuller, whose intellectual
portraits are drawn with such fond fidelity and Sallustian
elegance by Robert Hall. Here Mr. Fowler was brought into
contact with men whose well-won celebrity rested upon a broad
pedestal of private worth, and whom the fascinations of a deserved
popularity never seduced from the assiduous cultivation of their
own ministerial enclosures. The peculiarities of Andrew Fuller,
especially, being in accordance with Mr. Fowler’s own idiosyn-
crasies, tended to determine his adoption of that sententious,
pungent, expository style which characterised his ministrations
from first to last. The frankness and the sensitive propriety of
his own nature led him to assimilate to both those great ministers
in that easy and natural, and yet, withal, grave and dignified
bearing in the pulpit, which whilst it guards against everything
unbefitting, yet gives freest play to individual peculiarities. Mr.
Fowler's first appointment had the further effect of giving him
a somewhat sharper and bolder type of Nonconformity, which,
though never violent or aggressive, was yet marked and decided
through the whole of his public life. His daily journal—com-
mencing with his ministerial course and continued to the last
Thursday of his life—reveals.at once the regularity and laborious-
ness of his habits, and the fervour and energy of his piety. He was
accustomed to rise at five, frequently at four, for purposes of
study and devotion ; and, as the result of his faithful improvement
of his talents, he soon took rank: among his brethren, being
stationed in circuits of the first class early in his course, and
honourably maintaining his status until he finished his career
as Superintendent of the London First Circuit.

“Mr. Fowler’s pulpit style was clear, concise, keen, strong,
often piquant, sometimes caustic—the natural outbirth of his
intellect—his prevailing gravity being ever and anon relieved by
the sudden glancings of acute but delicate satire. At such times
his shrewdness sharpened into smartness. He strongly defined
the angles of a thought. He excelled in the application of
Scripture incident to the .Christian’s daily walk, and always
brought home truth to men’s businesses and bosoms. He held
46 History or Meruopisn.

forth the Word of Life as a lamp unto the feet and a light unto
the path. By nature he was intuitively skilled, and by observa-
tion profoundly versed in the philosophy of common life. But
he possessed an immense advantage in the sympathy which his
pastoral habits established between him and his regular hearers.
Often would individuals perceive that the selection and treatment
of his text had referred to their peculiar trials and perplexities.
He concentrated his energies and solicitudes upon the circuit in
which Christ had placed him, going in and out amongst his
people, ever gathering about himself affection and respect, and
diffusing around him instruction and consolation. Soft was his
footfall and gentle were his tones in the room of sickness. His
words were as ointment poured forth. Everything but his public
engagements was postponed to the visitation of the sick. In his
last circuit, when high in Connexional office and responsibility,
discharging the onerous duties of Superintendent of a London
circuit and Chairman of the London district, he regularly spent
three hours a day in this long-loved employment. His general
reading was deliberately relinquished for this. The home of the
bereaved family and the bedside of the sick and dying afforded,
in his opinion, invaluable preparation for the pulpit. In circuit
matters he displayed great ability and tact, and peculiar facility
in the dispatch of business. He had a truly Wesleyan horror of
late hours, yet business was never slurred, and his rare celerity
was the natural product of promptitude, regularity, and skill.
His characteristics as a leading member of the Conference
and the multifarious important committees of Methodism are
well known.

“In addition to an acute intellect and strong practical common-
sense, he. possessed the moral requisites of a good counsellor,
independence, sincerity, love of truth, and a heartfelt interest
in the subject of discussion. Believing Wesleyan Methodism
superior to all other Churches as an exemplification of Apostolical
doctrine and discipline, he took an almost sectarian interest in
its prosperity and extension. He thoroughly loved Methodism,
and would hold no fellowship with its enemies. He characterised
the ‘ Fly-sheet’ in 1848, in a document never ‘intended for, the
public eye, as execrable, and deeply did he mourn over the
melancholy results.

“Though shattered in body, he nerved himself to protect his
beloved Methodism in his own circuit. And official records, as
well as the unanimous opinion of his brethren, proclaim how
THE Rev. JoserpH Fow Ler. 47

thoroughly and how well he did his duty. Nothing displeased
him more than the mawkish sentimentality of characterising
as ‘good men’ parties who fostered a system of lying and
slander. Such conduct he always considered and described as
‘immorality,’ in the fullest sense of that word. The fragments
of his last literary effort record, with no uncertain sound, his
sentiments with regard to the Conference.

“But it was in the intimacies of private life that Mr. Fowler’s
character appeared in its happiest attitude and truest light.
It was here that the nobility of his nature was revealed in its
full proportions, confiding, fraternal, communicative, rich in
reminiscences of departed worth, liberally endowed with con-
versational powers, yet much more bent upon drawing out the
resources of others than parading his own. He loved contact
with. men whose mental structure differed from his own.
Inaccessible to petty jealousies, he exulted in the discovery of
excellence with the most genuine satisfaction. To those who
had a superficial acquaintance with him, his mannerisms did
him great injustice. There was at once a certain spasmodic
abruptness of manner, and a grave and thoughtful reserve,
which wore the semblance of moodiness; but that seemingly
impenetrable exterior enclosed a gentle and an honest heart.

“He bore his long and peculiarly painful affliction with entire
submission, testing and fully proving the solidity of the con-
solations he had so often addressed to others; and in the dark
valley, comforted by the ‘rod and staff’ of his all-sufficient
Saviour, he ‘ feared no evil.’

“Tn fine, among the many veterans who have this year
received their discharge from the ranks of the Church Militant,
not the least remarkable, not the least deserving, was Joseph
Fowler.”
CHAPTER III.
THE LEEDS CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES.

Or the great Wesleyan Methodist Connexion of Churches, “the
Conference” is known to be the central, guiding and controlling
force. Its decisions are the “rules” for the ordering of the
vast community. It naturally, one might say normally, gives
tone and tendency to the widespread local fellowships that look
to it for leading and for oversight. The materials for the inner
history—which is, of course, the vzta/ history of this great factor
of the religious life of the United Kingdom—must be sought
with special heedfulness in the conferrings of the Conference.
The spiritual diagnosis of the Wesleyan Methodist body can
in no wise be completed without a sensitive and wary finger
upon this its most accessible and calculable pulse, an inspection
of its tongue, and a listening to the chest-heaves and the
heart-beats of its highly animated organism.

But for a stretch of years no report of the discussions of the
British Conference was presented to the public. Of course, the
Conference Journal was regularly kept, but that was a record of
proceedings and decisions, not a diary of the debates, delibera-
tions, interlocutions, inquiries, and replies of a great Church
Council surveying from all sides and straining through successive
sieves the complex practical problems and proposals of each cur-
rent year. But about the year 1823, now seventy-five years ago,
a young minister, Joseph Fowler, became so powerfully impressed
with their incalculable value to history and as a heritage of future
Methodism, that he resolved they should no longer run to waste.
So he set himself to permanently fix the “ wise saws and modern
instances” of these honoured sages of our Church. They are
still preserved and still available. They perform for us the
wonders of the new photography, empowering us to see through
the stone walls and the honest brickwork of the solid, quaint
old sanctuaries, where the conclaves were assembled, and then
put to our ear the telephone through which their deliberate
THe LEEDS CASE AND 1TS SEQUENCES. 49

articulations and their solemn, earnest cadences still strike upon
our ears.

To an eager and susceptible young minister the assembled Con-
ference of 1827 must have presented an impressive and a stirring
spectacle. It was held in Manchester; about three hundred
ministers were present. Most of them were men whose faces
bore the signature of a mental and a spiritual superiority en-
stamped by Nature, countersigned by Grace. Most of them were
blest with a hale, elastic outer man, well developed in its growth
and setting by healthy occupation; and the exhilaration and
exposure of their pedestrian and equestrian evangelism had
clarified their spirits and furbished up their faces till they seemed
at once the most solid and the cheeriest of mortal men. “ Hail
fellow well met” was the meaning of the glance and grip of
the Methodist preachers then as now; they moved with firm,
elastic step through the precincts of a Conference Chapel. They
were a brave and hardy brotherhood, well used to front the
crowd, the snow-storm, or the thunder-storm. They were,
moreover, shrewd men, well stocked with mother-wit—“ men
who could render a reason.” =~

Though six-and-thirty years had passed since Wesley
occupied the Chair of Conference, yet some of the elders who
outlived “the Methodist Joshua” were still active, both in
council and in camp. There was the venerable James Wood,
grandfather of the late Mrs. Everett Green. He had for eighteen
years served as a son in the Gospel with Wesley, had twice been
President, and though in his seventy-seventh year his “glory was
fresh in him, and his bow was renewed in his hand.” There was
Henry Moore, John Wesley’s private secretary. The coeval of
James Wood, he had, like him, twice occupied the presidential
chair, and his sententious wisdom still enriched, as his grim saga-
cious humour still enlivened the deliberations of the pastorate.
He was mettlesome and sturdy as an Irish horse, and was
just as trusty and as good at need.

Then there was the far more famous Irishman, Dr. Adam
Clarke, who ranked amongst the greatest scholars and savants in
Christendom ; yet ever far mightier with the voice than with
the pen, a greater preacher than expositor by many bright
degrees, and yet nobler still as a man of stainless honour and a
faithful man of God. A member of almost all the learned
societies in the United Kingdom, and the cherished guest of
royal dukes; chosen by His Majesty’s Commissioners of Public
50 Alrsrory oF METHODISM.

Record, as the most competent man then living for the titanic
task of editing the State papers of the Empire, and in the front
rank of philanthropists and archzologists, he was yet as simple
as asaint. He had been President three times.

Then there were the two distinguished Josephs: Joseph
Entwisle and Joseph Sutcliffe—the two saintliest-looking men
my eyes have ever rested on. Yet there was naught about them
of the ascetic or the mystic, they were the very symbols of a
comely, comfortable, sociable, serviceable sainthood. A placid
animation and reposeful readiness for all the will of God was the
clear expression of their countenances, and every feature seemed
to say: “Zo be spirttually-minded is lufe and peace.” A deep
and mellow lustre glowed upon their faces as of a calm autumnal
eventide. They formed a fine illustration of Ecclesiastes viii. 1:
“Who is the wise man, and who knoweth the interpretation of
a thing? A man’s wisdom maketh his face to shine and the
boldness of his countenance is transfigured.” There, too, sat
Richard Reece. ;

All these had worked with Wesley and knew the man and
his communications, and many more had heard him preach and
felt his hands of benediction on their heads.

But the most impressive figure of them all was that of
Richard Watson, the stateliest intellect our Church has yet
produced. Even in stature there were few to match him: he
stood six feet two. Byron, in describing Mont Blanc, has
photographed our Watson to the life—

‘Simple, erect, august, austere, sublime.”

He had, I think, the biggest brow I ever saw, and it was
exquisitely modelled ; not cast like a cannon ball, in a mould
that had been used before and might be used again, but as if
elaborately modelled by a master workman’s hand. For native
dignity of carriage and of utterance, he was quite unrivalled ;
yet his quiet talks to boys were in a subduing tenderness of
tone which made his patriarchal counsels sink deep into the
heart. é

On the floor of the house the speakers were but few and far
‘between. The principal debaters were Daniel Isaac and
Valentine Ward, both very able men, whom, however, I have
elsewhere described. All these famous men were powerful
preachers, for no one could become a potent voice in Conference
THe LEEDS CASE AND 1TS SEQUENCES. 5r

who had not proved himself in the pulpit to be “an eloquent
man and mighty in the Scriptures.”, All these notabilities, in
my boyhood or young manhood, I looked up at with a reve-
rential wonder as the “ mighties” of our Methodism, and with
the one exception of Dr. Adam Clarke, whose form and face I
vividly remember, though his voice I never heard—I listened to
their measured cadences as to authentic oracles.

But of those three hundred counsellors, the immensely
preponderating personality was that of Jabez Bunting, though
he had more than half his great career before him. He was
then about forty-seven years old and had just completed the
twenty-eighth of his ministry. And the explanation of this
pre-eminence requires no critical clairvoyance to explain.

The year 1827 marks an epoch in the history of Methodism
as that in which occurred the first of the divisions which de-
vastated the Connexion during the middle quarter of the present
century. This was the celebrated Leeds case, which arose out of
the strong difference of opinion amongst the members of the
large society in that great Methodist centre with regard to
the introduction of an organ into its largest chapel. Up to the
year 1820 trustees could obtain leave to venture on this, at that
time, risky innovation, by direct application to the Conference.
But it had turned out that, from insufficient information as to the
state of local feeling on the matter, the Conference had pre-
maturely consented to this change in the accessories of public
worship, so that it had proved the cause of discord and dissension
amongst the members of the Church.

From the Reformation downwards there had been a strong
disposition, on both sides of the Tweed, to associate the organ
with a performed and quasi-popish worship. This feeling was at
first so strong that the fact of Queen Elizabeth having an organ
in her private chapel was not only denounced by the Puritans,
but also claimed by the Papists as proof positive that she was
a Romanist at heart. So late as 1644, an Act had passed the
House of Lords forbidding. organs in any church within the
realm. This feeling was far from extinct seventy years ago in
Nonconformist circles. Hence, until the present generation
there was no organ in the two great London chapels, City
Road and Queen Street.

The Conference of 1820 passed the following law: ‘Organs
may be allowed by special consent of the Conference, but every

E 2
52 History or Merxopism.

application shall be first made to the District Meeting, and 1f
it obtain their sanction, shall then be referred to a Committee.
of the Conference, etc.”

Surely the natural and straightforward meaning of these
words is: that the sanction of the District Meeting was to be
henceforward an indispensable prerequisite to the laying of the
application before a Conference Committee. According to the
ordinary, so far as I know, the universal interpretation of
legislative enactments or permissions, the insertion of a con-
ditional clause with “if” before and “¢ken” after it, distinctly
implies that “if” the condition be zof fulfilled, ‘‘then” the
permission will not be granted. So, at least, it was understood
by the opponents of the organ in Brunswick Chapel, Leeds. The
case was accordingly laid before the Leeds District Committee,
which after careful consideration and anxious and exhaustive
investigation, decided by a large majority, that on account of the
divided state of feeling and opinion on the subject (but a smalj
majority of the trustees themselves being in favour of the organ),
the question was not yet ripe for discussion, and they could
not, with due regard to the reason and the spirit of the law,
accord the sanction which the law made indispensable. That
was not unnaturally supposed both by District Meeting and
Leaders’ Meeting to decide the matter for a twelvemonth.

But four of the Brunswick trustees were not in the mood of
‘Believers waiting.” So they determined to carry their point,
despite the District Meeting and the plain English of the law.
They made the most industrious use of the interval between Dis-
trict Meeting and Conference in waiting on influential Ministers,
especially in London. They won over to their side the eminent
John Stephens, who, as was expected, occupied the chair at
the Conference. Their pertinacity and importunity were so
successful that, against the most earnest warning and entreaty of
the Superintendent of the disturbed circuit, the Conference set
aside the law, and disregarded the deliberate judgment of the
District Meeting, whose legal function it was to investigate such
cases and to postpone or pass them on to Conference, as they
thought best. This proved to be, as was foretold by those who
were acquainted with the facts, a most disastrous blunder. And,
in all affairs of Church-contention, Beware of the first blunder, for
the first blunder is very apt to commit you to all the rest of
the ‘unhappy series. It is a most perilous proceeding for the
highest Church Court to take the initiative in irregularity.
THe Leeps Case anv 17s SEQUENCES, 53

.gainst this Mr. Bunting himself had faithfully forewarned the
onference some years before, in his golden axiom: “If we do
ot respect our laws, what wonder that our people should not
eed them ?”

Besides, this act of Conference started in the mind of Method-
im a very grave inquiry. Is the Wesleyan Methodist Conference
ound by its own law so long as it remains its law? Its right to
escind or repeal was not disputed, but so long as the rule is still
1 force, is it not binding on the Conference as well as on the
eople? The Organ Law of 1820 had been made for the very
urpose of preventing the ‘harmony of the Society from being
acrificed to the tastes and preferences of any particular portion
f the congregation. The ministers of the circuit, as guardians
f that harmony, had earnestly warned the Conference that the
mmediate introduction of an organ into Brunswick Chapel,
eds, would seriously imperil the peace of the society and
bstruct the work of God. The District Meeting, as the con
titutional court upon the matter, had arrived at the same
onclusion and deliberately refused its sanction. As to the
atural and obvious meaning of the law, let anyone who compares
:-s wording with that of any other enactment expressed in the
ke terms say whether the Leeds Leaders or the Leeds District
fleeting can be charged with factiousness for taking it to mean
recisely what it says?

Take the first passage that comes to hand of the Mosaic
2gislation, the law of the “sin offering.” “Jf his means suffice
ot for a lamb ¢hen he shall bring . . two turtle doves, etc.”
Lev. v. 7,,R.V.) Ifa well-conditioned sheep master should have
ome to the priest with two turtle doves instead of a lamb, and
he priest had reminded him of the condition on which two
urtle doves might be substituted, would he have ventured to
ut forth the interpretation of the organ-law which has been
dvanced in favour of the trustees who persisted in their applica-
‘on to Conference, despite the law of Conference requiring the
inction of the District Meeting, and despite the refusal of the
Mistrict Meeting to sanction the application? Would the well-
do sheep owner have coolly answered: “The law certainly
lay be made to say ‘that if his means suffice for a lamb, he
ust bring a lamb’"”? But “that is not its only posstble
.eaning.” Is a law to be taken in its plain meaning or in
me “ possible” interpretation ?

The object and the spirit of the law of 1820 were as
54 History oF METHODISM.

clear as they were kindly and pacific—namely, to zterpose an
additional safeguard against the discord which had in some
cases resulted from the introduction of an organ in the face
of a strong objection to it on the part of many members of the
society. The allowing the four Brunswick trustees to apply
directly to the Conference, notwithstanding the deliberate refusal
of the District Meeting’s sanction, the anti-organists maintained,
had nullified and stultified the law of 1820 by practically re-
verting to an obsolete and superseded law. That this view
was not “factious” is plain from the present usage. Since
the prejudice against organs has died away, and the question
has become a mere matter of ways and means, the Conference
has wisely transferred to the Chapel Committee the authorisation
of an organ in a Methodist chapel. But if the District Committee
or the District Sub-committee in cases of supposed urgency,
decline to sanction the application, the matter goes no further till
some future District Committee deems it safe to accede to
a re-application.

The Organ Law of 1820, as interpreted in favour of the
Brunswick trustees, proved a most unfortunate piece of legis-
lation for the interests of Methodism in Leeds and elsewhere,
inasmuch as it introduced into the discussion a highly super-
fluous element of irritation and chagrin. It was contended that
the word “sanction of the District Committee” was meant by
the Conference to be taken in its proper legislative sense.

Even on the opposite hypothesis, it was strange that on a
representation from four trustees, the judgment of the regular
court, which had carefully investigated the matter on the spot,
should be set aside.

But it is necessary to note a few of the leading events at
Leeds between the Conferences of 1827 and 1828. During the
interregnum, between the departure of the old Superintendent
and the arrival of the new one, it was resolved by the leaders
and local preachers to make a brotherly appeal to the trustees,
not to act upon the permission of the Conference without
an earnest attempt to come to some understanding with the
leaders and local preachers, and to request the incoming Super-
intendent to arrange a meeting for that purpose. A deputation
of leaders and local preachers waited on the new Superintendent,
and presented their petition. He took time to consider and to
consult with the Conference leader in whom he had most con-
fidence, and at last informed the deputation of his resolve not to
THe LEEDS CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. 55

interfere in a matter on which the Conference had given judgment.
This determination was announced by the deputation to a large
meeting of leaders and local preachers, who incontinently for-
mulated their disappointment and chagrin into hot-tempered
resolutions embodying their conviction that the granting of the
application of the trustees was not only in opposition to the
views of the society as expressed through the Leaders’ Meeting,
but also in disregard of the deliberate non-sanction of the District
Meeting, which the Conference itself had made the condition of
any such application, and that this was an act of arbitrary authority,
setting itself above its own express and printed law. They
declared “that such an assumption of power must necessarily
lessen the confidence of the people.” With extravagant irritation
and impatience, a local preacher, Mr. Matthew Johnson, at once
took the initiative in a systematic agitation, called together the
local preachers of the two Leeds Circuits in meetings which were
as contrary to the Methodist law as was the application to
Conference by the Brunswick trustees.

A brother local preacher, after due warning, brought a charge
against Johnson at the Local Preachers’ Meeting for convoking
unauthorised assemblies. The Superintendent appealed to him
on behalf of the peace and welfare of the Church to desist from
these irregularities. This he defiantly refused to do, and the
Superintendent pronounced upon him the very mild sentence of
suspension from his office for three months unless he should in
the meantime come to a better mind. Thereupon more than
seventy local preachers made common cause with Johnson, and
declared that so long as he was silenced they would sit in silence
too. Johnson, proving ostentatiously aggressive, was summarily
expelled from the society. As this act did not assuage the
contest, the Superintendent fell back upon the supreme resort of
the chairman of a district who finds himself unequal single handed
to his task. He summoned a Special District Meeting upon the
case ; being both the new Superintendent of the disturbed circuit
and the new Chairman of the District. The Special District
Meeting was distinctly and explicitly defined, both as to its
purpose and its composition, in the famous supplement to and
completion of the Plan of Pacification, called The Leeds Regula-
trons, because they had been made by the Conference held in that
town in the great year of readjustment and of settlement, 1797.
The Leeds people were not likely to be oblivious of the Leeds
Regulations. The whole tone of the document was pacificatory
50 SLISTORY UF minimus

and conciliatory in the highest degree. The law of the Special
District Meeting ran thus :—

“That no Chairman may have cause to complain of the want of power in
cases which, according to his judgment, cannot be settled in the ordinary
District Meeting, he shall have authority to summon three of the nearest
Superintendents, to be incorporated with the District Meeting and they shall
have equal authority to vote and settle everything until the Conference.

“The President of the Conference shall assist at any District Meeting, if
applied to for that purpose by the Chairman of the District.”

The functions of the Special District Meeting are thus
defined in Peirce’s “ Ecclesiastical Principles and Polity of the
Wesleyan Methodists,” edited by Dr. Osborn and Dr. Jobson :—

“The Special District Meeting is'a court of appeal for the settling of all
disputes during the interval of the Conference, whether in the body of the
preachers or amongst the members of the societies, or between the preachers
and the people"’ (p. 398).

The restriction of the Chairman’s choice to ‘three of the
nearest Superintendents” was fair-minded and considerate. As
the selection of a// the additional members of the meeting was in
the Chairman’s hands, and not one was left to the people, it was
felt right to restrict the range of his selection, lest he should be
tempted to call to his assistance personal friends or men of the
greatest Connexional influence and prestige. But the Chairman
of the Leeds District, who was also Superintendent of the
disturbed Leeds Circuit, not finding the men most to his mind
within the prescribed limits, thought fit to ignore those limits,
and go, farther afield than the law allowed. And beyond this,
the most potent factor in the whole Connexion was imported
into the judicial court, in the person of the Rev. Jabez Bunting,
to whom the law gave no standing place whatever in the meeting.
In order to this, a new function was created of which the
Constitution was entirely ignorant. He was that year Secretary
of the Conference ; and under the unknown style and title of
“Official Adviser of the President ”—a function and a title this,
with which neither President nor Chairman had the slightest
power to invest him or any other person.

The Special District Meeting could not but pronounce the
unauthorised meetings, called by leading local preachers, to be
illegal and most reprehensible. But as the meeting had no
legislative or administrative power, matters had to take their
THE LEEDS CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. 57

ordinary course. The insurgents were left to the investigation
and the verdict of the Leaders’ Meeting. But no member of the
Leaders’ Meeting was allowed to vote who had not first com-
mitted himself, either in speech or by the signature of a
document, to find according to the Superintendent’s view of the
case. This was felt to be an unwarrantable interference with
the freedom and the spontaneity of the Leaders’ Meeting as an
empanelled jury bound to give a verdict according to the evidence
adduced. These successive liberties with Connexional law, on
the part of the champions and enforcers of the law, not only
exasperated and inflamed the disputants, but brought into the
dispute fresh elements of a deeper and a far more widely reaching
nature than that which had arisen many months before. Then
‘the matter began and ended with the question, ‘ Has a small
majority of the trustees the power of changing the mode of
conducting public worship, against the wishes and convictions
of a very large number of the Church members?’’ When the
Conference met in 1828, the case had become much more
complicated than it had been left twelve months before.

Mr. Bunting was elected President, but by a much smaller
majority than he would have certainly commanded but for his
connection with the Leeds affair. “In view of the Leeds case,

. he did not carry a majority of the votes given.” (‘‘Life of
Dr. Bunting,” p. 604.) The vote of. thanks to the ex-President
was coupled with a reservation as to the composition and the
conduct of the Special District Meeting at Leeds. This vote
of thanks with reservation, moved by one ex-President and
seconded by another, was acknowledged by the retiring President
with meek and lowly gratitude. But his “ ex-official adviser,” the
retiring Secretary, now President himself, was of very different
metal. The like thanks with the like reservation being offered
him, he declared that he would receive no thanks with any
reservation, nor listen to any animadversions on his conduct
unless a charge against him was submitted in writing.’ (See
Smith’s “ History of Methodism,” vol. iii., p. 131.) Once more
the Conference gave in. The reservation submitted to by the
ex-President was withdrawn from the ex-Secretary.

In 1832, notwithstanding his repeated protestations to the
contrary, when the Conference firmly stood upon its own dignity,
Mr. Bunting quietly gave way. And may we not apply and
accommodate to the position he assumed in 1826 and 1828, the
words used by Dr. George Smith in “History of Methodism,”
58 Hisrory or METHODISM.

with regard to the affair of 1834: “ Nor should the Conference
have been put in the position in which it was placed by such
language” ?* It would have produced the happiest results to
himself and the Connexion had he from the first been given to
understand that no minister in the Methodist Connexion,
however great his gifts and services may be, can be indulged in
irresponsibility to his brethren in the Conference for his personal
and his official conduct. Yet, of course, the utmost possible
indulgence—consistent with the general welfare—was due to a
minister of such rare gifts and services.

An event which forms a chapter alike in the history of
Methodism and in the life of Dr. Bunting, is this famous ‘‘ Leeds
Case,” which occasioned the first of the three concatenated
secessions, which, beginning in 1827, ended in the dire catas-
trophe of 1849. Strong and searching light is cast upon the
subject by Mr. Fowler’s “ Journal of the Conference of 1828,”
when the whole matter was brought under thorough and
solicitous discussion :—

Daniel Isaac deplored the hastiness, as he thought, of the
treatment of the Leeds disturbances, considering the import-
ance of the interests at stake, and of the fact that the three
ministers, who had been three years upon the ground, and
the District Meeting — which had carefully investigated the
matter on the spot—had been so earnestly in favour of delay.
He also deplored the unauthorised elements which had been
imported into the Special District Meeting.

Mr. Ward expressed his strong concurrence with the views
of Mr. Isaac. His calmly-expressed judgment had all the
greater weight from the fact of his being well acquainted with
the ground and with the state of things, he having left the
Leeds West Circuit just before the outburst of the storm.

Richard Watson, speaking from his own experience, ques-
tioned the wisdom of the Leeds ministers who had allowed
themselves to be sucked into the vortex of agitation through the
public press. Whilst he warmly recognised the ability of their
defence of Methodism against Congregationalism, he condemned
the depriving of the Leaders’ Meeting of its guaranteed rights by
forbidding voice or vote to every leader who would not either
sign or vocally assent to a written document, which would
have committed him beforehand to one particular side. He
concluded by proposing that the permission to erect an organ

* Book VIII., Chap. 3.
THe LEEDS CASE AND 1TS SEQUENCES. 59

in Brunswick Chapel, Leeds, which was given by the Confer-
ence of 1827, should be suspended till the Conference of 1829,
in order to allow time for a strenuous effort to bring the
trustees’ meeting on the one hand, and the leaders and local
preachers on the other, into a brotherly accommodation of the
matter in dispute.

It is noteworthy that not one of the speakers who had been
in the ministry during Wesley’s lifetime approved of the way in
which the Leeds dissensions had been dealt with.

The speaking was pretty evenly divided between the ap-
provers and the disapprovers of the disciplinary action at Leeds.
The chief objections were to the precipitancy of the action
and to the introduction into the very composition of the Special
District Meeting of factors not authorised by the sacred settle-
ment between pastors and people embodied in the Plan of
Pacification in 1795, and the completing Leeds Regulations of
1797. The President (Mr. Bunting) concluded the debate by
a speech, occupying “several hours.” (‘‘Life of Dr. Bunting.”)
It was a fine specimen of his forensic oratory. He expressed
his sorrow that the course pursued had not met with the
approval of “the fathers” of the Conference; but he con-
tended that whatever straining of the Constitution, and
stretching, or even overpassing, of the law had been resorted
to, was justified by “the emergency”; that the movement was
at heart “an insurrection against the pastoral office,” and, as
such, required to be put down effectively, and once for all.
He confessed that his own strong counsels had been all the
stronger from a dread of the politics of the chief dissentients
and their journalistic advocates.

Mr. Bunting’s speech swayed the assembled brethren. The
Conference adopted the conclusions of the Special District
Meeting, although “seven shepherds and princes among men”
voted against it. The wording of the second of the long series
of resolutions on the subject, published in the Minutes, is very
noticeable :—‘ That it is the judgment of the Conference that
the Special District Meeting held in Leeds was both indis-
pensably necessary, and, iz the most extraordinary emergency,
constitutional also.” (M., p. 80.)

An address from the Quarterly Meeting of the South London
Circuit, remonstrating against the composition and the action
of the ‘Special District Meeting at Leeds, this Conference ‘“ de-
clined taking ‘into their further consideration,’ on the very fair
60 History or MEruHovism.

ground that the said address had been printed and circulated
among the preachers and others before it could be presented
to the Conference, and also appears to have been exhibited in
booksellers’ shops for sale.” The Conference, however, goes on
to “reprehend” the contents of the address in considerable
detail.

It is to be noted that Mr. Bunting, in his closing speech,
frankly and boldly took upon himself the entire responsibility
of the policy pursued at Leeds. His deliverance had from first
to last, the tone of self-defence—indeed he afterwards remarked,
“T have myself been under question for stx days.”

I never met with any one who knew Mr. Grindrod who
doubted that, in his treatment of the Leeds disturbances as
Superintendent and Chairman, he acted under the direction
of a more inflexible will and a more impetuous nature than
his own, for his action was out of keeping with his habits and
his temperament and the general context of his ministerial life.
During his probation he had been Mr. Bunting’s colleague, and
Mr. T. Percival Bunting truly says: ‘‘Not one of my father’s
contemporaries was more thoroughly imbued with his principles
and feelings. So thoroughly were their relations understood, that
some were not unwilling to taunt the other with copying more
closely than was consistent with individual sympathies and
opinions those of the master-mind to which he owed his
training.” (‘Life of Dr. Bunting,” p. 290.) I am constrained
to testify that Mr. Grindrod was one of the gentlest and
kindliest and most dispassionate of men.

On a review of the entire Leeds Case, one cannot but regret
that the Conference did not adhere to its own Organ Law of 1820:
in its natural and straightforward sense. To one who like myself
is intimately acquainted with the Yorkshire variety of the John
Bull genus, having lived for years in each of the three Ridings,
and who was, moreover, lovingly familiar with Leeds Methodism
full sixty years ago, it seems certain that had the deliberate non-
sanction of the Brunswick organ by the District Meeting been
respected by the Conference, the deplorable dissension would
not have come to pass or, at least, have reached its acute con-
vulsive stage, and this painful and, humiliating chapter in our
Methodist history would have remained unwritten and the for-
mation of a new antagonistic sect would have been most happily
avoided. At the very least the intensity of the paroxysm
would have been assuaged, and the area of disturbance would
THE LEEDS CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. 61

have been very much contracted. The typical Yorkshireman
is excessively ignitable, and soon becomes crusty when subject to
hard baking. He can make himself as unreasonably awkward
and untoward and cross-grained and “ stumpy” as you will ; but
of all men whom I ever came across, he is the most accessible to
considerate and conciliatory treatment, the most amenable to
gentle handling, and the least capable of holding out against
concession. True enough, he can be as grumpy and short-
tempered as the best of us, and even spleenful, on what he deems
sufficient provocation—z.e. if he thinks you want to “ put upon”
him ; but well-administered, persistent humouring soon betrays
him into yieldingness. No better scenery than that of Yorkshire
would serve for the famous match between the Sun and the
Wind, to see whether of the two can the sooner win the cloak
from the sturdy wayfarer. The wind may take King Lear for its
adviser, and ‘‘crack its chaps” to wrest the outer garment from
the struggling traveller. The more violent the blast, with the
more deadly, desperate tenacity does he clasp the covering to his
chest. The Wind may blow the man away, his cloak and all,
more easily than tear it from his grasp. But no sooner does the
Sun begin to play upon the man with searching beams than his
grasp begins to slacken and his sinews to unthread, until full soon
he strips himself of his own accord of the very thing that he had
clung to with such strong determination. Many a time and oft
have I watched this process in my native county. I could fill
page after page with amusing and affecting illustrations of the
inspired proverb : “A soft tongue breaketh the bone.” Yes,
a gentle voice is the great bone-breaker, the strong- -beaked
ossifrage to a resolute and rigid Yorkshireman.

I may give two instances of this in the case of Brunswick
Methodists, which were nearly forty years apart. At my first
District Meeting—that of this same Leeds District—a most
strenuous contest was fought out upon a boundary dispute,
occasioned by the selection of the site for a new chapel. The
delimitation of the Venezuelan frontier or the ownership of the
Oregon territory could hardly have seemed a worthier subject of
dispute than the question whether a certain tract of town belonged
to Brunswick or to Oxford Place. The representatives of both
chapels were in force. A splendid map of the contested district
on a large scale was spread out upon the table. Both sides were
“armed and well prepared” to fight the matter out. The Bruns-
wickers of history never took up ground upon the battlefield
62 History or MeErnovism.

with a more dogged determination than did their namesakes
for this synodal struggle. We younkers at the bottom of the
room, especially those of us who knew the mettle of the com-
batants, were on the guz vzve for a battle royal. Assuredly had
there been the slightest side-taking on the part of any member of
the court we should have had a scene and a sensation. One
“question fierce’? would have certainly provoked a “ stern reply ”
and have “given signal soon of high debate,” for when Leeds
meets Leeds then comes the tug of war. But no, such was the
impartiality, such the imperturbability, the suavity, the absolute
confidence in the fairness, single-mindedness, and candour of the
disputants, that the knot was soon untied without flash of sword
“or tightening twist on one side or on the other. Those who had
looked forward to an opportunity of displaying all their prowess
and their puissance were just a little crestfallen—that was all !

Some forty years later, I found myself in the chair of a

‘ Conference Committee Meeting, held near Leeds, where some
Connexional arrangements of no small importance were to be
considered. Unfortunately, an unmollified soreness existed
between two members of the Board, one of them being the
fullest type of an explosive Brunswicker. A somewhat hard
reply from his able, influential antagonist, set the ignitable
Leeds layman all ablaze. The hindrance to business and the
detriment to an enterprise of pith and moment would have been
very serious had things gone thus “ aglee,” so there was nothing
for it but for the chairman to turn lion-tamer. But, happily, he
knew the natural history of the kingly specimen before him, and
was able, without the aid of crowbar or of throttling cord, to
reduce the touchy and yet trusty brother to the still strength of
one of Landseer’s lions in Trafalgar Square. After the meeting
he sidled up to me and said with a meek naiweté: “What a
mercy it is to have a man in the chair who can have some
patience with bad-tempered people!” To which I answered
twinklingly, with hand upon his arm: “O, when one knows a
man is Johnick, what use can there be in vexing him ?”

Another characteristic of the Yorkshireman presented a ready,
strong facility for composing the dispute between the trustees
of Brunswick Chapel and its leaders and local preachers. Your
genuine West Ridinger is, of all mortals, the most musical. I
know no part of England where sacred music as a passion has
so percolated all strata of society. Sixty years ago, at least,
many a working man and working man’s wife and mother would
THe Lreps CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. 63

pinch for a week to buy tickets for an oratorio, and at the
matchless Saturday evening ‘band meeting at Eastbrook Chapel,
Bradford, no one but a new minister was in the least surprised to
hear a workman say: ‘Ye mind, friends, I’ve had a rare lift,
heavenwards this week ; I saved up for t’ oratorio: it were t'
Messiah. Hay! but it were omost like being i’ heaven.” In
Leeds itself, next to the Parish Church, the two most striking
structures in the town when I first strolled staring along its
streets were Brunswick Chapel, in its solid, stately isolation, and
the Music Hall, with its imposing portico.

The people’s heart was towards sacred music. But of all
congregations in the kingdom that of Brunswick, Leeds, was the
least dependent on such aids, and, on the other hand, the least
likely to be injured by them. Samuel Wesley, on opening the
organ, said: “ Those Leeds folks made me play second fiddle.”
During the many times I have had the privilege of worshipping
in that spacious sanctuary the singing of the congregation has
been mighty and exultant, and the choir has been so full-voiced
that the colossal organ has been made to know its place as an
unobtrusive, meek accompaniment to the human voice divine.
One has been too ‘‘ throng” in swelling the full tide of praise or
in regaling on the deliciousness of this or that especial voice,
distinguished even amid such a mass of melody, to take much
note of the pealing organ’s tone.

The eager and impatient haste of the four trustees, who
pushed the matter with such contempt of consequences, was
just as mistaken and unfounded as was the objection of the
leaders and the local preachers. Methodism had grown to a
mighty social and religious factor in that great industrial
centre, without one organ in its chapels, and the population
of the place flocked to hear the preaching, and to join in the
singing and the praying in the big Brunswick Chapel. It would
do no harm at all to wait another year, and that was all the
non-sanction of the District Meeting came to. The Brunswick
Methodists would then have had full time to talk each other
into the same mind—“the good old Methodist” plan of paci-
fication, which one has often seen to work so well.

There is not the slightest need to seek for any worse motive
for the opposition to the organ on the part of the leaders and
local preachers than that which they themselves assigned—a
misgiving as to the effect upon spirituality in congregational
worship. The pacific Organ Law of 1820 became the sad

*
64 History oF METHODISM.

occasion of the very disruption it was intended to prevent.
The Leeds Methodists, the praise of whom had gone abroad
throughout all the world, might have adapted the poet's

lament :—
To the Organ Law of 1820.

Hadst thou not been meant so kindly,
Hadst thou not been broken blindly ;
Never made, or never slighted,

We had not been disunited.

By the testimony of Conference itself, up to the moment
of the unthought-of disregarding of the deliberate non-sanction
of the District Meeting, the Brunswick leaders and local
preachers had shown themselves a law-abiding, loyal people:
The right of the Leaders’ Meeting to memorialise the Conference
on the subject, and therefore of necessity to take cognisance of
the subject, and discuss and vote upon it, was admitted, both
by Special District Meeting and by Conference. The impatient
urgency of the four importunate trustees had no ground what-
ever in the vital interests of the cause. The Trustees’ Meeting
itself was far from unanimity on the matter. It was carried
there “ by a small majority.” (Zondon Quarterly article.) The
question of the mode of conducting worship was admittedly not
a question for trustees only. It had spiritual aspects, bearings,
and results.

Having Methodist relatives in Leeds, and a large circle of
influential Methodist friends, I became lovingly familiar with the
joyous, energetic Methodism of the place. And I have no doubt
whatever that had the non-sanction of the District Meeting been
respected, and instead of a Special District Meeting, four or
five of the most saintly and persuasive ministers, such as
Entwisle, Reece, Sutcliffe, Morley, Griffith, been deputed to
meet the trustees and leaders, all might have been amicably
settled.

These irregularities in the interests of legality and order,
and on the part of the guardians and champions of both, were
most unfortunate in their results. The friends of order found
it no light task to vindicate them. The legal intellect of Mr.
T. P. Bunting evidently did not like the brief. He prudently
confines himself to his duty as a biographer, “to vindicate as
best he may the course his father took.” And the one defence
attempted by the resourceful Dr. Bunting was that they were
“ constitutional in the extraordinary circumstances.’ (The italics
THE LEEDS CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. 65

are his.) This, of course, implies that, but for the very extra-
ordinary circumstances, they would have been unconstitutional.
But the only reason one can think of why it might seem
expedient to stretch a point or two to ensure success would
seem to suggest a counter-reason for the utmost regularity of
action and a punctilious propriety in the whole conduct of the
case. Two or three of the leading malcontents were very
awkward men to handle—quick-witted, keen-witted, resolute,
and self-confident. They might be trusted not to let slip the
least advantage of catching and tripping up opponents. And
more bitter elements were mingled in the cauldron when the
question had arisen as to the fairness and the legality of the
interpretation which Conference had put upon its own law.
This interpretation did, in point of practical working, nullify
and stultify the law itself, and that so plainly as to necessitate
its alteration. It is noteworthy that the least undignified and
unassuming change was found to be to give to it, not the sense
which had been assigned to it in favour of the organ party in
the Leeds dispute, but a still more stringent sense than that
in which the leaders and the local preachers had understood
it. For finding the law either misleading or inoperative, many
trustees’ meetings very sensibly gave it the go-by, and went
straight to Conference ; or if a Superintendent insisted on the
formality of reporting the matter to the District Meeting, the
brethren saw neither use nor sense in staying away from their
families to pursue investigation and pronounce a judgment which
three or four importunate and interfering trustees might snap
their fingers at in triumph.

By 1836, the year of Mr. Bunting’s third presidency, the
whole affair had got into such a farcical muddle as to be
quite too much for his sense of order and his sense of
humour. So from the chair of the Conference he declared
“The difference between rule and practice brings us into
contempt, and makes us laughed at. I therefore think it
would be well to give the District Meeting the power to
determine the case of every organ.” But the brethren could
not help seeing that this new move would bring into con-
tempt and laughter their action in 1827, the maintaining of
which had cost the Connexion thousands of members and
thrown it into a protracted paroxysm. And here was the
self-same ecclesiastical statesman proposing from the chair
of the Conference the very thing which in a memorable

F
66 Hsrory or Merxuopism.

document he had drawn up and they had adopted, had been
represented as impossible and unthinkable—namely, “to con-
stitute a mere District Committee of its own body, however
respectable, the final and absolute judges of the question in
which the interests and wishes of responsible trustees might,
in their judgment, be involved, such a design would at once
prove what is now falsely and unjustly imagined—the tyranny
of the Conference over those whom it is bound to help.”

Yet this was at last actually decided on at Mr. Bunting’s
instance, and has been acted on ever since with the happiest
results.

Every slip, every curve in the course of the champions
of legality was sure to be “observed, set in a notebook,
read, and conned by heart,’ and then published from the
house-tops and proclaimed throughout the country through
the press.) And the question had become one of law and
constitutionality. The complaint of the Leeds dissentients
was this: that the Conference, in setting aside the decision
of the District Meeting, had set aside its own decision, and
yet the cause assigned for summoning the Special District
Meeting was the disregard of law on the part of the objectors.
All this craved wary walking and a resolute adherence to
the Apostolic policy—‘‘ What I do, that I will do, that I
may cut off occasion from them that desire occasion” (2 Cor.
xi, 12).

The most prominent and impetuous inciter and organiser
of the agitation was a meddlesome, hot-blooded Leader, who
loved to kick the traces and to get the bit between his
teeth. This is plain from his whole history. But as I never
saw him to my knowledge, I can only judge him from hear-
say and from reading. But as the Conference saw full clearly,
the guiding spirit of the storm was a much more public
man—a long-famous Methodist schoolmaster, Mr. Sigston.
Him I remember vividly, having studied him intently at the
time of his meridian notability and notoriety, as an active
educationist and author of cheap school-books, much more
popular to Managing Committees than to more or less un-
manageable schoolboys. I had hour after hour bent over his
unfascinating primers, and made from them my earliest essays
at Englishing unclassic Latin. But it was as the founder of
a new denomination that I took a careful cast of his counte-
nance and figure for my private little gallery of Methodist
THE LEEDS CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. 67

celebrities. His followers were locally called either “ Sig-
stonites” or ‘“ Noncons.” He was a noticeable, though a not
distinguished-looking personage. He had none of the imposing
massiveness of the three Methodist Yorkshire schoolmasters—
Swale of Halifax, Welch of Hull, and Parker of the Grove.
He was an eager-eyed and wedge-faced personality, with mobile
features and a penetrating glance, quick and sudden in his
movements and with an incisive and decisive tone, and the
self-reliant look of one accustomed to lay down the law. He
was best known to the Connexion as the bosom-friend and
the biographer of William Bramwell, the revivalist, who died
beneath his roof. This had thrown around him a certain
hagiographic halo, and, along with his reputation for superior
culture and intelligence, had invested him with considerable
influence and popularity. Mr. Sigston had published a theo-
logical tractate which indulged in self-sufficient speculation,
not restrained by Holy Writ, and this he had laboured hard
to introduce into Sunday-school and other libraries. But both
before and after 1827 he showed himself about as hard to
work with as to deal with; and it was affirmed in Con-
ference that for some years before the organ discords he had
absented himself from Leaders’ Meetings. As I remember
him, he had the pedagogic air of one of whom it might be
said: ‘Behold thou . .. art confident that thou thyself art
a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,
an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes.” (Rom. i.
17, 19, 20.)

No doubt the Chairman and the President were of opinion
that what was wanted to confront such men as these was the best
embodiment of high Connexional authority and influence, and of
unbending strength of will. But these were not the men to
be overawed by prestige, and if it comes to a stand up fight
between will-force and will-force, your Yorkshireman is ‘‘ bad
to beat,” and you should provision your “ laager ” for a determined
and protracted onset. What was really done by these departures
from the law was to put into the hands of the “opponents” an
ugly, two-edged, jagged weapon, which they were safe to grasp
with firmness and to wield with skill and strength.

Had Mr. Bunting confined himself to this newly-heard-of
and ephemeral function, there might have been less objection
to his appearance in the District Meeting. But, by the state-:
ments on both sides, he not only spoke and voted as of equal

KF 2
68 Hisrory oF METHODISM.

right with the parties authorised by the law, but he took the
principal part both in discussion and decision. His son records:
“ Doubtless it was he who guided the deliberations and decisions
of the Special District Meeting.” (“ Life of Dr. Bunting.’’) This the
dissentients did not look on as fair play. They complained that
the most potent factor in the court which had condemned them
was one the legitimacy and constitutionality of whose membership
of the court the constituting law was ignorant.

Once allowed a seat in the Assembly Mr. Bunting was sure to
take the lead. Of a grand and lofty character, with a simple-
minded and dominant enthusiasm for the consolidation and exten-
sion of original Methodism, he had yet, like other mighty men,
the besetting weakness of his enormous strength. And to adapt
a fine figure from Mrs. Browning: “ What wonder if the athlete,
crowned for conquest, should show upon his laurelled locks the
dust of the arena.” His weakness, in his own nomenclature, was
‘‘impetuosity,” and in his son’s was “ masterfulness.” (‘Life of
Dr. Bunting.’’)

The condemned party found fault with his language and
his gestures, in his keen cross-questionings and judicial charges.
It seems a curious fact that when he was a third time President,
nine years later, and felt his need of counsel in piloting the
Connexion through the boisterous after-swell of the Warrenite
cyclone, he utterly forgot the principle acted on when he himself
was Secretary, that “the official adviser of the President” was
the Secretary of the Conference. He said, “I wish for a Com-
muttee of Advice, which I pre-eminently need. I hope that no
case will occur which I shall not be prepared to meet. Time was
when I could have taken the Grand Turk by the beard.” He
himself proposed the members of the Committee. It consisted
of four ex-Presidents, with the Editor, and several others, but
the poor Secretary of the Conference, sitting at his elbow,
though no less a man than Robert Newton, was left out in the
unkindly cold.

Mr. T. P. Bunting says :—‘I do not believe that in his latest
days the Secretary (Mr. Bunting) would have cared to argue
the point of the constitutionality of making the Secretary of
the Conference an integral member of a judicial court, in the
capacity of official adviser of the President.” (Life of Dr.
Bunting.”) It is clear that in his later days he would not
have attempted to defend it. The President of the Conference
is himself the official adviser of Chairmen of Districts who need
THE Leeps CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES, 69

his counsel, and of other ministers when chairmen are at fault.
When the Conference intends its Secretary to be a member of
any committee, court, or commission, he is named in the
resolution which constitutes the court.

The speakers in Conference who disapproved of the treatment
of “ the Leeds Case” objected to the want of strict and sensitive
adherence to the law, on the part of its too eager and impetuous
administrators, and the not maintaining constantly the gentle and
pacific spirit of “the Leeds Regulations” and the other docu-
ments which form our written constitution. These all breathed
the principles of New Testament administration. ‘Let us
follow after things which make for peace, and things whereby we
may edify one another.” ‘“ Overthrow not for meat the work of
God.” (Rom. xiv. 19, 20.) For “ meat” read mzszc.

The objection that the Superintendent of a Liverpool Circuit
could with no show of fairness be reckoned amongst three of the
nearest Superintendents, has been recently pronounced “a verbal
quibble.” (‘London Quarterly.”) But no such ground as that
either was or could be taken at the time. To get from Liver-
pool to Leeds two of the largest and most circuit-crowded districts
in the kingdom had to be passed over, the Halifax, Bradford, and
Huddersfield District and the Manchester District, besides part of
the Liverpool District itself. And seventy years ago as to mere
time, a journey by the maz/ from Liverpool to Leeds and back
took full four and a half times as many hours as a journey from
London to Leeds and back takes now. And the risk and dis-
comfort in the former case were incalculably greater still. But
such violent dealing with language was never thought of then.
Mr. Grindrod’s plea for the liberty he had taken with the law was
that he had assumed the limitation of the range of his selection,
therein plainly made, to be an economical consideration, and
had met that by meeting the expenses of the three far-fetched
ministers from private sources.

But a member of the Conference who had thrice been President
and was one of the drawers up of the law itself, assured the
Conference that financial considerations formed the very smallest
part of the reason for the restriction ; that the real object was to
preclude the very thing which the neglect of the restriction
brought to pass, namely, the choosing of men who were most
likely to side with the Superintendent. There could be no fair
and valid reason for disregarding both the wording and the
purpose of the law by going beyond the four contiguous distracts
70 History or MErHopDISM.

in search of three of the nearest Superintendents as co-assessors in
the Special District Meeting. Hard by, at Halifax, was Theophilus
Lessey, who was chosen President in the centenary year 1839, and
the nearest Superintendents in the Halifax, Bradford, and Hudders-
field, the York, the Sheffield, and the Hull Districts, were just the
sort of men for such a court—trusty, kindly, and experienced.
Another aggravation of this deplorable division was the
infusion into it of the political element. There is no need
whatever to discuss the indignant repudiation of this by the
political ““Noncons.,” in order to promote the principles of any
political by-ends, in the ear/zer stages of the opposition. But
after the decision of the Conference to disregard the non-sanction
of the District Meeting, and the resolute refusal of the
Superintendent to mediate between the triumphant trustees
and the discomfited leaders and local preachers, the affair soon
drifted hopelessly amongst the seething shallows and booming
breakers of political hypothesis and of bitter party aims. This
was the natural and the inevitable sequence of making the Leeds
Mercury and another deeply coloured newspaper the organs of
the agitation. The Zeeds Mercury had long been the most
popular and effective mouthpiece of advanced Yorkshire
Liberalism, and it made capital in more respects than one out of
the Methodist disturbances. Mr. Baines most unfairly weighed
the merits of the case in a Congregationalist balance, and seized
the opportunity of discrediting Connexionalism. The political
warp which was thus given to the movement soon became con-
spicuous. The testimony of the Rev. Thomas Galland, M.A., on
this point is conclusive. Of all the Methodist preachers, he was
at once the richest and most Radical. He told the Conference
that he had been brought up and nurtured in the most advanced
school of Liberalism, but that if anything could have cured him
of his congenital and hereditary Liberalism, the manifesta-
tions of Methodist Liberalism which he had felt and seen in
Leeds would have accomplished that therapeutic triumph.
The fact is, they had touched him upon his tenderest point.
Benevolent, kind-hearted, and tremblingly alive all over with
popular and philanthropic sympathy, he was unable to doff the
scholar and the gentleman. They had branded him as “ tax-
gatherer ” because, like the other ministers, he entered in the
class-books the money given at the visitation for the renewal of
the tickets, and took his share with the brethren in collecting
the subscriptions to the Connexional funds, J can bear my
THE LeEDS CASE AnD iTs SEQUENCES. 71

testimony, however, that this genial, godly minister was never
cured of either Whiggery or waggery, but retained both in
fullest force to the very end of life.

When the seceders started a denominational magazine of
their own, the political germs embedded in their minds burst
forth with tropical luxuriance. Mr. Hammett, an American
Methodist minister, was present at the Conference of 1829, and
heard the discussions on the subject. It must be remembered
that the Leeds secessionists at first assumed the name of Non-
conformist Methodists, and were hence popularly known as
“Noncons.” But they soon changed it for that of Protestant
Methodists, which they borrowed from a singularly con-
temporaneous schism in the Methodist Episcopal Church.
Mr. Hammett told the Conference that on reading the English
Protestant Methodist Magazine, he found that the Leeds
dissentients had assumed, along with the name, the animating
principle of their transatlantic namesakes. This he declared to
be “intensely political: the spirit of Radicalism.” He gave
a detailed and highly interesting account of the American
secession.

According to the authorised returns, the loss of members ot
the society in the town of Leeds alone was 1,040. (“ Smith's
Methodism,” p. 123.) In Yeadon the depletion was proportion-
ately much more serious. The seceders were strong enough to
build a chapel almost half as large again as the chapel they had
left, and with a more imposing frontage and a better situation ;
indeed, until the present Wesleyan Methodist Chapel was erected
the “ Noncon.” Chapel was the most distinguished-looking public
building in the place. In Barnsley the “ Noncon.” seceders
numbered 240, with eleven local preachers and seven leaders ;
in Halifax, 200; in Preston, 200, with its most popular local
preachers; York, 39, including one of the oldest and most
influential families in the city. These statistics were reported to
the Conference by the Superintendents of the respective circuits.
But many other circuits were, on the like authority, described as
being rescued from disruption only by cautious and conciliatory
administration. From the north bank of the Tyne to the south
bank of the Thames the societies were shaken with a perilous
excitement.

And this was not the end of the affair. The discussion of the
Leeds Case in so many great Connexional centres, and the resolu-
tions on the subject printed in the Minutes of the Conference,
42 fiistory or MeruHonpism,

were found to have started questions much more readily raised
than laid to rest. This was made apparent by a startling after-
clap, which burst upon the Conference in Leeds in 1830, in the
form of an address, memorial, or remonstrance from the Second
London Circuit (Queen Street), which even Reece and Atherton
had not been able to keep back. It complained of the Leeds
affair, and protested against the mode of dealing with that matter
being made, as it had been in the Minutes of Conference for °
1829, an interpreting precedent for dealing with all future cases
of the kind.

It is impossible not to wonder how it is to be accounted for
that such unprecedentedly strong, and in some points constitution-
ally unwarranted and “exasperating” measures were resorted to
in dealing with the Leeds objectors to an organ. The way they
themselves accounted for it was this: It was well known that Mr
Bunting had said in Conference, ‘The Yorkshire Methodists,
with all their excellencies, need teaching a lesson.” “This, then,”
they said, ‘is the lesson Jabez Bunting thinks we need.” Now
a Yorkshire Methodist is not unteachable if he be properly
approached, but “the men” of Leeds have a strong objection to
be taught as Gideon taught the men of Succoth, “ with thorns of
the wilderness and briars.” (Judges viii.16.) But another question
now arises. How did Mr. Bunting come by the impression that
the Yorkshire Methodists were in need of such stern schooling ?
Nowhere had his ‘preaching been so appreciated and effective as
in his three Yorkshire Circuits—Sheffield, Halifax, and Leeds.
Nowhere had Mr. Bunting been more successful as a soul winner
than at Leeds; some of the foremost Methodists, such as Mr.
Richard Oastler and Mr. Burton, of Roundhay, had been con-
verted by his preaching. The best judges who sat under his
ministry at Leeds describe his Sunday night appeals and closing
prayers as simply overwhelming. Nowhere had he been so
popular. Nowhere was the personality of Jabez Bunting sur-
rounded by such a glowing nimbus as in Leeds. Whence, then,
did he derive his deep impression, so pronouncedly avowed and
so sternly acted on, that Leeds Methodism was in special need of
lessoning? I can only find one clue to this. So early as the year
1803, when the great Revivalist, William Bramwell, was stationed
in Leeds, he unfortunately became the nucleus and the head of
an ungovernable Revivalist party in the circuit, who insisted
on having the plan-making and the arrangements for and of
public worship adjusted to their own notions. The judgment of
THe LEEDS CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. 73

the Superintendent and his other colleagues—such presidential
men as John Barber and Richard Reece—were to be subjected to
the will of Bramwell and a couple of domineering Leaders.
Barber and Reece were both out-and-out soul-saving Methodist
preachers, but they saw clearly whereunto this sort of thing must
grow unless it could be kept in check. Reece wrote to Lomas:
“Tf a Revivalist must be supported by one preacher and two
leaders in opposition to three preachers and fifty leaders,
when he tramples the rules of our society under his feet, and
that merely because he is a ‘ Revivalist,’ Revivalism will be the
ruin of Methodism.” The responsibility of the Superintendent
was set at nought, and an zmperium in imperio established
as a sort of rule of the saints, who were above the ordinary
rule. When Bramwell left the circuit the captaincy of this
assumptive, and sometimes agitating band, devolved upon Mr.
Sigston, and when Mr. Bunting was stationed in the circuit,
though not being Superintendent, he never came into direct
collision with them, yet their pretensions and loose-endedness
were most irritating to his sense of order and of pastoral
supremacy, especially those of Mr. Sigston, whose pedagogic
airs and theologic crudities were intensely distasteful to the
mind of Mr. Bunting.

The same party was striving for the mastery in Sheffield,
under men of equal social prominence, where Bramwell had also
laboured, and at Halifax in a less obtrusive form.

So when the organ question started up Mr. Bunting felt :
Now is the time for teaching Yorkshire Methodists the lesson of
submission they so much need. Thus Leeds had the dire mis-
fortune of being chosen as the battle-field between pastoral
supremacy and popular revivalism. The trustees succeeded in
persuading the most influential ministers that the opposition to
the organ was a factious obstruction which ought to be put down.
Hence the summary setting aside by Conference of the Con-
nexional law of organs. Hence, too, the determination not to
conciliate the antagonists. Hence the resort to the extreme and
perilous expedient of “The Special District Meeting,” the
speciality of which should be sacredly conserved. Hence the
introduction of unauthorised elements into the composition of
the Court, especially of the most indomitable will and the most
irresistible tongue in the whole Connexion. Hence the practical
oblivion—so far as can be made out by the accounts on both sides,
and by the Conference discussions on the subject—of the primary
74 : History oF Merruopism.

purpose of the Special District Meeting, namely : “ the settlement
of disputes.” It was originally constituted much more as a court
of arbitration and conciliation and pacification, than as a court of
judicature.

Hence, above all, the view which Mr. Bunting took of the affair
from the beginning, and which from the Chair of the Conference
he avowed to have been his working hypothesis throughout,
namely: that it was ‘‘an insurrection against the pastoral office.”
On this ground he justified the admittedly excessive dealing with
the case, the chief responsibility for which he so honestly and
manfully took upon himself. But that it only became such at a
very advanced and aggravated stage of the contention is absolutely
clear. At the first, the ministers, leaders, and local preachers
were in perfect harmony. Their appeal to the District Meeting,
composed wholly of ministers, was precisely what the law ordained.
It is only fair to remember that it was the organ party, not the
anti-organists, who took the initiative in disregarding law. Now
it is not unlikely that Mr. Sigston and. his immediate following
were not indisposed to a conflict with the Conference, but they
had been kept in check for twenty years, and with the great mass
of the objectors it was not so. To forthwith regard a movement
as an insurrection against the pastoral office is the surest and the
quickest way to make it such,

It is an interesting fact that the very first debate which proved
the voice of Jabez Bunting to be a potent voice in Conference
was that upon the innovation of introducing an organ into a
Methodist Chapel in Liverpool. He took the side of the organ in
the face of a powerful opposition. It is also to be noted that the
question had first been discussed in the Quarterly Meeting with
the result of a majority against the organ.

On the opening of the Conference of 1829 Mr. Bunting
raised himself greatly in the estimate of his brethren by showing
that he was not incapable of confessing himself to have been in
the wrong. He evidently expected some reservation in the vote
of thanks to him as the retiring President, so when an unmodified
and unanimous vote of thanks was passed he said :—

“I feel perfectly at a loss for words to express my gratitude ; I did not
discharge my duties at the last Conference as I know I ought to have done,
If I have given unnecessary pain last Conference, I am sorry. I am not what
I ought to be; but such as I am, I am in body, soul, and spirit, a Methodist
and a Methodist Preacher, the grateful servant of the Conference. I cannot
trust myself to tell my grateful regards for this vote,”
Tak Leeps CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. 75

Everybody knew how true this was, and that the only
possible reference of his confession was to his unfortunate habit
of saying ‘bitter things” and of side-taking in the Chair and
sinking the President in the pleader, the Moderator in the
advocate. This speech won upon the brethren greatly.

The Leeds Case continued to agitate the Connexion during
the whole of Mr. Bunting’s second Presidency (1828-29), and
formed the chief subject of discussion in the Conference of the
latter year. A number of addresses to the Conference, which
were in reality what Mr. Entwisle called them, ‘“ remonstrances”
against the action of the Conference of 1828 with regard to the
dispute at Leeds, were received by that body from several of our
largest and most influential societies. The first to be considered
was that from the circuit in whose principal chapel the Conference
was being held, the powerful Methodist Society of Sheffield.

The Quarterly Meeting of that society, in bluntest Yorkshire
fashion, complained of the decision as unconstitutional! and

unfair.

Mr. Henshaw, Superintendent of the Circuit and Chairman of the District,
a man of considerable culture, said: ‘‘ When I came into the Circuit I found
it (1828) in a state of great excitement, and the majority.in an agitated state,
requiring kindness, prudence, and conciliation in order to produce love and harmony.
But the town was flooded with pamphlets opposed to the decision of Con-
ference. By an act of authority I dissolved the Quarterly Meeting, as I
objected to its discussion of the Leeds affairs. At a subsequent meeting they
expressed their fears that the rules of pacification were to be swept away.”

Mr. Bridgeman, another Sheffield minister, said: ‘‘I would inquire if
a member of a Quarterly Meeting thinks that the ‘ Rules of Pacification’'
have been violated, he has not a right to express it ?"’

Mr. Bunting: “ Yes, certainly, in his own Circuit.”’

The next remonstrance read was the ‘' Resolutions of the Southwark
Quarterly Meeting.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘'The Southwark Resolutions are of such a character that
what we have to do on the case is—to know whether the brethren (ministers)
have done what they could to prevent the meetings.”

Mr. Treffry, the Superintendent of the Circuit, said: ‘‘ Great dissensions
prevailed in the Circuit about the decision of the Conference on the Leeds
Case. At the Quarterly Meeting great preparations were made to deal one
decisive blow. The Minute of Conference was called for. Mr. Farmer read
it. Mr. Spicer read a reply to the Conference letter. Mr. (Dr.) Dixon spoke
with most gracious effect. To divert the stream of discussion, Mr. Farmer
said: ‘I will give £50 to meet the requirements of the Circuit if we may go
on with our regular business.’ I told the meeting I had rather five hundred
members were lost to the Circuit than that document should go forth. The
ground of the remonstrance was that ‘Conference had maligned them and
they had no other way of redress open.’ At the beginning of the year not
76 History or Meruopism.

five persons in the Circuit would vindicate the Conference, and now not
twenty speak against it.”

Mr. McNicoll said: ‘‘ We had differed in our modus of settling matters.
They knew we were somewhat divided in our manner. They noted our silence
—on my part hopelessness of success. At the Leaders’ Meeting, when the
question was introduced, I told them that the matter had no business there,
I seized the opportunity of going to prayer and was reproved for so doing. 1
was sorry that Mr. Dixon had not spoken earlier, as he was so eloquent, and
had some influence on that body. _I felt a difficulty of saying a word even to
a junior. We should be careful to move men out of office as soon as possible,
lest it generate in the rank and rampant passions of tyrants and Radicals
together. We should not feed those passions, but tame them. Grant one
concession, and half a dozen others must follow, for they are all pending
together. I have been blamed for not publishing, but I had ploughed with
that heifer before. I published some time ago and lost. I think that Mr.
Watson's reply was too lofty for them and too stilted.”

Mr. Dixon: “I crave a candid hearing. My appointment to Southwark is
among the misfortunes of my life. Had I foreseen the events, no considera-
tion could have moved me to go. I had met with the (Southwark) Address,
and read it with care, and it had made a deeper impression on my mind than
anything I had previously read. I wrote to Grindrod, Watson, and Atherton,
to ask whether I could consent to go to the Southwark Circuit, and left myself
in theirhands. If I ought to go, I would go. I found the difficulties perfectly
appalling to anyone. I expected a division. It laid a weight upon my soul. I
went to the Quarterly Meeting with fear and prayer. The Quarterly Meeting
was such aw scene as I had never witnessed. It lasted from 6 to 12. We
ministers consulted together what steps to take. I advised to lie upon our
oars and stem the torrent and make an impression, until the time for action
came. The speech I made has not been represented in a right light as ‘ milk
and water.’ I will myself state my views. Treat me frankly, and I will
treat you so too. Mr. McNicoll seems to attach importance to our not
echoing the denunciation of the resolutions. I will not condescend to
touch them. The next thing in the history of our affairs is the signing of
the resolutions. I did not know of the meeting which Mr. Treffry held
with some persons. The great majority (of those who signed) are not
wicked men, I am fond of our laws, but I think it requires a degree of
caution to put their principles into effect. I would take the Gospel in
preference to the law. I acted upon the principle of forbearance. I was not
the Superintendent, nor the Second Preacher. Mr. McNicoll should have
delivered his speech before mine and taken the ear of the meeting, which
disputed for hours, but did not know what it was disputing about. I did
not make one reference to one of the great constitutional questions mooted
in the Address. We had countless speeches, but could never get at what we
were squabbling about. It was nothing but beating the air. I wished we could
get hold of anything that Mr. McNicoll might shake to pieces. Their passions
were excited. We ministers on many occasions sat like fools. At length I
said, ‘Wecan stand it no more. Our forbearance has done good, but we
shall bear it no longer.’ Mr. Treffry said he would hear no more against the
Conference. I said: ‘Let them say what they please, I will become
the champion of the Conference.’ I never dissuaded Mr, Treffry from
THE LEEDS CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. 17

advising with others, but said I did not see the use of it. I said:
‘Let us do our best and leave ourselves to truth and to Conference,
and mind the sentiment of Scott: ‘I dare not do this or that, I am
above or below it.’ I believe the Southwark Address is schism—a breach
of piety, and love, and honour. I believe our people (in Southwark) have
broken the common, if not the statute law. As to the effect of the proceed-
ings our real enemies are separated from the great body of our people, who
talk as if they had nothing to do with the matter. They are tired and dis-
gusted with it. Ata late Leaders’ Meeting in Southwark one began about
something as usual, but the Radicals were opposed by your friends, who
drove them into a corner. Another practical consequence is that it has led to
the making the South London Circuit into two circuits. Thus the neck of the
evil is broken. It is quite practicable for any preacher to govern either of
them. But I think we should mix up as little of Brother Slater’s rhetoric as
possible. I, for one, tell you I shall never shrink from the part I took in the
business. The principles upon which it was grounded are my Methodist
polities. I will repeat what Lord Grey said: ‘I will stand or fall by my
own order.’”

This deliverance is all the more interesting as being the
first recorded speech which Dr. Dixon ever made in Con-
ference. It is highly characteristic, and it sets forth the
principles on which he acted in all subsequent and still more
terrible disturbances. His principles were his policy. His
guiding rule was simply this: “I am fond of our laws, but
think it requires some degree of caution to put their prin-
ciples into effect.” His policy was throughout “the policy of
forbearance.” Yet he was throughout faithful to the pastoral
brotherhood.

Mr. McNicoll said: ‘‘They said ‘Mr. Dixon was a mild man, but I was
the highest little man they had ever seen.’ It is a well-known law as to the
passions—' If you wish to allay them, you must not give way to them.’ If
the Conference has done wrong, do not say so. For a father to say to his
child, ‘I have done wrong,’ shatters the foundation of all paternity, You
lose all your dignified character by so saying."

This is a hard saying, yet it is but fair to say that Mr.
MeNicoll’s own children turned out charmingly, and were
a grace and honour to their name. I knew them all well.
Parental over-strictness is very bad,. but over-laxity is worse.
The President, however, felt it necessary to ‘‘hope that
no one would go and misrepresent what Mr. McNicoll had
said.” The worst misrepresentation evidently being representing
him as having seriously meant what he said.

Mr. Bunting: “I think it would have been well in the Southwark
ministers to have consulted other brethren — their neighbour’s house
78 fAlistoryY oF METHODISM.

was in flames, and their own dwelling was in danger. I wish my re-
marks to be noted, not as reflecting on the past, but to guard the future.
I am not sure that there was a strong and unambiguous statement
of our Rules. If a lamb were in the paw of a lion, it would not be quite
so quiescent. It would have heard the shepherd’s voice, and sprung out
of the paw. And now with respect to S——, that determined agent of mis-
chief, they should have administered a solemn rebuke to the man. I am not
certain that they ought not to have brought him before the Leaders’ Meeting
and exercised judgment. I would have declined giving him the Lord’s Supper
for a month; for who can say I must ask leave to do this? Perhaps the
limb was too mortified to be amputated. I think the man who called that
meeting in a coffee-house should be subjected to proper discipline, I think it
would have been better not to have heard the Resolutions in the (Quarterly)
Meeting; better not to have appeared in this meeting.”

Mr. ex-President Stephens: ‘‘ Everybody knows that South London is a
fruitful ground for Methodism, We have heard of the good effects of for-
bearance ; but what of its injurious effects? A trustee told me that the seat-
rents at Southwark Chapel had fallen off at least £50 a year,”

Mr. Atherton said: “If the City Road congregation (where ex-President
Stephens was Superintendent) were to go back next year as it has the last
year or two, it would come to nothing at all.”

Mr. Dixon “thought they would not lose a dozen in consequence of the
disputes in South London, and in respect to the congregation he saw no de-
clension. To take an entire view of the case, we should look at what results
would have followed from a different mode of conduct—certainly a disruption,
if not something worse,”

Mr. Marsden: ‘I have calmly and deliberately looked at this business;
was present at the close; saw nothing to induce me to think that our people
had been injured."

Mr. Bunting rose to order: ‘That was not said."

Mr. Marsden resumed: “ We must use caution with respect to the
Separatists.””

Mr. Reece: ‘Some attempts were made in our own Quarterly Meeting
(London, Great Queen Street), but we have kept our circuit in harmony
and prosperity. In regard to the conduct of the brethren in South London, I
believe they have behaved with great discretion in the management of the
agitation. If they had not behaved with forbearance, there would have been
a division. I think that the spirit and principles of the (Southwark) reso-
lutions could not be too strongly condemned; but I approve the conduct of
the brethren in the Circuit.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘(I have a great admiration of Mr. Treffry and his
colleagues. I am not about to express any very decided opinion—at least,
dogmatically ; I think, however, they have gone too much on a principle of
expediency. There are some points, however, on which, perhaps, they are
not to be censured. As to the rule about inviting the Chairman of the
District, it would not have dishonoured them to have invited Mr. Reece. I
think there is another point to be learnt: we have no cause to regret the
decision of the last Conference. How many are the memorials? One
from Sheffield, about ‘three of the nearest Superintendents.’ This is a
very impudent address. Maybe Mr. Bridgeman has not taught them good
THe Leeps CASE AnD ITS SEQUENCES. 79

breeding, maybe he has not taught them rhetoric. Then there is an address
from Liverpool and one from Barnsley. We have had but very partial
opposition to the decision. I cannot go on Mr. MecNicoll's principle. If
men have done wrong, I should think it a proper, dignified way to
acknowledge it. But our firmness was a very great blessing to the Con-
nexion. I do think that a short Minute should be printed, that we stand to
the resolutions of last Conference. Let it be as kind as possible, but as
firm as possible. As to the Rochdale people, tell them as dear brethren, God
laves them, and we love them for their souls’ sake. Commend them to the
prayers of Messrs. Slack, etc.; they should expect no letter, nor Liverpool
either. Their memorials are non-regular, and cannot be answered at all,
whether we be in humour or out of humour, whether we have leisure or
have it not.”

A committee was appointed, with Watson as its chair-
man, to consider what should be done with the memorials
which had been talked about. It recommended that the loyal
memorials from Liverpool South and Barnsley should receive
a respectful reply. A verbal reply only should be given to
those which did not come through the Quarterly Meetings,
but a letter should be sent to Sheffield and Rochdale.

Mr. Moore ‘wished the letter could be so written as to show our
superiority in love, especially to those who had written in a good spirit.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘ The Sheffield address was arrogant and presumptuous.’

Mr. Scott objected to taking a verbal message to Liverpool North.

Mr. Bunting ‘thought if the Chairman of the District should name it
in the Quarterly Meeting it would be sufficient."

The President said ‘he would put it to the Conference whether they
would rescind the rule not to receive unconstitutional addresses.”

A very few seceded from the Southwark Circuit. One
family, however, have become standard bearers in Metropolitan
Independency, and right worthy men they are, to my own
knowledge and that of many a London Methodist. And surely
it was much wiser and much nicer and better for all concerned,
that they should join the Christian body with whom they
were most nearly in agreement, than to persistently disturb and
disunite a confraternity of churches with whose system of govern-
ment they were so little in accord.

The like “policy of forbearance” triumphed gloriously in
London West (Great Queen Street), under Richard Reece, and
in London East, under Henry Moore ; but in London North (City
Road), with its five first-class Ministers, the congregation had so
dwindled that its case had to be made matter of anxious con-
sideration by the Conference: The chief champions of this
pacific policy in Conference were Moore, Reece, Watson, Naylor,
80 History oF METHODISM.

Sutcliffe, Pilter, Joseph Taylor (who had kept quiet the elements
of discord in the London Hinde Street Circuit), Isaac, Henshaw,
Bridgeman, Treffry, Dixon, Atherton, and Jacob Stanley,
Mr. Naylor said that the subject had been introduced at the
September Quarterly Meeting in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but he
had since persuaded them to defer the consideration of it till the
next June Quarterly Meeting, inasmuch as Conference would not
meet before July, and it was useless to discuss and draw up an
important document in September to lie idle among the papers
of the Secretary of the meeting. There were most important
Circuit interests pressing for attention, and they surely had the
first claim. Meanwhile the members of the meeting might gain
fresh light on the subject, and in any case, would be in a calmer
state of mind and more fitted to look dispassionately at the case
in its true light and on its solid merits. Things turned out in
accordance with Mr. Naylor’s happy forecast. The Methodists
of canny Newcastle thought there might be ‘‘ something in that,”
so they set to work evangelising the population “in the mean-
time,” and by June quarter day “the winter of their discontent
was made glorious summer” by a revival of the work of God, and
they found something else to talk about and sing about and pray
about. Brother Naylor had hit the right nail on the head.

The Rev. John Scott presented the address from the
Liverpool North Circuit remonstrating against the decision of
the last Conference with regard to Leeds. To prevent the
discussion of the matter in the regular Quarterly Meeting, he
had called a special meeting of the office-bearers of the circuit
for that purpose. He said, “I told them all along I could not
put the question. At the close, Dr. Rowland turned up his
eyes in great wonderment and said I had taken them by surprise.
Some may object to my having refused to allow the discussion of
this matter in the regular Quarterly Meeting. I much doubt
the constitutionality of irresponsible men mooting questions of
this sort in meetings containing a Steward, because he is
changeable. I think the Conference the proper place for dis-
cussing questions of legislation; I think no father in the
Conference will think I could put these resolutions. I chose to
act as I have done on my own responsibility.”

A memorial or “Address” from the Rochdale Quarterly
Meeting, which contained a quotation from Hooker, occa-
sioned an animated and most interesting discussion ‘on Wes-
leyan Methodist Church Principles.
THE LEEDS CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. 81

The Superintendent, B. Slater, stated that before this dispute arose the
circuit was in a highly prosperous condition ; heavy debts had been paid off,
and the stipend of the ministers raised to an exceptionally high figure. He
had published a pamphlet confuting those of the dissentients, but without
effect. He had done his best. His colleague, Samuel Dunn, had said if that
did not overwhelm the whole, he did not know what would. He had an
impression on his mind that the opposers of Conference were open to friendly
remark, but found that this only applied to financial points. ‘I think,” he said,
“Thad a majority, but some who are not in the habit of attending the Quarterly
Meeting voted for the Address, and we had a slight majority against us.”

Then came Samuel Dunn’s first speech made in Conference.

Mr. Fowler writes :—‘' Dunn spoke admirably. He says he is an admirer
of our constitution, but that some of the supporters of the Rochdale Address
are amongst our warmest friends. All is plain and amiable. They have
committed one mistake, but are all in good temper, and never allow any man

in any meeting to discover any bad temper.”
Mr. Pilter said he could confirm this, and testified to the amiableness

of the persons alluded to, and gave a remarkable instance of the generosity of

one of them. .
Mr. Bunting : “It was an odd thing that Mr. Slater should suppose for

one moment that the judicial acts of Conference should come under the con-
sideration of a Quarterly Meeting. Are we to have one great trial and then
320 others? Ithink that some decision as to what may or may not be put

should be come to,”’ ;
Mr. Scott thought “ that something should be said in the Minutes to justify

the conduct of those who had refused to allow discussion in the Quarterly

Meeting.”
Mr. Joseph Taylor doubted whether the plan suggested by Mr. Scott, etc.,

would be of any service. He thought that Mr. Scott had done all that was
practicable in Liverpool, and Mr. Slater had described the good feeling of
Rochdale. He thought that anything inserted in the Minutes might awaken
angry feeling. The preachers in their circuits could do all that was

necessary.
Mr. Newton was against publishing anything in the Minutes.

I. The Remonstrants maintained that by Methodist law,
the admissibility of the application for an organ was conditional
upon the sanction of the District Meeting. Yet not only had
some of the Brunswick trustees been allowed to make direct
application to Conference, as if the Organ Law of 1820 had never
been passed, but their application had been granted against the
earnest advice of the ministers, the leaders, and the local preachers
of the circuit. They held that by this action the Conference had
nullified the existing Organ Law, and acted upon an expressly

superseded regulation. er
II. They complained that the rule in the Plan of Pacification

G
82 History or Meruovism.

which defines and determines the composition of the judicial
court called the Special District Meeting had been departed from,
both by substitution and by the addition of unauthorised elements.
The law expressly limited the choice of the chairman. Yet so
far from keeping within the limits of the law, he had not even
confined himself to the ample range of the five contiguous York-
shire Districts, Halifax, Bradford, York, Sheffield, and Hull, which
were as rich in trusty and experienced Superintendents as any
part of the Connexion. Circuits, and therefore Superintendents,
were more thick upon the ground there than in any other part of
the Connexion. Yet not one of the three was taken from any one
of the conterminous districts, but men more to his mind were
fetched from further afield. In no admissible license of language,
they maintained, could the Liverpool Superintendent be reckoned
amongst the nearest Superintendents when, on his way to Leeds,
he must pass through many circuit towns with most competent
Superintendents.

III. They complained that the President as well as the Chair-
man had taken an unwarrantable liberty with the constitution of
the Special District Meeting by bringing into it a predominating
factor altogether unwarranted by the Constitution.

Mr. Isaac thought that we must act with great calmness, and affection, and
firmness. The admission of members belongs to the ministers. Never did
the Apostles ask if they might baptise. Our rules provide a great number of
checks against the undue exercise of this power. He thought it might be pre-
sumption in him to speak, but if we could get into the way of viewing our
power in a more Scriptural light it would be well. He maintained that the
true Methodist minister combines the functions of the evangelist, the teacher,
and the overseer, and that spreading the Gospel is as essential to the fulfilment
of our commission as are teaching and ruling. He held that the Apostles
were “itinerant,” and that “the work of an evangelist" formed a large and
an essential part of the duty and the dignity of such men as Timothy and Titus,
and also of the Methodist ministers. ‘‘ Unhappily,” he said, “the primitive
order has been inverted in the course of church history, and the governing
side of the pastoral office has usurped precedence of the evangelising and
teaching side.”

Mr. Isaac's speech went to the very core of the Providential
Mission of Methodism.

Mr. Bunting was happy to agree with Mr. Isaac to a considerable extent,
Dr. Bunting’s points were, that ‘so long as the rightful authority of the
Pastorate is secured, all other ecclesiastical arrangements are mainly matters
of discretion.” He strongly maintained, however, that ‘no part of the pastoral
authority is committed to the Class Leaders," Mr. Moore said: “We are
THe Lerps CASE AND 1TS SEQUENCES. 83

movable ministers. I can never allow Methodism to be voted away. We
must not go against our own rules, even to break up a nest of hornets. I
think we are evangelists, and come nearer to that than any other office.”

Dr. Bunting ‘thinks all churches have power to adapt their govern-
ment. Mr. Wesley did exercise virtually an apostolic government, but it is
not necessary for us to do so. I do not think we can be proved to be
evangelists. Our proper office is pastors and teachers. Always conscientiously
refuse to make a man a class leader who desires to be one. No leader has
the government over his classes. I believe that we are teachers to instruct
and pastors to govern our people.” Mr. Isaac : ‘‘ With respect to leaders, who
will deny that they have the care of their classes?

Mr. Bunting replied: ‘‘I have an objection to applying the word pastors to
leaders: the Holy Ghost has seized upon the word, and as it were monofolised
the term. Weought not to employ it in an etymological, but in an ecclesiastical
sense.’ He referred to Mr. Bradburn in Liverpool disclaiming the pastoral
office, and he read a Minute from the Journals giving directions for the
conduct of Leaders’ Meetings. He alluded to a Resolution from the Quarterly
Meeting in Liverpool. He should strongly have objected to anything being
put to the vote relating to the Leeds matter. The meeting of friends which
Mr. Wood and Mr, Scott had called had been of service, but he should have
objected to them if anything had been put tothe vote. ‘‘ There must not come
a time when we are to hear all the nonsensical memorials which some two or
three queer individuals may get up in a meeting. Brother Slater has erred in
mistaking the law, and in thinking you could conquer the Radicals. He went
with them one mile, and the devil compelled him to go with them twain,
The Rochdale devil has conquered.”

Mr. Taylor ‘‘ deprecated the publishing of anything in the Minutes which
might serve to keep the subject still lingering before our people's mind, who
had had too much of it, and this would certainly be the result if one man’s
treatment of the difficulty in one circuit were expressly praised to the implied
disparagement of another man's treatment of the difficulty in another circuit.
Mr. Scott has done all that was practicable in Liverpool, and Mr. Slater had
brought Rochdale back to a state of good feeling. All that is necessary is for
each minister to do his best to keep the peace in his own circuit.”

The debate was here interrupted by the “ Stations.”

The necessity of the strongest possible appointment to the
London (City Road) Circuit in its depressed and declining state
was the subject of a very anxious and prolonged discussion,
introduced by an earnest petition from the Circuit Stewards. The
prevalent opinion was that Mr. Watson was the fittest man.

Mr. Watson: ‘‘ Being the subject of personal debate is very painful to
my feelings. I am the servant of the body. My strong prejudices are in
favour of Birmingham as a station of public usefulness, and I think it would

be wrong to interfere with my engagement.”
The President was proposed as suitable for the Superintendency of London

First, but he alleged his incompetency for the situation.
G2
84 Alistoryv or Merwopism.

Mr. Bunting: ‘Considering the connection between the North London
and Southwark, its claims are stronger than those of Birmingham. Never
has there been such an opposition by men in our Society as there is now in
London. Southwark is in actual rebellion." He spoke in favour of the
course pursued by the City Road preachers. ‘‘On public grounds Mr,
Watson ought to be appointed to London First."

Mr. Entwisle “ believed that the going to Birmingham instead of London
would add years to Mr. Watson's life.”’

‘After a very long debate,” as Mr. Jackson says (‘‘ Life of
Watson”), Mr. Fowler demanded a vote—the first that had ever
been taken in Conference on a question of stations. It was
announced from the Chair that London First had won the day
by one vote. Mr. Fowler was always of opinion that the re-
fusal to send Mr. Watson to Birmingham, in accordance with
the invitation which he had accepted, was for many years most
prejudicial to Methodism in Birmingham.

On the resumption of the debate on Memorials these Quar-
terly Meeting remonstrances were pronounced unpermissible on
the ground that the Quarterly Meeting has no constitutional
right to review the judicial acts of Conference, although its |
new legislative or regulative acts come within the rightful
cognisance of the Circuit Quarterly Meetings. This distinction
seems quite fair, and has, I believe, been acted on from that
day to this: a point well settled. But inasmuch as these
remonstrances referred to an alleged infringement of that Con-
nexional Bill of Rights, the Plan of Pacification with its admirable
outrider and completion—the Leeds Regulations of 1797—these
Quarterly Meeting addresses to the Conference were wisely not
denied a hearing.

The discussion was continued by Mr. H. Ranson, who, “ having a con-
viction that something might be done, had been induced to speak at Stockton
Quarterly Meeting. The question was introduced, and every man thought he
had a right to say what he pleased touching the resolution of Conference.
Because I refused to put a resolution some have declined attending the
Quarterly Meeting." The Liverpool South Circuit “pressed upon the
Conference a digest of our laws.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘They do not mean what Dr. Warren would have done,
but a book which would make that Jaw which is now usage, and that certain
which is now disputed. But the very first thing must be to define a Quarterly
Meeting, and this would be as dangerous as the proposal made in a parish
meeting for making a new Lord’s Prayer and mending the Ten Command-
ments.”
Tue Leevs Case Anp 1Ts SEQUENCES. 85

The entry in the published Minutes came under the head of
Discipline of the Connexion. The Conference announced “its
jixed resolution to uphold the Rules of the Plan of Pacification, as
explained by the action of the Special District Meeting at Leeds.”
But the addresses argued : The Special District Meeting at Leeds
was in its very composition “a violation of those very rules.”
“A violation of a constitutional document,” it was further
argued by one of the contracting parties, “‘ was pronounced to be
henceforth the authoritative explanation of that document, and
the ‘explanation’ is to over-ride the rule—thus the Plan of
Pacification becomes an irritating and divisive document.”

The contention of the London Methodists was that the
“explanation” of the discipline was in reality a change in that
discipline. They applied for the rescinding of the decision
on the Leeds Case as reported in the Minutes for 1828, and for
a printed declaration that the Leeds Special District Meeting in
1827 should not be taken as a precedent for any future Special
District Meeting.

The points raised are these : (1) What was “the very extra-
ordinary emergency” which rendered constitutional a court which
would otherwise have been admittedly unconstitutional? The
Special District Meeting, as defined by the Leeds Conference of
1797, was itself the constitutional provision for any such very
extraordinary emergencies, and was never to be resorted to but
in the case of such emergencies—namely for “settling disputes
amongst the members of the societies or between the preachers
and the people which cannot be settled in the ordinary District
Meeting.” Hence arose question (2) What constitutes the con-
stitutionality of any court or of any mode of procedure involving
the very membership of official and of private members? The
Articles of Pacification agreed to in 1795 and completed by the
Leeds Regulations of 1797 effected that adjustment of the mutual
rights and relations of the Methodist Preachers and the Methodist
people, rendered necessary by the death of Wesley, and had been
agreed to by both parties as a sacred settlement, not to be
“explained” into something diverse or divergent by either on
party or the other, but to be loyally adhered to by both parties a
the documentary constitution. It was mutually binding, but
if the temporary Chairman of a District and President of the
Conference might set this aside, of what use was it ?

Mr. Bunting said: ‘‘These loose memorials do not come into court with
clean hands; they have appealed unto Czsar ’’ (the public).
86 History oF MeruHovisnm.

Mr. Watson: “ One object in replying to the addresses is to tell Rochdale
that they did wrong in suffering these matters to come into the Quarterly
Meeting.”

Mr. Bunting: “If an answer be given to Rochdale, it must be a
rebuke.”

Mr. Newton “would either have an answer in writing or no answer
at all.”

It was agreed that the Chairman of the District (Mr.
Newton) should state to the (North) Liverpool Quarterly
Meeting the approbation of Conference of Mr. Scott’s conduct.

When Mr. Bunting’s resolution to the effect that the
Conference will maintain the rules of the Plan of Pacification,
“as explained by the action of the Special District Meeting
at Leeds,’ was carried, Mr. Bunting said: ‘‘Let it be known
that no man can vote for this who thinks that Special
District Meetings are contrary to our rule.”

.Mr. Bridgeman strongly objected to Mr. Bunting’s attempt to construe
objections to the Leeds Special District Meeting into objections to the Special
District Meeting as defined by the Plan of Pacification This was construed
into a reflection‘upon the action of the last Conference ; and he was called to
order. Mr. Moore took Bridgeman’s side.

Mr. Bunting ‘thought that it was competent to Mr. Bridgeman to move
that the acts of the last Conference be rescinded. But we were then proved
innocent, and it is unbecoming in Mr. Moore to mutter that we are ‘guilty.’
It is a judicial case, and the matter has been adjudged."

Mr. Bridgeman explained to the satisfaction of many of the brethren that
the only point on which he differed was the composition of the Special District
Meeting held in Leeds, not the exercise of the power to call the Special District
Meeting, as defined in the Leeds Regulations of 1797.

Mr. Dixon did ‘‘ not approve a resolution representing all who disapproved
it as actuated by factious motives. He thought it better to say nothing about
motives in legislative documents.”

Mr. J—— ‘would not eat with the men who signed the Southwark
document."

Mr, Moore ‘‘ had not crossed the Thames these two years. But he thought
that Mr. J.’s way was not the best way to put down wrong feeling.”

Mr. Dixon "' thought a body should avoid all altercation with its members.
He would not send any reply to letters which could not be answered without
inyolving this.” :

Mr. Watson ‘had no objection to soften down the reply to South London
Address.”

Mr. Jacob Stanley asked: ‘If any softening down could be made in the
phraseology, why should anyone object to it?”

Mr, Bunting said: ‘‘ There is a call for unanimity. Last year the South-
wark dissentients would not give up, but sent forth a document to the Con-
nexion, to all the world, which affixed as great a stigma as they could attach
THe Leevs Case and 17s SEQUENCES. 87

to our character. If they love it now, let them speak for it. It is their turn
to give up.”

Mr. Sutcliffe “had at the last Conference strongly objected to the treat-
ment of the Leeds Case, and had suffered for it.”

Messrs. Mason, Edmonson, Moore, Reece, and Newton
spoke highly of Mr. Sutcliffe’s character and services. Some
alteration was made in the phraseology of the Resolution.
Suitable men were selected to write the answers to the
Addresses. These were also read, amended, and adopted.

The smooth-penned Robert Wood drew up an answer to
the Sheffield Address, which, after all, was decided to be
answered. When read over, it was thought too long; but
Mr. Bunting thought it would answer the purpose. Mr.
Henshaw, the Superintendent, “would inquire if this reply
might be a subject of discussion at the Quarterly Meeting.”
Answer—“No, no”; but the subject is to come up again
to-morrow morning.

“The Leeds Case,” which had occupied the Conference of
1828 for a whole week, was allowed four days’ consideration
in the resolving and the discussing of the addresses and
the replies. These “ Addresses” were, as Dr. Dixon phrased
it, “requisitions,” “requirements after examination.” These
Remonstrances were on practical, tangible, and substantive
points. They were fundamentally the same as those of the
minority in Conference—an expression of regret that the
Organ Law of 1820 should have been enacted, if it had not
been intended to be acted on; and that the Conference had
disregarded its own rule as taken in its natural and straight-
forward sense, etc.

Some of the Addresses touched on Church Polity and Church
Principles, quoting Hooker as well as the “ Plan of Pacification ”
and the ‘‘ Minutes of Conference.” The most extreme of these
was the South London Manifesto, which, as Mr. McNicoll said,
“made a preposterous attempt to graft Congregationalism upon
Connexionalism.” The pacification of South London Methodism
was a signal triumph of the policy of love. The South Londoners
were fiercer than the men of Leeds. Their irregular meetings
were more defiant, and, as Richard Watson showed, the extremest
of the Leeds positions were not taken up until South London
had taken the initiative. Yet such was the benignant policy of
the course pursued by the Treffrys, father and son, and
88 Hrsrory oF METHODISM.

by the eloquent James Dixon, with the advice of Richard Reece
and Richard Watson, that only a literal’ handful of members—
five—were lost in South London, but more than a thousand in
Leeds! ‘

On the matter of /egality, the Address from the Quarterly
Meeting of the Liverpool South Circuit as explained, on
presenting it, by Mr. Newton, Secretary of the Conference and
Superintendent of the Memorialising Circuit, and by Dr. Bunting,
was shown to be of very great significance. It ‘‘ pressed on” the
Conference ‘a Digest of Rules to be printed as soon as possible.”
The reason of this urgency, and what they meant by a digest,
was—to enable them to reply, as they were now at a loss to do, to
the charges of illegality brought by the dissentients against the
treatment of the Leeds Case ; for example, by stating what it was
that made “the emergency” at Leeds so “very extraordinary”
as to render it ‘‘constitutional,” and the obliging a leader to
say, in writing or upon his word of honour, that he would vote
in one particular direction. They craved that all “ambiguity ”
which might prove a stumbling-block to loyal and leal-hearted
people, should be cleared out of the way, as Dr. Bunting put it,
“that that should be made certain, which is now disputed.”
Dr. Bunting counselled that the Conference ‘had better not
meddle with it, and thought he had said enough to show the
delicacy of the matter.”

So the Digest was not issued, and that which Dr. Bunting
said would have to be the first thing done—the definition of the
Quarterly Meeting-—-was not accomplished until 1852, after
the terrible convulsion of the Connexion, as a concession to a
mass of memorials to that intent.

As to the benightedness of our people at that time, on the
subject of their own rights and powers, Mr. T. P. Bunting says :
“Tt is almost amusing to note how ignorant these Leeds dis-
sentients were of their real rights.” (‘‘ Life of Bunting,” p. 594.)
He then shows how easily they might, by availing themselves of
their rights under the Plan of Pacification, have not only
outmoved the Superintendent, but ave moved him out of the
Circuit until Conference.

CONFERENCE OF 1830.

The Leeds Conference of 1830 met amidst political upheavals
and undulations, and amidst the mutterings of a still unhushed
THe Leips CASE anv ITs SEQUENCES. 89

-church-storm. The first act of the constituted Conference was
to move and prepare a loyal address to William IV., who had
ascended the throne a month before. The Wellington Cabinet
had resigned rather than entertain a measure for Parliamentary
Reform, and the country was in the throes of the General
Election on that contested issue. Yorkshire was the centre of
disturbance, for Henry Brougham was successfully contesting
Yorkshire and was canvassing Leeds during the Sessions of the
Conference.

A letter was read to Conference from Dr. Cook, of Paris,
which described with thrilling and instructive details the Revolu-
tion of the Barricades, “the glorious three days,” which lifted
Louis Philippe into the throne of France. Yet under the placid
and parental presidency of the benevolent George Morley, “ the
discussions of the Conference were particularly harmonious ;
the preachers were never more fully united in judgment and
affection.” (Smith, VIII., p. 148.) ‘The deliberations of this
Conference were distinguished by the great unanimity and
affection which prevailed throughout.” Yet some touchy ques-
tions had to be disposed'of. There was a very unusual number
of disciplinary cases, but happily not one expulsion, and but one
suspension for a year.

The most significant and interesting case was that of the
eloquent poet-preacher, Joshua Marsden, a veritable man of genius.
A charge of “ intemperate administration” was brought against this
popular and able brother. Presidential interference had been
‘required by friends at Northampton and invited by Mr. Marsden,
‘who was both Superintendent of the Circuit and Chairman of
the District. The President had met the preachers and the
parties concerned. The Superintendent ‘uttered violent in-
vectives, and very unjustifiable language was indulged in on
both sides.” They threatened to go to law. It was proposed
that Mr. Marsden should read from the pulpit an acknowledg-
ment that he had done wrong. This he did on the Sunday
evening. Mr. J. Marsden was heard in explanation.

He admitted that ‘‘he perhaps did wrong.” The Northampton Society
had been in a state of most painful excitement, and great difficulty was found
in obtaining accommodation for the preachers at the District Meeting. It was
shown that there had been great misrule.

Mr. Watson said: ‘‘It struck him that the people in Northampton were
not disaffected. There had been some irregularity, but the Superintendent’s,
disciplinary conscience had not been affected by that till an insignificant affair
90 Hrstory oF Meruopism.

fell out. Mr. Marsden had been guilty of an intemperate exercise of authority.”
He expressed ‘‘a hope that Marsden will learn an important lesson from this
affair. If he persist he will disqualify himself for the office of Superintendent.”

The nearest approach to a passage of arms occurred when
inquiry was made as to the fulfilment of a pledge given by
Mr. Jones to recall a book which he had published. In this
tractate he had made a huge, unskilful effort to reconcile
foreknowledge with freewill. In the eagerness of his philo-
sophical flounderings he had stranded on the boulders of
unscriptural dogma. But on this being pointed out to him,
he had loyally undertaken to suppress the book, so far as in
him lay, and finding that the rights of his publishers were in
his way, he had published “a satisfactory refutation of his own
errors.”

Mr. Bromley took occasion to remark: “Nothing of this question was
known till I had the misfortune to be busied in the subject. I do not believe
in the doctrine of Mr. Jones’s book. I have published a book on the subject
myself.” He threw out a loose hypothesis as to the bindingness of our
doctrinal standards, which, if adopted, would reduce our standards into
scarecrows.”

Mr. Watson thereupon remarked : ‘I think a man may entertain peculiar
views of a metaphysical nature without harm ; but I think it serious when a
man rises up in this body and makes an offensive attack upon our standards
—I think it is most indecorous. I am sorry to use such an expression to a
man so much esteemed as Mr. Bromley, but it is wrung from me by a sense
of duty. The doctrine of unsuccessive duration is not a theological doctrine at
all, nor vitally connected with the Divine Prescience. If Mr. Bromley object
to subscribe to our standards, he ought to be brought to explain. I cannot
envy the feelings of a man who looks with indifference on the honour of our
ministerial body with regard to our doctrinal pledges.”

Mr. V. Ward ‘' was sorry to hear what Mr. Bromley had said. He thought
it a bad symptom to be indifferent about our doctrinal teaching. He was
sorry that Mr. Bromley had obtruded his book upon the Conference.”

Another speciality of this Conference was the initiation of
what has become an essential and a most important part of
Conference proceedings: “the conversation on the state of the
Work of God.” It began by an impromptu suggestion from
George Marsden, that as they were well on with business, and
there had been reported a much smaller increase than usual—
1,060—it involved a call to great searchings of heart.

Mr R. Wood read a letter from his father, the Rev. James Wood, which
Mr. Fowler says was “ worthy of the piety and talents of the venerable
man."
THE LEEDS CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. gt

Mr. Moore was called upon. He said: ‘ We should visit the Society, so
as to see all was right. We must look after the leaders. One great cause
of the success of slander is that souls are not cared for. Mr. Wesley's Works
should be diffused more among the Connexion. Every leader is a pastor of
his class; if we do not look after the Society, how can we expect’ the leaders
to look after their classes?”

Mr. Lessey ‘thought the principles laid down by Mr. Moore were
essential and vital to our constitution. In meeting the leaders he found it
very useful to address them on the duties of their office. He concurred with
Mr. Moore that we must personally look after the people. Preach as we will
that will not meet our case. He objected to the distinction between a pulpit
man and a pastoral man, Every Methodist preacher ought to be both. Many
ministers with very little pulpit power are wonderfully useful by dint of
pastoral visitation. My dying father’s last words to me were: ‘What the
people want is powerful, affectionate preaching and constant attention to
pastoral duties.’

The most striking occurrence in this Conference was the
reception of a remonstrance from the Second London Circuit
(Great Queen Street) against the interpretation given to the Plan
of Pacification in the Minutes of the foregoing Conference.

Does not all this tend to show that in pastoral administration
everything that wears the semblance or suggestion of a State-
stroke should be carefully avoided ?.°

Neither Reece nor Atherton, the ministers of the Remon-
strant Circuit, made any observation on the Memorial from their
people, and no one questioned them about it. It was evidently
felt that as the Conference was meeting in this very town of
Leeds, and protests had been received from Mr. Sigston and
another of the dissentient leaders, it would be most unsafe and
most unwise to re-open the discussion. The only speech upon
the subject was from the sensitive, sagacious lips of Richard
Watson, who said :

“He had no fear for Methodism, if our Jaws were dept to, and administered
in a vight spivit, with firmness and with mildness, with strength of law, but
not with warmth of temper.’ He showed the salutary and completely successful
effect of a soothing, healing system which had been pursued by himself and
colleagues in the City Road, London. Prosperity and peace had been the
swift result.

The London Address naturally revived the matter of an
authorised digest of Wesleyan Methodist law of the sort desired
by our people. They evidently used the word “digest” in the
sense in which we apply it to the Pandects of Justinian. They
did not want a mere skeleton of law but a living organism, which
92 History or METHODISM.

should show the principles of which our laws are the natural
outgrowth, and would supply the answers to opponents and to
their own brain-born questionings. But nothing came of the
conversation in the shape of Handbook. Mr. Bunting was not at
the Conference. He was too colossal not to be conspicuous by
his absence, especially when questions of polity and discipline
arose. The practical answer to the Address from London was the
disappearance from the Minutes of the Resolution on the discipline
of the Connexion. Dr. Smith more than once expresses his
decided judgment that it would have been wise in the Conference
to have carefully revised and modified their disciplinary laws in
1828 in answer to the request of the people.

Happily, none of the judicial meddlings with the law in 1827
has been followed in any subsequent investigation of the kind.
After the great conflict of 1835 it was felt that to give the
minister—the plaintiff in the case—the choice of the three
specialising factors in the court, and the defendants none at all,
had at least a look of inequality. So the law was most sensibly
amended thus: ‘Two of the Superintendents shall be chosen
by each of the two parties concerned and without restriction as to
contiguity.” The introduction into the meeting of any other
“adviser,” either “ official” or officious, has been most sensitively
safeguarded ever since. No person not expressly included by
the wording of the law is admitted without the voted permission
of the meeting itself, and the full consent of the defendant, who
on his part may balance matters by choosing an‘ adviser of his
own. But neither the one nor the other have been allowed
either voice or vote, or to disturb proceedings in the least by
their movements or their consultations.

In the course of reading the Stations, Mr. Moore related the anecdote of
Wesley’s complaining to Fletcher that he stayed at home too much, and said
“the objection against Mr. Atherton is that he is so much away from
home.”

Mr. Leach ‘* was sorry that we had no school for girls, ‘

Mr. Grindrod said: ‘Most of our funds are embarrassed. Those who
have property should come forward liberally. I have not much private
property, but will give my proportion.” Mr. Watson said that our financial
difficulties had arisen from calling out preachers incautiously. Who but Mr.
Mason could manage such a concern as the Book Room? Many call out for
preachers who do not provide for the increased expenses. There is an
awful expenditure.

Mr. Watson consented to writea ‘‘ Life of Wesley."’ The relations between
the British and the Irish Book Room were readjusted after much discussion.
THe Leeps Case AND 17s SEQUENCES, 93

Mr. Mason showed that the Irish brethren had a right to their proper share
in the profits of the Book Room. He believed that they had not had their
just proportion according to Mr. Wesley’s intention.

Mr. Tobias said: ‘‘The Irish are not such fools as not to know that
they have a claim, but they prefer receiving it as a gift from the English
brethren.”

Mr. Watson called attention to the fact that the Christian Advocate, a
paper fiercely hostile to the Conference (edited by the son of ex-President
Stephens) was supplied with information as to the proceedings of Conference,
by some member of the Conference. This he thought was ‘' most disgra¢eful.””
All such communications were prohibited. Twenty brethren promised to
supply sermons for a volume, the profits of which were to be appropriated to
the liquidation of the debts on Scotch chapels. Dr. Newton had collected
£1,800 for the same purpose. The subject of ‘ begging expeditions" was
also entered into. Stringent directions were laid down as to the dates at
which Circuit District Schedules should be forthcoming. A vigorous debate
took place as to whether the Chapel Fund Committee should be closed or
open to any minister who might be wishful toattend. Bromley and Beaumont,
Scott and Lord, spoke mainly in favour of the latter, Their view was
carried,

A memorable act of this Conference was the setting apart of a
Session to the consideration of one uniform, cheap, and safe Chapel
Deed for the whole Connexion. By a unanimous vote, Mr. C.
Matthews, the well-known Methodist barrister, was called into
the Conference. He referred to the great want of uniformity and
precision in the old deeds, and the necessity for a new one in the
interests and for the mutual benefit of the preachers and the
people, which should be as economical and explicit as possible.
He adverted to the expensiveness of the old settlement.

“ He referred to the Poll Deed now enrolled which had hung Methodism
on the law of the land. He read the paper which he had drawn up and pre-
sented to the Solicitor General, who had carefully perused the case, and had
not the shadow of a doubt of its validity. One uniform deed was of vast
importance ; it will put it out of the power of an unskilled practitioner to get
us into difficulties. He had also taken the opinion of two eminent convey-
ancers of the highest authority. The deed was read.”

The details of the scheme for the projected Theological
Institution were carefully considered. A remarkable discussion
took place with regard to the injury sustained in Manchester,
Huddersfield, Wednesbury, Dudley, and elsewhere, so many of
our people having joined the Jndependent Order of Oddfellows.
This society, which was originally, as its name implied, a convivial
confraternity, had only of late years become a Mutual Provident
Society, and it still retained in force its primitive usages and
94 fTistoryv oF Meruopism.

character as a convivial club, and as it was a secret society with
secret signs and pass-words, and as some friendly societies had
during the Luddite agitation been focz of a revolutionary pro-
pagandism, through which some of our people had been involved
in criminal and fatal enterprises, there was naturally a mis-
giving as to their connection with this then but little known
fraternity. There had been no uniformity of action amongst the
ministers in this matter. Some had, not without considerable
success, confined themselves to persuasion, others had resorted to
expulsion. Mr. Bromley wished to have produced authority by
which membership in such societies had been condemned. No
answer was forthcoming.

This Conference sustained and carried on right nobly the
opposition which Wesley had himself bequeathed to his faithful
followers against “that execrable sum of all villainies, negro
slavery.” Wesley’s tract on slavery had been one of the most
effective weapons of the Abolitionists. Watson proposed a
series of Resolutions, which were enthusiastically adopted
against slavery in any part of the British Empire; and every
congregation in Methodism was earnestly exhorted to petition
Parliament against it. A copy of these resolutions was forwarded
to Wilberforce, whose grateful acknowledgment of the receipt of
them was read in Conference. Then began the last determined
assault upon, and the utter demolition of this shameful fortress of
oppression. Side by side with the great parliamentary advocates
of Abolition—Wilberforce, Brougham, Buxton, O’Connell, and
Macaulay—its most eloquent and effective champions were
the Methodists Watson, Clarke, Dixon, and George Thompson,
who began life as an errand boy at the Methodist Mission House,
and whom Sir Robert Peel pronounced the greatest orator he
had heard.

It will be seen that the first Conference in the fourth decade
of this century, the first that has ever been held in Brunswick
Chapel, Leeds, was a memorable and effective gathering. Not-
withstanding the large number of unusual and important matters
which came under its consideration, it occupied but twelve days,
four days fewer than its predecessor, yet at no former Conference
had so many preachers taken part in the debates.

The Leeds Conference of 1830 gave decent burial to “the
Leeds Case” as a chapter in the chronicle of Methodism. It
proved to be much less an episode than the opening canto in
a mournful epic.
THe LrEps CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. 95

The way in which I became interested in early life in this
lamentable matter seems rather curious. As my father was
stationed in a Yorkshire circuit at the time, it was the subject
of solicitous and eager conversation. In the autumn of 1829
I was the guest of Daniel Isaac, along with my venerable father,
and as the former had come to Leeds in the interests of peace and
quietness, the talk turned naturally on his prospects of success.
I had thus picked up and pieced together some fragmentary
details of the case. At the Conference of 1830, along with
the other ninety-and-nine Preachers’ sons, I was introduced
to that imposing conclave. At the close of the service an old
Grove lad took me home with him to dinner. He had three
ministerial guests, and as the Brunswick organ was then brand
new, and to Methodists a phenomenon of magnificence and
massiveness, it is not surprising that the youngest brother of the
three should be effusive about the grandeur of the instrument.
They forgot that ‘‘little pitchers may have long ears,” or else
supposed that the blue-jacketed, corduroy-breeched boy was so
absorbed in his first experience of salmon and green peas and hot
veal pie, etc., as to be utterly indifferent to Methodist affairs.
They as little thought as he did that, sixty-seven years after, he
would record as history some part of that day’s table talk.

To the enthusiastic exclamations of the youngest minister,
the eldest, in terms too forceful and too pungent not to stamp
themselves upon my memory, replied on this wise: “Yes, it
is a splendid instrument, no doubt, but we paid too dear for our
whistle.” ‘No doubt,” returned the youngest ; “it must have
cost a pretty penny, several hundreds, I suppose ; perhaps not much
less than a thousand pounds.” To which the eldest man rejoined
with raised hands and eyebrows, ‘A thousand pounds / It cost
a thousand Methodists, and more, in this one town of Leeds,
besides some hundreds in other parts of the Connexion. I can
never hear or see it without thinking of what William Dawson
calls it: ‘The great dragon, that made one mouthful of a
thousand Methodists and more.’”

The master spirit of the Conference, which was marked by
the most fraternal freedom of discussion, was Richard Watson,
who rose to the full height of his intellectual powers.

This was the only Conference Dr. Bunting ever missed for
fifty-four successive years. During forty years he had seemed
to be a part of the very definition of the Conference. On
the motion of Dr. Clarke, a young minister was granted to
96 History or Mervovism.

him as an assistant during the ensuing year. It is noteworthy
that Mr. Isaac spoke but once throughout the Conference. But
he was in a depressed and saddened state of mind and heart.
Next to Dr. Clarke, he had most strongly disapproved of the
treatment of the Leeds Organ Case, and had agreed to be
stationed in Leeds in 1829 in the earnest hope, if not of
closing, yet of contracting and bridging the chasm which was
yawning between the old body and the new. But, alas! he
found the truth of the inspired adage: “A brother offended
is harder to be won than a strong city.” The condition of
affairs was exactly that which is described by Coleridge in his

powerful lines, beginning—

‘Alas! they had been friends in youth,’

and ending—
‘And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.”

The magnanimous remedy prescribed by Richard Watson in
1828 to amend the mistake of 1827 in setting aside the non-
sanction of the District Meeting, by persuading the trustees
to defer the erection of the organ for a year, and take all
possible means to bring the two parties to agreement, had
proved too hard a saying. And the whole dispute had been
thrown into the melting-pot of worldly politics, and fused in
the white heat of passion into a complicated mass. Poor Isaac
found himself constrained to carry the war into the seceder’s
camp in his own caustic, crushing, controversial style. This
was a work so alien and so uncongenial that it preyed upon
his health and spirits, till his brave and buoyant intellect began
to falter and to darken. Before his three years’ term in Leeds
was over he was taken with paralysis, and though he lingered
for a little while, his energetic public life was practically closed.
It is sad to note the effect upon the health of the vigorous
and active ministers, who were in the thickest of the fray, which
was produced by these disturbances. Mr. Grindrod wisely left
the scene of the strife at the end of the first year; but his
Obituary states: ‘He sustained a shock to his health and
constitution from which he never recovered.” But he served
and suffered nobly for a few years longer, and then, after a
protracted and painful illness, fell on sleep. Mr. Close, the third
minister, also left Leeds at the end of his first year, but I
THe Le#ps CASE And 17s SEQUENCES. 97

gathered from his son, a well-known surgeon in the town, that
he too traced his fatal malady’ to these disturbances. He
laboured less than five years longer, and died after a highly
appreciated ministry of but fifteen years. Mr. Galland stayed
in Leeds for his full term, but his health, too, was seriously
affected by these conflicts in the Church, and he fell in the
midst of his career. Another minister of special power and
promise, who had taken a decided part in these contentions,
Thomas Bridgman, a preacher and a writer of deserved repute,
but just survived their termination; he died in 1832, in the
midst of his years and of his labours. For all these were
gentle-hearted, gracious ‘men, to whom “judgment was a
strange work” and who “hated putting away.”

As Mr. T. P. Bunting intimates, there is sufficient reason to
believe that Dr. Bunting in his later years ‘‘ would not have
cared to argue fori” the legality of his own leading action in the
matter. A few years later he felt no slight misgiving as to the
wisdom of the course which he had counselled and defended.
In 1832, when the disruption in the Derby Circuit was brought
before the Conference, after very cautious strictures on the action
of the Superintendent, he made this frank and dignified confes-
sion : “I ought to be the last person to scrutinise too minutely
the administration of others. My impetuosity might have led
me to manage much worse.” In that one word “‘impetuosity ”
Dr. Bunting enunciated the unhappy element in the management
of the Leeds Case which wrought such mighty mischief. Had
the Derby Case been handled with the same impetuosity, the
Connexional disaster would have been at least as melancholy and
at least as wide in area. Dr. Bunting greatly blamed the Derby
Superintendent for not calling a Special district meeting on the
case. But every one who knew the ground well knew that had
such a step been taken, a movement, which by prudent policy
was restricted to such narrow limits, would have assumed
incalculably larger dimensions and a vastly aggravated heat.

The four Derby ministers, John Davis, Aaron Floyd, James
Brooke, and George Brown McDonald, were wise enough to keep
their own counsel, and to keep the matter in their own hands.
True, they had not the initial difficulty which the Leeds ministers
had to meet—a disappointed, discomfited, and dissatisfied,Society,
exasperated by the setting aside of the simple meaning of a
Conference law and of the pacificatory provision which that law
had created. But the political situation was as far more critical

H
98 History or Merxovism.

and adverse as the political temperature of the country in 1831
was higher than was that of 1827. Had Mr. Grindrod, like Mr.
Davis, kept his own seat “ firm on the box,” worked the reins by
the skilfulness of his own hands, there would have been no such
lamentable upset. What Mr. T. P. Bunting well describes as
‘the massiveness of his good sense ” would have helped to steady
matters. But he encumbered himself with adventitious help.
The leaders of the Derby agitation were vastly more attractive
personages than was Mr. Sigston. But the agitation was by
quiet, and so to speak, noiseless management, notwithstanding
its contagious fanaticism, confined within a very narrow area.

Mr. Robert Eckett, who had joined our society at Great
Queen Street, London, during Mr. Bunting’s ministry in that
chapel, published a pamphlet in which he strove to show that the
treatment of the Leeds Case and others had not been in accord-
ance with the Methodist Settlement in 1795-7. He sent Dr.
Bunting a copy of his tractate. The great man wrote to him on
the subject, and frankly acknowledged that it was od.

When the Centenary Meeting for the West Riding, which
contributed to the fund £16,720, was held in Leeds in 1838
I had the honour and the privilege of an invitation to the
luncheon given by some gentlemen of the town in the Music
Hall. As I had but just passed my eighteenth birthday, I believe
I was by years the youngest person there, and am probably
the only survivor. The great speech on this occasion was that of
Dr. Bunting, and a memorable speech it was. He was in his very
finest mood, and radiant with delight and thankfulness at the
enthusiastic loyalty to Methodism which had been splendidly
displayed. The speech was positively captivating, a noble
illustration of the Samsonian riddle: ‘ Out of the strong came
forth sweetness.” One could but recognise in him who stood
before us a man carved out for chieftaincy from a solid marble
mass. And yet there were a winsome frankness and simplicity
and a confidential and alluring openness in his tone, and look,
and bearing which cast a powerful charm upon the fistenen, On
the whole, I never saw and heard him to greater advantage.
With a masterly dexterity and daring, and with a marvellous
lightness and effectiveness of touch, he alluded to the troubles
of ten years ago. His motto might have been:

‘Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York :
THe LEEDS CASE AND ITS SEQUENCES. 99

And all the clouds that did obscure our house
Deep in the bosom of the ocean buried."

With amazing consciousness of power and skill he made
confession of his own undue indulgence in a party spirit. He
quoted one of his own off-hand epigrams which had obtained
currency in Parliament—‘‘ A man of no party is a man of no
principle,” and admitted that he had sometimes carried that idea
too far. He then spoke most judiciously about the Theological
institution of which he was the president.

It is interesting to note that on the reception of an appeal
from Mr. Sigston to the Conference, the fact was stated, as an
instance of Mr. Sigston’s bitter spirit, that his young usher
had been summarily dismissed for no other fault than his
having expressed disapproval of the proceedings of the ‘‘ Non-
con.” party. This young confessor became the distinguished
Sir Isaac Holden, M.P.
CHAPTER IV.

DR. CLARKE’S IRISH SCHOOLS.—HIS ENFORCED SUPERNUMERARY-
SHIP WITHOUT THE COGNISANCE OF CONFERENCE.

At the Conference of 1831 it was found that the List of Reserve
for 1829 was not exhausted, and that for 1830 was as yet
untouched. Two men, however, were taken out for Mission
work who engaged to go abroad for life.

Mr. Bunting liked a man in whose heart it was to give~himself up
for unlimited service. He thought we had boasted too much about our
church having money but lacking men. Men we had in abundance, but not
men of the right sort. Our Missions in the East ought not to have been!
deserted as they have been by some brethren. He would not wound their
feelings, but the feeling which prevailed in 1813-1814 was much lower now.
Only the very best young men ought to be taken out; unless we attend to this
we are ruined. He thought that, the present company excepted, Irish
preachers would be useful in their own country.

The Superintendent of the Wolverhampton Circuit was charged with
having built a house on the trust premises at Bilston, without the consent of
the trustees. Dr. Bunting said: It was ridiculous to build an ornamental
house in such a place. He doubted the fidelity of the District Meeting in the
matter. A committee was appointed to investigate the case.

The case was reported of a brother who had been preaching politics.’ Mr.
Burdsall would have the letter strongly worded. Thinks he ought to be
rebuked sharply. Mr. Watson thought that a letter should be sent to him,
and a special report of his conduct be given at the next Conference.

Mr. Bunting put the matter-on its right basis. Mr. Lessey °
had rested the indictment on the brother’s preaching Radicalism.
Dr. Bunting and the Conference placed it on his having zz¢ro-
duced polttics into the pulpit, politics of any colour whatsoever.

Mr. Ward requested that a young minister should be set apart for one
year to raise money for the Scotch chapels. Mr. Bunting thought that Mr.
Ward had better have assistance from six young men for two months each.
If Mr. McLean or any other man should be appointed he might contract a
roving habit. Conference approved of this suggestion.

The Cornwall District Meeting was reproved for having entertained and
Dr. CLrArKE’sS TrisH SCHOOLS. Iol

passed on to Conference vexatious charges, without the slightest foundation,
against a devoted minister.

Mr. Bunting thought that as Mr. James Wood had reached his eightieth
year he should take the Conference pulpit at seven o'clock to-morrow
morning.

Mr. Atherton complained of the haste with which a motion had been
disposed of at the previous session, and of the abusive epithets which had
been employed by a Welsh brother and cheered by the platform. A more
kindly feeling was induced and the matter ended. The Second London
District requested that the London circuits should be placed in one district.
Mr. Watson enforced the recommendation, observing that it was desirable
that London should be under one administration. The circuits detached from
it would form a very good country District. Mr. Sutcliffe asked, ‘‘ What
would become of the poor circuits?’’ Mr. Thompson objected that “the
alteration had not been brought before the Second London District.” Mr.
Bunting was not satisfied at this doctrine. Could not the Conference alter
its own rule without permission from a district meeting? The highest court
is not to be controlled by an inferior jurisdiction. A committee was
appointed to consider the proposal.

Mr. Bunting : ‘I think there are persons who will not bustle in a Quarterly
Meeting who ought to be regarded—men who will pray more than they will
prate.’’ It was nevertheless decided that an application from ‘‘a number of
respectable persons” for the continuance in a circuit of a minister who had
not received the required invitation from the Quarterly Meeting could not be
entertained. ;

Mr. Bunting proposed that ‘‘ the Deptford Circuit should have an additional
minister, his board only being paid by the Circuit.” The Conference assented to
rather than approved of this measure.

Mr. J. Farrar complained that the Committee of Privileges had afforded
him no redress in a case on which he had applied to them—his being bound
to take a parish apprentice.

Mr. Bunting was of opinion ‘that Mr. Farrar had a right to take a parish
apprentice; it was humane law, and what Mr. Farrar made matter of com-
plaint was cause for unfeigned gratitude. The Committee of Privileges had
nothing to do; still, it was as well to keep it up, though there was less
occasion for it than formerly. He did not expect so much from what we
called liberal opinions as some did; for I have always seen infidelity as
intolerant as popery.”

It was asked what was to be done when burial was refused in consequence
of baptism being administered hy a Methodist preacher. Mr. Bunting ‘‘ thought
it would be well to procure the highest legal judgment.”

Mr. Bunting “ could not help thinking thata considerable perversion had
taken place in reference to the Children’s Fund, and that ecclesiastical duty
had given way to financial management, and that too few were returned from
many circuits ; and he would move that a committee be appointed to examine
the schedules of circuits.”

Mr. Moore announced to the Conference that he ‘‘had some valuable
documents relating to Mr. Wesley, and intended to publish a‘ Life’ of him,
but must burn some of his papers.”

Mr. Bunting was sure that no man needed to be less reminded about Trusts
To2 HsToRY OF METHODISM.

from Mr. Wesley, for they were in his head and in his heart ; and yet there
was a trust unfulfilled. Mr. Wesley requested that his papers should be pub-
lished or be burnt, as his trustees might think proper. Why had this not
been done sooner ? :

Mr. Moore thought ‘he could draw a correct likeness of Mr, Wesley.
Mr. Watson had done well: he could write well upon a broomstick, and the
more knots there were init the better. He wished all to prosper, but he meant
to attempt another likeness.”

With regard to the ‘‘ Supplement tothe Hymn Book,” Mr. Entwisle said :
‘* Unless we are careful, we shall always be using the ‘Supplement,’as we are
fond of new things.”

Mr. Bunting ‘‘ was of opinion that this was not a matter of trade. We
should be disinterested; must accommodate those who could not afford to
buy them at first. There should be no magazine selling or carrying out on the
Sabbath. Many of the Sunday-school hymns might be sung by a Socinian,
such as ‘Blest be the man whose liberal heart.’ He had heard that there
were what were called Sunday-school Love Feasts. He thought them a great
evil. We shall have a sort of Sunday-school religion."

Mr. Bunting ‘‘did not wish for a new edition of Fletcher's Works. He
did not approve of connecting Mr. Wesley with Fletcher. They were different
men, and stood on different ground. Every preacher might be justly required
to have a copy of Mr. Wesley’s Works.”’

Mr. Bunting: ‘I see no great reason for continuing to interchange
frequently with America; occasionally may do better. What would the
representative have to say, but to assure us of their friendship? The expense
is one ground of objection, the inconvenience of removing a preacher from
the labours of his circuit another.’’ He alluded to the loss of Bath and
Nottingham by the absence of Mr. Reece and Mr. Hannah. He observed
that ‘‘any attempt to interfere with their discipline would be resented with
true Yankee energy.’ He moved ‘‘ that a letter be sent expressive of affection,
and of the probability of a representative being sent at some future period.”’

A remarkable discussion which occurred at this Conference
requires a short historic explanation. Notwithstanding all the
efforts made in the interests of religious education in Ireland
a large population in widely extended districts were left totally
destitute of either secular or religious education for the young,
and a generation was growing up of ‘Christian savages” as
‘‘wild as the untaught Indian’s brood.” This was deplorably the
case in the Protestant County of Derry, especially in that part of
it in which Dr. Clarke was born,

Our Irish Missions had twelve schools, managed by a minister
resident in London, but what were they in such a tract of
country and amongst so many? An earnest Methodist minister,
stationed in the North of Ireland, was so distressed at this
deplorable and disgraceful state of things, that he wrote a
heartrending appeal to Dr. Clarke to use his unrivalled influence
Dr. CLARKE’sS TRISH SCHOOLS. 103

in meeting a necessity which neither Roman Catholics nor
Protestants had been able to overtake.

The erudite philanthropist was deeply affected. He at once
applied to some wealthy and benevolent friends of his who
promptly responded to his eloquent appeal, his most efficient
fellow-helpers being a few devout women. His most generous
patroness was the Honourable Sophia Ward, aunt of Lord
Bangor. Dr. Clarke sent money to the Superintendent of the
Coleraine Circuit for the erection of schools and the pay
of the masters at Portrush and at Cashel, Co. Derry. He
then took an evangelistic tour of examination throughout the
neglected districts, of which his Journal gives a most delightful
narrative. He founded schools. He was then in his seventy-
second year. His next step was to apply to the Irish Conference,
held that year in Belfast, to take these schools under their own
administration, and that the Superintendent of the Circuit in
which a school might be located should be responsible for the
management of the schools. This noble offer the Irish brethren
accepted with an eager gratitude. (Smith’s ‘Methodism ;”
Crookshank’s “ Methodism in Ireland;” the various Lives of
Dr. Clarke.) The President and Secretary of the British Con-
ference agreed. So far all went merry as a marriage bell. But
at the British Conference of the same year (1831) one of the
Missionary Secretaries alluded to the schools established in
Ireland by Dr. Clarke, saying that “ he thought it anomalous that
a member of the Body should be supporting an establishment
unauthorised by, and unconnected with, the British Conference.”
An extract of a letter from Dr. Clarke was read, explaining the
whole affair, and especially its connection with the Irish Con-
ference and circuit work. His position was perfectly simple and
intelligible. There was an urgently needed philanthropic
enterprise undertaken in reply to an affecting appeal from his
native neighbourhood ; the sad truth of which he had himself
verified by the most careful inspection on the spot. The schools
were supported by subscriptions raised in Ireland. He thought
that they could be most easily and effectively managed on the
spot, and be placed under the direction of the Superintendents of
the circuits in which they were respectively located ; and thus
incorporated with the circuit work, the schools were all available
for evangelistic services, the teachers being, by preference,
Methodist local preachers. This seemed to him a handier
arrangement than making them dependent on the struggling
104 Hftstory oF Maeruopism.

Trish Missions, and under the management of ‘‘ the Agent of our
Missionary Committee,” resident in London. Mr. Bunting was
“opposed to the principle. If one might do so another also
might.”

Mr. Bunting “had seen a letter offering (? consenting: Clarke certainly
was not in the habit of offering to open chapels) to open a chapel, if he were
helped in educating his poor children in Ireland. He wished that the excellent
man, whom we all revere, would throw his influence into the Body, and be
one with us. I would propose it in the kindest, mildest way possible. Those
who impute to us hostility to Dr. Clarke, impute what is not in our hearts,
He 1s one of the greatest, if not the greatest man in our Body, so he should
be the first to observe rule. After all, I do not see how the schools are to be
stopped. He must go on, I suppose, and sell his influence and his visits, for it
comes to this. Ishould wish for an expression that would prevent any other
man from committing such an irregularity.”

Another ex-Missionary Secretary thought the Ivish brethren to blame.
They ought to have refused the application of Dr, Clarke. He intimated
that they should now transfer the Ulster schools to the British Conference.
Dr. Clarke being out of health was not there to defend himself: but this
brought to his feet the senior representative of the Irish Conference. The
keen-minded, stalwart veteran pointed out the absurd injustice to Dr. Clarke
and the Irish Conference ; the use of such terms with regard to the six Ulster
schools as, ‘‘ unauthorised,” ‘‘ unconnected,” committed an irregularity. He demon-
strated that they were not less closely, but more closely, connected with
Methodism by being placed under the control of the Irish Conference, and
linked directly with the Irish circuit work, than if they had been placed under
the direction of a minister in London. He showed that they stood in no
rivalry whatever, and came into no friction whatever with the twelve Mission
Schools, that all this had been carefully guarded against, not only by thé
selection of localities which the English Missionary Committee were con-
fessedly unable to reach, but the salaries of the masters were forbidden to
be higher than those of the Mission Schools. He showed that the schools
had taken hold of the public mind, and (if not interfered with) would be
supported by them in the neighbourhood, who were not subscribers to the
Mission Schools. As to handing them over to the British Conference, Dr,
Clarke must have a voice in that matter ; since, though he had generously
given them the schools to do the best they could with them in the interests of
Irish Methodism, yet he had conveyed no right to hand them over to any
other management.

Mr. Lessey regretted the eccentric benevolence of Dr. Clarke. He would
support Dr. Bunting’s proposition : “ That the Conference regrets the irregu-
larity of Dr. Clarke's mode of establishing his schools in Ireland.”

This was put, and a few hands were lifted in its favour; but the'con-
trary was not put.

A breezy discussion took place as to the chapel proposed to
be built on the boundary between Grosvenor Street and Bridge-

water Street Circuits, Manchester, to whether of the two should
it belong.
Dr. CLARKE'S [RISH SCHOOLS. 105

Mr. Bunting said: ‘As the friends at Grosvenor Street nearly all agree,
it will be most impolitic to oppose them, in my judgment. I wish for a
moment to emphasise a passage of Scripture often forgotten in our public
capacity. It is this: ‘Thou shalt not favour a poor man in his cause ’—
meaning that we are not to give way to that feeling which is found in every
well-constituted mind.”

Mr. Lord stated that the ground on which this chapel was to be built was
always understood to be in Bridgewater Street Circuit, and referred to
documents in support of the justice and reasonableness of the claim. He
made a convincing appeal. ,

Mr. Bunting proposed a conciliatory motion: '' That Grosvenor Street
Circuit should be allowed to build the chapel, and afterwards, in their well-
known liberality, cede it to Bridgewater 'Street.”’

A brother, it was said, was negotiating with some clergymen to go into
the Church.

Mr. Bunting ‘‘ thought that he should be treated kindly, and that a letter
should be sent to him stating that we have heard with pleasure and satis-
faction that he is likely to provide for himself. He might do for the Church.
There are many places there where he would be useful.”’

Mr. Bunting said: ‘‘I wish the brethren would imitate authors who wrote
the preface last, and would give their speech first, and never mind the
preface. Biennial appointments will do great good if peaceably promoted ;
but if men will force themselves upon the people, it will make a democracy
in the circuits, specially increasing the power of the Quarterly Meetings.
I will move that there be no biennial stations. I have no passion for taking
upon myself to say painful things, but would suggest whether it would not be
better for Brother - to give up the work as an itinerant preacher.”

Mr. Bunting said: '‘The source of all our evils is this incompetent
ministry."’

Mr. Entwisle said: ‘ Our first duty is to guard the entrance.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘ However particular we may be, from a variety of reasons
we must be imposed upon. But there should be some alteration in our
system. It is necessary to teach a man how to administer our discipline. It is
monstrous to send a man to superintend over men very much wiser, and
perhaps holier than himself.”

Mr. Marsden ‘‘had objections to an Academy—perhaps not insur-
mountable.”

 

A committee was appointed to meet during Conference, and
to report before its close as to the principles on which the educa-
tion of probationers for the ministry should be based. Dr.
Bunting was the Chairman. He brought in a very sensible and
practical report. It recommended that the principal objects
should be to teach the young candidates Methodtstzcal divinity
and discipline; the creation and cultivation of a taste for classical
knowledge, and at least an elementary acquaintance with it.

On Mr, Jackson’s reappointment to the Editorship, he told the brethren
that after six years’ experience, he found it impossible to discharge its duties
106 History oF ALETHODISM.

without assistance. They were such as not to allow him a quarter of an hour
a day for outdoor exercise. He was authorised to procure what help he
could during the ensuing year.

On the examination of the candidates for ordination, Mr. Bunting ‘‘ would
ask Mr. Horton whether it was his opinion that in all cases persons are
entirely sanctified at the same time that they are justified.” His answer was
satisfactory.

Mr. Bunting: ‘I think that not less than two hours should be occupied in
a service on the Lord's day which is of Divine ordination.”

Mr. Entwisle noted the importance of holding society meetings. ‘I think
that would do more good than a long sermon. I am in the habit of studying
and preparing for this part of the service, dwelling upon relative duties.”

Mr. Bunting, on the question of the reunion of the Worcester and the
Bromsgrove Circuits, said : ‘‘ We must not be deterred by the sturdy opposition
of the people, nor regard the mere convenience of the brethren.”

at the closing session, Dr. Bunting enunciated a great
principle, which, had it been always kept in mind, Methodism
would have been saved from immense disturbance and enor-
mous loss of members. ‘‘ Conference had the power, but must
not use it impetuously or arbitrarily. If you wish to keep
it, use it sparingly.” Here the true statesman spoke.

CONFERENCE OF 1832.

The opening session of the Conference of 1832 was rendered
memorable by a conversation which requires a brief introductory
explanation. ,

Mr. Fowler’s Conference Journal rolls away from the Methodist
Conference a reproach which has too long rested on it like a
cloud: the having treated the very man who might seem to
claim the highest consideration and respect, with a discourtesy
and a disregard never shown in any other case, even to ‘them
least esteemed in the church.” Not only his devoted family and
his admiring intimates, but the steadiest adherents of our
Conferential Methodism, confessed a painful feeling that the
ministerial brotherhood had dealt hardly, even harshly, with
its most distinguished minister. An historian so well informed
and so loyal to the Conference as Dr. George Smith has made
this record: ‘ At the Conference of 1831, Dr. Clarke was set
down as a supernumerary. This was much against his will, and
grieved him at his heart.” Dr. Smith then makes the best
apology he can for Conference action in this matter, but adds,
“Yet his case was an extraordinary one, and as such had
previously received, and still called for, more than ordinary
Dr. CLarKe’s [RisH SCHOOLS. 107
indulgence. We cannot but join in the regret which he and his
family felt, that some way was not devised for meeting his wishes
and saving him from smarting under a sense of unkindness, if not
injury.” The authorities of Hinde Street had suggested the solu-
tion of the difficulty. The only way in which their wishes could
be met was by placing him ¢here as a supernumerary. The facts,
as they came out in Conference, are as follows: In 1828, Dr.
Clarke was appointed to the London (Hinde Street) Circuit as an
additional minister, receiving nothing from the circuit but a
quarterly allowance for travelling expenses, as he resided at some
distance in the country. Through successive invitations from
the Quarterly Meeting, he continued in the circuit three years, at
the end of which the law compelled his appointment to another
circuit. The becoming a supernumerary minister never occurred
to him or to the brethren in the same district. The law as
to ministers becoming supernumerary was as explicit as words
could make it: ‘‘ Let no preacher be stationed as supernumerary
without the recommendation of the District Committee, unless,
for particular reasons, the Conference, with his own consent, judge
it proper. The Rules of the Preachers’ Fund are equally explicit.
‘““No preacher shall be considered as a superannuated preacher,
but he who is declared dy the Methodist Conference incapable
of fulfilling the duties of an itinerant preacher.”

Accordingly, in the regular Order and Form of Business
for the Annual Meeting of the District Committee, the ques-
tion comes in due course, ‘‘ Whether any minister shall be
recommended to the Conference to become a supernumerary.”
When this question was put to the Second London District
in 1831, not a hint was given either by Dr. Clarke or by
any of his brethren as to his becoming a supernumerary at
the approaching: Conference. For, in truth, few men, if any,
were working harder than was he. He was taking his regular
Sunday work on the Circuit Plan, and on the week-day he
was preaching far and near throughout the United Kingdom
to immense congregations with his characteristic energy and
ardour.

Dr. Clarke could not attend the Conference of 1831; but
before the Chairman of his district went to Conference the
Doctor, as is usual with ministers who are changing circuits,
communicated with him as to his new appointment. Even
then the Chairman gave no hint whatever that he thought
the Doctor should retire from the active work. Far from
108 Alistory oF METHODISN.

this, he suggested that the Doctor should be attached to the
Lambeth Circuit, in the same way that he had been for the
last three years to the London (Hinde Street) Circuit. Dr.
. Clarke said he thought the Hammersmith Circuit would be
better, as being nearer to his place of residence. But, to his
immense astonishment, he received, a few days later, a letter
from his Representative informing him that a strong opinion
had been expressed in the Stationing Committee (by whom
was not stated) ‘that it would be better for him to become
a supernumerary.” To this he answered with what he meant
to be, and thought to be, a-decided protest against any
such harsh and unwarrantable treatment of his case. But
the letter being written in Dr. Clarke’s own gentle, meek,
and self-suppressing style, it was interpreted as equivalent to
an acquiescence in the suggestion of the Stationing Com-
mittee. As the letter was not forthcoming when applied for
by the Conference a year later, it is impossible to judge
what ground there might be for a construction the reverse
of that intended by the writer. But Dr. Clarke was well
aware that the Stationing Committee could not make him
supernumerary ; so he appealed to Conference direct against
a movement so irregular and so adverse to his wishes. This
letter of remonstrance he, in accordance with the usage, en-
trusted to the President, who was no other than his own
Representative, whose special duty it was to protect his
interests and to represent his wishes to the Conference. Of
this communication Dr. Clarke received no acknowledgment
whatever. The sequel will come out in the course of the
conversation on the subject in the Conference of 1832.

When the vote of thanks to the retiring President was proposed, Dr.
Beaumont rose and addressed the Chair, despite persistent and vociferous
interruption.

Mr, N—— asked: ' What right has Dr. Beaumont to attend the
Conference?”

Mr. Bunting: ‘Dr. Beaumont has no right to be heve, and therefore
no right to be heard. There must be something wrong with his head and
heart.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I will not be put down by Mr. Bunting. Mr. Bunting
has often indulged in attacks upon me; but no personalities from Mr. Bunting
will deter me from my duty.”

Dr. Beaumont then went into the case, ‘He thought that Dr. Clarke
had not been used kindly.”’

Dr. Clarke here made some deprecatory remarks as to pursuing the subject
Dr. CLaRKe’s TrisH SCHOOLS. 109

any further. He alluded to the ravages of the cholera, and said he ‘must go
back to look after his wife and family.”

Dr. Beaumont said: ‘It seems a little inconsistent that Dr. Clarke, who
has complained elsewhere, should now wish to smother the matter here. I
wish there were a little more liberty of speaking in the Conference and less com-
plaining out of it. That would be better for the Body.”’

Dr. Clarke said: ‘I would not bring the matter before the Conference till
I had had a private conversation with the ex-President.”’

The ex-President rose, Dr. Clarke requested the ex-President to accom-
pany him into a vestry.

Mr. Bunting : ‘I would have Dr. Clarke requested to come in again."

Dr. Clarke submissively returned to his seat, as the oldest
ex-President in the Conference.

Mr. Naylor: ‘I must charge Dr. Beaumont with violating a rule of Con-
ference, I too think it is well ‘if his heart be right.’ ”

This remark met with the disapproval of Conference, so Mr. N. desisted.

Mr. Bunting : ‘I meant nothing personal to Mr. Beaumont when I said
there must be something wrong upon his head and heart. The exception to
the law against coming to Conference without leave is not when a man has a
complaint to make, but when an accusation is laid against him.”

Dr. Clarke: ‘I had an objection to be made a supernumerary.” He then
defended himself against the charge laid against him in his absence, by Mr.
Bunting at the last Conference, of having disregarded the rules of Methodism
He added: ‘I stated in my second letter to my Representative, the then
President, that I wished for one year more, that I might complete my half-
century of active ministry. There would never have been a Preachers’
Fund, in all probability, but for Adam Clarke. I originated that fund; I
drew up the rules of the Annuitant Society. I applied to the proper court
and got them ‘legalised.’ I was opposed by Bradburn, who said the people
would think we were looking after maintenance, etc., etc. The number who
united at its commencement was 75. I have something to say before I die,
which I wish to lay before the Conference.”’

Mr. Watson: ‘‘I wish to know whether the request of Dr. Clarke, relative
to his desiring to travel one year longer, was laid before the Stationing
Committee or the Conference?” Many brethren replied, ‘‘No.” None said,
“ Yes,"

The ex-President stated ‘‘ Dr. Clarke’s statement to that effect was not
explicit.’ The letter was then asked for, but was not forthcoming.

Dr. Clarke: ‘I certainly said explicitly ‘one year.'”

Dr. Beaumont was proceeding to make some remark, when Mr. ———
“thought him incompetent to take any part in the debate.”

Dr. Beaumont expressed his surprise and indignation, and, amid inter-
ruption, said: ‘If I may not speak, of course I shall leave the house.”

Dr. Clarke said, ‘‘ The Conference is omnipotent, but is always merciful, I
assure Dr. Beaumont that all would come right.”

Mr. Bunting said “ the Conference must not be pledged to Dr. Clarke's
opinion. I think something will come out of this that is painful to Dr.
Beaumont and painful to the Conference.”
IIo Flistory oF MerHopvisi.

When the question came on in the regular course of business—* Are
there any objections against any of the brethren?’’—and the names of
the whole body of ministers were read out serviatim, with an interrogative
intonation, and an authoritative answer returned in each case, the first
name to which the assuring ‘‘No” was not at once forthcoming was that
of Joseph Beaumont. Mr. Bunting said: ‘I think we should not visit with
any degree of severity the mere circumstance of his coming here without
leave, but we cannot pass it over. My judgment is offended at the insinua-
tion that it was necessary for some one to come and defend Dr. Clarke from
some action, as if there was atyranny exercised inthe Body. That encourages
opponents to Methodism. I am displeased at the violence in his manner.
We should not take high offence at each other. There was something like
vituperation in his speech. I disapprove of his going so directly against the
rule. If Brother Beaumont will express that he misunderstood the rule, a
very little matter will satisfy the individual who has the honour to address
you. I should be glad to shake hands with Dr. Beaumont and have the
matter settled.”

Dr. Beaumont said: ‘‘I beg to apologise for any intemperate warmth
with which I may have expressed myself. I was driven to it by what I
considered an ungenerous attack. From what Mr. Bunting says, the
allegation against me is of no great consequence; and yet, if I had broken
one of the most important rules, the sentence could not have been more
severe than that which has now been proposed—‘a vote of censure,’ My
youth has evaporated in the service of this Body. (He was in the twentieth
year of his ministry.) I confess that I have had a fear of an irresponsible
power in some acts in this Body. I did not think that the ex-President would, on
his own authority, have suppressed a communication made to the Conference.
I beg pardon of Mr. Bunting for having entertained the opinion that he
might have had any influence in the matter. I now think more highly of
him thanever. I did not come here ‘to defend Dr. Clarke,’ but to clear up
a painful matter which it was necessary, for the credit of the Connexion, to
clear up. I did not consider that I had broken the law in coming into
Conference with no higher authority than the President’s permission to be
present at the Conference. But I find I was in error. I appeal to the
brethren who have been my Superintendents, whether I am not an upholder
of the law?"’ He protested against being submitted to the solemn censure
of the Conference for a mere sin of ignorance.

I can testify that while my Superintendent, Dr. Beaumont
was a strict upholder of the law.

The ex-President ; I must notice that observation respecting my having
concealed Dr. Clarke's letters. I laid the jivst letter before the Stationing
Committee, and the second was like unto it.”

Mr. Watson: ‘‘I am pleased to see a bridge that Dr. Beaumont can come
over.’ Mr. Watson disclaimed all complicity in the suppression of Dr.
Clarke’s letters to the Conference, which, he said, “is a great charge to bring
against anyone. There is a manifest shyness towards me in the members of
the Doctor's family."’

Dr. Clarke again stated that it was his second letter to the then President
Dr. CrarKke's [rise SCHOOLS. 111

which contained his request to be allowed one other year in circuit work,
and this the then President confessed that he had not laid before the
Stationing Committee or the Conference, but he declared that he “ could
have no motive to conceal it.” He admitted that he had not entered into the
matter at the District Meeting, and that there had been no disability in Dr.
Clarke from taking the position in another circuit which he had so effectively
filled in Hinde Street, as the Hinde Street Circuit had “ written requesting
his continuance, if that could be accomplished within the Methodist law.”

Dr. Beaumont said: ‘I am of opinion that the time of the Conference has
been well employed in setting a brother right who had kept back from the
Conference a communication which had been entrusted to him. I cannot
regret what I have done."’

When the question came before the Conference in the
ordinary course of business: ‘‘ What supernumeraries apply to
be restored to the work?” and Dr. Clarke’s namei was reached,
he rose and said: ‘‘ You shall never hear another word from me
on the subject as long as the world endureth. I am not greatly
offended though I was hurt.” Here the matter ended—dut not
guite. On the reading of the Stations in the Conference, Dr.
Clarke found to his astonishment that, without consulting him,
and against the earnest wishes of the Sixth London Circuit—
where it had stood through the foregoing year—his name was
removed to that of Windsor. He rose and remonstrated against
this unexplained transference from the Sixth London to the
Windsor Circuit, and showed that by giving to the latter the
first claim upon his services, he should be put to great expense
and inconvenience, the connection between Pinner, where he
lived, and the North-West of London being much closer and
more easy than with Windsor.

Dr. Bunting answered: ‘'I feel some objection to deviate from what
appears to be the rule of right. I think a man’s name should stand in the
circuit in which he lives.”

Dr. Clarke said no more, and the Secretary read on.

This was passing “strange. There was no change of “ local
habitation ” to account for the sudden change of “name.” No
Connexional rule would have been infringed, or had been in-
fringed, by continuing Dr. Clarke’s name in the Sixth London,
as he wished. This imaginary “rule of right ’ was the very
truest of technicalities, to all intents and purposes, which could
apply to a man in the seventy-third year of his life. Pinner was
nearer the North-West of London than to Windsor. It was in
Middlesex. Besides, this ‘rule of right” has been invisible to
112 flistory or METHODISM.

Conference in countless cases, not of supernumeraries only, but of
ministers in full and stated circuit work. To go no further than
this same Sixth London Circuit—from which Dr. Clarke’s name
was so suddenly removed against the earnestly expressed desire of
both the parties, to relieve the sudden and the transient moral
qualm of a single member of the Conference—this sacred “ rule
of right’ was, in another case, traversed without scruple by the
space of three- and-twenty years. One of the few preachers ever
stationed in the Hinde Street Circuit, who stood on the like lofty
intellectual and spiritual plane with Dr. Clarke, was W. M.
Bunting. But throughout the three years when he was one of
the regular ministers at Hinde Street, and the twenty years of
his supernumeraryship, he never lived within the circuit under
which his name was placed, and Mrs. Bunting’s membership
was in another circuit ; and Dr. Bunting himself for the last nine
years of his honoured life had his residence, and he and his
family regularly worshipped, outside the circuit under which his
name was printed in the Minutes of the Conference. There are
not a few such instances to-day.

But what could it matter to Dr. Adam Clarke under what
, circuit his name might read in the Minutes of the Conference?
It mattered a good deal. To take the lowest item, the wealthy
London Circuit was as pleased and proud, as it was amply
competent, to vote the mighty preacher £50 a year for his
travelling expenses, which the poor struggling Windsor Circuit
could by no means do, for at that time they were a feeble folk.

But there was another point of greater moment and sig-
nificance, on both sides of the transaction. The transference
of this world-honoured name from London Sixth to Windsor,
snapped asunder a very tender and tenacious tie. It bereaved
the loving-hearted minister and scholar of the right of attending
the monthly London Ministers’ Meeting and the Book Com-
mittee, which were at that time identical in their members and
their date and place of meeting ; the one resolving itself into the
other, under the same chairman. Thus the poor stranded whale
was deprived of the recurrent spray-showers which had proved
congenial and refreshing.

It is true that the sainted scholar little complained excepting
to his closest friends.

No one who has not enjoyed the privilege of acquaintance
with Dr. Clarke’s most amiable family, and with some of his very
closest friends, can form an adequate conception of the pain
Dr. CLARKE’S /RISH SCHOOLS. 113

which this strange handling inflicted on the venerable man.
Dr. Beaumont told me that the first time he met Dr. Clarke
after the Conference of 1831 at the London Ministers’ Meeting
and Book Committee, the doctor dined with him in Southwark,
where Dr. Beaumont was at that time stationed. Dr. Clarke
had not long before heard of the lecture delivered to him in his
absence, but with obvious design that it should be repeated to him
by his sympathisers, on the duty of great men to set the example
of adherence to our rules, and charging him with selling his
influence, because he had taken advantage of his popularity to
beg from wealthy people on behalf of the education of his poor Irish
children. This he not unnaturally connected with the uncivil
silence as to his appeal to the Conference, and the suppression of
that appeal, and the refusal to allow him to complete his half-
century of active work. Dr. Beaumont told me that as they
were crossing London Bridge, the brave old man, regardless of
the passing throng, burst into tears and sobbed convulsively like
one bereaved. Not only was the last twelvemonth of a bright,
beneficent career depressed and darkened by an avowedly motive-
less injustice, but a fine-hearted Methodist family was saddened
and aggrieved. Dr. Clarke’s noble daughter, Mrs. Rowley, con-
tinued with her mother, as she knew her father wished her,
most loyal to John Wesley’s Methodism.

The suddenness, the strangeness, the inscrutability of this
unprecedented treatment, in connection with its chronological
context, led many to associate it with the offence taken at
his handing over of the Irish Schools to the Irish Conference.
So far as I know he never made an enemy, and the mutual
relations of the two great men, in private and in social life,
were the kindliest and most pleasant possible. It was on
the motion of Dr. Clarke that a picked young man had been
allowed to Mr. Bunting as an assistant in his circuit work,
and during Mr. Bunting’s disablement by an accident, Dr. Clarke
bad taken all Mr. Bunting’s public services which were consistent
with his own previous engagements. He had also visited him
most tenderly, and had given to the Conference a beautiful
account of his submission to this unwelcome inactivity. But on
matters of administration, the older and the younger man were
not always of one mind. And the Irishman’s presentation to the
Trish Conference of schools for Irish children, built, furnished, and
supported for the most part by Irish contributions, had seemed
to the English Mission House an almost treasonable act.

I
114 HAlisToRY OF METHODISM.

But, happily, Mr. Fowler's “Journals” of the two Conferences
(1831-2) make it as plain as possible that the Conference as a
body had not a shadow of suspicion that Dr. Clarke was being
made a supernumerary against his own wishes, much less in
opposition to his touching, but suppressed, appeals. They
were clearly not awake to the fact that he was becoming a
supernumerary at all. And it did not come before the Con.
ference either in the regular way, as a recommendation from the
District Meeting, or from the Stationing Committee. The
name of Adam Clarke does not occur amongst the ministers who
are to become supernumeraries. Much discussion was occasioned
in the three readings of the Stations on the appointments to
several of the London Circuits ; yet Dr. Clarke’s name is not so
much as mentioned. Had the Stationing Committee brought
the case of Dr. Clarke before the Conference, as they were
absolutely bound to do, in order to his being made a Super-
numerary, the whole matter must have come before the
Brethren. The idea was started in the Stationing Committee,
and the obvious questions would have assuredly been asked.

Mr. V. Ward bore testimony to Dr. Beaumont's excellent character whilst
under his superintendency.

Mr. Scott said : ‘‘ I think if Dr. Beaumont acknowledge that he has broken
a law, and throw himself on the kind consideration of the Conference, that
should be enough.”

Dr, Beaumont : ‘‘ I have acknowledged and thrown myself on the kind
consideration of the Conference.”’

Mr. Bunting proposed that his acknowledgment be received, and that the
President should express to him the regret of the Conference that he had not
sooner acknowledged his error, and that advice be given to him from the
Chair.

Dr. Beaumont was called up to the President, who addressed him as he had
been instructed to do.

In his speeches on this matter Dr. Beaumont put his finger
on the weak and perilous spot where danger in the Methodist
Body was most imminent. He said: “The power of this Body
should be used healthily and constitutionally. I wish there was
a little more liberty of speaking at the Conference, and less
complaining out of it. I confess that I have had a fear of
an irresponsible power in some of the acts of this Body.”

A venerable man, five years my senior in the ministry, wrote
to me not long ago: ‘‘If everyone of us had spoken out in Con-
ference, as Dr. Beaumont did, we should have had no rift in the
Methodist lute, no #7Zy-sheeds, and no disruption in 1849,”
Dr. CLARKE’S [Riso SCHOOLS. 115

A letter from Dr. Beaumont to the Conference, ‘‘ complaining of
unkindness and injustice” in the treatment he had received, was
read a few days later to the Conference, but was not remarked
upon at all. He felt it as an unkindness to have been subjected—
for what was, admittedly, at worst a sin of ignorance, and one for
which he had made a full apology and an appeal to the clemency
of his brethren—to a penalty which had heretofore been reserved
for very grave offences in morals or theology: that of a solemn
admonition from the Chair of Conference—a sentence which was
always regarded as carrying with it a kind of stigma for the rest
of a man’s ministerial life. The injustice which he felt, consisted
in the contrast between the treatment of his own case and that of
the member of the Conference whose unwarrantable conduct he
had brought to light. This minister had confessed to having
intercepted a communication to the Conference from Dr. Clarke,
and thus done that great and good man a grievous injury, and
inflicted on him a deep and galling wound ; had confessed to the
suppression of a document which the Conference had an absolute
right to be acquainted with. By this he had not only subjected
the Conference itself to an indignity, but also brought it under
the discredit and the odium of having treated rudely and wrong-
fully one of its own most honoured members.

This minister had made no apology, beyond the declaration
that he ‘could have no motive” for his action. Yet to him
had been given an unqualified vote of thanks, and the only
man who had called attention to his conduct had been sentenced,
for that very course, to a grave admonition from the Chair.
That this was the real gravamen of the admonition was clear
from its very terms, namely, that this vindication of the honour
of the Conference involved “an attack’? upon one of its
members.

By an odd coincidence, the next ‘ case of character ’’ was that
of Wiliam Griffith. Dr. Clarke characteristically gave him a very
high character, which was doubtless, up to that date, as true to
fact as it was honest in conviction ; until he allowed himself to be
sucked into the maelstrom of political hypothesis and party
conflict.

The ex-President expressed a wish to be relieved from preach-
ing the sermon to the Conference, which was part of his official
duty, and Dr. Clarke was unanimously requested to take his
place. To this, with characteristic cordiality, he at once assented.
No doubt he took this opportunity of delivering the ‘‘ something

I2
116 History oF MerTrHODISN.

to say before he died which he wished to lay before the Con-
ference.” Apart from this, however, he did make in Conference
a few very characteristic observations. He said: ‘There is a
wide difference between the past and the present state of
Methodism. It was glorious when I entered this ministry fifty
years ago, but the ‘glory now excelleth.’”

It was decided that for seven years after a missionary’s return
all expenses incurred through infirmities contracted in the
mission work should be met by the Mission Fund.

Mr. Bunting warned Dr. Clarke against ‘the insinuations of false friends.
I am glad of his attendance at Conference, and at the manner in which he has
submitted to the discipline of the body, in being put down as a supernumerary
in the circuit in which he resides; which I think an important principle. I
move that he accompany the President to Ireland.”

Dr. Clarke made his last appeal on behalf of his beloved Shetland. He
said: ‘‘I have done what I could for Shetland. I wish the Conference to
hear me, as it may be the last time I may be present; not, however, that I
would leave the Conference, that is the furthest feeling from my heart, but
because God may take me. I visited Shetland as a man capable of making
observations.” Dr. Clarke paid a high tribute to the healthfulness of the
climate, and finished thus: ‘‘ I beseech you to look carefully at this mission.”

Mr. Bunting brought a charge against the Superintendent of the Liverpool
South Circuit—the venerable Mr. Henshaw—who was that year becoming
supernumerary, for having attended an illegal meeting of stewards to consider
the ministerial appointment to that circuit. He returned to the charge on
a subsequent reading of the stations.

Mr. Henshaw had presided over a meeting, for which the constitutional
settlement of 1797 makes express provision. The Conference had, on the first
bringing of the charge, contented itself with pronouncing the meeting
impolitic and improper. But now that Conference had declared its rightful-
ness Mr. Bunting took still higher ground, and branded it as illegal. He
added: ‘‘I must enter my protest against such meetings, The appointment
to Liverpool South (made by Conference at the request of the stewards) is
not what it ought to be and what I should have felt it my duty to propose, if
Conference had not been overawed by an illegal meeting.”

Dr. Clarke also took part in the examination of the Candidates. He
animadverted on a new way of meeting the classes. He said: ‘I have heard
the people complain that, instead of the old-fashioned personal advices, they
had ‘just a little sermon.’’’ He also joined in the discussion on the appoint-
ment of a superintendent of the Irish Schools. He said: “I could wipe out
every observation that has been made against my placing my Irish Schools
under the superintendence of the Irish Conference, through the superin-
tendence of the circuits. Iwas sure they would have more effective super-
vision than the Mission House in London could have possibly given them.”'

At this Conference, too, Mr. Bunting came into smart
collision with two of his firmest and his warmest friends—Thomas
Dr. CLarke’s [Rist SCHOOLS. 117

Jackson and Richard Watson. The occasion was the Government
Scheme for National Education in Ireland. The plan was that
the Government should supply the secular education, and the
different religious bodies should themselves supply the religious
element accordant to their several views, due proportion of time
being allowed for the purpose.

The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine gave a favourable opinion
of the plan of Government, not as being all that could be wished,
but all that could be reasonably hoped in the circumstances of
the country. Let everyone think of the matter as he pleases, yet
it is not proper that facts should be distorted. The article then
went on to correct some gross mis-statements which had been made
in Exeter Hall. Mr. Jackson took up his firm position. “The
Irish system of education is no party measure, but kindly and
patriotically intended, and would doubtless have been a great
benefit to the country had all the people united in good faith to
carry it into effect.”

The General Book Committee met in July, preparatory to the
Conference, and a complaint was made against the Laztor as having
in those paragraphs ‘betrayed the trust which was confided to
him.” As one of these paragraphs had appeared on New Year’s
Day and the other on the first of April, there had been plenty of
time for some one of the accusing brethren to give the Editor
some intimation of the rod that was in pickle for him. But, no!
the stroke came down upon him like a bolt out of the blue. He
writes: “It was with difficulty that I could obtain even a brief
hearing.” If he made anything like as good a defence as he
makes in his “ Recollections” (p. 250), they, his accusers, must
have found it very hard to make out a case against him. But, he
adds: ‘In the censure that was passed upon me Mr. Bunting
took the lead. The severest things that were uttered fell from
his lips.” An apology was demanded from the Editor for having
admitted such paragraphs into the Magazine, and they went so
far as to dictate in writing the very words he was to use. This
the Editor could in no wise do ; first, because he knew that he
had not departed in the slightest from the principles and pre-
cedents of the time-honoured serial of which he was in charge ;
and secondly, because he saw that the blow was really aimed at
Mr. Watson, who was well known to be the writer of the articles
objected to.

The complaint was therefore formulated into a Resolution to
be reported to the Conference. The Monthly Book Committee
118 History or METHODISM.

in London had seen nothing to object to in the articles, and had
passed on to Conference an unqualified vote of thanks. to the
Editor. This Resolution was adopted by the General Book
Committee. When it was presented to the Conference—

Mr. Jackson rose and said: ‘I must say a few words. The office I have
sustained is no sinecure. From what occurred at the General Book Com-
mittee I cannot proceed on the ground on which I have stood. I must give
notice of my purpose to resign the office next year. I should be glad to be
released sooner, if possible. I have the misfortune to differ in an opinion,
deliberately and honestly maintained, from some eminent members of this
Body. I was delivered up to half a dozen men who severely and harshly
addressed me. I had no notion of having offended. I think I ought to have
had an intimation of what was to take place. The matter was taken up by
the very worst handle. As your Editor I am not committed to the whole of
the Irish system of education. I was required to make an apology and even
the words of the apology were dictated to me. I think I have a right to
express an opinion on the subject."

Mr. Bunting: “No, that was the whole complaint. I am the person who
may have given offence. It was not intended, but was affectionately given.
I did regret the expressions in the Magazine, and shall do so to my dying day.
I think we should have an opinion on any article without meaning personal
offence. We cannot get on without it.”

Mr. Watson: ‘I now regret that the Magazine was opened to topics of
this kind.”

But it had been sanctioned by the example of Mr. Bunting
himself. It was he who in 1821, on becoming editor, introduced
the Retrospect which was often written by his own pen, and in
his own strong style. If such topics are touched on at all in the
Connexional organ, it is difficult to avoid giving an opinion.

Mr. Bunting, when himself the editor, did not escape this
difficulty, though he so severely censured his successor. His
filial biographer says: “ He incorporated in the ordinary topics
of the Magazine a series of articles called Christian Retrospect,
by which he purposed to influence the mind of the Connexion,
not only as to specifically religious topics, but also to those
subjects which, although in their first aspect secular, bordered
nearly upon national and individual Christianity. In this respect,
Watson was his most able and judicious assistant.” In fact,
Mr. Bunting did precisely what he so affectionately and solemnly
complained of his successor for having also done !

Mr. Burdsall: ‘‘1 think the sentiments in the Magazine were modestly
expressed and that the Editor should not be bound to silence on questions so
distinctly and so strongly bearing on religion.”
Dr. CLrarke's [Riso ScHOOLs. 119

Mr. Ward: ‘I wish to say a word with a view to an honourable peace.
There must be freedom of remark; this, however, should always be done in
kindness, and we should always remember the rule, ‘Give notice of any
intended reproof.’ The remarks made in the General Book Committee were
severe enough; but Mr: Bunting practically claims the same right with
regard to his brother officials, that Johnson did with regard to Goldsmith—
‘that no one must find fault with them but himself.’ ”

Mr. Reece: ‘‘ Mr. Wesley was the first editor of the Magazine, and he was
the Father and Protector of the Body ; subsequent editors are agents of the
Body and amenable to it. As regards the conduct and principles of Mr.
Jackson we are all of one mind.”

Mr. James: ‘I cannot give a silent vote. I do not think that the Govern-
ment Plan is to be censured in any extreme way. But I do not see how Mr,
Bunting, who so strenuously advocated ‘Catholic claims,’ can resist this plan
of Irish education. I think the opposition arises a good deal from political
feeling. If nothing is to be said on the one side, nothing must be said on the
other. The late President, before he came here objecting to the Editor,
should have had clean hands himself, and not have committed himself in a
document signed by himself as President. At the Committee Mr. Editor was
addressed very improperly, and the shield of our protection should be thrown
over him from the arrows directed against him. I should feel sorry if any-
thing should disturb the harmony of the Conference. I move: ‘That the
explanation of Mr. Jackson is perfectly satisfactory, and that he be requested
to withdraw his notice of resigning his office.’”’

Mr. Jackson: ‘‘l am sorry that the time of the Conference is occupied
about me. I never quarrelled with any preacher and never will. I resign on
public grounds, and hope to be allowed quietly to retire. The Magazine must
be allowed to express an opinion on religious bearings of public events. I do
not wish to be independent, I never thought of it.”’

The ex-President : ‘‘I advised the Irish brethren to avoid politics. I was
then asked if, as the pastors and guides of their people, they might not
address them? Some resolutions were then read expressing disapprobation
of the Government Plan of Education. This I signed; as I thought them
perfectly in character with their office and duty as ministers. If any people
ought to come prominently forward to maintain the truth we ought. I would
not interfere with the sentiments of others, and I hope there will be no
alienation of affection.”

Mr. Gaulter: ‘‘I wonder that any brother should be offended at what
has been said on either side. Without freedom of discussion we could not
have stood the Sacramental dispute or the Kilhamite division. As to
‘Catholic claims,’ the Lord deliver us from Catholic claims! I remember
the early progress of the Magazine and the debate between Mr. Pawson and
Mr. Benson. If someone must be blamed about the Magazine paragraphs,
the London Book Committee are the culprits. If they had objected to the
first paper they could have stopped the rest. He is under the Committee, I
do not wish him to make any concession ; but would treat the matter kindly.”

Mr. Mason: ‘‘Iam much surprised at Mr. Gaulter’s speech. He must
have known that I (as Book Steward) am not under the Committee! I can but
impute his ignorance on the matter to his inattention to business. Iam sorry
for what was said to the Editor at the General Book Committee. The
120 H1stoRv OF METHODISM.

ex-President (as their President) was in the chair of all Monthly Book
Committees, and never mentioned the matter at any of them. Give your
officials at the Book Room fair play and we will meet you. I should be sorry
if Mr. Jackson resigns. It may be against the Book Room.”

Mr. Naylor: ‘I am sorry that the little ‘Retrospect of Public Events’
should be introduced into the Magazine. I have not been treated courteously
by the Book Committee. If what the Magazine says is to be considered the
voice of the Body, I would move that this department of it be given up.”’

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘I find that there are others implicated in this matter. I
gave Mr. Jackson notice; I told him my deep concern at what I saw in the
Magazine, and mentioned it to others of the Book Committee. Besides, there
is a difference between matter of accusation and matter of conversation. If
notice had been required I should have given it. Had I not known Mr.
Jackson’s honourable mind, I should have thought there had been great
shuffling, but I believe him incapable of this. It is not the third article but
the second that I object to.” Mr. Bunting then read an extract from this
article in his own way, and animadverted on what he deemed objectionable,
namely, the quoting a refutation by Mr. C. of charges brought against
the Board of Education by Mr. G. He went on: ‘I always feel most
when I am opposed to my venerable friend, Mr. Watson. I feel trepidation
in being opposed to him; but others have confessed their faith, and I wish
to declare mine. I object because as @ Dissentey I am not allowed to have
a school, unless certified, and if‘certified, to have an inquisitorial examination
of books. I take up this subject religiously; I declare my faith that the
Roman Catholics cannot be benefited, but by being turned over to
Protestantism, and this cannot be done by imperial Parliament. Protestant
children are turned over to Socinianism and Calvinism, and Roman Catholic
children are delivered toignoranceand superstition. Asregardsthe‘Retrospect’
in the Magazine I would not disapprove the Articles, but would not have
a retrospect of political events. I have been sorry at the allusion to the
Reform Bill, though I approve of the sentiments. I would have an abstinence
from politics. With regard to the Editor being bound, we officers of Con-
nexional departments act on our responsibility, and must be willing to be
inquired into. The Editor must concede the right of inquiry. I am very
sorry that Mr. James has alluded to improprieties of expression in the
Committee. I am sure he has been carried out in the heat of debate into
a remark alien from his settled judgment and his brotherly heart.’

Mr. Watson: ‘I do not intend to go into the merits of this question ;
though I could say something on the other side of the subject which has been
so eloquently belaboured.”

It is intensely interesting and very far from uninstructive to be
put into a position to overhear a discussion in the Wesleyan
Methodist Conference sixty-four years ago, on the great social
and religious problem which is still testing to the utmost the
good sense and the good temper of all Churches and all parties
in the kingdom. The first thing that strikes one is the utter
non-necessity, the egregious uncalled-for-ness of the indignation
which emptied its full phials on the head of Thomas Jackson, and
Dr. Crarke’s Tris SCHOOLS. 121

that in such redundance, as to reach the still loftier and more
stately brow of Richard Watson; for in the first place, the
difference between Jackson and Watson, on the one hand, and
Bunting and the ex-President on the other, was not one of prin-
ciple at all, it was simply a divergence in their point of view, and
their estimate of the probable practical working of a philanthropic,
patriotic measure proposed by the then existing Government—
that of Earl Grey and Lord Stanley. The principles of the Bill
were those which are to this day in the ascendant, namely,—That
our National Education must rest upon a religious basis.
2.—That the religious education of this kingdom must be based
upon the Holy Scriptures. 3.—That it must be denominational
in its carrying out, in the actual condition of Christianity in the
country. 4.—That the Bill was not all that one could wish, from
a purely Protestant point of view. We know that it was not
what it would have been had the task of drawing up its details
been left to the Wesleyan Methodist Editor.

Thus far, both sides of the Conference were perfectly
agreed ; but then came the parting of the way. Those who
thought with Watson and with Jackson maintained that it
would be a great pity and a great mistake and a grave injustice
to the Irish people to deprive them of a measure which em-
bodied such sound and solid principles, and which promised
such a large diffusion of revealed truth—because it did not meet,
in all respects, our own ideal. At the very least, it was a bold,
strong step, a brave and stalwart stride zz the right direction ,;
and to them it seemed unwise and ungracious to reject it
altogether because it did not go as far as we should like. It
secured to Roman Catholic children an invaluable amount of
Scriptural instruction along with the practical recognition of
the fact that the Bible is the source and standard of religious
faith.

It was plain that Mr. Bunting judged of the Bill chiefly in
its bearing on the conflict between the Gospel and Roman
Catholicism on the one hand and free-thinking on the other.
He held that whatever light might steal into the mind of a
Roman Catholic pupil through knowledge gained by secular
instruction, and from so much Scriptural knowledge as the
priesthood might think it safe to admit, must soon be swallowed
up by the gloom of superstition. He maintained that the
immense numerical superiority of the Romanists gave them
such an advantage over Protestant communities that the latter
122 History oF METHODISM.

would be less helped than injured by the scheme. He feared also
the danger lurking in the Government Scheme of the infusion
of the leaven of Socénianism into the meal of Scripture. This,
in truth, is the peril that has attached itself to all State schemes
of education, and is to this day its most insidious bane. But an
effectual check to this came to Ireland from a most unexpected
quarter, and that through the very provision that Mr. Bunting
had denounced as an inquisitional supervision of school books.

The most influential member of the Nasional Board was
Archbishop Whately, the stalwart leader, it might almost he
said the founder, of the Broad Church School. But the broad-
ness of Whately’s theology was the broadness of both-sidedness
and balance. No great thinker ever pointed out more plainly
than did he the Will-o’-the-Wisp illusiveness of systems which
would substitute imaginative intuitions for authenticated revel-
ations, and self-trust for a humble dependence on the grace of
God. Hence, he saved the National Schools from the fascinating
“Moral, Tales” of Maria Edgeworth, a brilliant Irish writer ;
because they filled the children’s heads with the delusion that
they could form a healthful moral character, and lead a truly
Godlike life without any special reference to the Word of God,
or reliance on the grace of God. The Protestant denominations
of Ireland, in the course of eight-and-twenty years, woke up
to the fact that they had been standing in their own light
and in their own way. Had they, at the very first, applied
to the Government for the explanation and expansion of the
Denominational side of the Scheme, which included all they
‘would themselves concede to others, and which they might as
well have had first as last, all would have come right; but
instead of this, by way of opposing Popery, they left it, to its
own chuckling contentation, in exclusive possession of the whole
field of operation !

On this point I am glad to find myself in full accord with
a great authority. In his statesmanly, sagacious Essay on
“Popular Education,” published so long ago as 1859, Dr. Rigg
remarks as follows :—

“We hold it indeed to have been a great and mischievous mistake that,
when the National Scheme was first promulgated, the Protestant Denomin-
ations of Ireland, headed by the Established Church and the Presbyterians,
refused to do anything but oppose and denounce the measure. Had they
offered it their support and co-operation on moderate and reasonable con-
ditions, doubtless they might have added such provisions and guards to the
Dr. CLarke’s Tris SCHOOLS. 123

system, and have brought such influence to the National Board, as would
have prevented not a little evil and ensured not a little good.”

Their cheap and first-rate text-books have, indeed, done right
good service on this side St. George’s Channel.

But, alas! this is not the only instance in which enthusiastic
partisans have shown themselves much more intent on the
triumph of their own ideas than on the practical furtherance of
the interests involved. Unless an Act of Parliament be a
proclamation that their view is the right one, and every other
view is wrong, they will oppose it to the utmost—although they
cannot but admit that it would check and curtail, to a very large
extent, the evil with which they are at war.

Mr. Bunting had introduced into the Christian Retrospect such
subjects as The Re-opening of Parliament, The Way of Liberation
of Greece, The State of Turkey, The State of Ireland, Agriculture :
at least as political as the religious aspects of the Scheme for
National Education in Ireland. Yet the last-named was tabooed
in 1832, and the Editor called over the coals till his toes were
sorely blistered. No doubt all questions mixed with politics are
very ticklish, inasmuch as the readers are far more wishful to be
confirmed in their present opinions than to be guided into
sounder ones. An experienced editor will be not only very wary
in the handling, but even very chary in the touching any such
explosive matter.

Mr. Bunting also defined with masterly precision the relation
of a minister holding a departmental office in the Connexion to
his Committee and the Conference respectively. ‘In regard to
the Editor being ‘ bound,’ we act upon our responsibility, and must
be willing to be inquired into.” This puts the matter admirably.
The Editor is not the appointee of the Book Committee, so he is
not their “ agent ” nor servant tocommand. He is the appointee
of the Conference, and holds directly of that body ; but they, on
their part, have also their responsibility. They have not only
the unbounded right of animadversion on and inquiry into any
action of the Editor which in their opinion calls for their
attention, but this lies quite within their function and their duty.
Of course this right must be exercised and this duty discharged
in a thoroughly Christian manner. Mr. Jackson’s error in the
matter was the claiming as an official right what was just a matter
of fraternal courtesy. An Editor should make his Committee
perfectly aware that he is liable to question on any editorial
124 flistory oF MeEruopismM.

matter on which any member of Committee may see fit to
comment. It is the ordinary, though not the invariable, usage of
a member of the Committee who purposes to question the
admissibility of any article that has been published in the
Magazine to just mention his intention to the Editor beforehand.
But this isdone in obedience to a higher law than any regulation
of the Conference, a law no lower than the Golden Rule itself.
It is a matter that comes under the head of Christian courtesy.
If a man’s own heart and habits do not suggest this course, no one
else can bind him to it. It is one of those acts of brotherly
considerateness which are almost as easy to do as to leave undone,
and, in any case, ‘agazst which there is no law,” either Con-
nexional or Christian, human or Divine. To say the least, it
would have been much the nicer course for one friend to take
towards another.

It was, however, highly edifying and assuring to see Mr.
Bunting stepping forth in Conference as the champion of freedom
of speech and stricture, and of the right of questioning officials as
to their official acts. He himself, rather than be questioned on
one act in one office, had given notice of resigning all his offices,
and had thus silenced further questioning. Another very inter-
esting point is this. Here we have, so far as I know, the only
instance in which Mr. Bunting distinctly assumed the style and
title of “ Dissenter ”—“ J, as a Drssenter.” Certainly I heard him,
some years later, complain of the use of that term in the
Magazine, with regard to a Methodist, and express his hope—
in the Book Committee and Ministers’ Meeting—that we should
most carefully avoid ‘avowed Dissent.”

It was a sad loss that Mr. Watson was physically disabled
from presenting the other side of the Irish School question. But
both he and Clarke “ had the sentence of death in themselves,”
and were neither in the state nor in the mood for a strenuous
stand-up fight. As they sat side by side upon the platform, their
admiring brethren could read too clearly on their noble faces the
deep-cut signature of death. Clarke warned Watson to get home
as soon as possible, yet as they gripped each other’s honest hands
at parting, they wist not that their trysting-place was Heaven.
Clarke was the first to reach the goal; but Watson was not far
behind. He lingered and he laboured on through the remainder
of that year, and the first week of the next, and then he fell
asleep in Christ.

Besides these two mighties, another fine, distinguished figure
Dr. Crarke’s IrisH SCHOOLS. 125

disappeared for ever from the platform of the Conference ; this
was John James, the urbane and genial Missionary Secretary
along with Watson. This was, I think, his last visit to his native
city, for he was seized with fatal sickness after preaching in City
Road Chapel, London, on the first Sunday evening in the following
October, and after two days’ illness died. Never again was his
rich mellow voice, said to be one of the most melodious of all
human voices, lifted up in gentle protest against improprieties of
expression in the discussions of the Wesleyan Methodist
brotherhood.

A vote of thanks having been passed to Watson for his very
special services to the literature of the Connexion, he replied :
‘““When I gave myself to the Methodist Body I gave all; if my
little endeavours, for such they are, to furnish my junior brethren
with some assistance in their studies be accepted by them I shall
be thankful.”

Dr. Clarke before leaving Conference conferred with the Irish
representatives with regard to his Irish Schools. He was very
anxious to be found of the Master in peace, and he was unwilling
to let his charitable institutions be a bone of contention between
the Conferences. His fellow-countrymen, on their part, ‘“ desired
peace because their country was nourished by the King’s country.”
So they handed back the schools to him, and he without delay
executed a deed conveying them, in capital condition and well
endowed, to the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society. Mr.
Bunting was very careful to inform the Conference that this was
Dr. Clarke’s own act and deed, and not that of his executors, as
was popularly supposed. Dr. Clarke took coach from Liverpool
to Bristol and thence to Frome to fulfil a round of public services
at that place, and then at Weston-super-Mare, Westbury, Bristol,
and Bath on his way to his old home in his new circuit. But on
the plan of his old circuit, London South, his name stood for
Trust Sermons to be preached at Bayswater on the next Sunday.
Thither therefore he betook himself on Saturday.

“That day was the preparation and the Sabbath drew on,”
and to Adam Clarke “ that Sabbath was a high day,” for he
entered on the Sabbath-keeping ‘which remaineth for the people
of God.” It is impossible to forget the thrill which shook the
Methodist community when the intelligence passed through it—
“ Dy. Clarke is dead/"’ What an awe it cast on us wild, brave
Grove lads when, his friend and fellow-labourer, the fine old
Governor, George Morley, announced to us just before family
126 History oF METHoDISM.

worship, in tremulous and saddened tone: ‘ Boys, I have to tell
you Dr. Clarke is dead." All Methodism put on mourning for
its famous man. Throughout the United Kingdom from pulpits
draped in black, sad, solemn, and impassioned homilies poured
forth. Whatever spark of holy, high ambition for sacred
scholarship and worthy service in the cause of God and man
might glow in any schoolboy’s bosom was fanned into a flame.
Philanthropists and scholars, and all the friends of evangelistic
enterprise, and the devoutest men in all the churches of the
saints, ‘‘made great lamentation over him.”

Our blessings brighten as they take their flight, and the
appreciation and the admiration of the man whose noble character
was on the same high plane as his evangelistic preaching, and
overtopped his massive, many-peaked acquirements, were much
enhanced by his death. The brethren seemed to vie with one
another in atoning to his memory for the marked yet most
unmerited discourtesies which had been shown by some one or
two distinguished ministers in the abnormal way in which he
had been made a supernumerary, and thus denied one chief
solattum of an aged minister in retiring from “the active work.”
It is much to be regretted that an unwillingly misleading account
of this unhappy business should have recently appeared in the
most influential quarter. It is in the reminiscences more than half
a century after the event, of a very acute, fair-minded minister,
with a strong Methodist memory, but whose knowledge of the
case at the “me was perforce fragmentary, and therefore his im-
pression at the time not very accurate.

At this session the Conference made its last indignant and
triumphant protest against slavery in the British Empire.
Watson drew up the Resolutions in his own masterly style and
took an animated part in their discussion. Thus fittingly was
closed the Conferential career of the eloquent theologian and
philanthropist.

Mr. Bunting: ‘I would suggest that in the Pastoral Address our people
be counselled that in the exercise of the elective franchise, they should have
respect to character.”

The election was to the first Reformed Parliament. A
reference to the better observance of the Sabbath was also
recommended.

To preclude the possible recurrence of the melancholy case of
Dr. Clarke, the express Rule was re-affirmed that “ No man shall
be madea Supernumerary without his own knowledge and consent.”
Dr. Crarke’s [risH SCHOOLS. 127

To this Mr. Bunting objected, but at his suggestion the affirma-
tion was decided on that ‘No President is at liberty to withhold
from the Conference the fact that he has received from any
brother a remonstrance against anything at which he feels
aggrieved.” ,

CONFERENCE OF 1833.

The Conference of 1833 met in Manchester under the Presi-
dency of Richard Treffry, who had raised himself immensely in the
appreciation of his brethren by the skill, the wariness, and the
success with which he had piloted the South London Circuit
through such a boisterous and choppy sea.

The first matter of especial interest which came before the
Conference was another escapade by William Griffith. Mr.
Haswell gave him a very high character. The case was referred
to a Committee, who unanimously recommended that “he be
placed under the direction of the President, without his name
being printed.” He was placed under the notice of Mr. Reece.

Discussion was occasioned by the case of a young Irish M.D.,
who had graduated on this side St. George’s Channel, and now
offered himself to the British Conference. Mr. Bunting remarked
‘there is’'a great want of preachers in Ireland ; they have no list
of reserve. I think that some young men of refinement and
scholarship who come to this country and come out here escape
the hardships, etc., of Irish Methodism. Ought they not to be
asked if they owe nothing to their country ? It might be a good
test of their call and zeal. I do not refer particularly to Dr. —_,
but really something of patriotism is wanted.” Messrs. Lessey,
Marsden, and Waugh spoke on the same side. Mr. Waddy
“ would not havea retrospective law made.”

Mr. Bunting : ‘ The Irish Connexion is needy, and we have a
sufficiency of young men. Some ought to be sent over there.
Dr. Clarke, a pre-eminent authority, would not take out a man
who would not go anywhere. We must see that young men are
not independent, but teachable. We must attend to discipline as
wellas to doctrine.” He pointed his moral by mentioning the
name of ‘“ Joseph Beaumont,” who was not present to defend
himself. Mr. Stephens applauded Dr. Clarke's submission to rule
in all things.

Two women preachers were complained of : Mrs. Taft (Mary
Barrett, through whose preaching two future Presidents—Joseph
Taylor and Thomas Jackson—had been converted to God) and
128 FAltsTory oF METHODISM.

the immortal Dinah Morris (Mrs. Evans). Mr. Bunting referred
to a circuit in which an asterisk was placed upon the plan alluding
to a female preacher. Several remarks were made on the impro-
priety of female preaching. The elect ladies just named were
neither asterisks nor asteroids, but stars of the first magnitude,
and the great mass of Derbyshire hearers preferred workmanly
preaching from the lips of a woman to effeminate effusions from
the lips of a man.

Another of Mr. Bunting’s “wise saws" was called forth by
Brother R——, a successful Revivalist, who having been blessed
with a great awakening in his circuit, had taken advantage
of the flood-tide of ingathering to begin a new chapel without
waiting for the consent of the Committee.

Mr, Bunting: ‘‘ Brother R—— is one of those preachers who are more
ambitious to build chapels than to build up Churches.”

“ Alternative Obituaries of Dr. Clarke were submitted to the Conference,
written by eminent ministers, but neither of them was approved entirely.
One of them was marred by infelicities of phrase, and the other by semi-
anecdotal details. Bromley made the most judicious speech upon the subject.
Mr. Naylor was requested to condense his Character of Mr. James; but
avowed that he ‘could sooner write a volume than do that.'”

Mr. Dixon moved ‘‘ that Messrs. Bunting, Thomas Jackson, and Hannah,
be requested to draw up the Character of Richard Watson.”

Mr. Bunting said: ‘‘ This is not a matter to move about, We may move
too fast as well as too slow. I have sufficient reason for declining.”

Mr. Bunting on a subsequent Obituary: ‘I object to the phrase, ‘a
conscious sense,’ which means a feeling feeling. 1 would rather say ‘a Divine
witness of his acceptance.’ Another Obituary was objected to as ‘not
sufficiently evangelical.’ ”’

Mr. Bunting: “I believe Brother —— to have been prevailingly pious,
but he was too jocose upon the platform.”

In another Obituary it was stated that ‘“‘at one period he meddled with
politics.” Mr. Reece remarked: ‘Brother —— never thought of that
period but with sorrow and shame.” Mr. Bunting said: ‘I know that he
once well nigh lost his character and his soul, but he recovered.”

A minister—living at a distance from his Superintendent - had built a
chapel without consulting him, leaving nearly four times the amount of debt
to that which he had stated to the Chapel Committee. Mr. Bunting
remarked ; ‘I think this no trivial case, but a great sin,"

Next came up a matter of real historic interest having
reference to the first Methodist newspaper. It was far from
being a mere episode, but was vitally connected with the whole
system and series of our newspaper undertakings. A brief
prefatory explanation is indispensable. Some four very ardent,
able, and adventurous sons of distinguished Methodist ministers,
Dr. CrarKxe’s [rise SCHOOLS. 129

three of whom had been schoolfellows at Woodhouse Grove,
having just emerged from their minority, cast about every way for
some remunerative investment of their intellectual capital, being
very short of any other ; and it occurred to them that Methodism
had no newspaper to match the organ of the Evangelical party
in the Established Church—TZhe Record—and the projected
papers of political Dissent. It seemed to them ‘an excellent
idea"’ to start a weekly of this kind. They readily obtained
recommendations from influential ministers. At first the enter-
prise succeeded. The successive issues of Zhe Christian
Advocate were spirited and spicy, for the young journalists had
plenty of pen-power, and their names seemed to guarantee the
genuineness of their Methodist principles. They were already
“literary characters ’’ not unknown to the Annuals.

But soon “a change came o’er the spirit of their dream.” By
degrees the young Editor began to assume an irresponsible dic-
tatorship in Methodism, the custody of the Connexional conscience,
and a censorship of all the churches and religious institutions of
the land; and he posed not only as ‘the one authentic mouth-
piece of Methodism, but also as public prosecutor of all who held
views at variance with his own.

In 1830, no less a man than Richard Watson had felt it neces-
sary to call the attention of the Conference to the disturbing and
divisive tendency of this new organ of crudescent politics and
fermenting Church hypotheses. But still it went on. Mr. Bunting
had presumed to quietly exercise his civil right and discharge his
civil duty according to his own convictions, and without deference
to the dictation of the young Christian Advocate, who by this
time—

_“ Assumes the god,

Affects to nod,
And seems to shake the spheres."’

This brought down upon the head of Mr. Bunting the fierce
denunciations of the oracular young journalist. And in order to
make a case against Jabez Bunting, the journalist found it neces-
sary to shamelessly misrepresent the estimable, philanthropic,
nobleman for whom he had noiselessly recorded his vote. This
was felt by his brethren to be simply unendurable.

Mr. Bunting said: “The time may come when I may need a good
opinion from my brethren. I have nothing to fear from the aged brethren ;
but younger brethren who have not known me in my better days (Mr. Bunting

J
130 History or METHODISM.,

was then just fifty-four years old) may hereafter treat me harshly. I some-
times feel a little temptation on this point." The Conference unanimously
vociferated No.” ‘I think those who have recommended this paper may be
allowed to withdraw their names: not by compulsion—all must be voluntary.
I would have all party feeling buried.”

Mr. Atherton said: ‘‘ The paper is universally condemned, bought, and read.
This I cannot reconcile.” He denounced its contents in the strongest terms.

Mr. Bromley said: ‘'I fear we are all readers of the paper.’ The Con-
ference vociferated ‘‘No." ‘I am persuaded Mr. Bunting will never want
honour and respect from this Body. I should regret that the Conference
should come to any vote on the subject. This would add to its circulation
considerably.”

Mr. Newton: ‘I have not read five copies of the paper. I think I have
no right as a Methodist preacher to recommend what I and Methodism have
no control over. Ihave been asked in every part of the kingdom, ‘ Why do
preachers give their names to a paper which libels the Body ?’”’

Mr. Gaulter: ‘I, the other day, saw a copy. I would have all feeling to
expire in this session. J never wrote anything against the Conference. I should
deprecate the mention of the paper in the minutes.”

Mr. Marsden : ‘‘I have been called upon by a member of the London Mis-
sionary Society, who complained of the Advocate having made an attack on
their society. I told him it was not sanctioned by Methodists. The gentleman
inquired, ‘ Is it not recommended by many of your ministers?' I was at a loss
what tosay. I think every man should withdraw his name.”

Mr. Waugh said: ‘I do not know three persons among us in Ireland who
take the paper in. It has been expelled from the reading-room in Dublin.
Mr. Bunting is not the exclusive property of England; he belongs to the
Methodist world."

Mr. James Wood said: ‘'I inadvertently gave my name to a recommenda-
tion of the paper, but detested the principles on which it is conducted, and
withdrew my name.”’

Mr, Naylor complained of clamour raised against himself among the junior
brethren. This was disavowed. He said: ‘I think the paper very con-
temptible, but still very injurious.” He compared it to a spring-gun hidden
in the grass charged with bullets. He thought inquiry should be made who
wrote certain articles.

Mr. Dixon said: ‘‘Mr. Bunting is too great to be hurt with such little
things. The elements of his character are not injured. His comfort may be
affected. He ought to be assured that we participate not in the slanders issued
against him. He is persecuted for upholding principles which his persecutors
do not like. The 120 ministers, if there be so many, who support that paper,
or lend their names to it, are answerable for its principles, and they ought
to be required to disavow them, for they contravene our rules.”

Mr. Ryerson remarked: ‘‘In the United States and Lower Canada this
paper is regarded as the organ of the Conference. But in Upper Canada the
paper is prohibited, because under the pretence of connection with Methodism
it is designed to overthrow Methodism.”'

Mr. Reece: ‘I would have (1) every man who has given his name to this
paper should withdraw it; (2) there should be no subscribing to it nor reading
of it.”
Dr. CLARKE’S [k1SH SCHOOLS. 131

Mr. Rowland: ‘I abhor what has been inserted in the Advocate."

Mr. Newton; ‘Is it correct that the Welsh editor has inserted in the
Welsh Magazine articles taken from the Advocate?'’ This was stated to be
the case.

Mr. Bowers: ‘‘I disavow the imputation of Mr. Bunting that the younger
brethren had any suspicion of, or any unfriendly feeling towards, him. I have
great respect and affection for him, and still more for his principles. I would
share with him in contumely, whatever may be the consequences, fearlessly
and manfully.”

Mr. Morley moved: ‘That a letter be sent to the Secretaries of the
London Missionary Society expressive of our disapprobation of the articles
in the Advocate.” ,

Mr. Bromley objected.

Mr. Stanley: “I think we cannot vote without knowing the specific
charge against the London Missionary Society.’ The resolution passed, but
not unanimously.

Mr. Burdsal: ‘I think those who have recommended the paper might
sign a protest against it.’’

Mr. Pilter: ‘I gave my name because the paper was edited by the sons
of Methodist preachers. I am sorry for it, and have drawn up a protest.”
(This he read.)

Mr. R. Wood: ‘I have the honour to be the son of a Methodist preacher,
and have a fraternal affection for all such; I rejoice when they do well, and
sorrow when they do the contrary. I believe the preachers who recom-
mended the paper intended to gratify their fathers. I wish the father of one
of the young men may be requested to say on the platform what he said in
the Stationing Committee.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘I think my old friend, Mr. Stephens, should be excused.
I have no suspicion against him, not the slightest. I wish to say if the
recanters intend to do anything they should do it themselves. I do not
express a desire they should do anything; I have not placed myself in
this position. Whatever becomes of me the recantations should appear in
the vehicles in which the recommendations appeared—the Record, Patriot,
Scottish Guardian, and Evangelical Magazine.”

Mr. Wood was requested to repeat what Mr. Stephens said in the Station-
ing Committee, substantially, namely: ‘‘ The spirit and principles of that
paper are not mine. I would rather follow my son to the grave than that
he should promulgate such principles.” ‘

Mr. V. Ward said: ‘‘ I have written some articles for the paper, and I did
wish it might succeed because it is in the hands of sons of Methodist
preachers. Ihave never given my name. I might have done so if it had
been properly conducted. The practical question is: Should we disclaim the
paper? I have sometimes differed from Mr. Bunting, and expressed my
differences. I hope I have done this at the proper time. Whenever Mr.
Bunting, or any other preacher, is attacked, I feel myself attacked. I dis-
approve of anonymous publications when character is concerned.”

The Conference’ adopted mem. con. the Minute of the Liver-
pool District Meeting, and it was printed in our Minutes.

J 2
132 fflistory oF Mernonism.

The effect of the offensive articles in the ddvocate was
very great, but precisely opposite to that which was intended.
It vastly strengthened the position of the powerful minister
whom it so outrageously assailed, and the condemnation by the
Conference, and the withdrawal from the sponsorship of the
120 ministers who were said to have commended it, and the
exposure of the real objects of the paper, ensured its speedy
and complete collapse. It began to be recognised in England,
as in the clear, bright atmosphere of Upper Canada, as a paper
which, “under pretence of connection with Methodism, was
designed to overthrow Methodism.”
CHAPTER V.

THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION.

Tue Conference of 1834 was held in London under the Presidency
of Joseph Taylor. A great gathering of ministers and laymen
took place two days before to discuss the project of a Theological
Institution. I quote from Mr. Fowler’s Journal : ‘‘ The President
introduced the business by adverting to the object of the meeting.
Then Dr. Warren asked: ‘Is this meeting what Conference
contemplated? JI think not.’ Brethren answered: ‘If not,
Conference alone can call us to order.’” Mr. Walton read the
Minutes of the Conference Committee, from which it appeared
that the lowest probable cost would be £5,500, to meet which
there was:

 

A legacy from Ireland 1 £1,000
From Missions ws wii 700
» Book Room ... is 500
£2,200

Mr. Scarth, of Leeds, said: ‘‘I shall be satisfied with the decision of the
Conference. The matter is in good and safe hands. I think the entire
expense may be raised without taxing the Book Room or the Mission Fund.
If not, it will show that our people are not very zealous in the matter. Two
considerations have great weight with me: 1. A straiter door of entrance to
the ministry; 2. Will not a man go into the ministry better fitted for it by
two years’ application to study?”

Mr. Guest, of South Wales, said: “If a Methodist preacher has not
piety, he is nothing. Iam afraid that some young men may look up to our
ministry as a profession or as a respectable position unless safeguards be
observed. I would not have it a ‘college’; that tends to vanity.”

Mr. Thorold, of Lincoln, said: ‘I have been at a Dissenting Academy
and have taken my degree at a University. There is good and evil in both.
But are not the evils curable? We differ from other communities. We will
not have a candidate who has not piety.”

Mr. Staley, of Sheffield: ‘‘ Young men will learn more in two years
under tuition than in four if left to themselves. If the hearts of the friends
in London are as mine——" Here Mr. Farmer gave him his hand and the
meeting was strongly excited, and clapped.
134 Hfistory oF MErTuonpism.

Mr. Crook, of Liverpool, said: ‘‘ Where there is this submission one to another
there is unity.” The plan was agreed to unanimously, excepting Dr. Warren,
who held up his hand against it.

In the Conference the first point of interest, after the
elections, was a speech by Mr. Bunting respecting a vote which
had been given to Mr. Bromley for the secretaryship. This
called forth replies from Mr. Atherton and others, remonstrating
against Mr. Bunting’s ‘ asperity ” in the matter.

Mr. Bunting remarked on a preacher who was ‘not sufficiently lengthy in
his application.” This called forth observations on long and short sermons.
Mr. Bunting defended his point with his usual ability, but I (Mr. F.) do not
think he made it impregnable. Hereferred to Mr. Wesley as having preached
long, but quoted exceptions as if they formed the rule.

Mr. Bunting gave John Morris, 2 young man from Manchester, a very
high character, and stated that if he were polished in some institution, as all
God's steel ought to be, he would make a very superior man.

Mr. Bunting remarked on the case of a young man recommended from
Leeds: ‘‘ I was very much pleased with him, but thought the furniture of his
mind defective, and without his receiving something in some way from some-
body I could not recommend him." . \

In both cases Mr. Bunting showed very exceptional insight
into the quality and qualifications of young men. John Morris
proved himself to be sheer steel.

Mr. Bromley: ‘Mr. Newton should be on a par with his brethren.
Mr. Bunting is wont to warn us against ‘allowing inclination to interfere with
principle.’ We should all remember this rule.”

Mr. Bunting’s reply is a good specimen of the ready smartness
with which he could extricate himself from a glaring inconsistency
and retreat under cover of a satiric pleasantry.

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘ My last speech was designed to carry out the principle of,
my equally humble former speech. I would have Mr. Newton at liberty that
Mr. Bromley may stop at home. He must learn to say ‘No.’ Mr. Bromley
won't be wanted now. A man ought to doctor himself before he puts himself
forward.”

At last the man was hit upon for writing the Obituary of
Dr. Clarke—David McNicoll—who did the great man justice.
He showed. that Clarke’s oratory was the eloquence of a loving
heart, and its energy was not less than its subtlety and tender-
ness. His character was beyond all praise. The reading of this
Obituary produced a powerful effect upon the Conference.

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘ Some words had better be left out. I recommend all Dr.
Clarke's friends—who call themselves so by way of eminence, and attempt to
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 135

raise themselves upon his shoulders, a position not very natural to them—to
cultivate Mr. McNicoll’s spirit.” Mr. Bromley remarked on “the elegance

and beauty of the Obituary. It made some approach to the excellence of the
man,”

In nothing is the genuine brotherhood of the Methodist
ministry more beautifully made manifest than in the earnest
recognition of long and loyal service on the decease or the retire-
ment of a veteran companion in arms. It must be said to the
high honour of Adam Clarke that his spirit was too noble and
his soul too Christian to inflict injury on the Church of God on
account of any unkindness towards him on the part of any of its
ministers. A letter reached him at Sheffield, where he was
preaching ‘Charity Sermons,” giving details of the outrages
practised on our West Indian Missionaries, on reading which he
wrote to Mrs. Clarke: ‘I shall pocket and seal up all my causes
of complaint, and join myself to the forlorn hope, in the front of
the storming party, in the defence of God’s people.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘There is sad deficiency of pulpit talent among a con-
siderable number of the Welsh preachers.”

Testimony was given to the eloquence of the Welsh preaching.
* All persons taken into the work for Mission stations are to
remain abroad for life.”

‘An Assistant Missionary never comes upon our funds, he is neither more
nor less than a hired local preacher.”

A Superintendent was charged with the illegal expulsion of several leaders.
A Special District Meeting, with an ex-President of high repute for judicious-
ness, and with fifty-three years’ experience of circuit work, was in the chair,
and had pronounced him guilty. He appealed, and the case was referred to
a Committee of the Conference. They reversed the decision of the Special
District Meeting, finding no froof that he had acted wunconstitutionally in
expelling these members. They severely rebuked the Special District
Meeting for its decision. This recommendation of the Conference Committee
was adopted both in its acquittal of the accused Superintendent, and its repre-
hension of the Special District Meeting.

The ‘‘ young men” were arranged for the purpose of examination, but the
Stationing Committee had not come in, and the theological examination of the
candidates for ordination was regarded as one of the most important duties
of the Conference, so they were waited for, and the interval was utilised by an
address from Mr. Sutcliffe. He declared himself ‘‘an advocate for a school of
preaching and correct pronunciation. There should be nothing mawkish, but
all natural and coherent ;. thought leading to thought. Preach a presen;
salvation. God is as strong and loving to-day as He ever was or will be.
Methodist doctrine is that of the primitive Church." He gave suitable advice
as to the way of conducting household visitation. Mr. Pinder said that Mr.
Sutcliffe ‘exemplified the duties he enforced.”
136 History or Meruopism.

Mr. Cusworth referred to some chapels in Shetland.
Mr. Bunting said: ‘‘That anomalous business has come to an end. It
lived with Dr. Clarke, and with him it died.”

In the examination of the young men, Mr. Bunting again
took occasion to disparage Fletcher as a theologian. He made
remarks on the doctrine of imputation which showed that he
strangely misconceived or had utterly forgotten Fletcher’s
teaching on the subject. Mr. Bunting was perfectly Fletcherian
in his own deliverance: ‘Faith justifies because it brings us
to the place of meeting. with God.”

‘

Mr. Bunting referred to ‘ The evil of visiting from circuit to circuit, instead
of visiting from house to house. I think too many preachers are invited to
Missionary Meetings. Our friends and our foes are watching our expenses.
I think there is too much Sabbath work.” Mr. Reece, too, condemned
“ diffusive rambling, and resolved to be more attentive to his pastoral duties.”

Mr. Ward: ‘There are two extremes: too much running about, and too
much shutting up in the study. Dr. Clarke used to say: ‘The way to a
man’s heart is through his house.’’’ Mr. Ward insisted on ‘‘ the importance
of junior colleagues being ‘helpers’ to their Superintendents.” A candidate
who was not present at this examination through illness was not received into
full Connexion, but had a dispensation to administer the Lord’s Supper.

Mr. Bunting: “I think no one man is fit to take the entire care of a

congregation. It is not the plan of God. By charging us to preach is not
meant popping into a pulpit once a fortnight, but taking the regular work. If
Independency is the best thing, what have we to do here? There is a great
deal of cheating Satan in this matter. We must have a friendly not a
captious superintendence over each other. There need be nothing else than
unity among us: if we differ at all let it be among ourselves not among our
people.” These remarks were received with the most cordial feeling and
entire unanimity.
: Mr. Bunting supported the proposal of the Stationing Committee to
appoint a single man along with Mr. Newton, half the expense being paid
from the Mission Fund. Mr. Bromley said: ‘'I rise in great embarrassment.
Mr. Bunting’s speech of this morning, in which he exhorted us to stay at
home, will not hang together with his speech of this afternoon. I am glad
that he has had the courage to speak in this manner.”

A young supernumerary wished to return to the full circuit work. He

said: ‘I freely confess and deeply deplore my former eccentricities.
I have no affection for them. They are excrescences.” He made
a very powerful, tender, eloquent address. Mr. N. ‘wished to be

satisfied that the spirit of the ministry was restored to him." Mr. Bunting
moved his re-admission. It was unanimously passed. Another super-
numerary made the like application. Mr. Gaulter: ‘The man who is not
touched with mercy by repentance is neither fit for Heaven nor for earth.”

Dr. Bunting said: ‘If Dr. Dodd deserved to be hanged once, Mr.
deserved to be hanged ten times.”? The brethren generally thought Dodd did
not deserve hanging.

 
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 137

A missionary in the West Indies, who, after nineteen years’ service—in very
special circumstances—had left without leave, was deprived of nine years of
ministerial standing. This was felt by the Conference to be an excessive
punishment of a brave man who had seen so much service, and had hazarded
his life “on the high places of the field"’ in theconflict with slavery. Messrs.
Joseph Taylor, ex-missionary secretary, Grindrod, and Newton pleaded in
mitigation of the sentence, especially as he had been recommended to the
merciful consideration ‘‘ of his brethren.”

Mr. Bunting said: If you mitigate the sentence, do it with your eyes
open. Don’t blame the missionary secretaries if men come home without
leave. Some friendly captain will bring them home at half-price. Your own
rule requires his expulsion. Think of a man leaving a circuit without a
preacher !”’

The defence was the simple statement of the facts. So far
from “leaving a circuit without a preacher,” he had J/eft three
preachers in the circuit. Where is the law demanding the
expulsion of the man? It seemed a stern sentence to come
under the head of “merciful consideration” to be deprived of all
but double the term of service during which he had “ borne the
burden and heat of the day” beneath the blaze of the West
Indian sun. He had lived through the fierce times of slave-
holders’ persecution, when all at once his health collapsed. His
Obituary in the Minutes states that in the heroic times of our
West Indian Mission “he was driven from no duty by fear,” and
that ‘the state of his health compelled his return to England.”
He knew perfectly well that the Mission House could not refuse
their consent to his return after such an unbroken length of
service. He was completely disabled from further service in the
tropics. At this juncture ‘‘a friendly captain” offered to bring
him and his family to England at half-price, an important saving
to the Mission funds. He was medically assured that as speedy a
return as possible to his native air was essential to his recovery,
so he anticipated the formal leave which he knew could not be
refused. For this he was deprived of nine out of nineteen years
of hazardous and noble service. The stigma and the hardness of
this sentence crushed him ; I remember him as a broken-spirited,
dejected brother. (His son. was one of my pupils.)

The profits of the Book Room during the year were £8,843.

A long discussion took place on the system of teaching the
Catechism introduced into Sunday Schools by a Mr. Darling, a
Scotchman, and a Catechism of his own which was extensively
used instead of the Conference Catechism. The system, as
expounded and exemplified by himself at Woodhouse Grove,
138 History oF Meruopism.

was what Mr. Atherton pronounced it, ‘‘the quintessence of
nonsense,” and the Book Committee rightly resented it as “a
see-saw system of words.”

Mr. Bunting said: ‘' When the obstinate people of Edinburgh would have
Gaul's system Mr, Haswell should have written to the Conference. I dis-
approve of Mr. Darling’s piracy of our Catechism. On the other hand, Mr,
‘Watson was not the fittest man to draw up catechisms. He was designed for
a loftier region. Mr. D.'s system, I think, has been kicked out too
unceremoniously. I would have a Committee to examine it. I was intro-
duced to Mr. Darling, and almost compelled to read his book, but opened
casually upon the question: ‘What is Atonement?’ I shut the book, and
told him it was highly objectionable and not intelligible to a child. Mr.
Darling was introduced among us as a public man, how came he to be
sanctioned? I wish to ask, if this system does not produce a kind of
mechanical secularity. With all due respect for the Book Committee, I think
they had no right to issue a new catechism. Our accredited catechisms are
Conference catechisms."” Mr. Ward: ‘I do not think so highly or so meanly
of Mr. Darling’s system as some of my brethren do; I am sorry that any
confusion has been created in our Connexion. Many of our people catch
at anything new. At Newcastle I advised Mr. Darling to go home‘and
attend to his large little family; I told him he thought himself a much
cleverer fellow than he really was.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘I think if the preachers on the Manchester, Sheffield, and
Leeds Circuits formed into a committee they might report next Conference.”
The committee was appointed.

Mr. Pilter: ‘‘Why have Dr. Clarke’s MSS. been rejected and Mr.
Watson's accepted ?”’

Mr, Bunting: ‘‘ With my eyes perfectly open—I know there are traitors in
the camp—lI will say, it would have been injurious to our pecuniary interests.
The market is full of Dr. Clarke's productions. There is no room in
America: they have four editions and know the consequence of what I have
stated.”

An eminent minister wondered at the sum given for Mr. Watson’s MSS.,
£2,000. Mr. Lessy: ‘It is injurious when some brethren represent them-
selves as friends of Dr. Clarke, others as friends of Mr. Watson. I wish
there were an end to this unholy rivalry.” The Editor: ‘‘ Independently
of what the Connexion owes to Mr. Watson, the MSS. are worth the sum
paid for them.” Mr. Scott: ‘I have heard it said that the Committee would
give £2,000 for a fragment of Mr. Watson's, yet refused Dr. Clarke’s valuable
Dictionary. Iam pained at what hasbeen said.’ Mr. W Smith asked: “ Are
the Sermon Sketches in Mr. Watson's own handwriting or taken down in
shorthand?"" It was answered: ‘‘The greater part in Mr. Watson's hand-
writing.” Mr. Gaulter: ‘When I thought we had paid too much for the
MSS.—.” (Mr. B. Slater cried out, “I would give £2,000.”) Mr. Gaulter
proceeded: ‘It gives me pain to see two such men brought into competition
and into conflict among our people.’ (The Conference cried, «No! no!’)
Mr. Gaulter: ‘‘I beseech my brethren not to interrupt me; I have not
prepared my speech ; I could not have done so. I think the money is too
much for the MSS., but not too much as an acknowledgment of Mr. Watson's
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 139

services. But I was brought up, Methodistically and otherwise, in a school of
parsimony.” Mr. Bromley: ‘In speaking I have obeyed a canon in the
Minutes : ‘Speak freely what is in your mind.’ I wait with impatience to hear
what Mr. Bunting has to say.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘I solemnly deny that there has been an origination of
any rivalry on the part of Mr. Watson’s friends. We learnt a little common
sense certainly by intercourse with Mr. Watson. The last conversation I
had with him he said he regretted that he was always drawn into collision
with Dr. Clarke. The whole of the guilt Mr. Watson’s friends throw on
Dr. Clarke's friends. The sum of £2,000 appears great to those who deal in
small wares and little matters. The dearness of those MSS. is, in Mr.
Bromley’s spectacles (Mr. Bromley was obliged to wear spectacles constantly).
I am sorry I heard some terms used in this debate.”

It was agreed that ‘‘no purchase of books or MSS. shall be concluded
without the consent of the Geneval Book Committee.”

A letter was read from Dr. Beaumont complaining (1) of the review of
Dr. Clarke's Life in the Magazine ; (2) of the rejection from the Magazine of
the advertisement of a monument to Dr. Clarke ; (3) of the sum paid for Mr.
Watson's MSS.

Financial difficulties in Sheffield having been complained of,

Mr. Bunting said : ‘That comes of preachers obstinately claiming circuits
for which they are not qualified.”

Mr. Bunting remarked on ‘the impropriety of appointing committees of
Quarterly Meetings. Mr. Toase may well be popular ; I believe I could be
popular were I to doso.” (This was a shrewd side-thrust to the ex-President,
whom Mr. Toase had succeeded in the Superintendency of Southwark, and
whose example he had followed.)

Mr. Bunting : ‘‘I am sorry that the brethren take so much pains for them-
selves when so much pains has been taken for them. The Stationing Com-
mittee have endeavoured to the best of their ability to prevent these brethren
having to speak for themselves, but it seems waste of time.” :

The Editor, in reply to the vote of thanks, said: ‘‘I was honoured with
Dr. Clarke's personal confidence. I have for the last nine years spent fourteen
or sixteen hours a day at my desk. My sightis injured by application to study,
but by the thanks of the Conference I am fully compensated.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘' Before this matter closes, a word for the mighty dead.
There was no comparison between the congregations, talent, and usefulness
of Dr. Clarke and Mr. Benson. Dr. Clarke was never more useful than at
Gravel Lane. His congregations were full to overflowing.”

It was agreed ‘that £26 per annum should be allowed to Mr. Watson's
widowed mother during her life.’ Also that ‘Tablets should be erected to
the memory of Messrs. Clarke, Watson, and Benson, at the expense of the
Book Room.”

Mr. Bunting said: ‘‘ I have heard that the tablet to Dr. Clarke is intended
to honour his /itevary character, and that the inscription is unobjectionable. If
so, I shall be glad to become a subscriber."

At Downham there had been a Revival but not much improvement in
financial matters. Mr. Bunting said: ‘‘ Young members properly trained are
willing to give, whilst old ones are apathetic and not so easily wrought upon.
1 would not have us take measures to affect our finances on the strength of
140 History oF METHODISM.

arecent Revival; I would ask where the Sunday places are and whether this
is a proper circuit to make a benevolent experiment in?" It was said: ‘‘ The
population is thin.’ The application for an additional preacher was not
granted.

The departmental business was this year of very special
interest, but it had been so spiritedly and satisfactorily dealt with
in the preliminary committees that it gave the Conference very
little trouble, and took up but about two days of its time. Several
missionary matters most encouraging and most important, were
reported and auspiciously disposed of. One great point was the
election of two secretaries to fill the posts left vacant by the
lamented James and Watson. The choice of Mr. Bunting was
inevitable. He was beyond compare the most competent man
for the position of Senior Secretary at the Mission House. His
speech in accepting the appointment was characteristic in a high
degree. He said, ‘In accepting as cheerfully and as gratefully as
I do this appointment, I wish to say that I was no candidate for
the office. I hoped that some of the brethren who wished to
keep me in my place would have found a proper person, and that
I should have gone to Leeds, where I was pledged, and where for
many domestic reasons, I wished to go.”

Being deprived, to meet a Connexional demand, of such a
minister as Jabez Bunting, the Leeds East people were allowed
to make their choice. They fixed on Joseph Fowler, who spent
there three happy, prosperous, effective years. Mr. Bunting, by
this appointment, became permanently fixed in London, which
seemed his proper habitat. Here he spent the best quarter of a
century of a long and intense and highly influential life, at the
very focus of all the Methodist activity and of British enterprise.
And of that centre of Methodist activity he himself became the
centre, and that by the living weight of his own powerful
personality and capacity for affairs, and passion for affairs,
and unmatchable assiduity in attention to affairs. As his
biographer says, he was, during all this time, “taking a
chief part, not only in foreign affairs, but in every department
of Methodism” (p. 647).

Dr. Alder had just given signal proof of his capacity by the
most successful accomplishment of a difficult mission of unifica-
tion in Canada, where amidst intense political and ecclesiastical
excitement, he had welded together the two rival Methodist
bodies, the Wesleyan Methodists and the Methodist Episcopal
Church, reconciling all the old outstanding difficulties ; and in the
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 141

course of his negotiations had received so much attention, hospi-
tality, and deference, from the Governor of Upper Canada, Sir
John Colton, that the Missionary Committee felt bound to
transmit to his Excellency a vote of thanks. The leading Canadian -
Methodist, Mr. Ryerson, returned with Dr. Alder, bringing a plan
of Union between the Canadian and the British Conference,
requesting that a general Superintendent should be sent out from
England, and that Dr. Alder should be the first President of
their Conference.

Mr. Bunting maintained that the financial part of the question belonged
to the Committee of Review, the Ecclesiastical and disciplinary part to the
Conference. ‘‘ What weighs with me is—if we do not take them up they must
fall. The United States have voted them {500 a year on consideration of
their civilising work among the Indians,"’

Mr. Marsden was appointed President of the Canadian Conference. In
accepting the appointment he assured the Conference : ‘I shall stick to the
instructions which the Conference has agreed upon. I shall return as speedily
as possible. For nearly forty years I have never been absent from my circuit for a
week together except at Conference.”

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘The Union was most important, expedient, and desirable.
I am the last man to put religion at the feet of men of the world; but I do
not belong to that party of Dissenters who refuse all countenance of Govern-
ment to unshackled, pure Ecclesiastical authority and power. If religious
instruction be communicated from this country, Government would look
more favourably on it.” He illustrated the advantage of placing the whole
under the British Conference by the example of Ireland. ‘‘I would advocate
it on patriotic grounds. There is no cement like religion. If we fail we have
done no harm. I had some fear lest there should be a great secession and
some feeling respecting a political tone, but Mr. Ryerson has satisfied us on
both points. Iam not very particular respecting the mode of Church govern-
ment. I do not care if a preacher calls his Superintendent ‘Bishop’; I have
been so called. I do not believe in any Divine right of Episcopacy ; I would
have purity of doctrine."

The Chapel Fund Report gave a very cheering account of
the working of a new plan for paying off debt. On this,

Mr. Bunting remarked: ‘‘This shows that we have got over the worst.”’
At a previous Session Mr. Bunting had animadverted strongly on Messrs.
McLean and Rowland. He now said: ‘I beg to be heard a moment, as I
have had my feelings specially consulted. I would apologise to Brother
McLean and Brother Rowland for having expressed myself so as to give
them pain,”

Mr. Stanley complained of ‘an innovation in the Bath Circuit. A whole
verse was sung at once at the request or dictate of the organist.”’

Mr, Bunting: “I most decidedly object to the dictation of an organist,
I think on a Sunday evening the middle hymn, if well known, such as ‘ Come,
ye that love the Lord,’ might be sung without giving out.” ,
142 HfisTorv or METHODISM.

The Plan of Education for the Methodist Ministry was again
before the Conference.

Mr. Bunting said: ‘‘ We must attempt this on a large scale, not nibble at
it any longer. A plan of examination of young preachers as to what they
read is very good, but not all. It is desirable to come a little nearer together
in judgment. Former meetings have been deterred by the expense and want
of union. I move: 'That a Committee be appointed to meet in London
some brethren from the country.” We must not care about a little expense.
Should the Committee prove abortive it will be to be regretted. I hope we
shall be in earnest. In Ireland they recommend that a school for Methodist
youths should be established. They complain of being obliged to send their
children to clergymen or Dissenting ministers, where they may get a good
deal of learning, but not a very warm heart towards Methodism. Five
gentlemen in Manchester will give £100. One of them will undertake all
risks ; he thinks we may accomplish two objects in one.”

Mr. Bromley: ‘I doubt the expediency of the plan. To divide the atten-
tion of our people between two systems may be hurtful. I think the times
are moving; Ido not know whether right or not, I have some doubt, but I
think the University where Mr. Wesley got his education would be acceptable
if we could get at it. 1 think we should have two classes of ministry,
educated and otherwise. IJ think, too, our past system has worked well.
Our uneducated fathers succeeded beyond most educated men.”

Mr. R. Waddy: ‘I think our Connexion is already sufficiently burdened
with collections. I think too, in the selection of ministers we do not go down
to the lowest, but select them of some education. I approve of a school for
the children of our people, but should be sorry to have young preachers
at them.”

On reading the Obituary of Daniel Isaac,

Mr. Bunting : ‘I would express my entire concurrence with the Character
drawn up by Mr Bromley. I admire the manner in which it is drawn up as
well as the man whose Character it is. It is well known that there was
a difference of opinion between us on some matters. He thought we differed
much more than we really did. We have been more acquainted in later life.
I was much pleased with him.’ Dr. Beaumont testified to his ‘‘ uncommon
faithfulness.”

This was indeed true of Daniel Isaac’s preaching. He was
a fearless and relentless detective and castigator of the sins alike
of professor and profane.

“Mr. Treffry observed that whilst he laboured in Leeds, it was said
he drove all dishonourable men of business out of both circuits. In his
preaching he made sin and error look ridiculous.” Mr. Calder attempted
to speak, but was too much affected to proceed. ‘‘ Mr. Waterhouse alluded
to the tenderness which was blended with his faithfulness. He always guarded
against using Scripture lightly. He gave his colleagues free access to his rich
library.’ Many more wished to speak, but were not allowed for lack of
time.
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 143

Fine testimony was also borne to the venerable Duncan
McAllum.

Mr. Atherton: ‘He was a most extraordinary and eminent man."
Mr, Stephens confirmed this statement.

Mr. Bunting: “Dr. Clarke once said to me, pointing to Mr. McAllum,
‘ See that man, he is a walking lexicon.’”’

Mr. McLean said : ‘Mr. McAllum had more correct views of what is likely
to promote religion in Scotland than any other man I ever conversed with.”

When the question was under discussion: “What Super-
numeraries are to be re-admitted to the work?”

Mr. Bunting remarked : ‘If a man cannot do the work, he has a provi-
dential release from the itinerancy. The expense of supplies for invalided
preachers (almost a new item) amounts to many hundreds a year.” He
added : ‘‘I do not wish my name to be so often repeated for mere rhetorical
embellishment. If I am the butt out of doors, I do not wish to be the butt of
this Conference. I wish I had a cottage in the wilderness. I am sick to
nausea at the frequent allusion to my name.”

When the Manchester District was reached, the Secretary
after putting the question, called the attention of the Conference
to a very peculiar case which was commented on amongst our
people, and one which he thought it high time for the Confer-
ence to pronounce its judgment upon. Mr. Everett was carrying
on a thriving business in Manchester, and at the same time with
his name on the Minutes as a Supernumerary Minister, who had
the appearance and the habit of a man in robust health, and was,
as a matter of fact, doing an amount of preaching and platform
speaking, which involved a larger expenditure of energy, and
of exposure in coach-travelling by night, and in the winter, than
any ordinary circuit work entailed. This had been going on for
eleven years, and as they had now the advantage of Mr. Everett's
presence in the Conference, he asked leave to appeal to him, as to
whether or not he was physically able to return to circuit work ?

Mr. Everett replied: ‘‘I have not for some time had any return of my
old complaint. I could preach every Sabbath, but do not know what the
week-night work might do.”

Mr. Reece said: ‘I think it would not be well to take him out, Ifhis health
breaks down in a year or two, he may not recover his business,”

Mr. Bromley: ‘I have a strong objection to his leaving his business,
which is prosperous. I believe he cannot stand the work of an itinerant.”

Mr.. Sutcliffe: ‘‘I think he ought either to come out or to decline taking
any of our money from the Preachers’ Fund.”’

Mr. Bunting: ‘I feel obliged to Mr. Sutcliffe for saying what so many
think.”
-

144 Hisrory or Meruonism.

Mr, Everett explained that what he received from the Preachers’ Fund

went to ‘‘ the support of his mother.” :
“Mr. Bunting: ‘‘ This caseis an anomaly. Many laymen ask, ‘ Why admit

Mr. Everett into all the privileges of the ministry, when he is as really a trades-
man and a shopkeeper as any layman in the Body?’ This cannot be defended
on principle. We cannot exclude the other Methodist men in trade and
business, We cannot defend their exclusion. His high and lofty notions have
placed him in a most anomalous situation. I think that none but separated
men should have a seat and vote among us. A man should be either one
thing or another. I would put an end to such anomalies. Mr. Everett would
be acceptable in any circuit, and may have his choice.”

Mr. E. returned to circuit work.

The Conference little thought what a fateful act it was per-
forming when it decided to retain Mr. Griffith on probation, after
all his manifestations of untamable individualism and insubordi-
nation, and his eager politics, and despite the warnings of such
men as Beaumont, Reece, and Bunting. And Mr. Bunting had
no idea what he was providing for himself and Methodism when
he moved that Mr. Everett should be required to leave his shop
in Manchester and return to circuit work, and that despite
the forecasts of such men as Reece again, and Bromley.
Surely the Conference should have at least left to Everett himself
the responsibility of the alternative between giving up his shop
or giving up his status as a Wesleyan Methodist minister. He
had distinctly stated that, in his own judgment, to take the full
circuit work week-day as well as Sunday would be a risk.

Mr. Bunting blamed Mr. Stanley for entering the office of the Christian
Advocate,

Mr, Stanley: ‘I disapprove of its spirit. I have written and spoken
against it. Those who have made the statement to produce a certain effect
are unworthy of my esteem. The case is this: Some fifteen weeks ago, at a
Book Committee, Mr. Moore suggested that it was necessary to read the
Christian Advocate. Messrs, Entwisle, Cubitt, and Dixon approved of this.
I knew that Mr, Mason read it regularly. I thought: How can I obtain it in
the most quiet way? I have no love toerror, . In passing the office I ordered
the paper, but did not sit down.”

It is necessary to explain that Mr. Stanley was expected to be
elected to the Chair of Conference that year, and the fact of his
having ordered the Advocate was made as much of as possible by
his opponents to divert the votes in another direction. No doubt
it transferred many votes from Mr. Stanley to Mr. Taylor. Mr.
Stanley had 99 votes; Mr. Taylor 128.

Mr. Bunting: ‘I think no Methodist preacher should take inthe Advocate
paper. The paper attacks our great principles, I do not care personally,
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 145

I despise it too much. I think Mr. Entwisle, Mr. Dixon, or anybody did
wrong in going into the printer's shop. No man should subscribe to the
paper. I differ from Mr. Stanley in what he calls ‘the quiet way.’ I call it
the notorious and ostentatious way. He should have applied to a newsvendor.
I dissent from Mr. Stanley in spending much time in reading infidel publica-
tions. (Mr. Stanley said he did not.) I have made up my mind on the
subject of Christianity, and I do not expect to see as profound, though I may
as subtle, publications against it. I have the best, the experimental proof of
the truth. I think the reading of this publication tends to defile the mind.
It is not quite safe perhaps for Mr. Stanley to read it. Impressions have
been made that he is in league with the Advocate. I never said so. But, if
we must not speak out, why have we talked about this business at all? We
are called not toa privilege to vote, but to execute a solemn trust. I did
vote against Mr. Stanley’s election to the Presidency. The ballot is only
a covert for knaves. I hope the time may come when I can vote for Mr.
Stanley. I did nota little to prevent his election. The reason why was: the
Advocate had taken upon it to dictate to us a President, and we thought it
necessary to make a stand on public grounds.”

Mr. W. Smith: “I think we should require the Book Steward to withdraw
his name as a subscriber.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘I think sotoo. And ifthere is here some leaky, treacherous
brother, as in the last Conference, I hope that he will communicate among
other things to the Advocate that Mr. Stanley said it was ‘a villainous paper.’
I would have Mr. Mason give it up. I would not read it. The Circular is put
down. I would not allow any man to tell me what was in it.”

Mr. Mason: ‘‘I cannot withdraw my name, for I am not a subscriber. I
do occasionally purchase it in my official character, as I purchase the
Protestant Methodist Magazine, etc.”

Mr. Atherton: ‘I am most surprised at the mental appetite of such as
can sit down and gorge the mangled bleeding characters of their brethren,
whom they address as ‘My dear Brother.'"’ Mr. Mason promised to give
it up.

The unfortunate missionary who had been docked of nine out of his
nineteen years of service in the West Indies, for coming home at half price
instead of waiting for the formal permission of the Mission House, requested
to become a Supernumerary because his memory has failed and he is obliged
to read his sermons, etc. Permission was not granted.

The Missionary Secretaries complained of Thomas Collins for
“ declining to go abroad.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘ These departures from engagement are frequent and dis-
honourable. However, I hope he will not be given to the Missions. He
would not suit us. I trust he will be looked after as to his zeal for the home-
work, Let him not think that we are satisfied with him. We think him
defective in zeal.

“There are two kinds of jilting among us—jilting young females and
jilting the Missionary Committee. We do not intend to be married to those
who have jilted us,”

How odd it sounds to hear the young Boanerges, Thomas Collins, described

K
146 Alistory oF MErTuHopiIsit.

as ‘defective in zeal.” But Mr. Coley, inhis ‘Life of Collins,” shows most clearly
that Mr, Collins did not decline to go to the West Indies. What he did was
to frankly state to the Conference through the Committee the altered facts of
his case, and to leave it wholly to the judgment of the Conference whether he
should go or stay,

Alas! there seemed to be at this time an epidemic of “jilting”
misses as well as jilting missions. One of the former cases has in
it an episode with a romantic dash. The case was well known to
Mr. Bunting, who therefore naturally took the keener interest in
the matter. The lady in the case was the daughter of, at that
time, a prosperous farmer, who was also a very popular local
preacher. Mr. Bunting, for a series of years, was accustomed to
preach anniversary sermons at the place. The jilted young lady
was much superior to the man who jilted her in education, posi-
tion, manners, and in character. His conduct towards her was,
by general consent, disgracefully shabby. But he offered himself
for the foreign work, married, and went abroad. Then the matter
came to the knowledge of the Christian Advocate, which was
always sniffing about hungrily for something to discredit the
Mission House and hurt its funds. The matter was detailed in
such wise as to evade the law of libel, yet cast the greatest odium
on the Missionary Secretaries. He had to be recalled, tried, found
guilty of frivolous and unprincipled treatment of a young lady,
and was put back on the list of reserve ; for Conference has always
been very strict on such matters. Mr. Bynting showed great
faithfulness and tenderness. But such and so varied is the per-
versity of human nature, even in its better specimens, three other
promising neophytes had rushed to the other extreme, and married
in the midst of their probation. The wives in these cases were
widows with families. The first case occasioned a very lively
conversation. It is very humorously related, and caused some
merriment.

Messrs. Sutcliffe, Reece, and Bunting bore very hard on the offenders: they
thought it no laughing matter.

Mr. Entwisle: ‘Mr. Edmondson, afterwards President, applied for per-
mission to marry in his third year. A Committee was appointed to consider
his case. The Committee did not sit. The probationer took silence for consent,
married, and was suspended.”

Mr. Bromley: ‘‘Is the rule constructed on financial principles, or some
other ?””

Mr. Reece: ‘'I understand it to have some regard to finances, but also to
the ministerial character of the young men.”

Mr. Bromley: ‘I think if in anything we look towards Rome it is in this i
matter of celibacy.”
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 147

The President: ‘‘ I will allow Mr. Bromley to move an alteration in the
rule, but not to speak against it.”

Mr. Moore: ‘‘ Lady Huntingdon made it a rule that ifany of her preachers
married they should provide for themselves, and Mr. Charles Wesley wished
the same rule to be adopted; but Mr. Wesley said the farthest he could go
was to keep them single whilst on trial. Some said this was a doctrine of
devils, but Mr. Wesley kept to his rule.”

On this point the venerable octogenarian’s memory failed him.
It seems strange that he should have lost sight of the case of Mr.
Kilham. Wesley allowed him to marry in the midst of his pro-
bation, on receiving the assurance that his wife could and would
provide for herself, and on the guarantee that no Connexional or
Circuit Fund should be a whit the poorer for the indulgence
granted him.

Mr. Dixon: “ Shall we attach penalties tothe rule? I doubt the propriety
of this. Cases should be dealt with as they occur. If a penalty is inflicted
upon all alike, it must be unjust to some. I doubt whether this can be done
in accordance with the Scriptures. In some circumstances it is not a crime
to marry."

Nevertheless, marrying whilst on trial for the ministry was treated-as of
equal guilt to the most frivolous and heartless jilting, without the least regard
to the providential position of the parties.

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘I am the last man to draw general conclusions from
particular premises, but the devil is assailing the young men of this Connexion
in a particular way. I lament the tremendous evil of young men living out of
the house of their Superintendents.”

Mr. Anderson: ‘‘Was any notice taken in the Liverpool District of a
brother who had introduced into a chapel in Liverpool a petition in favour of
Church and State, in opposition to the Radical petitions ?”’

Mr. McNicoll: ‘Mr. W. B. Stephenson had exhorted the people to sign
such a petition without his Superintendent’s consent. He acknowledged this,
and it was agreed that there should be no record.”

It was found that secessions had occurred in five strong
circuits: Bolton, Halifax, Burslem, Oldham, and Ashton, and the
brethren—Sykes, Crowther, Sutcliffe, and Campbell, and another
—were accused of having created or allowed disturbances in
Manchester First, Todmorden, Brighton, Holmfirth, and Durham.
As to Bolton, “The conduct of the Superintendent was highly
approved of.” Messrs. Galland and W. M. Bunting were pro-
nounced to have handled the very trying Halifax disturbance
with great judgment and ability. The Burslem Trustees had
made a charge against the Superintendent, the cheerful and kind-
hearted Thomas Harris, of being the cause of the division. But
the Conference declared him to be fully justified in having made

K 2
148 History OF METHODISM.

a stand against Radicalism ; but he was recommended to be
prudent in his manner of endeavouring to improve the religious
character of his flock. At his request Messrs. Reece, Marsden,
and S. Jackson were appointed to visit Burslem.

The Superintendent of Oldham was declared to have acted
properly. Thus a carefully graduated approbation was awarded
to judicious disciplinarians. The Superintendent of Todmorden
was shrewdly called in question for employing in his circuit an
eager, active agitator. Mr. Crowther was exculpated for having
introduced the same man to the pulpit at Oldham Street,
Manchester. Brother Campbell, of Holmfirth, had taken part
in a political meeting, but it turned out such a droll affair
that no serious notice could be taken of it. The venerable
Joseph Sutcliffe had taken the chair at one of these meetings
at Brighton, but had made a good Methodistical speech about
something else, and with a candour worthy of his age, had pro-
mised to do so no more.

One brother called a Minor District Meeting on another
brother for something he had said in Conference.

Mr. Bunting : ‘‘ That should be guarded against, it might lead to evil."

Mr. Pilter inquired: ‘‘ When a matter is settled in a District Meeting,
must it be brought forward at Conference ?”

The President: ‘‘ Whatever comes before the District should be reported
at Conference.”

Mr. Methley : ‘‘I protest against the doctrine that every conversation at
District Meeting must be detailed at the Conference.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘1 charge-the Sheffield District Meeting with giving a false
report in saying that there had been ‘no objection.’ ”’

Mr. Reece: ‘ The case was simply this. My colleague, Mr. Dunn, made,
the night before, I may not call it a charge, but Mr. M. would bring it before
the District Meeting.” The unanimous opinion of the meeting was that Mr.
Dunn did wrong in taking the part he did in a meeting held at Cutlers’ Hall.
So far as can be gathered from the conversation in Conference, Mr. McLean
had promoted and spoken at a meeting in favour of the union of Church and
State, in which meeting Mr. Dunn, his junior colleague, had taken part, but
on the other side. The latter in the course of his remarks had made some
observations which the former felt to be an impeachment of his character,
which he found it necessary to vindicate. The District Meeting thought that
Mr. Dunn did wrong in reflecting on his senior colleague in the Cutlers’ Hall,
after having let slip the opportunity of remonstrating with him in private, and
thus avoiding the unseemliness of a public collision between two popular
Methodist ministers who were in the same circuit.

Mr. Bromley ‘thought Mr. Dunn had done wrong, but called attention
to the rule ‘That no brother should be arraigned before the Conference
without acopy of the charge.’ "’ He thought Mr. Bunting's action “' irregular.”’
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 149

Mr. Dunn: “If any more be said about these matters I must claim the
right to go into the full case.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘The District Meeting is only a Committee; everything
said or done should be, in some form, brought before the Conference,
We must guard against the infringement of the rights of Conference. I
would conclude with a motion: ‘That there shall be a record in the District
Meeting, and if the Conference think proper they may call for an inquiry and
the record be forthcoming.’

A generally mild, well-meaning brother was charged with having held an
anti-State Church meeting in our chapel in Durham, in defiance of all the
efforts of his Superintendent to prevent it. A disturbance in the society was
the natural result. He was admonished from the Chair. It was reported
that the Newcastle East and Gateshead Circuits had in like manner been
greatly agitated, whilst Newcastle West was quiet. Mr. Naylor asked, how
this came about? Mr. Bunting sensibly submitted whether this and other
cases of the kind had not better be postponed? Agreed. The Superintendent
of the Whitehaven Circuit was charged with having made a highly objection-
able speech at a meeting held in our chapel. Mr. Bromley: ‘I understand
that no brother in the house has seen a copy of the speech, but through the
medium of the Christian Advocate. I would ask, Is it Conference consistence,
first to denounce the Advocate, and then to found an accusation on its evidence ?"’
Mr. Lord: ‘I saw the speech both in a Whitehaven and a Nottingham
newspaper.”

Mr. Bunting : ‘I object to this lawyer-like way of proceeding in a matter
of ecclesiastical discipline. We havea right to send for him and require that
he plainly and untechnically answer our questions, and if he do not give us
satisfaction, dismiss him from the body.”

It was a far cry from London to Whitehaven and back before
_ any of the great northward lines of railway were as yet laid ; and
it was no light contingency for the Contingent Fund to pay
his expenses forth and again. Nevertheless, he had to take
this trip to town without delay. The President demanded
from him an account of the meeting and his speech.

Mr. Atherton : ‘Is it fair to require the prisoner to furnish the charge?”

Mr. Bunting : ‘It is fair among us. We are not a court of law, but a
body of ministers. ;

Mr. Hudson : ‘I made a speech, but it has been caricatured.”

Mr. Bunting : ‘‘ The brethren who spoke out last week should come forward
and substantiate their statements. The speech appeared in the Patriot. Let
it be procured and prove or disprove. A man gains nothing in this Connexion
by standing on points of law. Let him deal frankly.”

Mr, Hudson handed up a copy of his speech, which was read. It was more
humorous than offensive ; excepting that it was made by a Methodist preacher
in a Methodist chapel.

Mr. Newton and Mr. Marsden condemned the speech in the strongest
terms.

Mr. Bromley said: ‘This brings my own sin to my remembrance. In
150 Fitsrory oF METHODISM.

Brunswick Chapel, Leeds, I compared the Church of England to an old lady.
Tought to bearraigned along with Mr. Hudson.”

The President : ‘Mr. Bromley is not before us.’

Mr, Bunting : ‘Yes, he is, by his own showing. Mr. Bromley ought not
to have descended to such an irregularity. If the Church of England is the
daughter of the Church of Rome, then we are the grand-daughter. These
are ridiculous attempts at wit. We must condemn them.”

Mr. Hudson : “ Have not similar meetings been held in other chapels?’’

Mr. Reece : ‘‘ The Methodists have from the Reuse respected that part
of the British Constitution.”

Mr. Hudson: “I acknowledge I did wrong.”

The President : ‘‘ Will you refrain from agitating in future?”

Mr. Hudson : ‘' Yes.”

Mr, Bunting “ thought that the Yarmouth affair ought to beinquired into,”

It seemed that here, too, under the Superintendency of
William Griffith, senzor, a similar meeting had taken place : but
the Conference had had enough of the subject.

Mr. Hudson lived to lay his son on the lap of the “ old lady,”
as a devoted parish priest.

Next came on the celebrated case of Joseph Rayner Stephens.
This has been so amply chronicled from Mr. Stephens’ point of
view, by his friend Holyoake, and from the Conference point of
view in Smith's “ History of Methodism,” and in the “ Life of Dr.
Bunting,” especially, as to render unnecessary more than a few
introductory sentences, before we throw upon the page of history
the additional light which rays out from the discussions in the
Conference on this critical case.

Joseph Rayner Stephens was the second son of the stout old
ex- President, John Stephens, whom we have seen to be, next to
Mr. Bunting himself, the most unbending champion of Authority
that the Methodist Connexion could produce. Joseph Stephens’
elder brother was that pugnacious notoriety, the Editor of the
Christian Advocate, whose dissonant and threatening “ Prbroch”’
had “thrilled through” every circuit in the land. Joseph was,
like all the rest of the family, a well-endowed and fascinating per-
sonality. But like his journalising brother, he was, by tempera-
ment and habit, hot, heady, hazardous, restless, and intractable.
These powerful weaknesses had been nurtured into revolutionary
passion by four years’ residence at Stockholm as the solitary
Methodist missionary in Sweden, where he had formed some
very heterogeneous friendships with adventurous men of genius.
This circle was enlarged on his return by several romantic natures,
such as Harrison Ainsworth, the novelist. In the ninth year of
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 151

his ministry, 1834, being stationed at Ashton-under-Lyne, he, at a
public meeting for inaugurating a society for the Separation of
the Church from the State, delivered a lengthened and impassioned
speech, though in a state of health unfit for circuit work. He
proclaimed in his opening sentence his consciousness of acting
inconsistently with his position asa Wesleyan Methodist minister.
At the same time he produced a manifesto bearing the signatures
of more than a hundred office-bearers and leading members of
the Wesleyan Methodist Society in Ashton. He moved the
insertion of the words ‘of the Wesleyan Methodists” in the
preamble of the Memorial issued by the meeting. At a sub-
sequent meeting he moved the first resolution, and accepted
office as one of the secretaries of the Church Separation Society.
He also attended public meetings of the kind in other circuits,
and systematically announced both petitions and public meetings
from the Methodist pulpits wherein he was appointed to preach.
This he did in utter disregard of the judgment of his Superin-
tendent, the genial George Marsland, an admirable Methodist
preacher, whose death in middle life was a sad bereavement to
the Methodist Connexion.

This agitation naturally gave great offence to a majority of
the most influential Methodists in the large towns of that
thickly-peopled district, especially in Manchester and Stockport.
The Chairman of the District, Robert Newton, was beset with
deputations and with protests against this perversion of Metho-
dist chapels to the purposes of agitation, and the diversion of the
time, energy, and zeal of a Methodist minister from the work
for which he was set apart and supported, to a propagandism
offensive to a large number of the members of our Church. It is
important to note that the initiative in the proceedings against
Stephens was taken by the laity, in the exercise of their just and
guaranteed rights as Church members and contributors to the
Church funds. They declared themselves ready to substantiate
their charges against Stephens. The Chairman notified these
charges to the young minister, who demanded the most strict
legal procedure in the matter. Mr. Newton suggested that
instead of the commotion of a minor District Meeting, it would
be better in every way ta have the matter settled by his brethren
at the ordinary District Meeting, which was due shortly. To
this young Stephens could not but assent. This and the following
important details came out in the Conference investigations,
and was admitted by him to be exactly true.
152 flisToRY OF METHODISM.

The Chairman informed Mr. Stephens at the District Meeting: ‘‘ We
are not here to pronounce upon the abstract question of Church and State,
but to express a judgment on Mr. Stephens’ public acts as a Wesleyan
Methodist minister. Mr. Stephens denied the right of the District Meeting
to interfere in the affair. We required, first, that he should relinquish his
secretaryship in the Church Separation Society, and gave him more than a day
to consider his reply. He told us distinctly that he would not give up any
of his practices. In a public speech he had denounced the liturgy used in
so many of our chapels on the recommendation of Wesley and the Con-
ference. We wished him to avoid such deliverances in the future. The
meeting was unanimous in voting his suspension, after his distinct refusal to
consent to this requirement.’’

Mr. Everett: ‘‘Mr. Stephens did not make it a matter of conscience, which
was a relief to us in the District Meeting. The District Meeting simply
required him to abstain in the future from public agitation of the question.
We did not require a pledge. It was put in the form of a prohibition, and
I desired him not to refuse; but his voice was loud: ‘I will not give up.’”

Mr. Bowers: ‘‘Mr. Stephens had an opportunity of making a defence,
but refused. The District did its utmost to prevent a sentence against him.
On the second day he discovered a softened emotion. We thought a pro-
hibition enough, but we were outgeneralled. He positively refused even to
give up his secretaryship.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘Was his suspension for refusing to acknowledge the
authority of the meeting and refusing to give up for the future his agitation
practices?”

It was answered: ‘' Exclusively so."

Mr. Ward: ‘‘ Did not Mr. Stephens consent to give up on condition that
certain resolutions should be withdrawn?"

It was answered : ‘' Yes.”

Dr. Warren :. ‘‘I proposed at the District Meeting that we should not
deal with Mr. Stephens as a culprit, on the express condition that he should
give up his secretaryship and abstain from attending anti-State Church
meetings in the future. I endeavoured to show him the propriety of this by
pointing out that he had broken our law. But Mr. Stephens was inflexible.
The only point about which I demurred was the extremity of the sentence.”

Mr. Squance: ‘‘ When Mr. Stephens refused to assent to the prohibition
of the meeting, Dr. Warren lifted up his hands and said : ‘ It is impossible to
save him.’"’

Mr. Woolsey: ‘‘Mr. Stephens declared that he was under no obligation
to continue the secretaryship which he refused to relinquish.”

Mr. James Wood: ‘Is Mr. Stephens sorry for his conduct? Will he
abstain in future? and will he throw himself on the mercy of the Con-
ference ?"’

Mr. Entwisle: ‘A satisfactory answer to these questions would meet
the wishes of the brethren.”

Mr. J. R. Stephens: ‘I wish to clear myself from contumacious conduct.
Up to last January we were all in harmony.”

His main defence was the time-eaten sophism that he had
done these things, though a Wesleyan Methodist minister, in his
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834 | 153

private capacity ; that his Superintendent had not “ prohibited ”
or ‘‘ warned him against” attending the frst meeting, but merely
told him that he “‘had better not go.”

Mr. S. proceeded : ‘‘I did not understand him as speaking in his official
capacity, finding from the public prints that the brethren were attending
meetings on the question of different kinds. I had no intimation from anybody
that I had done wrong, till within three weeks of the District Meeting. I
must request letters to be read, which I addressed to Mr. Newton, as they
have been pronounced as ‘intimidatory.'"’ The letters were read, as also
a long and prosy speech reported in a Manchester paper.

When Mr. Stephens resumed, he was interrupted.

Mr, Atherton: ‘‘I complain of Mr. Stephens being interrupted. I think
he may justly say that he has not been mildly and patiently heard.”

Mr. Moore: ‘‘ Except the members of the Manchester District (to which
the interrupter belonged) we are all judges and should be cool.”

Mr. J. R. Stephens: * At the District Meeting it was said the question of
the separation of Church and State was not to be debuted there. If the Con-
ference confirm the doctrine of the District Meeting I beg to withdraw myself
from the Body. It has been correctly reported that I had no conscience in the
matter. If the two resolutions were withdrawn, I would give up the Secretary-
ship. (Cries of ‘Hear! Hear!" on which Mr. Bunting rose, and objected.)
I believe that Mr. Wesley and I have contended for one and the same thing.
I acknowledge the kindness of my fathers and brethren at the District Meet-
ing. I was not reckless of consequences. I have read the articles in the
Magazine, of course. Whether the Conference decide pro or con, so long as I
hold Mr. Wesley’s doctrine in my hand, I shall propagate it as my talents
will permit, I did deny the authority of the District Meeting to bind me
down. I deny it now. I am prepared -to answer any question.”

The bare quoting of the resolutions to which Mr. Stephens
referred will show clearly why he was so anxious for their dele-
tion, and why the meeting could not give them up without
stultifying their proceedings, and returning a verdict of ‘We
find him not guilty, and hope he won't do so any more.” They
contain the whole significance of the affair and the whole gist and
gravamen of the charge,

“The speeches of Mr. Stephens are directly at variance with the general
sentiments of Mr. Wesley and the Conference, and are distinguished by a
spirit highly unbecoming a Wesleyan minister, etc."

“So far as his influence extends Brother Stephens has committed the
Connexion on a question involving its public credit as well as its internal
tranquillity, by the very active and persistent part that he had taken in the
aggressive proceedings adopted by the meetings referred to.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘I would ask whether he would admit all the resolutions
but two?" His reply was not very intelligible.

Mr. Bunting: ‘It was only speeches and proceedings of Mr. Stephens
154 Alisrory oF METHODISM.

that were pronounced upon, not his opinions. Was he allowed to defend his
public speeches and proceedings ?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Stephens admitted that the District Meeting was not the place to
settle the abstract question.

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘‘ Is Mr. Stephens’ objection to the retraction of his
sentiments, orto the discontinuing of his public acts?”

This is very interesting as the first instance in which that
clear, firm, musical voice was audible in Conference debate. He
had attempted to speak once before, but, no doubt from trepida-
tion, was unable to make himself heard.

Mr. Stephens: ‘‘I consider the District Meeting recorded, as Wesleyan
law, what is not so, and on that account decline.”

Mr. Dixon: “Did the District Meeting forbid Mr. Stephens to justify his
proceedings by an appeal to Wesley ?”

Mr. Stephens: ‘It was distinctly declared that the separation of Church
and State was an anti-Wesleyan notion, I objected to this statement.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘I have heard that extracts from Crowther’s Minutes
were read inthe District Meeting. Had Mr. Stephens liberty to readonhis side?”

‘Yes, he was challenged to do so.”

Mr. Stephens: ‘‘ The finding did not prove the separation of Church and
State to be anti-Wesleyan.”

Mr. Ward: ‘“ Did any preacher write or speak to Mr. Stephens after his
first speech?” Mr. Stephens: ‘‘No.” Mr. Everett and Mr. Bowers both
answered that they had spoken to him on the subject. Mr. Stephens: “I
recollect those conversations, but I do not remember that anything was said
about the violation of law. My conduct was denounced as foolish, and
injurious to the Connexion.”

Mr. Marsland was asked if he said anything on the subject to Mr. Stephens
between the first and second meeting. He proceeded to explain in detail that
Mr. Stephens’ transactions in other Methodist matters were such as to
preclude all friendly intercourse between them. The Conference became
impatient, and would not hear him out.

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘From my long and reverential regard for the father,
I regret that I must come to an unfavourable conclusion on the case. In
my endeavours to disentangle the case three or four things are found
admitted. He attended meetings to obtain by any constitutional means the
separation of the Church and State; constitutional means to do what is
itself unconstitutional! 2. That he proposed to introduce the word
“‘Wesleyans”’ into the memorial. 3. That he announced from the pulpit,
against the voice of his Superintendent, that a petition against Church and
State was lying in the vestry for signature. On these findings had the
District Meeting ground to suspend him? I think they had, particularly in
the present state of things. We have heard of chapels occupied by such
meetings, and of resolutions at quarterly meetings. There is danger to the
character of Methodism, which in strength is better than numbers. If this thing
goes on it may become a grave matter of inquiry, a matter of conscience,
with me to go to studies which I have long since intermitted—the study of
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 155

Schism. I appeal to Superintendents, who have had the care of circuits, to
whom the Conference has committed the people. They must have the
responsibility, and not their helpers. And what right had Mr. Stephens to go
into other circuits and embarrass other brethren in their work and adminis-
tration? The notoriety of the thing aggravated the offence and involved the
Wesleyan Methodist Connexion. Mr. Stephens ought to have expressed
regret at such conduct, and then, out of respect to his father, himself, and his
talents, it might have been overlooked. If our pulpits are to be the vehicle
of such announcements, a serious question will arise whether some of us can
continue in the Body. The requirement of the District Meeting to abstain
from these courses was what a young man of such a few years’ standing had
no right to refuse to do.”

Assuredly, our societies and congregations and the trustees
of our chapels were entitled to be protected from such agitating
practices, and secured against such perversions of Connexional
property to purposes for which the trust deeds make no pretence
of provision. If the courts of law and equity, as well as the
Conference, could not redress this gross injustice, then a vast
secession would have been the inevitable result, a secession led
by ministers such as Bunting, Newton, Entwisle, Anderson, and
Hannah. These would have been followed by our choicest
laymen ; the most respected, generous, cultivated families in
Methodism. There would not have been a single thousand
pounds subscribed to the Centenary Fund. The Centenary
Celebration, four years later, if attempted at all would have
been a pitiable failure instead of a signal and most splendid
epoch in the chronicles of liberality. What if every young
cometary genius or every “ runaway young star or two” be left
at liberty to form an orbit for himself !

Mr. Bunting: ‘Our question is not whether at the beginning it was best
to unite Church and State, nor whether if the house had to be constructed
now, it should be just as it is; our point is: Must Wesleyan Methodist
ministers arm themselves with pickaxes, and pull down the house in which
our father was born, and in which he thought he died. He might be in
delirium, but the thought consoled his mind. Let us not take off our hand
from the work he has left us to complete and lay it destructively upon that
adjoining house, even though it be an eyesore. We can live in our own
house and do as we please. Remember, when we gave our people the
sacrament in our own chapels, we publicly guarded against its being taken as
a sign of separation. For the Conference to join the agitation against Church
and State would require a new constitution; and we have no right to alter the
constitution without calling a Convention. But what should we gain by so
doing?”

At this point the clock struck the inevitable hour for closing
that day’s session ; andas Mr. Bunting paused, such an outburst of
156 History or METHODISM.

assent resounded through John Wesley’s Chapel as no previous
Conference had ever heard.

When the Conference re-assembled the next morning at six
o'clock, the time-honoured John Reynolds rose and objected to
“the burst of applause which took place yesterday on the
delivery of Mr. Bunting’s speech. The matter was too serious
for such outbreaks.”

Mr. Bunting took up his parable again: ‘I would not abuse the kindness
of the Conference. It is unfortunate for myself that I was interrupted. I
may best recover myself by stating that I think we onght to alter the
phraseology as this Conference may please. It is best to divide the record
under four heads :

‘1. The facts of the case are proved by Mr. Stephens’ own admission or
by evidence. He denies that he consulted his Superintendent. But that step
he was bound to take. Before taking any public step, he was bound to take
the official, authorised opinion of his Superintendent. 2. By introducing ‘the
Wesleyan Methodists’ into a memorial of no mild or moderate character, he
has violated the peaceable and unsectarian spirit of Wesleyan Methodists,
whether his views be right or not. We Methodist ministers, whatever be
our private view, give up public agitation. I have heard it said: ‘ Where
is the law? and where is Wesley's platform?’ We meet, not as a court of law;
we must not ask where is the statute? ours is a court of equity. A law
that provides for every malversation could not be administered. There
will always be found men who will be quibbling about statutes. We are’
to look at the whole character of Methodism. The memory of the man
in the tomb behind is law to us. Keep up the spirit of Methodism. But
there is statute law. The Minutes of 1820 contain this. Mr. Stephens
has broken the law. As to Wesley's sermon about Constantine, it was a
particular establishment, not the principle of an establishment, that Wesley
there refers to. I maintain that it is the most unjust thing in the world to
cull out a passage, not in the standards, and say; ‘ This is Mr. Wesley.’ The
point is, what did he do? Did he attend meetings to agitate against the
Established Church? Would not Mr. Wesley have sent home any man who
did this? Mr. Wesley dissented by employing lay-ministers, but he main-
tained a friendliness to the Church. He was nearer to. the Church than
to Dissent. And this is our proper position practically. Perhaps we should
be neutral. I hold in my hand a letter of Charles Wesley’s, in which
he says: ‘All the difference between my brother and me is, my brother is first
for the Methodists, then for the Church; 1 am first for the Church, and then for
the Methodists.’ So is our plan. We can feel what a bishop or a clergyman
says, but they will not draw us nearer, because we have not gone one step
farther than our Methodism requires. Some will not go so far; they have a
right to their private views. We are the best Methodists when we imitate the
spirit of John Wesley. Some have not attained this—I can love a Methodist
who is not exactly with me; we must not say, first Methodism and then Dissent.
Are those to exercise forbearance who are nearest to Wesley, in respect to the
liturgy, etc. Our principleis ‘ Dissent when we must, but be on friendly terms
when we can.’ Mr. Wesley would never have signed a petition against the
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 157

Establishment. Iagree with Mr. Reynolds on the seriousness of this business.
Mr. Stephens was not called upon to approve of the resolutions, that would
have been tyranny; they required him to abstain from agitation with the
Connexion. That was an act of authority. He ought to have submitted.
This point we cannot give up. The time has come when we must say what
we are, must say yes or no. We must determine whether we will keep our
position of forbearance towards Dissent. In a District Meeting young
ministers, as well as old, must defer to the collective judgment of the
brethren.”

(A general cry from the Conference: ‘He ought to have submitted.’’)
‘What then ought the District to do when he would not submit? He
wanted the District to construct for him a bridge by which he might retreat.
I maintain that his suspension was just, and rendered unavoidable by himself.
I move that the Conference—

(1) Confirm the action of the District Meeting. (2) Requires Mr. Stephens
to give a pledge to give himself up to his proper work as a Methodist minister
in the future. If he refuse to give a pledge, then—not his expulsion, but
(3) his suspension till the next Conference, that whenever he may give
the pledge the President appoint him to the first vacancy. To spare your
feelings and whatever brethren may think—my own too--I do not propose
that he be reproved from the Chair. I have no objection to prolong the
conversation ; let us talk ourselves nearer together.”

Mr. Entwisle: ‘I shall support a District Meeting when they do right.
I believe that all the brethren in the District disapproved of Mr. Stephens’
conduct. I am inclined to be snappy when I am told that Mr. Wesley was
opposed to the Established Church. He was always pleased to preach in one.
The last Conference Mr. C. Wesley attended was at Bristol (1786). Mr.
Smythe (a Methodist clergyman) came over from Dublin to propose a
separation from the Church. He moved it, and Dr. Coke seconded it; but
Charles Wesley stamped, and cried, ‘No.’ Mr. C. Wesley’s ‘No’ became
a proverb in the Connexion. I have received a letter from Mr. Edmondson,
saying: ‘I have united with Dissenters. I am not a High Churchman,
but really, between ourselves, like Churchmen better than Dissenters.’ "’

This little incident of Methodist history was of no small
interest and significance. Wesley writes :—

“July 25th, 1786, Bristol.
“Our Conference began on Tuesday; on Thursday we permitted any
member of the society to be present, and weighed what was said about
separating from the Church, but we all determined to continue therein without
one dissenting voice, Great had been the expectation of many that we should
have had warm debates, but by the mercy of God there was none at all.”’

By these combined statements we are taught :—

1. That the most prominent ‘movers in the direction of Dissent
were two most popular Methodist clergymen of the time (next to
the brothers Wesley), the eloquent Irish revivalist Smythe, and
the generous and ubiquitous Dr. Coke. 2. That so far was
158 History oF METHODISM.

Wesley from being afraid of the difference of sentiment and
judgment in Conference itself being known to his people, that the
session in which the discussion took place was made an “ open
Conference,” the ticket of membership in the Methodist Society
admitting male or female to the Conference. 3. That notwith-
standing Mr. Charles Wesley’s “No,” the arguments on both
sides were not only heard but also weighed. 4. That this very
frankness and fulness of deliberation not only did not cause, but
on the contrary kept off, all “ warm debates.”

Dr. Warren: ‘I think that in the present state of things we should be as
neutral as possible, and maintain our middle position between Church and
Dissent. What shall we gain by losing that? I answer: A suspicious
friendship. But what should we lose? Our independence. We should lose
also the affections of many of our people. We should lose the influence we
have with so many on both sides, Churchmen and Dissenters. If we go into
the house in which Mr. Bunting says Wesley died, we shall go into a very
old one ; if to the Dissenters, into a very worn one. We havea house of our
own. I shall lift up my voice most solemnly against our taking one step
towards the Church.” Dr. W. here held up a paper asking, ‘Is this Mr.
Bunting’s?"

The President: ‘‘ I object to putting in that paper.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘ Let him put it in." The President would not allow it.

Dr. Warren: ‘I wish the Conference to be unanimous, and therefore I
have spoken." Dr. W. then made some reference to a subject which the
President could not bear, complaining that he had been ‘taken by surprise.”
Dr. Warren, silenced for a second time, sat down.

Mr. Bromley: ‘I regret that this resolution is introduced by Mr.
Bunting, from the fact of his having been goaded by the conduct of Mr.
Stephens’ brother.” (Here Mr. Bromley was tremendously interrupted.)
Mr. Bromley: ‘ The case is new; nothing of the kind has occurred before,
It is a case involving in its workings the peace of the Connexion. I think it
should have been turned over to the Conference. (Interruption.) Why may
I not speak as well as others? The second resolution contains what is not
true in fact.” Mr. Bromley began to read, but some cried out. He said:
‘‘He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly unto him.”

Mr. Gaulter: ‘The man’s intellects are in a state of emigration.” Mr-
Bromley resumes: ‘‘I will not consent to capital punishment being inflicted
on any brother without law. I know that the Conference is supreme. What
you determine is law. But I do not know that a court of equity can pronounce
sentence of death. No Lord Chancellor pronounces a sentence which obliges
him to put on the black cap. I object to taking a man out of the work whom
God has placed there on prerogative and not on law. I do not ad¢ocate the
conduct of the young man. I move, ‘that the suspension of Mr. Stephens be
taken off. (2) That our business is to save souls. (3) That the ex-President,
Mr. Stephens, and Mr. Bunting, advise with Mr. Joseph Stephens.”

Mr. Marsden: ‘‘Is it nothing to have our societies rent which have been
gathered by our fathers now in Heaven? This is the most important subject
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 159

which has come before us. The Methodists are a great body whose business
is to save souls, not to unsettle institutions. We have societies in Scotland,
France, Germany, and Sweden; do we go there, too, to unsettle the institu-
tions of the country? The conduct of Mr. Wesley and our fathers was not so.
There appears to me something of folly in such policy as Mr. Joseph Stephens
would commit us to. The colliers and weavers of Ashton ought not to be
addressed by a Methodist preacher in an inflammatory manner. We have
promised to give our whole time to the work of a Methodist preacher, yet,
after all these evils, I am inclined to go as far as possible in showing mercy.
I hope he may be saved to the Connexion, and the Connexion saved from any
further dangers and disturbances from him. Let us still keep the mid-
channel, and not drive our vessel on ‘the rocks on either hand’: and we
shall find plenty of sea-room, and the heavenly gale will safely bring us to the
desired haven."

Mr. Reece said: “If Mr. Bunting had done nothing but what he did
yesterday and to-day, he has laid under the greatest obligation all who love
old Methodism.”

Mr. Moore: ‘‘Mr. Wesley used to tell us we should find it hard
work to deal with a man who had a whim which he calls ‘conscience,’ and
another a whim which he calls ‘honor.’ You will think that neither of
them is solid, yet_you must take care how you deal with him. Now with
regard to this whim which our brother has, there is no solidity in it. In
eight years he ought to have known what Methodism is. If he had he
would not have given it all this trouble. (Signs of impatience.) I am sorry
to hear clamour. It is unbecoming in judges. A Methodist preacher
is a man of one business. Mr. Stephens ought to have told the Dissenters
that, and every one who comes into our body knows this. But I do not
find that the Conference has delegated to the District Meeting the power
of suspension except in cases of immorality or deficient ability. I would
have a severe sentence passed by the Conference, to reduce him to humility.”

Mr. Lessey: “I regret that any brother should have been made the
object of cutting remarks, but I acknowledge our great obligations to
Me. Bunting. . I would ask Mr. Moore in what way a District Meeting
is to be regulated, if one of its members may refuse to obey its mandate.
As to the Church, let us keep where we are, and not move to the right hand
or the left. We do not require Mr. Stephens to give up his principles,
but only to refrain from agitation. Many Superintendents have had their
way made rough through Mr. Stephens’ conduct. We must lay a strong
hand upon agitators. If we do not put Mr. Stephens under restraint, he
will refuse to be restrained. If I do not promise obedience to Conference
suspend me. Let us betake ourselves to the spirituality of our fathers.”

Mr. Moore: ‘ Mr. Lessey has uttered a great many truisms and has used
rhetoric not allowed to a judge, but to counsel. What has he proved?
What no one doubts.”

Mr. Gaulter: ‘‘I could not be a Methodist preacher on Mr. Bromley's
principles. Our work is to save souls. When I find a young man lectur-
ing to political and semi-ecclesiastical societies, I ask is this what we are
maintained for by our people? I will tell you what Mr. Moore said
to me the first time I ever saw him. A Superintendent had been acting
wrong (as I thought), and I was always. popularly inclined, Mr. Moore said.
160 flistoryY oF METHODISM.

I told Mr. Wesley: ‘The man who resists his Superintendent, will resist
you.’ And I tell Mr. Moore: the man who resists a District Meeting will
resist the Conference. I begin to think that eloquent young man, with all
his attractions, is not called to be a Methodist preacher.”

Mr. Atherton: ‘‘I think the District Meeting could not do otherwise than
it did. As to the recorded opinions and sentiments of this Body, I have
a collection of the productions of the old Preachers which show that there
was a difference of opinion in this matter among Benson, Thompson, and the
rest. Their language was stronger than ought now to be adopted. But
they would not make public speeches on the subject. Mr. Stephens had
no business to meddle with this agitation, 1 contend for strict neutrality.
I can have peace in my circuit only on this condition. I believe the Church
party is the strongest. I think the argument is on the side of Dissent,
but the facts are on the side of the Church. I demur to the statements of
the obligations that we owe to the Church, What has it done for Methodism ?
It gave us Wesley; but not asa boon, It cast him out as a pestilent fellow.
We might as well say that we are indebted to the Church of Rome for Luther.
How the parsons have persecuted the Methodists! Look at Lord Sidmouth’s
Bill. The Poet Laureate indeed when he went into the character of John
Nelson and the early preachers, could say: ‘ Almost thou persuadest me to
be a Methodist!’ He could not curse us at all, but blessed us altogether.
I respect the Established Church; but mostly in my study, when I see
Tillotson, Hall, etc., on my shelves. But what need has she of our support—
with her universities, her formularies so constructed as to include both
Arminians and Calvinists, her property and power, her King, Lords and
Commons. If God do not support her with such supports, she will not
stand with any help of ours. But while I request neutrality on the one
side, I must request it on the other.”

This speech, like Mr. Bunting’s, was followed by an outburst of applause,
on which Mr. James Wood remarked : ‘‘ This is the 54th Conference I have
attended, but I never heard clapping before, and I beg that it may be
discontinued.”

The President informed the Conference that many names had been taken
down to speak, but the Conference generally seemed to approve the suggestion
that the debate might now be closed, but Dr. Beaumont and Mr. Galland must
claim to be heard.

Mr. Bunting : ‘‘I think it ought not to be said that we refused to hear
anyone on this question.’ So the conversation was continued, and Mr.
Waterhouse said ‘Such serious consequences may be pending on our decision.
The Birmingham people are looking to you to uphold Methodism. Are we to
wage war on the finest feelings of the majority of the Methodists?”

Mr. Galland : ‘I feel myself in a peculiar position, but will state what has
raised me to this hardihood: (1) I was the first Superintendent of Mr. Joseph
Stephens ; (2) I should like to concur entirely with the District Meeting in
their resolutions. I find it necessary to state my own opinion. I think the
union of Church and State is lawful, not that I attach any importance to my
own opinion, but numbers of our people think it is unlawful. Many of
our enemies have predicted that the Conference will uphold them as they
are. There are two kinds of neutrality : (1) a total abstention from the
subject, or (2) fair play by allowing advocacy on both sides. Mr. Bunting had
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 161

admitted that the Manchester resolutions Jean towards the Church. Yet the
Church does not recognise our orders. Mr. Watson said: ‘ Things will not be
right until the Archbishop of Canterbury and the President of the Conference
can exchange pulpits.’ I am not satisfied that the Superintendent of the
Ashton Circuit did his duty in the case.”

Mr. Galland then mentioned the name of Mr. Grindrod. Mr. Bunting rose
to order. Mr. Galland proceeded: ‘‘I mean nothing but honour to Mr.
Grindrod, but I pass on. Iam informed that the resolutions were drawn up
before the case was fully heard. I wish the District Meeting had had regard
to the handle which would be made of this After a serious and dispassionate
view of the case, I must say that the District Meeting did not take the
most conciliatory plan.” (Mr. Gaulter cried out : ‘We do not understand
you.”) Mr. Galland resumed : ‘It will be found that I am well understood,
if a man who feels deeply makes himself well understood.” Mr. Galland
then gave a high testimony to Mr. Stephens’ character, and finished thus:
“Bright as have been the glories which have often encircled the head of
Mr. Bunting, they have never been brighter than when he proposed that as
soon as Mr. Stephens gave a pledge that he would devote himself wholly
to his proper work as a Methodist preacher, he should be appointed to a
circuit.”

Mr. Bunting : ‘‘ Now that the question of Church and State is opened
out, it must be discussed. The Manchester District brethren had a right to
speak. I now say most solemnly that if their mild resolutions for the security
of our great principles do not pass, I will not mix with Methodism, unless
the principle of maintaining our exact neutrality be this, not one inch nearer
to, nor one inch further from the Church than we now are. Mr. Galland
confounds friendliness with Dissenters and friendliness to dissent."

Mr. Ward: “I think the sentence of the District Meeting merciful.
Mr. Stephens was not in a position to stipulate with them. Testimony
has been brought forward to his zeal and diligence. He has been placed
in unfavourable circumstances; alone at Stockholm and then placed under
a Superintendent who had not nerve enough. With respect to our position
towards the Church, God has given us a better system. It is not our place .
to move towards either the Church or Dissent. We have resisted attempts
to join us to either. We have amongst us conscientious Churchmen,
conscientious Dissenters, and some who are neither. I am one of these last.
Let us hold to our distinguished title—Methodists.

Dr. Beaumont: “I should have been glad, if I could, to avoid the
responsibility of speaking, but I was born in the house which God built
for Wesley when he was houseless, and I hope to live and die in it, and I must
take my share of responsibility in this matter. I think the Manchester District
Meeting did right in requiring Mr. Stephens to give up his secretaryship.. In
taking it he was all but fatally wrong. In respect to the second resolution, I
am afraid that it takes a step forward to the Church. The substance of the
second and third resolution leads towards Canterbury. Mr. Wesley, like a
strong and skilful rower, looked one way while every stroke of his gar took
him in the opposite direction. He never resolved that he would go no further
from the Church. We must have room to breathe and move our arms. I do
not like to be tacked on to the Established Church. Let us retain our primi-
tive liberty. It is a serious business for the Conference to put its imprimatur

L
162 History or Mersopism.

on any restriction on that liberty. To require a pledge is very proper, but
require it on both sides. The Scotch Methodists think the Church of England
incurably wrong. It is very difficult to answer for the conduct of brethren
who, whilst gagging others, allow themselves to speak and do what they
please.”’

Mr. Dixon: ‘I will guard myself against being led away by passion. I
feel myself a judge, and wish to be grave. I object to the conduct of Mr.
Stephens, As a Preacher he had not a right to do as he pleased. I have no
reason to favour the Church; I am a Methodist of the third generation. None
of us has the legal or moral right to dissolve the union between Church and
State. Mr. Wesley did not propel his boat from the Church, but abreast of
her. I entertain a view of the abstract question, but we ask whether it would
be better for King, Lords, and Commons if the Church should be destroyed ?
I rejoice in the position which Mr. Atherton takes to-day. I think it would
be an infinite grievance to dissolve the Connexion by agitating this question.
But all that is English is so bound up with the Establishment that to destroy
it would set all loose.. Some brethren think that the two resolutions’ put
Methodism in no new light. They merely record a fact. In Mr. Wesley's
works we frequently find it put—‘‘ Are we Dissenters?" I grant there are
passages which seem to lean the other way, but I am not to be turned into a
Dissenter. I will stop at the threshold of that principle. Not an inch nearer
to the Church. We Methodists stand in the noblest position between the two. I am
placed in opposition to my dear friend, Mr. Galland, who is most honourable
and disinterested. I admire Mr. Stephens’ talents. Whenever I see mind I
admire it. As to my old friend and school-fellow's observation (Mr. Bromley)
about thunder, etc., from without—both Church and Dissent perhaps—let us
act honourably and conscientiously.”

Mr. Scott : Iam very glad at our unanimity in condemning Mr. Stephens’
conduct, but grieved that anyone should wish that the District Meeting had
placed its authority under Mr. Stephens’ feet. I think we owe it both to the
Church and the Dissenters to state that it is our purpose to gono further from
the Church. I have some doubt as to the mildness of the sentence.”

. Mr. McLean: “Mr. Wesley always advised his people to attend the
Church of Scotland.”

Mr, Anderson : ‘‘ If Iam ardent, remember I am not ajudge. We went
fully into the resolutions. We in the district refused to touch the abstract
question which you have allowed. I besought Stephens to submit, with tears.
He said: ‘I cannot.’ We suspended him for contumacy, and for nothing
else. You may blame us, but these cock-boats must not run down the
vessel.”

' Mr. Bunting : “I congratulate Dr. Warren on his victory over windmills.
I think he would have been rebuked by the old patriarch if he had called the
old house creaky. I should not throw astone through the window, nor set fire to
the building. Mr. Bromley talks of suspension as if he thought it meant
hanging. I have no fixed opinion as to the abstract question. I am inclined
to think that provision for Christian instruction is the right thing in a
Christian country. And the time may come when the argument for an Establish-
ment will be taken away if the Methodists and Dissenters be quiet. All I mean is
—If I went from the Methodists I would goto the Church rather than Dissent.
I would not go to fierce, formal Dissent. To go further would injure our
THe CONFERENCE oF 18 34. 163

usefulness. We cannot be friendly to Dissent. One of its first principles is
—Every man shall choose his own minister. Can you be friendly to that ?”

This question seemed to be put to Mr. Galland, who replied: ‘I recognise
an Independent Church as true a Church of Christ as the Established
Church.”

Mr. Bunting proceeded to vindicate his proposition, adding : “ Dr. Clarke
believed that Mr. Wesley was in error about Constantine. I think Mr.
Galland has deviated from Mr. Wesley, but he does it in such a manly
manner that I cannot respect him the less.”’

“Mr. Jackson, Editor, spoke on the subject for ‘nearly an
hour.’ But as the speech was published by the request of
Conference in pamphlet form, and the argument is given in his °
‘Recollections,’ it need not detain us here. His main object was
to break the force of Wesley’s lament on the union of Church and
State effected by Constantine, but I think every open-minded
reader of his published speech will agree in Mr. Fowler's‘ opinion,’
he ‘did not make out his case.’ His really strong point was the
advantage we derive from abstention from aggresstve, political
Dissent, as a community, and the disadvantages which must needs
result from the abandonment of our position. He showed how
‘serviceable ’ to our work its ‘ sérzctly spiritual’ character had
been, and that already through this agitation, many of our sober
people had become alienated for ever.”

The resolutions were passed serzatim. The ist, the con- '
firmation of the District Meeting, uzanimously. 2. Requiring
Mr. Stephens to abstain from any such proceedings in the
future, with three dissentients. 3. Suspending him for one year
if he refuse to give a pledge to that effect, wnanimously. 4. If he,
give the pledge during the year he be appointed to a circuit,
four against.

Mr. Stephens replied humbly and submissively—requested a copy of
the resolutions, and conversation with the mover (Mr. Bunting) and
Mr. Galland, ‘‘as my answer depends upon the sense put upon them.”

The {President: ‘‘The resolutions shall be read till Mr. Stephens
understands them.”

They were read again.

Mr. Stephens: ‘I should like to be informed if the Conference under-
stands the views of the District Meeting with respect to the civil constitution
of the country.”’

The President: ‘I must remind Mr. Stephens that we are not here to
dispute on that subject."’

Mr. J. R. Stephens: “I would ask for two hours, and for two or more
members of the Conference to converse with me.”

Mr. Stephens, Sen.: ‘I would request my son to spend the interval in
prayer, not in reasoning. I think his conscience is not at all involved.”

L2
164 History or Mernovism.

Mr. Stephens, Jun.: ‘I have spent the night in the manner recommended
by my father.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘I think he should have a copy of the resolution relating
to his suspension, no other.”

Messrs. Galland, Atherton, Entwisle, Scott, Reece, and Crowther, were
requested to converse with Mr. Stephens.

On his return he said: ‘I beg leave to withdraw from the Connexion, as
I cannot give the pledge.”

Mr. Galland: ‘There was a difference of opinion amongst the
Committee as to what was to be understood by the pledge, and we were
therefore not very likely to bring him to acknowledgment.”

Mr. Galland made many efforts to speak to this point; but, in my
judgment (Mr, Fowler's), was very unfairly put down.

Mr. Entwisle: ‘I wish to have Mr. Stephens’ statement if he is
satisfied with the conduct of his brethren,”

Mr. Stephens: '' Most unqualifiedly so."

Mr. Bunting: “I would propose that Mr, Galland be heard at a
convenient time.”

Mr. Galland: ‘‘ That is tantamount to not being heard at all. Surely
there can be no time for hearing an argument on any subject after it is
decided and done with, so fitting as whilst it is yet before the house.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘I wish to save him, but he seems decided.”

Mr, Stephens, Sen.: ‘‘ My son is very obedient in all other matters, but
I have no hope of bringing him to acknowledge his error in this. I think
Mr. Galland should be heard.”

Mr. Galland: ‘Mr. Reece stated that for Mr. Stephens to write an
‘ abstract argument, even, in favour of the union of Church and State, or
address a letter to an M.P., on the subject, would be a violation of the
pledge."

Mr. Reece: ‘'I did state that the pledge wanted to prohibit him from
writing, as that might .agitate and complete the mischief which he had
begun.”

Mr. Bromley: ‘Some of us will declare ourselves Dissenters if that
ground be taken.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘The management of our ministry is with ourselves. I
think we may dispose of the memorials at once. I move: ‘The Conference
expresses its satisfaction with those societies which have been quiet. It is
sorry to find that chapels have been appropriated to improper uses, and
disapproves of our people interfering in matters of our discipline.’ Whena
revolution takes place we will consult Dr. Warren about a new house. Some
say a strong arm must be laid on the Tory side. They tried to catch me in
order to fry me, but they failed. I wish they had not caught one on the
Liberal side. We must settle this matter.”’

The President: ‘‘I have received several communications, some tem-
perately, others strongly worded—one from Ashton and one from Liskeard—
wishing for protection of the peace of the societies.” Mr. Bunting’s resolution
was carried.

Thus ended this critical discussion which, according to the
oldest ministers—to one of whom it was the fifty-fourth
THE CONFERENCE OF 18334. 165

Conference he had attended—was the most excited Conference
which had yet been held, insomuch that it initiated the era of
cheering, clapping, and vociferous and uproarious manifestations
of feeling, not expressible by ‘“ Amens,” “ Hallelujahs,” or devout
“Glorzas” of any form. The importance of its substantial decision
it would be hard to over-estimate, so far as it went. The only
matter of sincere regret is that, as Mr. Bunting said so truly,
political “ neutralzty” was not the word. That there were two sides
in the house, as well as of the house, was plain enough. There
always had been, even in Wesley’s day. But the “stock still”
position was not maintained, as it surely should have been—after
this deliberate review and settlement of the Wesleyan Methodist
situation—with equal stringency on both sides. A somewhat
longer, looser tether was yielded to the one side than to the
other. Nevertheless, by this decision, Methodism has been
saved for three-and-sixty years from being drawn or driven
into the muddy whirlpool of party politics.

How great a deliverance has thus been wrought may be
partly estimated by the judgment recently expressed of one
of the acutest observers of our time, who cannot be suspected
of theological partiality. Mr. Lecky writes in his latest work
(1896) :—

‘The decay of the doctrinal basis of English Nonconformity, though
it is not likely to lead to any amalgamation of Churches, is having very
mischievous consequences. It is giving Nonconformity a far more political
character, which is sometimes singularly unworthy and unscrupulous. In
some periods of past history, England owed much to the political action
of Nonconformists, and they raised very appreciably the moral level of
English politics. Those who have studied their conduct and their alliances
in the present generation will scarcely attribute to them such an influence,"

—Vol. I. pp. 435, 436.

This discussion took up two full days. Mr. Stephens’ sub-
sequent proceedings form part of English history. He betook
himself to political agitation, which seemed his most congenial
element, and gave the Government more trouble than he ever
gave the Conference, and compelled them, sore against their will,
to take more stringent measures with him.

Mr. Bunting brought his own case before the Conference.
A few weeks before the Conference assembled, a letter had
appeared in the Standard signed “ Jabez Bunting,” and addressed
to the Tory candidate for Finsbury, the borough in which City
Road Chapel stood. It strongly advocated the claim of that
166 HISTORY OF METHODISM.

gentleman. This advocacy was enforced and emphasised by the
appearance on the hustings of the commanding figure of the
Senior Secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society.
Now Finsbury was a sort of Liberal stronghold, which the Tories
were concentrating all their energies to storm. In such a state
of the public mind, and so close to the time and place of the
assembling of the Conference, which it was known must deal
decisively with the relation of its members to public inter-
meddling with political conflict, there is small wonder that this
prominent appearance on the stage of party politics of the most
conspicuous man in Methodism should cause no little stir.
Nevertheless no direct allusion to the matter had been made
in Conference. But Mr. Beaumont’s observation—" My difficulty
‘is with the brethren who, while gagging others, say and do what
they please "—and Mr. Reece’s contention that the writing of a
letter to a member of Parliament on the question would be
a violation of Mr. Stephens’ pledge, were, not unnaturally, taken
by Mr. Bunting as referring to his own conduct with regard to
party politics. So he claimed leave to bring the matter before
the Conference.

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘I complain of being assailed by the brethren who have
said such a great deal about liberty of speech. The true meaning of it all is
to criminate me.” Mr. B. then proceeded to notice his letter which had
appeared in the Standard. It was addressed to the Tory candidate himself.
‘One of his committee called upon me to know if I would consent to its
publication. I objected, stating my aversion to notoriety. I said I must first
see my letter. I proposed to consult a Methodist layman, and personal friend
of the Tory candidate. I accompanied him to see the letter (presumably at
the Tory Committee Room). They said there was not a sentiment in the
letter which I had not avowed elsewhere; the letter would do some good, if I
could brave the storm which its publication would call forth. I said I had
vathey it was not printed, etc. And there it was left. I was surprised to find
that it got into the newspaper. Then, as to the hustings? We have had
great difficulty in obtaining an interview with Lord Althorpe. Mr. Spring
Rice offered to converse with us without the formality of appointing a time.”

The object of the deputation alluded to was the exemption
of our chapels from assessment. The Government had already
granted the exemption when Mr. Bunting’s speech was made.
A vote of thanks for the exemption passed this very Conference.
The rest of the speech was a vindication of his having voted for
Lord Sandon at Liverpool, which a previous Conference had fully
justified.
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 167

Mr. Bunting closed his speech thus: “For some reason, I
am an object of downright cruelty, of persecution, slander, a
detraction. It may annoy me, I hope it will not destroy me.”

Mr. B.'s speech was most loudly cheered and clapped during its delivery
and at the close.

Dr. Warren: ‘I, for one, disclaim the having said or done anything
derogatory to the character of Mr, Bunting. But, I think if one brother lets
off a squib, and you extinguish him for doing so, you ought to extinguish a
brother who lets off a rocket on the other side of the street.”

Dr. Beaumont: - As I have said the strongest thing about gagging the
one side and allowing full freedom of speech to the other, I have a right to
ask whether I am one of the ‘downright cruel persecutors, slanderers, and
detractors’ to whom Mr. Bunting has alluded?”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘I will give notice in private to those persons whom I
intend to bring before the Conference. I will not be catechised.”

Mr. Reece: ‘I hope the explanation is satisfactory to the brethren."
(Cries of ‘No! No!”)

Mr. Bunting : “I am ready to answer any charge that may te brought
against me.’

“Mr, Bromley then rose and said that since Mr. Bunting positively
refused to answer a brotherly question, such as he so often put to others,
there was no alternative but to ‘charge him with having slandered the Conference
by the neter unsustained accusations which he had brought against its
members.”

Amidst great clamour and uproar, Mr Beaumont said: “I move that
Mr. Bunting be required to give up the names of the brethren referred to as
‘ slanderers, detractors,’ etc.’’ Mr. Galland followed, and expressed his regret
that Mr, Bunting had made no explanation in the Standard of the fact that
his letter ‘got into” that newspaper without its writer's full consent.
Mr. Galland also asked ‘‘ whether Mr, Bunting would have braved an equal
‘notoriety ' on behalf of a ‘ candidate’ who held the opposite views to those of
the Tory candidate, however good a man he might have been?” To these
questions no answer was returned.

Mr. Bromley: ‘I doubt the wisdom of publishing Mr. Jackson's speed
separately at this excited season. J? is a ‘coming nearer to the Church.’”’
(This was repudiated.)

Mr, Stanley: ‘‘ Our neutrality ought to be absolute.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘'‘ Neutrality’ is not the word we used. We are to stand
stock still; not move in any direction.”

The Conference made a very grave experiment, which many,
at the time, thought highly injudicious and venturesome, and
which issued in disastrous loss to Methodism. This was the
appointment of Mr. Valentine Ward to Jamaica, as General
Superintendent of West Indian Missions. He could be ill-spared
from England, being one of our finest preachers and speakers,
and ill-spared from Conference, where his moderating, gentle,
168 HfisToRY oF METHODISM.

and persuasive wisdom was most sadly missed. Besides, his
appointment to an anxious, arduous position in the tropics at a
crisis, the training-time of the emancipated blacks for freedom
and for progress, was an almost certain sentence of death to a
man of his enormous corpulence, in the thirty-fourth year of
his laborious ministry. Alas! he was struck down in the first
year of his General Superintendency.

Another questionable and much questioned act of this Con-
ference was the appointment of a second minister to the Yeadon
Circuit against the wishes and expostulations of the people. The
Lord had visited that “little hill of Zion” with a marvellous
outpouring of His Spirit, the result being a large ingathering to
the Church: It seems to have been suggested in the Stationing
Committee, by someone who knew little, if anything, about the
place and people, that such a large accession of members would
require an additional minister to look after them. The matter
was, of course, referred by the representative to the minister and
circuit stewards, who replied by a well-reasoned remonstrance.
Their petition humbly sheweth that the Yeadon Circuit is one of
the smallest in the whole Connexion ; that not one of its three
chapels was more than two miles from the preacher’s house ; that
not three or four other preachers in the Connexion had such
an easy berth, or had so much time for pastoral visitation ;
that they were a church of working men and women, and that
a large proportion of the new converts were young people
earning very little. These representations were earnestly enforced
by the Chairman of the District, the judicious and kind-hearted
ex-President, George Morley, who, as Governor at Woodhouse
Grove, resided but two miles from Yeadon, and often preached
there, and was closely cognisant of all the details of the case.
Moreover, he had some years’ longer experience than had Mr.
Bunting, whose Superintendent he had been. He declared that
the forcing an additional preacher on an unwilling circuit was
a thing “unprecedented” in Methodism.

Nevertheless Mr. Bunting moved: ‘That two preachers be
appointed to the circuit, and if they cannot, or will not, support
him, we will.” He added: “A noisy meeting and a love-feast
constitute a great portion of their ordinances. I wish there was
less parade about revivals. I wish that our Editor would not
insert any report from superintendents. There should be less
said about revivals. You will spend money to w7z souls, but not
to keep them.”
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 169

Yet anyone who reads Dr. George Smith's account of what
he calls “The glorious revival at Yeadon” (Vol. III., 295-297)
copied from the Magazine, must feel how uncalled for were these
strictures on the humble-minded Superintendent for reporting
this spiritual ‘‘ phenomenon,” as Wesley calls a similar revival
in his own time. The account was marked by the utter absence of
any semblance of parade. There is not the slightest glorification of
any instrumentality whatsoever ; in fact, there was none to glorify.
As the awe-struck narrator tells us : “ God’s arm was made bare
in such a way as to constrain us to say, ‘It is the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvellous in our eyes.’ What was more suited for a
Methodist magazine than the record of an event at once so super-
natural and blessed, such as Wesley ever loved to chronicle? It
is true enough that the Yeadoners made noise enough when their
religious sensibilities were strongly moved ; but to suggest that
“noise” was either the charm or the characteristic of their
meetings and love-feasts is as superficial and as unscientific as to
imply that “noise” is the chief attraction of a railway train.

The result of this unprecedented act of Conferential authority
might have been very serious, but for the characteristic efforts of
George Morley to prevent the fulfilment of his own forewarnings..
He persuaded the Woodhouse Grove Quarterly Meeting to share
the cost and services of the unasked-for neophyte who was sent
to Yeadon.

Perhaps the most historic conversation which took place
this Conference was that upon the “ formation of the Theological
Institution.” But as the history of this discussion has been fully
and fairly told elsewhere, especially in Dr. George Smith's “ History
of Methodism,” I shall in this case also confine myself to focussing
the added light, to be obtained from Mr. Fowler’s Journal. This
light is very strong. Stout old William Leach, one of the best
theological preachers in the Connexion, not unfitly opened the
discussion by proposing that the Conference agrees to the
recommendation of the Committee for-the establishment of an
Institution. He confessed that up to the time of his reaching
London he had been afraid that the movement would alter the
character of Methodism, but since his arrival his mind had been
relieved. ‘I am glad to find that a Governor will be appointed
to watch over the piety of the young men. I think that many
errors, to be deplored, may thus be prevented.”

Mr. B. Slater seconded the resolution. ‘‘The clergy are now more zealous.
We must bestir ourselves. The young Preachers who have been educated at
170 HItsToRY OF METHODISN.

our schools for Preachers’ sons are the most acceptable generally. But few
have an adequate knowledge of theology. Some say, it will destroy the variety
of our ministry and produce an artificiality of attitudes and tones. There is
danger in cramming young men.”

Dr. Warren rose ‘‘to propose an amendment,” but Mr. R. Wood “ rose
to order,” He maintained that Dr. Warren had “ no right to move an amend-
ment.” This, of course, was overruled, and Dr, Warren proceeded, but Mr.
Bunting interrupted: ‘‘ Anything so astounding as Dr. Warren's conduct I
have never met, Either his head or heart must be sadly wrong. When we
met in October he concurred in everything. I was absent on Conference
business for about an hour, when the question came on : Who shall take part
in the administration of the Institution? Then Dr. Warren's objection
began, Something had been said about my taking some part. I said that I
was married to the Missions. Some time after it appeared that Dr. Warren
was not with us. He used language not quite in keeping with the suavity of
his manners. We thought it mighty strange.” Mr. Bunting then animadverted
with great severity on Dr. Warren's conduct in the affair, observing that ‘he
manifested intellectual displacency, and acted unfairly toward his fellow-
committee-men.”

It is here necessary to interpose a historical note. The
instructions of the Conference of 1833 to the Committee in
question, were most simple and explicit. They are directed “to
arrange a plan for the better education of our junior Preachers.”
(Minutes, p. 104.) But, having accomplished this work in right
workmanly style, they felt inclined to serve the Connexion a little
more than they were asked to do, and proceeded further to
nominate the men to fill the various offices. Their first nomina-
tion was Mr. Bunting as ‘‘ General Superintendent of the Institu-
tion.” Dr. Warren’s speech to Conference, by sheer force of
interruption and the irruption of Mr. Bunting’s “great severity”
of parenthetic animadversion, was split up into fragments. He
resumed :

“TI did think it was improper—not our place—to nominate officers, and
when only members of the Committee were approved by the Committee,
I thought it not fair.” At this remark the Conference clamoured, and Mr.
Bunting said: ‘Let Dr. Warren speak, and bring all his charges against
the Committee, If we do not clear ourselves, then hang us.”

Dr, Warren then resumed, but was interrupted by Mr. Lessey: ‘I wish
to ascertain the ground of Dr. Warren's opposition to the Institution, that it
may go for what it is worth. His opposition commenced when others were
nominated to be governors and teachers.” Some very uninteresting disputes
and criminations followed, and Conference signified great impatience.

Mr. Bunting: ‘I submit whether it is of so much importance what Dr.
Warren thinks about the matter.”

Dr, Warren resumed: ‘Were I capable of making any set speech I
should think it unseemly in opposing the views of the Committee. But I
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 171

feel deeply, and I think it due to the cause to show why I differ from my
brethren. I have no wish to take the opportunity, too often afforded me, to
reply to any unbrotherly remarks.” A great clamouring interrupted Dr.
Warren, and he was called to order by the Chair. The President: ‘I cannot
allow of extraneous matter.” Dr. Warren then proceeded: ‘One principal
reason why I opposed the nominations in the Committee was because I
thought: that I discovered the operation of principles perilous to the
liberty of the brethren. In every succeeding meeting I was confirmed in my
views, and my suspicions have been strengthened by having my opposition
denounced as ‘unprincipled.' I appeal to the brethren who know me
whether my conduct has merited such manifestations of bad temper?"
(Here Dr. Warren was again interrupted, and compelled to break off from
personal defence against the imputations cast upon him.) He tried again:
“Well, then, this is the most important subject that ever came before this
Body. I give place to no one for promoting creditable learning amongst the
Preachers. I approach the question with the deepest anxiety. As to the
abstract question of the education of our ministry, I am in entire agreement
with the Committee, and also on many points of detail; but it is my solemn
opinion that the time has not fully come for the adoption of such a system.
(1) The projected scheme, however plausible in theory, will be found anti-
Methodistical in fact. Methodism has succeeded well at home and abroad.
Its efficiency is extraordinary. Remember our fathers—Nelson, and the rest.
God gave us John Fletcher, the richest gem ever set in the diadem of
Methodism. Then God gave us men like Benson and Bradburn and their
peers. (2) It is said that the improved education of our people demands an
improved education of the Preachers; but is it not from these same improved
people that we shall draw our preachers? The improvement of the education
of the Preachers will thus naturally keep pace with the improved education of
the people, from amongst whom alone they come. Are our Superintendents
restricted in their nominations for the ministry to stationary young men
while all around them are progressing? Our vessel has passed the shallows
of a grossly uneducated class of men, and is getting into deeper water. I
appeal to the quality of the young men who have been taken out for the last
fifteen years. And what a noble band of missionaries who have returned
with developed intellect! I would not shrink from comparing any of these
young men with men of the same age in the ministry of any Church, (3) I
appeal to the present success of our system. (4) This movement has not
originated with our people, but with some principal Preachers. The Quarterly
Meeting of this very City Road itself has memorialised this Conference
against it.” The President: ‘I cannot allow allusions to be made to Quarterly
Meetings.” Dr. Warren resumed: ‘‘May I speak, then, of facts that have
come under my own observation? The meeting which was called here of
united ministers and laymen was expressly and most carefully composed of
friends of the movement only. And this convention of ‘friends’ only goes,
not to inform the Conference of the real judgment of the Connexion, so much
as to influence the vote of Conference and over-awe its judgment. (Here
some exclaimed, ‘‘ No,” and others ‘‘Yes.’’) It was stated in that meeting
that ‘it would bea serious matter for the Conference to decide otherwise than
it had done, although the numerical strength of the meeting was so small.”
He then proceeded to show how those who were invited to this London
172 History of Meruonism.

meeting had been locally selected, and described a close meeting of Preachers
-favourable to the movement (apparently a dinner party), who had chosen the
persons to be invited. He then proceeded: ‘But the weightiest reason
against this résolution is the danger of throwing too much power into the
hands of certain Preachers. I think this attempt to forestall the choice of
the Conference by naming certain men for the offices to be created is a
suspicious circumstance."" He then read a printed rule ‘‘ That the nomination
of Officers to Connexional Departments is the exclusive prerogative of Con-
ference itself, or a Committee to whom Conference has expressly entrusted
that selection.” He showed that no Committee constituted for another purpose,
with definite instructions, had any right to go beyond their instructions, and
take upon themselves the task of anticipating the choice of Conference itself.
But the Committee had assumed to mention the officers, and that ‘only from
among themselves.’ One individual they have designated to new offices—that
of General Superintendent of the Institution and that of Theological Tutor—
whilst he is still to retain the Senior Secretaryship at the Mission House.”
(Here Dr. Warren was again somewhat uproariously interrupted.) Mr.
Entwistle said: ‘(I think Dr. Warren should be allowed to say all he has to
say." Dr. Warren then put a question to the President: ‘“ Whether the
Committee for drawing up a plan of the Institution was the proper place to
nominate the officers?'’ The President declined to answer. Another
attempt was made to silence Dr. Warren, but Mr. Stanley said: “I beg
that Dr. Warren may be allowed to finish his argument.’ Dr. Warren then
resumed: ‘I ask whether the duties of these three offices can be filled by
any mortal man?”

Mr. Bunting here again interrupted, complaining of ‘the unenviable
situation in which he was placed by such a question, since he was the man
alluded to." Dr. Warren: “I will conclude, then, by saying, that I think
every brother should consider these points, if he vote upon this question.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘I will relieve Dr. Warren, and perhaps we may have his
vote after all. I now say, that nothing but the most imperative, peremptory,
and absolute command of the Conference shall induce me to have anything
to do with the Institution.’

Mr. Bromley seconded Dr. Warren’s amendment: “‘ The previous ques-
tion,” which, of course, meant—the indefinite postponement of the whole
subject. Mr. Bromley’s objections were—1. The prolongation of the enforced
celibacy of probationers, which the scheme involved. 2. The proverbial
dangers to young men of college life, etc. 3. The uncertainty of beneficial
results. 4. The having our ministers all cast in one mould.”

Next rose Mr. James Wood, the most venerable man in the
whole assembly, to address the fifty-fourth Conference in which
he had taken part. He had twice been President and had
reached the sixty-second year of his ministry. He had been
chosen to fill the chair in that same chapel in the first year of the
century, and his name was in the “ Deed of Declaration” by
Wesley's own hand as a member of the Hundred. He had thus.
been a member of the Legal Conference from the first day of its
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 173

existence. He was the first Governor of Woodhouse Grove
School appointed by the Conference, and as the first General
Treasurer of the Missionary Society, had addressed the first
meeting ever held in London. He had written a good deal,
especially a “ Dictionary of the Bible,” very useful to young men.
He now advocated the adoption of means for the improvement
of young preachers, but feared the evils incident to college life,
as manifested in the universities and Dissenting seminaries.
He thought the money would be better spent in furnishing the
young preachers with books. Mr. Wood spoke but briefly,
being very aged, but his points were much expanded in a
remarkable letter to Dr. Warren, in which he fully explained the
grounds of his own objection, yet entreated him to acquiesce in
the decision of the Conference, not to disturb the Connexion on
the matter, but give the new venture a fair and unobstructed
trial. I have a copy of this letter, kindly given to me by his
accomplished granddaughter, Mrs. Everett Green. His main
misgiving proved the old man’s sagacity and foresight. ‘“ His
heart trembled for the ark of God ;” for he feared the time might
come when technical scholarship, linguistic proficiency, and such
smattering of science as might be picked up in a three years’
college course, and a fair show of acquaintance with speculative
divinity, would be thought more of than the sound and saving
doctrines which for near a hundred years had done the work of
Methodism. He ended his speech by saying : “‘ I would deprecate
this as the greatest evil ever admitted into Methodism.”

Mr. Burdsall: ‘I do not plead for an illiterate ministry. (Mr. Bunting
interrupted, but Mr. Burdsall took no notice of the interruption.) My
feelings seem mixed. I do, however, object to this resolution on many
grounds. If the question were, Are we to have able ministers of the New
Testament, I should submit. I contend—1. We have had hitherto, a faithful
and efficient ministry. Has the Methodist ministry in this respect sunk
below the ministry of other Churches? Dissenting ministers may make
more display, but they are not more solid, nor have they more godly unction.
So far as our ministry has failed, it has failed on two grounds. 1. Our not
sufficiently improving the talent we possess, but now it is a grave question:
Will you come into collision with a great number of our people—perhaps
not the wealthiest nor the wisest ? I doubt the propriety of pressing this upon
our people, many of whom, I know, will not very readily subscribe. Avoid
the risk of parting with the simplicity of our ministry, which is its glory.” He
then suggested a plan for supplying our probationers with the best books,
and testing their proficiency in the study of them, ‘and let them know that if
they will not make an adequate improvement of their opportunities they
cannot be admitted into full Connexion, and let it be incumbent on
174 fHistory oF MerxHoovism.

Superintendents to see that the young men are spending a due amount of
time in study. By this direction they may prevent much time from
running to waste, and the contracting of many discreditable habits be
precluded. Put them into the best way of study.”

Mr. Gaulter: ‘It is a novel saying that this is a novel project. I have
heard it talked about ever since I came into this Body. Mr. Wesley always
had this in view. The books at Kingswood were not chosen for children, the
school was established with a view to the Preachers. I have heard it talked
about in the Connexion for forty-nine years. I have known several Preachers
whom Wesley introduced into Kingswood School, who remained there till
they were wanted for the work.’ Mr. Ward: ‘‘No body of Preachers are
more excellent than ours, but some of us have offensive eccentricities. It
should be one object of the tutors to correct these eccentricities, There are
indeed dangers, the chief being that of a manufactured Ministry. But to his
mind the practical question was—to utilise the time of the men on the List
of Reserve whilst waiting to be called out.” Mr. Sutcliffe made a telling point
in reply to a speaker who had instanced Elijah as "a successful though
uneducated preacher. ‘' Elijah was the great reviver, not only of religion but
of the ‘ schools of the Prophets’ in the kingdom of the ten tribes.”

Mr. Scott : ‘‘At present we have more sermons to preach than our fathers
had, and less time to read. I am thankful that our people have not called for
this. But were laymen introduced here, they would soon tell us they want an
improved ministry.” Mr. Reece : ‘'I feel the force of the objections stated. I
was going to say that nothing had been said that is not intensely true.”

But, he showed, the time had come when something must be
done for the mental improvement of our ministry, and that every
other plan suggested had been tried and failed.

Mr. Anderson: ‘I am satisfied of the Methodistical character of the
Institution. I hate dandyism.” But he had no fear that the Institution would
promote that. Mr. R. Waddy spoke rather doubtfully on the question as a
risky change. The President stated that a large number of the brethren had
sent up their names as wishing to speak on the subject. Mr. Lessey offered
to give up his turn if the other brethren would do the same. Mr. Bowers
consented to this, and no one demurred but Mr. Haswell, who was already
on his feet, so was allowed to speak his mind. He said: The efficiency of
a ministry is determined by its effects, and if so no case has been made out
for the need of an Institution. But my chief objection is, that if this resolu-
tion is carried, it will throw an additional power into the hands of individuals.
of whose power in connection with the Mission House there is even now
some jealousy."

This last remark seems to have brought matters to a point.
The Conference saw that several approved of the plan who did
not approve of the nominations, and that the two were quite
distinct matters, although the Committee had attached the latter
to the former that they might secure the latter. Dr. Warren, by
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 175

not insisting on the separation of the two, put himself into a very
false and undignified position. The plan had received his full
assent, it was the nominations that provoked his opposition. That
the Committee in assuming to make those nominations from
among their own body had gone beyond their power, province,
and instructions, was clear and undeniable, and so was the
absurdity of designating for two of the offices an individual who
already held a most arduous Connexional position which he was
stipulated to retain. If Dr. Warren had known how to state his
case in point-blank English, divested of the suave and silken
rhetoric to which he was. addicted, his argument would have
been resistless.

Put in few words, it amounted just to this: Granted that one
man among us is the very man we should have chosen for any
one of these three offices, it scarcely follows that we are reduced
to appointing him to all three at once. He holds now an office
which gives ample scope for, and may well engross, his admittedly
unequalled powers. It was ‘stated that a satisfactory arrange-
ment could be made to supply his place at the Mission House
whenever his other offices might summon him elsewhere. But
how? A third Missionary Secretary had been appointed on the
express and solemn assurance that a third secretary was absolutely
necessary to meet the demands of the public service, and to
protect the health and life of the public servants. Then how could
the duties of two most anxious and arduous offices be laid upon
the oldest secretary, or how could the other two secretaries bear up
under two-thirds of his work? If external aid must be called in,
where would they find the man to do the work of Jabez Bunting ?
The practical point, then, comes to this: Is not the next best for
any one of these three offices at least one third as good as the
man on whom you are asked to heap them all?

There was another consideration also, which evidently weighed
heavily with many of the members of the Conference. The very
individual on whom it was’ proposed to lay the burden of three
weighty offices had for years been holding a higher office than
these three; an office all the more predominant because it was
nameless, irresponsible, and undefined —the effective premiership
of the Methodist administration. This was significantly, though
naively illustrated by the mode in which Mr. Bunting had
explained his being called out of the Committee just as these
nominations were proposed. He said: “I was called out on
Conference business.” Yet, in the room from which he was
176 Hisrory or Meruopism.

called out, there sat at that moment the President of the Con-
ference, the Secretary of the Conference, and the Chairman of
the London District. ‘You are wanted, and nobody else will
do,” was plainly the meaning of the summons. The fact was, as
everybody knew, whoever might be President, Mr. Bunting was
the Prime Minister who never went out of office. This was
the fact not obscurely hinted at by Dr. Warren, Mr. Haswell,
and some other speakers.

Hence the Conference quietly ignored the eager and unasked-
for nominations of the Committee, appointed for another purpose ;
and appointed a Committee for this very purpose and no other,
which was to bring in its report the next day. Meanwhile the
Conference went on with ordinary business ; the proposed plan
having passed the Conference with thirty-one dissentients.

Mr, Bunting: ‘I feel great respect for the brethren who have
spoken against the motion, but am very sorry on account of
Brother J, Wood differing from the Committee.” On the second
reading of the stations several very striking deliverances were
made,

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘I am opposed to deciding matters by vote. That is
determining by numbers, not the most respectable way certainly. I would
ask Mr. Sleigh, has he countermanded the Sabbath-breaking of the field-days
(camp meetings) announced to be held in his circuit ? The whole spirit of
the affair is wrong, distracting other people's worship, making it a day of
tumult which ought to be a day of rest. The animus of these things is
such that we should meet it with resistance. It is a perfect farce to present
petitions for the better observance of the Sabbath, while we allow these
tumultuous meetings. It will lead to a division.”

Mr. Bromley said: ‘‘Any hasty, arbitrary step might hasten the
catastrophe.”

The Superintendent of the circuit was deposed from the Superintendency.
The Superintendent of a circuit objected to the appointment of a brother as
his colleague who had been invited to the circuit in the regular way,”

Mr. Bunting said: ‘In an appointment to a circuit the will of the
Superintendent ought to be consulted before that of the circuit. The
Superintendent is a party more important than the Circuit Steward. That
is my doctrine.” .

At the close of a sharp discussion the entry is as follows :-—

“Many were against it, but Mr. Bunting advocated the measure, and,
like almost every other which is favoured with his advocacy, it prevailed.”

The Report of the Committee for nominating officers for the Institution
was as follows :— ;

1. “ That Mr. Entwisle be the House Superintendent.

2. '‘ That Mr. Hannah be Theological Tutor.
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 177

3. ‘That a young man be selected by the Committee for the Mathe-
matical and Classical Department.

4. “ That-Mr. Bunting be the Visitor, his duty being to visit the institution
twice a week, and particularly to watch over the Theological Department,
and to give occasional lectures on ‘Theology.’”

It soon became apparent that the ambiguous position in
which the “ House Superintendent” and the ‘ Theologtcal Tutor”
were placed in relation to the “ Vzsztor” was not exactly to the
mind of either. For as to the Theological Department, the
visitor was not simply to zzsfect, but particularly to watch over
it. Mr. Entwisle had been twelve years longer in the ministry
than Mr. Bunting. This was the forty-eighth annual Conference
he had attended, four of them under the Presidency of Wesley
himself. He had twice been President, he had been intimate
with all the Elders that outlived Wesley, and had been one
of the moulders of the Methodist policy on Wesley’s death.
He had so trained his three fine sons that they had become
effective ministers. He could not but know Methodism, at least
as well as the younger man who was now set over him, and
the visits of this visitor were not to be “like angels’ visits,
few and far between,” but “twice a week”; the preoccupied
Missionary Secretary was to walk or drive from Hatton
Garden into Hoxton Square to see whether or not the veteran
Field Marshal was framing well in his drilling of these
young recruits.

No wonder, then, that Joseph Entwisle should wish “to
have a little more time to converse with Mr. Bunting before
he gave his answer.”

Mr. Hannah said: ‘I have some reasons for objecting to the appoint-
ment, but if I find myself unequal to the office at the end of the year
I may resign.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘I have the strongest possible repugnance to this office; I
cannot accept it unless forced into it by the threat of expulsion. My difficulty,
my objection, is to having a situation which may exact expectations which I
have no means to meet. There are men in the Body who would rush into it,
be glad to catch at it; but I cannot fulfil my duties at the Institution in
connection with my duties as Missionary Secretary, and I am not willing to
give this up for anything but a circuit.”

Mr. Cubitt moved to take the sense of the Conference as to Mr. Bunting’s
being connected with the Institution without determining either the title or
the functions of his office, but this fell through.

Mr. Reece: ‘‘I hope Mr. Bunting will accept office in the Institution. It
must be in good repute, as well as suitably supplied. I do most cordially

M
178 HtsToRY OF METHODISM.

recommend that Mr. Bunting’s objection be overruled, not by any motion,
but by affectionate request.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I wish to know on whom the responsibility for the
theological teaching is to rest, with Mr. Bunting or with Mr. Hannah? And
who is to be the real head of the Institution, Mr. Entwisle or Mr. Bunting?
One or the other must be ornamental—a figure-head. Mr. Entwisle is just
appointed Head, and then another Head is appointed; we must not make the
Institution a two-headed or a many-headed monster.”

The President: ‘Is Mr. Entwisle’s request for a private conversation
with Mr. Bunting before the appointment is fixed acceded to?”

Mr. Bunting: “I can converse with Mr. Entwisle about our mutual
relations, but if I have responsibility I must have power. I have no objection
to the word ‘ Visitor’; very likely the Archbishop of Canterbury will be
thrown in my face. Why do I undertake it all? Why, because I believe
that many of our friends will like the Institution better if I am connected
with it. You compel me to speak as a fool. Let the word ‘Visitor’ be used
in a sense analogous to that in which it is used in other places, as in
connection with other bodies; in this sense I agree to it as an appointment
by the authority of the Conference. I think an erroneous opinion as to the
Institution is abroad. Not half, I believe not one-third, will be taught the
Classics, but in Theology and Methodism not one must be deficient ; all must
learn that. Let it not, even in joke, be called College, nor Mr, Entwisle the
Principal, nor Mr. Hannah a Professor. The Institution will not work
wonders. I venture to predict there will be many failures, wise as men
are; they are wonderfully fond of being independent.”

Mr. Burdsall: ‘I am surprised at this appointment. I would not have
two theological tutors, it would be a reflection on Mr. Hannah.”

Mr. Scott : ‘(If Mr. Bunting were younger, I should be glad to see him
both Missionary Secretary and Theological Tutor. Mr. Hannah will serve
the Connexion in that office most usefully.”

Mr. Galland: ‘I think that by this arrangement we are placed in a
position of ineffable absurdity. I am sorry to find that the Institution will be
established under the views of Methodism which have been announced at this
Conference. I'am sorry to be obliged to withhold ail support from it of
every kind until Iam more satisfied with its probable utility.”

Mr. Galland had been one of the most ardent promoters and
most liberal subscribers to the scheme to which he objected with
such energy; but the principles enunciated from the platform by
the great man who was to be real head of the Institution, were
doubtless his avowal of such decided Churchward leanings, and
his strongly expressed displacency with revivals, if they were
noisily carried out by means of Sunday camp meetings.

Mr. Galland had been brought up a Churchman in Hull,
at that time the metropolis of Evangelicalism ; he had been
brought to God in a genuine Yorkshire revival, under a genuine
Yorkshire revivalist ; and though his gifts were quite of another
THe CONFERENCE OF 1834. 179

order, yet he had seen too much of the wonders God had
wrought by Yorkshire revivalists to be scared by a noisy
meeting or love feast, though he did not favour camp meetings on
the Sabbath day. He had been brought up an ardent Whig and
did not wish young ministers taught that the Superintendent’s
will should counteract the circuit’s wish in the appointment
of its ministers, or that the decisions of the. Conference
should be determined otherwise than by the vote of the
majority. As Mr. Bunting had implicitly waived his objection,
he was put down in the next issue of the Stations under the name
he preferred,—of Visitor. But the brethren did not like the look
of it as seen in print. Mr. Bunting had said that the term must
be taken in a sense analogous to its ordinary meaning. But
what was its ordinary meaning no one could make out ; the word
is so elastic that its meaning differs in almost every institution
in which it is employed, so that the document which confers the
title must define the duties that belong to it. Besides, some
ugly and ill-omened historical associations had gathered round
the word in the days of Henry VIII., so the name was changed
to President. This had the advantage of being well descriptive
of the position Mr. Bunting was quite sure to hold if he had
any official connection with the Institution whatsoever.

It was, of course, a grave anomaly that the individual who
was made President alike over Governor and all the rest was left
to determine his own relations with the other authorities of the
establishment. The result of this was inevitable ; the stronger
will and the more autocratic nature was sure to dominate. The
others must give way with the best grace they could ; and that
one eminent minister should be Theological Tutor and another,
set over him whose cézef function was to particularly watch
over the theological department, can only be excused, or even
explained, by the just and necessary sensitiveness of Conference
as to the integrity, and the perpetuation of the Wesleyan
Methodist theology, as that which had received God’s own most
signal sanction; and the secured efficiency of an important
institution will condone some grave anomalies. A//’'s well that
ends well, a very identical axiom with A//’s well that’s worked
well, and this again depends upon the workmanliness of the men
who have to work it, in other words, upon the personnel of the
administration. In this case the result did the highest credit to
both the material and its manipulators.

J had not the advantage of a training at the Institution, but

M 2
180 flistory oF METHODISM.

I knew nearly all the men who were ‘thus brought beneath
the personal influence of Mr. Bunting, and, from all that I could
gather, that influence was only good and vastly good. As a
painter should first of all know how to paint ; so a governor,
especially of young men, is quite unequal to his place, unless he
knows well how to govern. You must have a strong man for
such a post. The Conference and the Connexion had sense
enough to see that if the Theological Institution was to be
hopefully and bravely launched, the strongest man available must
be the master of the craft. And Ido not think that there were
three men in the Methodist Conference who did not recognise in
Jabez Bunting that self-same strongest man. Besides, with very
rare exceptions, his manner with young ministers was wonderfully
happy and attractive. If he saw that a youth had in him the
grit and metal of a genuine Methodist Preacher, he was warmly
appreciative, exceptionally considerate, unusually indulgent, and
most winningly respectful. These were fine and noble qualities
in a man so potent and commanding. I have elsewhere given
instances of these.

Thus Mr. Reece, I am persuaded, was but the mouthpiece of
the vast majority, when he told the Conference that the very
name of Jabez Bunting would give a character and a prestige to
the new establishment which would much conduce to its success.
‘ And, assuredly, the Lincolnshire revivalism of such men as
John Hunt and David Hay, was not smothered between feather-
beds at Hoxton ; or the Cornish revivalism of John McKenny at
Richmond. There was no express dissentient from Mr. Bunting’s
appointment to the Presidency of the Institution, but Mr.
Atherton, who objected strongly to plurality of offices, and
insisted, but in vain, for a definition of the duties of the office.

It is noteworthy that the very next resolution proposed in
Conference, was one by the venerable James Wood: “ That a
Committee be appointed to prepare a plan for improving our
Local Preachers.”

A preacher who was reported not to have competent
abilities for our work, was affectionately requested to return
home.

Mr. Reece informed the Conference that he found himself yet
more incompetent to superintend Mr. Dunn than Mr. Griffith ;
that he could manage the Sheffield Circuit and the Sheffield
District, but Mr. Dunn was quite beyond his powers. Someone
else must solve the problem, how to superintend a colleague,
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 181

who would not be superintended. He must disclaim all further
responsibility with regard to Mr. Dunn asa circuit minister. There
was but one alternative ; either put another Superintendent or
another second minister into Sheffield West. The Conference
thought the latter horn of the dilemma was upon the whole
to be preferred.

The importance of a Thedlogieat Institution was vividly
illustrated by the case of a young Methodist minister, of a type
which, alas ! is not yet extinct. This was an admittedly eloquent
and clever youth, who, whilst retaining his status and his stipend
as a Wesleyan Methodist minister, had published an attack upon
a Wesleyan Methodist doctrine. After a year’s time for considera-
tion, when required to state his position towards our doctrine, he
had replied in ‘ta very offensive letter,’ which, however, was
followed by-a “ milder one.” His Superintendent said : ‘‘ He is
very popular and does not agitate either in the pulpit or in our
people’s houses, but I have not been able to hear of a single
convert under his preaching, and in my opinion he will soon be
a thorough-paced Socinian.”’

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘ That we must keep to our doctrine, we ave all agreed; the
point now is: Can we keep faithful to our doctrinal trust, and yet keep this
very able man?”

It was resolved to appoint a special committee to meet in
Leeds and investigate his case. Mr. Bromley alone advocated the
leaving ‘our doctrines” to take care of themselves, in a speech
which bears the stamp of his unrivalled coolness and perversity
of leaning.

Mr. Bunting answered him: “' The calmness of Mr. Bromley’s speech does
not render it less mischievous ; and calmness is not such an important
element in a speech as truth.”

The Committee met at Leeds and ascertained the state of the
case from the young man’s own lips. They found him wedded
to his notions, and that we must either let go our doctrinal
standards, or let go this brilliant pulpit orator. The Conference
thought the latter was the lighter loss.

The difficulty with Mr. Dunn was very cleverly got over.
Since no one could be found who felt equal to superintending
Samuel Dunn, they threw the onus efiscopand: upon his own
stiff, sturdy shoulders. He was appointed Superintendent of the
182 HAstory or MerHopism.

Tadcaster Circuit, “his young man” being William Moulton,
grandfather of the lamented Dr. Moulton.

Mr. Scott, treasurer of the Schools’ Fund, proposed that an equal number
of laymen to the ministerial members of the Committee should be invited to
attend the meeting of the General Committee.

Mr. Bunting : ‘‘I second that. So far, Iam a Liberal.”

Seventeen Methodist gentlemen were selected and invited to
join the twenty-two ministers at the Conference Committee in
Sheffield.

No wonder that Mr. Fowler writes at the end of his report of
the proceedings and discussions, “ So ended this exciting and
exhausting Conference.” After sixty-two years of the working of
the Theological Institution, it is most interesting and important
to take note of the principal object of the institution, and, secondly,
of the main misgivings with regard to it which were expressed
by some of the most earnest and experienced members of the
Conference and preliminary gathering, as shown by the speeches
in both the one and the other. These are points which in the
book of Methodist memory, should, to use a phrase of Dante, be
indicated by paragraph marks. The main object was decisively
indicated by the name chosen for the new establishment: the Zheo-
logical Institution. This was set forth still further, with the utmost
plainness, in the Resolutions, published in the Minutes of the
Conference for 1834, wherein the design of the Institution was
spread out before our people as a pledge and guarantee of the
purposes to which their contributions would be sacredly devoted.
This binding document has never been recalled. In this, after
English grammar, composition, elocution—and the other elements
of a sound, average English education—Biblical and Methodist
Theology and Church principles and discipline, and sound Biblical
interpretation held the central place of honour. Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew were not essential, but might be insisted on or left
untouched, at the discretion of the authorities, and according to
the capacity and aptitude of the individual student. The bare
idea of a student being excused from attendance on the lectures
of the Theological Tutor in order to avail himself of a course of
physical science at a secular college would have been simply
shocking to every minister and layman in the Body. The very
wish for such a thing would have been conclusive evidence of the
man’s unfitness for, and false conceptions of, the ministry to which
he was aspiring ; and regarded as a shameful perversion of funds
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 183

solicited and contributed mainly for the very purpose of theological
instruction, and as a severe reflection on a distinguished minister
withdrawn from circuit work, for the very purpose of imparting
to our future ministers efficient teaching in theology. Next in
importance was elocution, especially in the giving out of hymns
with intelligence and sensibility, and with awakening effect, the
reading of the Holy Scriptures with impressiveness and expository
emphasis and intonation, and a natural, manly, and effective
utterance and action in delivering a discourse. No minister of
the time, in many of these gifts, surpassed the President of the
Institution. Occasional readings and addresses, and devotional
exercises, led by this master of a simple and commanding eloquence,
must have been to a susceptive neophyte of immense and life-
long service. So subordinate was what is conventionally meant
by scholarship, to sound Wesleyan theology, that the Con-
ference did not appoint the classical tutor, but left it to the
Committee to choose ‘‘some young man,” whilst the fittest man
of eminence in the entire Body was most carefully selected for
the theologic chair, and, in addition to this, its most trusted
leader was charged to “watch particularly over the Theological
Department.”

That this sensitive solicitude about our doctrines was neither
excessive nor misplaced can be denied by no one who has studied
candidly and earnestly the genius, the mission, and the history of
that wondrous work of God called Wesleyan Methodism. That
this benign and mighty factor in the spiritual and social history
of the British Empire, and America, was indebted for its
marvellous success to its faithful, urgent presentation of the
grand vital verities of the Christian revelation, preached with
impassioned energy of conviction and experience, and borne
home to the hearers by the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven,
was emphatically recognised by the mighty men of other Non-
conformist Churches, who spoke in Wesley’s Chapel at the
centenary of Wesley’s death, most signally by the lamented
Dr. Dale, and by the great Church historian, Dr. Stoughton.

The “decay of the doctrinal basis” of Methodism means
necessarily the devitalisation of Methodist experience, for with
Methodism, as with all forms of genuine Christianity, its life
and morals, its organisation and its institutions are the native
outgrowth of its doctrines.

Jt is an interesting fact that the perils incident to the
setting up in Methodism of an educational collegiate institute
184 flisToRY oF METHODISM.

were most keenly forecast by a practical, successful man of
business, Mr. Guest, of South Wales, and by the father of
the Conference, the venerable James Wood. Mr. Guest, a
member of an honoured and most justly prosperous family,
now represented by Lord Wimborne, who chose for their
escutcheon, “ Ferro sed non gladio”— By iron, but not by the
sword” —put his strong, pacific finger on one of the deadliest
dangers that can ever come to an evangelistic Church—the
inducing and inducting into its ministry of men who seek it,
not under the pressure of a Divine necessity laid upon them
to preach the Gospel, but simply, as Mr. G. Gilfillan frankly
tells us, a pleasant means of livelihood and insurance against
the uncertainties of literary life. Methodism has sore need to
guard with ever-increasing vigilance against the danger of ad-
mitting into its ministry men who seek admission to our
ministry as the best means open to them for a career.

Father Wood’s misgiving was, as we have seen, lest a
veneer and varnish of pretentious scholarship should be laid
upon a warped and worm-eaten latitudinarianism.

It seems impossible not to compare the discussion in the
Conference of 1834 with regard to the founding of our Theo-
logical Institution with the remarkable speeches delivered at
the Conference of 1896 by the President, the Theological Tutor
at Didsbury, and Mr. Macdonald, the ex-Theological Tutor
at Handsworth. The former most appropriately and oppor-
tunely called the attention of the Body to the very gravest
peril which is threatening Methodism—the deadliest, indeed,
that has ever yet assailed it. Let us hope that the warning
voice uplifted by the President at that Conference especially
his faithful, just exposure of the ministerial dishonour and
dishonesty involved in retaining the stipend, the status,
and the influence of a Methodist minister, whilst coolly
disregarding the solemn and the annually repeated pledges and
avowals by which they were achieved at first, and on the faith of
which they are still retained.

The Theological and Methodistic element was the point
most insisted on by all the leading speakers in the Conferences
of 1833-4. For example :—

Mr. Scott: ‘We want more education in theology. I feel that the care of
a circuit precludes all application to study.”

Robert Newton: ‘Can we have something quite Methodistical ? It is
THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 185

also highly desirable that our ministry should not shock the good taste of
the people.”

Again, the case of William Griffith occupied the Conference.
The last year’s arrangement secured for Mr. Griffith a circuit
of the highest class. Mr. Reece, on being asked to report upon
his conduct, said nothing but good of him.

Mr, Bunting showed how Mr. Griffith had involved us by his conduct in
some former circuits in most painful notoriety, and to such an extent as
made it, ‘‘our duty to look after his submission to Methodistical authority.
I think his conduct ought, in view of his past procedure, to have been
perfectly unimpeachable. We ought to look well to our discipline; it is
important to our people, it is important to us. I would ask if William
Griffith has not acted publicly contrary to his Superintendent's express
judgment? A preacher has no right to take any public step contrary to the
express judgment of his Superintendent. Has he not vindicated his conduct
in opposition to his Superintendent at a Society Meeting?”

Mr. McLean, his colleague, said: ‘‘ He has mentioned from the pulpit the
difference existing between himself and his Superintendent, and in giving out
a public notice, authorised by the Superintendent, said ‘My name is not
affixed to this notice, I do not concur in the movement.’ ”

Mr. Reece: '‘ Nobody cared about Mr. Griffith’s name being appended
to the paper. I have behaved kindly to him; but I believe he is as much
afraid of behaving civilly to me as of treating me with extreme personal
insolence.”’ °

Dr. Beaumont said: ‘‘I concur with Mr. Bunting about the importance o
this affair. I have heard nothing in Edinburgh against Mr. Griffith’s moral
character, but the effect of his ministry there is such as to satisfy me that I
cannot lift up my hand in favour of his being continued on trial for this
ministry.”

Mr. Bunting expressed his judgment that ‘if no better report of him were
forthcoming next year, it would be the duty of Conference to do without
him,”

A very remarkable candidate for the Methodist ministry was
the Rev. Robert Aitken, recommended from the Douglas
Circuit. But important external elements in the case precluded
the reception of this mighty preacher.

“Mr. Bunting complained that the Halifax Circuit had been left without
a preacher, although it was suffering from a ‘division.’ The third preacher
had come without leave. It was proposed that the brother should be heard.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘ He has no right to be heard, but he has a right to hear
us. In Mr. Wesley's time no man came to Conference without his leave, the
living John Wesley is the Brethren in full Connexion. No member of the
Hundred even has a right to come without the consent of his District
Meeting.”
186 HlistoryY oF METHODISM.

The case of Mr. Everett's appointment to a circuit called
forth the following remarks :—

Mr. Entwisle: “I would speak of a great principle. I think myself
qualified to speak on this subject ; I have attended forty-eight Conferences,
I will state Mr. Thompson’s principles (the first President after Wesley).
‘Beware of local men in business; they have local views and prejudices.’
Mr. Everett is a most agreeable man and colleague, I would myself supply
his place on a snowy night. I believe he has no more love of money than of
sin. Perhaps it would be better to allow him a year to wind up his affairs.”

Mr, Gaulter : ‘I would have such cases uniformly acted on.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘(I would terminate the anomalous point with regard to
Mr. Everett. I move that Mr. Everett be appointed to a circuit.”

Mr. Everett : ‘I am much obliged to the Conference. I find it a high day.
I would as soon look a bear in the face as a ledger.”

The poor Connexion was not left to settle down in peace
and harmony to pursue its mission. Dr. Warren forthwith
started on that desperate course of organised agitation and
aggressive lawlessness which could have no other than a deplorable
ending. The London Ministers’ Meeting put forth a document
entitled:a “ General Declaration,” signed by nearly all of them,
which they took upon themselves to send to every minister
throughout the provinces, with the request that he would
append to it his name. The generality of the Declaration
consisted simply in the whole Ministerial Brotherhood being
asked to sign it. It implied specifically an unqualified assent to
what amounted to an indignant denial that any predominant
personality or party existed in the Conference. The Declaration
was not signed by Jacob Stanley, who wrote to Mr. Bunting
a frank and manly statement of his reasons for withholding his
autograph from that document. I give an extract from a copy
of this letter sent by him :—

‘Though Imost heartily disapprove of the course pursued by Dr. Warren,
and though I substantially approve of the Deciaration, yet there are a few things
in it which do not meet my unqualified approbation. I wish there had been
less indignation and reprobation and abhorrence, and that it had contained
some expressions of pity for an erring brother, and of deep regret for the
mischiefs that have followed, more of the spirit of Him who prayed for His
murderers, and less of the spirit of the disciples who would have called down
fire from Heaven against those who had offended them. At first I rather
doubted whether it is quite true that the preachers are not under the influence
of a dominant party, that many, in particular, are not very much under your
individual influence. I may be wrong, but it has been my opinion for many
years that several of the brethren have on some subjects voted as they
supposed would be most agreeable to you; nor were my views at all altered
‘

THE CONFERENCE OF 1834. 187

by the occurrences of last Conference. After all, I do not believe that ‘the
body of the preachers’ are thus influenced ; neither do I believe that you use
any wunfaiy methods to influence those brethren who may be specially
indebted to you for any friendly aid you may have afforded them. It is
natural for those who have received favours to be grateful, and should those
vote to please you, rather than in conformity to their own convictions, the
fault is not yours.”

This frank and manly testimony, given to the great man
himself by a senior minister who was a representative man, and
who during the last two Conferences had come next to the Chair,
having received at one time ninety-six votes, is of a great value
as expressing views shared by him with many other brethren.
But, of course, all those who did not sign the Declaration were
at once proclaimed Warrenztes by the framers and forth-senders
of that well-meant, but in fact divisive document. This was
part of the penalty that Jacob Stanley had to pay for withholding
his signature from a Declaration which did not express his views.
Hence he soon received a letter from his married daughter
informing him that they had received from London the
staggering intelligence that Jacob Stanley had turned Warrenite.
To this he gave the following reply :—

‘‘_is no ‘Warrenite.’ He has not signed the Declavation because he
thinks the influence of Mr. Bunting is greater than it recognises, Not that I
approve of the proceedings of the Doctor, for these I think at once absurd and
censurable. My opinions on the whole case I have written to the President,
that he might lay it before the Preachers' Meeting, which he did. I told Mr.
Bunting that he might append my name to a second edition of the London
Declaration with the qualifications above named. Some alterations in the second
paragraph would have made it unobjectionable. I do not think that the
preachers, as assembled in Conference, are generally subservient, etc. In a
great majority of cases they vote according to their own convictions but on
some I fear many of them shoulder their arms after the example fugleman.

*'A preacher brought to me the document in bed, just after a severe
attack of cholera, and begged me to sign it, and finding one or two names of
independent minds who had attentively considered it, I consented.

“I hope the Conference will elect some prudent and no party man, and one
who will hold the balance even. ‘May God direct and save us’ !—Jacos

STANLEY.”

The history of “Dr, Warren's agitation and secession has
been often told and amply. Our business is with the light
that falls upon it from Mr. Fowler’s Journal.

THE SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835.

In 1835 the sagacious and broad-minded President, Mr.
Joseph Taylor, invited a large number of laymen from various
188 flrsrory oF MeruHopism.

parts of the country to meet at Sheffield immediately before the
Conference to confer with him in a free and friendly conversation
upon various subjects affecting the general interests of the
Connexion. At this meeting Dr. Bunting made what is justly
described in his “ Life” as one of his best and most statesmanlike
speeches, in which he advocated important popular modifications
of our system, which only needed his approval to be triumphantly
carried at the Conference. He, however, set his foot down firmly
against any suggestion of an electeve and representative lay
element in Methodism. No lay members were to form part of
the Conference during any part of its sessions, nor were lay
members of Connexional Committees to be elected by the laity,
but selected by the Pastorate. The changes, however, are rightly
designated by Dr. George Smith as concessions to the laity.

This concessive and conciliatory speech produced a fine effect
upon the meeting, and through them on the Connexion. Men
on both sides were equally delighted—Mr. Heald, the compact
symbol of a resolute Conservatism ; and Mr. James Wood, of
Bristol, a gentleman of the most popular sympathies, whom
I remember well at this same period as a very interesting
personality, with picturesque peculiarities, but withal kindly,
. genial, and generous.

Mr. Heald: ‘If at the Land’s End, I would attend to the call of Method-
ism. If differences exist among Christians, we can settle them. Morning
light has been given enough for us to see our way. I think it my duty to
record my eternal abhorrence of agitation. I say nothing about these men,
but about their measures. I am glad to see the spirit of this meeting. Is
it to be tolerated that a Christian Church is to be reformed by men who
begin upon the principle of political reformers: ‘ We are all right, and you
are all wrong’? We laymen will sit at the feet of our fathers; but not
of men whose principles would subvert our system. I would suggest a
revision of our regulations—a gentle, practical improvement. It is lawful to
learn even from our enemies. Whatever you do, avoid collision between
Preachers and people. In the course of the last year I have stood forward,
but I have never said that our system is faultless. I love Methodism with all
my heart. All Methodism is indebted to the Oldham Street Trustees. Our
door of admission is very open, and there should be some clear way of removing
improper persons, and not have to wait till a man has done so much mischief.
How are we to treat those members who are determined to keep up the
agitation for another year? We should legislate for sound men, and not
do wrong to save a few unsound ones.”

Mr. Wood, of Bristol: ‘The present time is similar to 1797. The rules
then enacted proved that the Preachers were disinterested. Forty years ago
the friends met as delegates; we now meet as simply friends. If a man be
a persistent peace-breaker, let him have no place among us. Should not
Tue SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835. 189

rules be formed to separate from us those who join associations for distracting
us? In Bristol no man can be put upon the Plan as a Local Preacher until
the Quarterly Meeting have given their permission. I think this meeting
should give some expression of attachment to the parts of our discipline
which are assailed. This would prevent much local agitation. A man must
be a Methodist to understand Methodism. We must not- attach much
importance to the objections of those who are outside it. I would have the
discussion brought to some practical conclusion.”

Mr. Thorold: ‘‘Those who object to Methodism should point out
something better. The credit of our system is that it works well. I am not
willing to give up what works well for what has never been worked at all,
or if worked has worked badly. How would Methodism work in the fetters
of our new Methodisers? I believe that Methodism was raised up by God.
I do not dare to say that nothing in it can be mended. But let these
Methodising gentlemen show us their system in operation, and then we may
judge whether it is better than our own. Let us make no change but what is
obviously for the good of the Body. But all may speak out. Our foes have
embarrassed us, but they have also embarrassed themselves. I would have
matters regulated with moderation. But we must uphold Church discipline.
It may not want to be much altered ; but those who feel it should be allowed
to say where they think it pinches too hard."

Mr. James Wood, of Manchester, was called. He said: ‘I am reluctant
to obey, yet cannot make up my mind to disobey. No man here owes more
to Methodism than I do. In existing circumstances, I think there may be
some minor changes. I would not control the power of ministers, nor add
much to it. Let us avoid extremes. Great evils have arisen from the present
constitution of Quarterly Meetings. They once consisted of Preachers and
Stewards only. We cannot go back to that, and cannot stop where we are.
Any Leader or Local Preacher of seventeen exercises a right to attend and
vote who may have the gift of the gab. I think this monstrous. I have
thought of a representative system; but I hate electioneering practices. I
think the Leaders, Local Preachers, and Trustees ought to be represented. As
much as possible, relieve the ministry from financial matters. But I would
not trust laymen alone. I had rather trust ministers alone. Have not
ministers a Scriptural power to expel improper persons? There is one point
of great difficulty—Mr. Anderson has been very much troubled. We know
not how his temperament has borne it. We could not tell him how to get out
of it; nor could any of those around him tell him. I feel more attached to
Methodism than ever. But I would have our rules and regulations explained.
Gome of them are obscure. It is time they were explained. With the
agitators of our Body I will have no fellowship. Abide by old Methodism, and
all the really Methodist laity will abide by you. But do not mar Methodism
to meet the wishes of a faction.”

Mr. T. Marriott referred to a document in the handwriting of Wesley,
dated 1751, and signed by Nelson and others, declaratory of the necessity
of unity among the Preachers. He deplored the neglect of Society Meetings ;
and thought the Preachers thought too little of the duties of ’prentices and
servants, and of Pastoral visitation.

Mr. H. Hoole, of Manchester: ‘I think the evil is exaggerated ; and that
a man who, like myself, has attended agitating meetings, and yet had not
190 fftstory of Meruopism,

denied that some things ought to be altered, should not be suspected. But
Dr. Bunting has fully met my wishes. Carry his plan into effect as soon as
possible. Iam a tradesman, as independent as any man can be, but I should
suffer much if expelled. We want guards against the admission of officers,
especially Local Preachers, who are often local talkers."

Mr. Agar: ‘I have been a member of this blessed Body more than fifty-
six years. I was present forty years ago” (the date of the Plan of Pacification)
‘‘when Mr. Thompson was in the Chair. Yet I have never seen Methodism
in such a disturbed state as at present. I wish we had some explanation
of the rules in point. I am most sorry for the lambs of the flock. A
committee of Preachers should do something towards bringing us into a
better state.”

Mr. Chapell: '‘I would have something done for the old Preachers. It
is a stain on Methodism that some of them are so scantily provided for.
I am afraid of Dr. Bunting’s making concessions to clamour, not to necessity.
Much talking makes more holes than it *mends. I think the Preachers
excellent." (How Chapellian !)

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Mr. Chapell has misunderstood me. I have proposed
nothing but from conqiction. It is hard to extort anything from me; Iam
altogether the other way."

Mr. Beet: “I have held office in Methodism fifty years. It has done
well in time past, I would guard against great changes.”

Mr. Farmer: “I think some explanation of our rules necessary. I do
not feel to desire more than has been proposed; but I think it would
be to the advantage of Preachers and people to consult together oftener.”

Mr. Edwards: ‘'I believe that Conference had rather hear the state-
ment of friends than any quantity of adulation. I believe that in this
way many members will be detained, and as many as possible brought
back who have gone astray. If some of them were here to-day they
would have felt sorry they had gone. I think most of the dissatisfaction
has arisen when the Superintendent would not allow the Leaders to act as
a proper jury. I would suggest whether anything can be contrived to relieve
Superintendents from the responsibility of acting both as judge and jury, I
think that some have gone rather too far in lecturing the Preachers. I believe
that many who have been led away have the love of God in their hearts.”

Mr. Crook, of Liverpool: ‘I too was present at the meeting in 1795,
with William Thompson in the Chair. The spirit of party starts boldly.
We have suffered much in Liverpool from divisions, mainly through the
Press, in one form or other. A small secession might do us good. I
would have some assistance to the Superintendent when the Leaders*
Meeting proves to be an unsound jury.”

The President: ‘The only way at present is to call in three Super-
intendents.”

Mr. Hoby, of London: ‘‘I am delighted with what I have heard this
day. I think Dr. Bunting’s suggestions will help us out of difficulties. I
would have our regulations embodied, as much as possible, in Scripture
language. I think there is something debasing in any member Telusing
to answer a question.”

Mr. Scarth, of Leeds: ‘When men come from a disturbed Circuit no
wonder they particularise. I come from a peaceful Circuit and a loving
THE SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835. 191

Society. I am glad to hear in all the addresses a tenderness of feeling for
Methodism. Let us support Methodism. Let us not amalgamate it with the
spirit of the times ; but infuse into the times the spirit of primitive Christianity.
We do not profess that Methodism is infallible; but that it answers well
the purpose for which it was raised up: to spread Scriptural religion through
the earth. A Methodist may do as much good as he pleases. The Preachers
are representatives of the Body. The Preachers are sent out by the people ;
and the people should look to it that we send out sound men. Conference
is then ‘ the Conference of the people called Methodists.’ That is the heading
of the Minutes. There is some uneasiness amongst some Methodists touching
the points put forth by the Association. Dr. Bunting’s proposals will meet
the case. I would not succumb to a faction, but would make the changes
because they ought to be made. I wish the great fact of our Connexional
character were kept in view.”

At the, next day’s meeting Dr. Bunting gave an exposition
of his views on Methodist Church polity. It is identical in
substance with statements made in Conference ; indeed, for the
most part, identical in terms.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I wish that Church government had been more studied.
We must not give up fundamentals. The first rule is Fidelity; We may
decline a trust ; but, if accepted, we must execute it. I think there is sucha
thing as the Pastoral office. The dissentients would have us turn knaves to
Mr. Wesley. (2) A still higher law is Purity of Doctrine. We must look with
jealousy on men who complain of doctrinal standards, which they call ‘ tests.’
We have erred in excessive brotherly lenity towards such men. (3) Purity of
Ministerial Life. There are men who have great power of wheedling. I
believe I could get a majority in any Leaders’ Meeting if I had no conscience.
(4) Then there is the rule of Peace. Many things look well in theory; but
do they make for peace? (5) Courtesy. We are not justified in behaving
uncourteously even to Preachers.” Dr. Bunting then entered a strong
protest against Lay delegation, adding: ‘‘I would meet the object in another
way. Let all our funds be placed completely under the management of lay
friends. Have we not done this without solicitation? Our good deeds are
forgotten ; our bad ones printed in fifty editions. No object is relieved unless
friends will assist in the collecting and the distribution. I would have lay
friends to assist in asking about the yearly collection. They will put a
double lock on our fingers if they think we are what we ought not to be.
We are the true reformers, and do the liberalising in the true sense of the
word, taking care, however, of the rule of peace.

“They who meet yonder would make our law a different thing in
different places. It is for the Angel of the Church, not the Leaders—he
may consult them if necessary—to prevent good men being put out, as
well as bad men kept in. Is the New Testament given up? IfI can
prove that a man has violated our rules, yet, if the Leaders do not find
him guilty, I will submit. But if he be a really bad man, he will do
something else, and I shall get at him at last. Christ has given the members
to the Pastors in a sense in which they are not given to the Leaders. I
would have more guards. Before sentence of expulsion I would take time
192 History or MeruHopism.

to cool. Feeling may have mixed up with judgment. (2) I would have
the Superintendent obliged to consult all the travelling Preachers in the
Circuit, though not bound by their advice. But it might present a different
aspect. (3) Consult your Stewards; but the Superintendent, as Angel of
the Church, is responsible after all. (4) There is an appeal to the District
Meeting. Some may object to this; may object to be made notorious. That
is right. The appeal should be cheap and untroublesome. Have something
analogous to a Minor District Meeting. As to memorials, we are not to be
always revolutionising. A fresh window may be made, but we must not pull
down the house and the Constitution of 1797. Leaders should mind their
own business. If they require it, other meetings may be called. But there is
one terrible defect—we did not make it—the requiring the approbation of the
Superintendent. It is absurd for the Superintendent to prevent what the law
permits. Define this meeting. It is not the new-fangled thing, an adjournment
of the Quarterly Meeting. Let it be a representation of the Trustees who
are members, of Leaders, and of Local Preachers. But there must be a
limitation of topics. I would have a liberal definition, but it must be
defined. I fear our friends will not communicate enough to us. The
Stewards do not attend the District Meetings. Do not leave us to men
who have a surplus of zeal, and after attending to parish business must
plunge us into politics.”

A resolution for a reprint of the Minutes of Conference
naturally called to mind the appeal of Mr. James Wood, of
Manchester, and others the day before, and the memorials of
several Quarterly Meetings for an explanation of the Rules and
Regulations. Our most loyal laity felt this to be of immediate
necessity, since the explanation supplied by certain decisions
of Conference, and acts of Superintendents seemed directly
contradictory to the sense naturally suggested to the simple-
minded reader by the rules themselves.

Dr. Bunting drew once more his distinction between a code and a digest,
He said: ‘‘ There have been only two codes since the world began. There
have been three times more lawsuits in France since the Code Napoléon
than for fifty years before. Any man who attempts to make a code will take
into it not only written law but unwritten law—the application of all usages.
The decisions of Conference as to particular cases will take the cleverest man
you have at least two years. Your greatest security is your usages. A great
lawyer informed me: ‘If you had a code of law, you might not include all
matters ; but then you could not advert to usage.’ It is the decided opinion
of two out of three counsel that we had better not have a code. A third very
clever counsel thought we might attempt it, but do as Sir R. Peel did with
the Excise Laws, take up one at a time. Do not gallop toacode. Attempt a
better arrangement, but beware of codification.”

Mr. Galland: ‘‘I regret a certain article in the Magazine. I think it was
an oversight on the part of our excellent Editor,”

The Editor: ‘I make no claim to infallibility. But the Editor of the
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine is bound to make its contents answer to its title.”
THE SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835. 193

The critical Conference of 1835 was held at Sheffield, under
the kingly presidency of Richard Reece. Mr. Stanley was
again the second on the list; no one else had more than two
votes. His non-signature of the declaration delayed his election
to the Chair for just a decade. Such was the eagerness to
decide the case of Dr. Warren that the question of character
was taken on the first day. Mr. Beal, of the Second London
Circuit, was charged with “not having supported his Superin-
tendent in the enforcement of discipline.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘I wish a law were made that no preacher shall make
a fool of himself by publishing. I think this book’s folly will counteract
its mischief." It was decided that a strongly worded letter should be sent
to him, J. H. Rowe was charged with ‘‘ not having supported his Superin-
tendent in the exercise of discipline." To be admonished from the Chair. C.J.
Irving had ‘not made up his mind on points of discipline.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘It is.no sin for a man to think our discipline wrong
provided that he quits us.” Sentence: ‘To be conversed with.”

On the question being put, ‘Any objection against Samuel
Jackson?” and the answer, “ None,” being returned by George
Marsden, Chairman of the Liverpool District, there took place,
what Mr. Fowler terms, ‘a most extraordinary proceeding.”

Mr. Bunting exclaimed: ‘I am surprised to hear that there
is ‘no objection’ against Mr. Samuel Jackson and his colleagues.”

Thereupon Mr. Samuel Jackson lifted up his grim visage and
his gruff voice and said: ‘Samuel Jackson and his colleagues are
ready to take their trial, if any one dare arraign them.” Even
Mr. Bunting’s daring did not reach the pitch of bringing forth
a hypothetic accusation of three such men as Samuel Jackson,
David McNicoll, and W. O. Booth. This, like some other
vague and tentative suggestions of delinquency, seems to have
arisen from the non-signing of the Declaration.

Then came the all-engrossing case of Dr. Warren. The
Minute of the Manchester District Meeting being read, which
recorded the findings against him, and his sentence of suspension,
the President asked whether Dr. Warren had any intention to
appeal from the condemnation ?

Dr. Warren: ‘‘ Unquestionably; that is the reason of my appearing here

to-day.” ‘
Mr. Grindrod: ‘A man should not be allowed toappeal to the Conference

who has appealed elsewhere.”
Dr. Warren: ‘Is the charge against me for contumacy?"”
Mr. Newton: ‘‘ Dr. Warren has appealed to the law of his country, which

he says ‘ will set him right.’ ”
N
194 flisrory oF METHODISM

Mr. Bunting: ‘I do not admit that Dr. Warren has any right to an
appeal, having appealed to a Court of Justice. We have no time for these
things. He has appealed to the popular voice.”

Dr. Warren: ‘‘I have appealed to the people whether the Rules are not
so objectionable that they ought to be revised."

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘Has the Lord Chancellor been appealed to in order that
he may petition us?”

Dr. Warren: ‘The Lord Chancellor thought the Rules of Pacification
‘very mystified ' as explained by your action.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘By your own showing, you appealed to the Chancellor,
because we were not wise enough; and to other persons, because we were
not honest.” Dr. Beaumont complained.

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘I complain of Dr. Beaumont. Why am I to besingled out
in this manner? I cannot submit to it. If protected, I am your servant; if
not, I must retire to my work elsewhere.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I have no personal pique with Mr. Bunting. I have
been injured by his misrepresentations for years; and I wish for an oppor-
tunity to explain. I love my brethren, and I am ready to serve them in
every way. Iam sorry that any painful impression has been made, but
am glad that the matter has been named.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘I must say that I am not satisfied.”

The President : ‘‘ We are bound to protect Mr. Bunting, if we wish to
have his services.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘My friends over-state my case; I could state it much
better myself. I do not refer to personal matters, but complain of Dr.
Beaumont saying in a public meeting that he would not allow Mr. Bunting to
be misrepresented, and now, when I am present, why single me out because
I speak as a member of the Conference? Show a little more courtesy;
I protest against these personal insults.”’

Mr. Vevers: ‘‘ Dr. Beaumont has made an apology.”

Mr. Bunting maintained that Dr. Beaumont’s ‘‘matter and manner were
objectionable.”

After this animated interlude, Dr. Warren was permitted to speak for
himself still further: ‘‘I hold in my hand a document with the signatures of
the preachers, pledging themselves to one particular side of the question, thus
prejudging the question against me. I would submit it to the judgment of
any impartial person whether I have not a right to appeal against this. If I
were to protest against my brethren prejudging my case before entering on its
investigation I should be right.”

Mr. Bunting here struck in: “I positively deny that anyone has sug
gested that Dr. Warren should not have the right to appeal; but I would
have the right decided, so that afterwards it should not be drawn into a
precedent.”

Dr. Warren tried again: ‘I think there was ground for suspicion that
I should not be allowed a fair hearing. I complain of these interruptions.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘I appeal to the Conference whether I have interrupted
Dr. Warren.”

The President : ‘The Conference will proceed as the Conference thinks
best. It has a right to say how.”

Mr, Bunting: “ In my judgment, he has forfeited his right to appeal
THE SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835. 195

is public meetings have failed. I am not only willing, but wishful he should
be heard.’

Mr. Newton: «As a matter of clemency, I would have the whole
case heard.”

Mr. Bunting then read a resolution which he had drawn up, denying
Dr. Warren’s right to appeal, but, as a matter of indulgence, allowing it.
This passed unanimously.

Mr. Grindrod then proceeded to read a case which he had drawn up
against Dr. Warren.

Dr, Warren objected to any fresh charge being introduced of which he had
received no notice. ‘‘ I appeal to the Chair.”

The President : ‘In ordinary cases it is so, but in this affair no informality
should be pleaded.”

Dr. Warren: ‘‘ I complain that no notice has been given me of the contents
of this new document."

Mr. Bromley: ‘‘I rise to make an observation; but, if not in order, I
submit to what is prescribed.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘ Mr, Bromley may be heard when his own case comes on.”

Dr. Warren: ‘‘I have been enabled to maintain a somewhat creditable
character as a preacher for thirty years.” He complained that a great number of

the brethren whom he revered and loved, now called to decide upon his doom,
had signed and circulated a '‘ General Declaration,” which pledged them before-
hand to his condemnation. ‘I should have liked to be tried by judges wn-
committed to their sentence. My young colleague (Mr. Crowther) published
a pamphlet against his Superintendent’s character, and he now sits as my
judge.”

Mr. Bunting interjected: ‘‘ None of the Manchester preachers will vote.””

Dr. Warren resumed: ‘‘ My summons was not according to Methodist law.’

Mr. Newton: “If I should fall short in referring to what is essential to
the case, I hope my brethren will suggest to me. The Quarterly Meeting was
called a week earlier than usual without my privity.”

Mr. Bunting again broke in: ‘‘ By whose suggestion ?

Dr. Warren: ‘‘ The Stewards’.”

Mr. Crowther then took up the cross-questioning of his old Superintendent.

Dr. Warren answered: ‘'The meeting was Methodistically correct. I
did not consult my young colleague on the subject, for when I held out my
hand to him, he said: ‘No; I stand upon my Conferential character.’” _

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘At what date was the meeting held in opposition to the
Theological Institution ?”’

Dr. Warren: ‘' Soon after the meeting held in Great Queen Street Chapel,
Londe’ in its favour, which had no more authority from Conference than
the meering held in Manchester, and was therefore as irregular."

The President ‘‘knew no rule against either meeting.”

Dr. Warren again took up his parable: ‘‘ Some of your officers have shut
up the only way to your ear. Superintendents will not let the people speak
in the Quarterly Meetings. If they press the matter the Superintendent
dissolves the meeting. Thus the grievance of the people cannot be
legitimately represented. If they express them elsewhere—in parlour or
in school-room—it is pronounced schismatical. I wish you to act towards
the people in a fatherly, pastoral manner. Confer with them.’

N 2
196 fWistoryv oF ALETHODISM.

Mr. Bunting: “If a man is expelled he can write to the Chairman ;
if he does not answer, to the President. If a man is hunting for a grievance,
and pretends to be following after peace, he is on a fool's errand. Ifa
Chairman won't answer a letter, bring him here, and we will teach him
his duty, and make him promise to do better.”

Dr. Warren tried again: ‘I did hope Mr. Bunting would use his
talents on the side of conciliation.”

Mr. Bunting: “I do not intend to be a mutineer.”

Dr. Warren then read a paragraph from the Declaration in
which the preachers were committed beforehand to pronounce
sentence against him.

_Mr, Bunting: “If a mutineer is tried by loyal men he may say that
loyal men are pledged, and so he is not to be tried.”
Mc. Waugh: “I would ask if Dr. Warren thinks Mr. Taylor is a
good man?”

Dr. Warren: “I think Mr. Taylor is a good and a sensible man.”

Dr. Warren must be admitted to have shown no little skill
in his defence, considering the hopelessness of his cause, and
the incessant interruption of which he was the subject. During
a great part of the time the affair was little more than an
interlocution between Mr. Bunting and Dr. Warren. Besides
this, at least fourteen other brethren interrupted, several of
them more than once. The only one who spoke on Dr.
Warren's side was Mr. Bromley: but on his rising Mr. Bunting

interposed: “I wish to know to what point Mr. Bromley is
going to speak.”

Dr. Warren expressed a hope that any person might speak for him.

Mr. Bunting: “If Dr. Warren wishes to call Mr. Bromley as a witness,
or add anything to the defence, he may do so now; but let us know in what
character he appears.”

Dr, Warren: ‘If Mr. Bunting will have patience——”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘I have had patience; but the more I hear the less I
understand. Dr. Warren seems to wish that Mr. Bromley should speak,
but Dr. Warren has a peculiar way of mystifying things.”’

Dr. Warren: ‘‘I do not wish Mr. Bromley to speak.”

Mr. Bromley : ‘‘I should be sorry to appear otherwise but as one of the
brethren: I think it important to know the facts. Mr. Grindrod on Methodist
Law is excellent in many respects, not all." Here Mr. Bromley was called
to order, and apologised. He proceeded : ‘I thought the Conference wished
to legislate on facts—on perfect knowledge.”

But Mr. Bromley’s speech was rather in defence of himself than that of
Dr. Warren. He said: ‘If I had had permission from the Chair to speak,
I should have made an apology.”

_ Mr. Bunting: “If aman sins without permission he may repent without
leave.”
THe SHEFFIELD. CONFERENCE OF 1835. 197

Dr. Beaumont : “I wish to ask Dr. Warren whether he feels any regret
for the conduct into which he has been precipitated.”

Dr. Warren: “I feel deep regret, but it is regret that applies to both
sides of the question ; regret for the cause which exists. I deeply regret that
at the Conference I was not permitted to vindicate my character. That was
the crisis. I did repeatedly implore that I might be allowed to wipe off the
aspersions upon me, and that I might be heard without prejudice. I
solemnly told the Conference that if not allowed to do it here, I should do
it as I deemed proper. I do regret the unhappy moment when I was not
allowed to speak. If I had been I should not have written a line. I intimated
my intention then to vindicate myself elsewhere ; the Chair was silent.”

The President: '‘Are you sorry for what you call ‘contentious division
of the society,’ etc. etc, ?”

Dr. Warren: ‘'I again say I am equally sorry for the cause and for the
consequences ; they are inseparable. A deputation waited upon Mr. Newton
from the mass of leaders. Mr. Newton refused to see them. That originated
the association, but for which the members who are now in a fold together
contiguous to your own, would have been scattered.”

Mr. Newton: ‘I did hear something about a deputation to propose
accommodation, but said: ' I cannot receive you from the standard of rebellion ;
as individuals I shall be most happy to receive you.’ The people who went with
and continued with Dr, Warren told me that they were still members of
the Methodist Society.”

Mr. Bunting : “If anything I said or did required this publishing by
Dr, Warren; if I had done wrong, there was an opportunity when my
name was called,”’

The ex-President : ‘Dr. Warren had the promise of being heard some
other time.”’

The most painful interruption of all was that by Mr. Crowther,
Dr. Warren’s youngest colleague. He wedged into the middle of
Dr. Warren’s self-defence a halting and prolix excuse for having
published a pamphlet against his’ Superintendent. But when
obliged to confess that he had done this before his Superintend-
ent had done anything Methodistically actionable, he confusedly
collapsed. After the ex-President’s observations the President
requested Dr. Warren to withdraw, and said, “ The Conference
is now waiting for some resolution.”

Mr. Hickling said something which amounted to nothing, and then moved :
«That the Minutes of the Manchester District be confirmed.” Mr. Leach
seconded.

Dr. Beaumont said: ‘‘ I owe more to Dr. Warren than to any other man;
by his instrumentality I was converted to God. You will give me credit for
feeling a deep and solemn anxiety. The burden of disastrous events and of
mischievous fermentation does lie somewhere. Two or three circumstances
weigh on my mind. I doubt not the legality of the District Meeting, nor its
power to suspend ; not the constitution of the meeting nor the elements of
which it was composed. No blame attaches to any individual member of the
198 -HstoryY or AleTuovism.

meeting. But three things will operate upon me, and no doubt weighed
much on Dr. Warren's mind. 1. The election as Secretary of the meeting of
Dr. Warren's youngest colleague, who had published a pamphlet against
his Superintendent. He might be the fittest secretary for any meeting under
heaven, but I beg to say, I donot see how Dr. Warren could avoid some feeling
on this point.” (A Voice: ‘He voted for Dr. Warren.”) ‘‘I was going to
say that was in keeping with his manifold inconsistencies, it was like him.”

Dr. Beaumont also objected to the exclusion of Mr. Bromley from the
meeting for the crime of taking notes, and thought he might have been allowed
to stay there as a fixture after he had torn up his paper and put away his pen.
“‘T doubt whether it was not too severe a sentence for anything he had done
up to that time. I would have taken away his superintendency and removed
him from Manchester, but I would have let him still put his silver trumpet to
his mouth. But I do not intend to divide the house.”

Mr. Dixon complained of the ungentlemanliness of part of the proceedings.
“ This may be thought of little importance, but it is not unimportant that we
should behave gentlemanly, True, Dr. Warren published an inflammatory
pamphlet contrary to his Connexional character. It is our duty to bow to the
decision of the majority. I should think it dishonest to take advantage of the
decision to make a disturbance. I do not see that the District Meeting had any
alternative to the suspending of Dr. Warren, and the highest court of justice
has decided in their favour."

Mr. T. Martin: ‘I would have the honour and integrity of the Confer-
ence upheld, and at the same time its generosity and its humanity.” He
threw out his judgment that Conference should follow its own precedent of
the preceding year with regard to Mr. Stephens, confirm the suspension
by the District Meeting and continue it for another year. ‘‘That if he
conduct himself properly and try to undo the mischief he has done, he be
restored.”

Mr. Ranson took the like view. ‘ If personal influence might have aught
to do with this sentence, I might vote for the expulsion. I have suffered
much, publicly and personally, both in mind and income, by the agitation,
but I take higher grounds. Dr. Warren has been guilty of a violation of
the law of decency in Church matters. If there had been anything like
contrition I might have founded my plea upon his age and his former respect-
ability. But I think the sentence should be grounded in moderation. If
ever the law of expediency is permitted to operate, the time is the present.
There is a spirit of suspicion abroad. It appears to me that the only remedy
is to show that we are not the men weare suspected to be. We must not only
show that we are men of integrity, but men of mercy also. Our enemies
represent themselves as more liberal than we are, let us show them the true
liberality." He referred to Robert Hall's distinction between true and false
charity. ‘‘ The one begins at the centre and radiates right on to the circum-
ference, the other spends itself upon the latter. I would have Connexional
charity begin at the centre—the Conference itself. I would have the Doctor
treated as Mr. Stephens was.”

This speech was heard very impatiently. The motion for confirming the
Manchester Minutes was passed unanimously, with the exception of Mr.

Bromley’s vote.
Mr. Bunting: ‘I would have the point decided whether he should be
THe SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835. 199

expelled. The form can be decided afterwards by a committee, who must
look at the words and draw it up cautiously.”

Mr. Gaulter moved that Dr. Warren be expelled. Mr. R. Smith seconded
the motion.

Mr. Bromley adverted to the feeling of sympathy that Dr. Warren’s
suspension had excited, how much more his expulsion! ‘‘I think there are
circumstances of palliation, not justification. I would notice the difference of
administration. It is not uniform, It is stated by a great authority (Dr.
Bunting) that the Quarterly Meeting ought not to go outside their own
circuit ; yet the Resolutions were republished in the Watchman against Dr.
Warren from various Quarterly Meetings." Hethen adverted to the meeting
of gentlemen convened just before Conference to approve the concessions
which Mr. Bunting thought might be safely adopted. ‘I speak as one who
has not been involved in Dr. Warren's book or meetings, but thousands may
be involved in our decision. I am acting an unpopular part and have met
with frowns, but am acting conscientiously.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘ Were 1 to foresee another year of this collision, with my
unbounded love for Methodism, I would seek repose in some dissenting
church or country curacy, or the sabbath of the grave.”

Mr. Galland: ‘I feel it a duty to speak. I did not sign the Declaration
that I might not appear to prejudice the case, and I wish to maintain
Methodism dispassionately.”

He then adverted to the contradiction between Dr. Warren’s professions
and his subsequent practices. ‘‘If I had done as he has done, I should have
incurred personal guilt; his violation of order, his being the great cause of the
formation of the Association, etc. etc.—all undenied and undeniable—his
proceedings in Chancery, his appealing to the authorities of the world; these
stab at the vitals of Methodism. What followed is too painful to notice;
he has not expressed any contrition. I have wished to take part in this
discussion that I may share in any odium that may follow.”

Gallant Thomas Galland !

A letter was read from Mr. Henry Moore recommending (1)
“That Conference should as soon as possible publish a Declaration
of its ow, pledging itself to keep to the rules of Methodism.
(2) “ That all offenders should be forgiven and restored, for the
faults on both sides need forgiveness.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘I will read some resolutions I have drawn up: ‘ That
Dr. Warren has concurred in promoting the Association, that he has continued
to agitate, and that on these and similar grounds the Conference adjudges
that he cannot any longer be a member of the Body.’”

Mr. Dixon: ‘‘ My resolution is to fight the Conference battle or die in the
last trench. I have tried to trace out the windings of Dr. Warren. He says
that he has done all with a good conscience. He must have a strange
conscience. The man who can destroy societies with a good conscience has
« conscience that we cannot retain among us—a man who will not stand by
the Poll Deed. Still further, he was a leader amongst the Association, who
are now attempting to form a kingdom within a kingdom. Look at the
principles of the Association, stopping the supplies, etc. Their principles
200 fTistory or METHODISM.

are firebrands. If Dr. Warren had done no more mischief than he has done
in Liverpool, he would have deserved a thousand expulsions, yet Mr. Bromley
calls the conduct of Dr. Warren ‘irregularities.’ Preserve your doctrine and
discipline. Dr. Warren's conscience is in error; he has looked at error till
it appears truth. Expediency has been mentioned; we must remain by our
principles.”

Mr. Bunting : ‘I shall not vote upon this question.” The preachers of
the Manchester District also refrained from voting, as did also a considerable
number for a variety of reasons, and against the sentence of expulsion there
was but one vote—that of Mr. Rowland.

It was decided that the President should communicate to Dr. Warren his
sentence in writing, informing him that if he chose to appear he should
be heard. At the time appointed he appeared.

The President said: ‘‘No man could feel the solemnity of the hour more
than Ido. I have marked your public conduct since you came out, and have
felt an affectionate interest in you. I little thought that it would have fallen
to my lot to perform this painful duty. I have known you as a preacher
and a circuit minister, and your private excellence; for we have been col-
leagues, and worked together without a jar. I could not have expected what
has taken place. Your recent conduct has been quite inexplicable—has
created surprise and distress. And now I have, in obedience to the
direction of the Conference, to pronounce your sentence—a most painful duty.”

He then pronounced the sentence.

Dr. Warren said: “Sir, I hope you and the Conference will pardon me
while I utter a few sentences. Sir, if the Methodism which now expels me
were the same Methodism that admitted me, I should feel distressed at my
situation. Thank God, I am not charged with immorality, heterodoxy, or
inefficiency. I do not participate strongly in your affectionate distress at the
sentence just pronounced upon me. I do not think my circumstances are dis-
graceful. I can cast myself upon God, and upon all who think disinterestedly
upon the subject. I did think it right to bear my testimony against the undue
assumption of power. This is the cause of the situation in which I stand—a
lordly spirit in the Conference.”

The President: ‘‘ I consider these remarks most painful.’’

Dr. Warren: ‘I conclude with the sentiment that I-do absolutely
believe my sentence to be not constitutional nor just. Iam deprived of my
fraternal inheritance, and shall use my utmost power to recover it. This time
twelvemonth we may meet again under more favourable auspices.”

Mr. Bunting moved: ‘‘ That a copy of the sentence be entered on the
Journals.”

Mr. Loutit reminded the Conference that it was necessary for the One
Hundred to confirm the sentence, and to fill up Dr. Warren’s place in the
One Hundred without delay.

Mr. R. Wood read to the Conference his father’s letter to Dr.
Warren, to which I have alluded, stating that he ‘was glad to
bear his dying testimony against the Institution,” but imploring
Dr. Warren to submit to the decision of the majority of his
brethren. The venerable minister, being present, uttered a few
THe SHFFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835. 201
words of intense disapproval of Dr. Warren’s conduct, but was so
overcome with emotion as to be unable to proceed.

Two other ministers were expelled for lawlessly aiding and
abetting Dr. Warren and his agitation—Robert Emmett, the
political preacher, and John Ayenill, who had led off to the
Association the whole society of 696 members in the Camelford
Circuit, with the exception of less than a hundred. The three
expulsions were absolutely inevitable; the Conference could do
no other. The alternative was the accession of misrule and the
disbanding of the Methodist Connexion,

Emmett, when requested by the President to withdraw from the Con-
ference Chapel, said: ‘'I beg to decline, for I prefer to remain.”

A unanimous vote determined that he ought to withdraw.

Mr. Emmett simply answered: ‘'I have been very improperly suspended.”

The President: ‘I have known nothing like this during the forty-eight
years I have been in the Connexion.”

Mr. Bunting : ‘‘ To save time, I feel it my duty to move that Mr. Emmett
be expelled for refusing to obey the unanimous wish of the Conference.”

Mr. Emmett withdrew. On being recalled and asked to pledge himself
not to disturb our societies in the future, he refused.

Mr. Bromley maintained that, as no one act deserving of expulsion had
been proved against him, the brother should be borne with.

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I differ from Mr. Bromley. Though no one treasonable
act may have been committed, many seditious acts taken together may
amount to treason.” ,

His sentence of expulsion was unanimous. The President pronounced it,
declaring that ‘‘The great object of Conference is to preserve the doctrine
and discipline of the body."

Mr. Emmett bowed and withdrew.

Mr. Bunting once more made an unasked-for personal
defence. “I ama most luckless wight. I would refer to one or
two points if it were not a sin to occupy time. In the
committee for drawing up the Plan of the institution, the
proposition of names for officers to be put before the Conference
was against my judgment. I did not know that many were
prejudiced against me.” Referring to his use of the word
‘‘unprincipled” with reference to Dr. Warren’s objection to the
committee’s presuming to designate the officers of the
institution, Dr. Bunting told the Conference he meant, “was
not based on any principle.”

This application of the very ugly word “unprincipled”’
became a strong provocative to wrath in subsequent committees.
Once in the Book Committee an ex-President set a distinguished
London minister ablaze by characterising his remarks as
202 HiistorY oF METHODISM.

‘‘unprincipled,” and his apology when called to order—‘tI used
the word in Dr. Bunting’s sense "—neither satisfied the aggrieved
minister nor the perturbed committee. In all such “aggravating”
applications of an offensive term, the explanation should precede,
not follow the expression.

Mr. Bunting then took up his next point: ‘‘I have not seen much of the
Christean Advocate, but I now and then hear of it. I have been charged with
Sabbath breaking. I do not approve of Sunday travelling, except it be a
veligtous necessity. I did write about Lord John Russell’s election. I do not
give up the right to speak out.”

This was Lord John’s most mortifying defeat at Bedford,
of ail places, by ove vote. He attributed his discomfiture to
Methodist influence; and, as his autobiography shows, never
forgot or wholly forgave the sore humiliation.

A generous brother suggested that there should be “a
record” of the approval of the Conference of Mr. Bunting’s
conduct in the whole affair. But Mr. Bromley thought it would
be injurious to Mr. Bunting.

Mr. Bunting: “I think there is something in what Mr. Bromley says.
I do not wish my character to be in continual need of defence.”’

Mr. Scott: ‘‘{ do not approve of Mr. Bunting’s name being put into
juxtaposition with that of Dr. Warren, as if he had been Dr. Warren’s
prosecutor.”

O, rare John Scott! How much better had it been for
Methodism and for Dr. Bunting’s own peace, popularity, and
real power, had this wiser view of the matter constantly pre-
vailed! The subject was allowed to “stand over.” Mr. Newton,
too, felt bound to exculpate himself for having gone down to
Tavistock (to which family borough Lord John Russell hurried
after his discomfiture at Bedford) to stir up the Mr. Newton
Methodists of that place to oppose the popular young Liberal
statesman. Robert Newton’s chief defence of this political
excursion seems rather puzzling. It was that he went down
mcognito. One would like to know in what strange wrappings
that magnificent man enswathed a form so familiar to almost
every coach road in the kingdom.

Mr. Bromley pleasantly requested that his own case might
be disposed of before Mr. Bunting’s case was settled, as he was
“very wishful to give a cordial vote in that great man’s favour.”

Mr. Bromley’s case was one of the oddest incidents in one of
the strangest of all Connexional careers.

The first charge against him was brought by his Superin-
Tue SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835. 203

tendent, “the not having made missionary collections.” This
was forthwith followed up by—

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘ We have—1z. A complaint of the Missionary Committee.
Mr. Bromley has charged the committee with having entered into a
temptation to corrupt administration. We preachers are accustomed to
rhetorical flourishes, but the lay-gentlemen feel aggrieved.’ Mr. Bromley's
correspondence with the Missionary Secretaries was then read. It referred
to Dr. Bunting’s withdrawal of time from the Mission House.

Mr. Bromley: ‘At the last Conference I sent a message to the Senior
Secretary. The matter was referred to the Missionary Committee. The
veto on Mr. Bunting's abstraction of his services from the mission was
either conveyed to the committee then or had a previous existence. I
inferred the latter. I thought the committee was in danger of infringing
on what was morally right. I thought that the whole time should be
occupied in the duty for which there was a salary.”

Mr. Dixon: ‘‘I think Mr. Bromley’s mistakes are just the mistakes of
Dr. Warren. He thinks he may demur to the decision of Conference. Mr
Bromley had expressed his opinion in the Conference, and had no right to
oppose the decision of the Conference. I wish Mr. Bromley would retract
his annoying expressions.”’

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘ I think Mr. Bromley wrong in his principles and his
conduct. Some excess and excrescence in his virtue will have to be
lopped off.”’

Mr. Bunting: ‘The gentlemen of the committee require either a distinct
apology from Mr. Bromley, or from this body a very marked censure. The
gentlemen have another remedy for such abusive epithets, but look to you
first—had rather that you should decide. I am not attached to the Mission
House as an ‘articled clerk’; that is a degrading expression."’

Mr. Atherton: ‘‘Mr. Bromley has found fault with the committee
because they did not rebel against the Conference.”

Mr. Bromley: ‘‘ Under this weight of censure I will submit in silence, but
will not stain my inward integrity.”

Mr. Bunting said: ‘There must be some document sent from the
Conference to the Missionary Committee.”

Mr. Bromley then rose and read an apology to the committee for his
“irritating language.”

Mr. Bunting insisted that ‘irritating’ was not the right word, and that
it should be altered into ‘“‘wrong.’’ Mr. Bromley consented. Next came
the fact of Mr. Bromley’s having refused to make any collection for Foreign
Missions, and having carried out his ‘‘ threat.” It was asked why this was
not made a matter of charge at the York District Meeting.

Mr. Felvus: ‘‘ We were overawed by the mob outside.”

Mr. Calder: ‘‘Mr. Bromley taunted me for not bringing him to trial.
I would not allow him to bring my sensitive and quicksilver constitution into
contact with his coldness, though I do not lack courage.”’

This last remark can only be appreciated thoroughly by
one who remembers vividly both Mr. Bromley and Mr. Calder.
204 flrstory oF MeErHopism.

The latter was wonderfully wise in declining a duel with the
former. Both were gentlemanly mannered, able men; but
Calder was, as he describes himself, mercurial and excitable
to a high degree. Bromley, on the other hand, was one of
those irritating saints who plume and almost canonise them-
selves for being able to say in cold blood the most wrath-
provoking things, which an average believer is ashamed to
have been irritated into uttering under a sudden exquisite
annoyance. Bromley seemed to think that coolness and
urbanity of manner would condone, and even consecrate a
cynical contemptuousness. His sayings and doings in York,
as elicited in this discussion, were enough to make him the
Jonathan Martin of every chapel in the city.

A tangled, wearisome talkation then ensued as to Mr.
Bromley’s treatment of and by the District Meeting at
Manchester ; their mutual misunderstandings, misdemeanours,
and recriminations. Bromley confessed so much as this :—

“TI do certainly say many absurd things in a jocose way!" He also
admitted the having entertained Dr. Warren during his agitating visits to
York, and did not deny the having introduced him to some leading
Methodists, but he had not attended any of his meetings. He added, “I
have always deferred to the judgment of Conference.” Mr. Bunting cried
out: ‘The appointment of Jabez Bunting as President, for instance.” Mr.
Bromley resumed: ‘‘ That was not done in the usual way. I am prepared
to submit to the enactments of this body; or, when that is against my
conscience, I will retire from its ranks. I have done wrong, in future I will
endeavour to do better." He repeated the promise in appropriate and
suitable language.

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘As to Mr. Bromley’s entertaining Dr. Warren, there are
other rights besides the rights of hospitality; but I would rather laugh him
out of it.”

Mr. Bromley: “If I am required to say that my expulsion from the
District Meeting was just and kind and called for, I cannot doit. If that be
the condition of my continuing, I must retire.”

Mr. Newton remarked that Mr. B. was required to leave the District
Meeting because Mr. Stead had talked and whispered to him.

Mr. Bunting thought that the being whispered to by a brother was scarcely
a sufficient reason for excluding a man from a meeting.

Mr. Burdsall deplored the grievous mischief done to the Methodism of his
native city York, but pleaded that Mr. Bromley’s full acknowledgment of his
wrongdoing, especially his confession and his acknowledgment of his vanity,
should be accepted by the Conference.

Mr. W. M. Bunting took the same view. He would spare him, not on
account of his ability but his eccentricity, and pronounced the preface to his
volume of sermons one of the worst specimens of egotism he had read.
THE SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835. 205

Mr. Gaulter said: ‘‘ If Methodism is ever destroyed, it will be from within.

Dr. Beaumont and others also pleaded strongly for the most lenient treat-
ment possible of Mr. Bromley. Some excellent resolutions on the case were
drawn up and proposed. This occupied aconsiderabletime. The resolutions
were carried with but one dissentient, Samuel Dunn, and were read to Mr.

Bromley, whose request was complied with that they might be read a second
time.

Mr. Bromley then said: ‘ After the decision of the Conference I have no
objection to give my fullest consent to the latter clause, and with Mr.
Bunting’s explanations, I give my entire pledge to what is required.”

The President then gave to Mr. Bromley some suitable advice.

Mr. Bromley: ‘In reference to an obnoxious Association, I have some
personal respect for individual officers, but I will hold no intercourse. What-
ever the Conference ordains I will to the best of my ability maintain. When

Icannot I will honourably retire." He expressed his obligation to the President
in so suitable a manner that—-

Mr. Bunting said: ‘‘I propose that it be entered on the Journal that Mr.
Bromley has given entire satisfaction.” (Agreed.)

A most satisfactory fizale this to what had degenerated into
an undignified and painful altercation. It proved that the
egotism of Mr. Bromley had not seeded into the fanatical dis-
tension of your genuine demagogue. The latter knows full well
that he must pose before his following as a sort of heaven-sent
Mahdi, and therefore cannot possibly afford to undecree his own
infallibility, but is obliged to outface the most staring facts rather
than admit that he has blundered blamably. It is also to be
noted that the Missionary Committee of sixty odd years ago would
not allow its honour and judiciousness to be wantonly and way-
wardly reflected on, and that the Conference nobly supported
them in that resolve.

Several others were called in question for having seemed to
show sympathy, or at least lukewarm antipathy, to the mal-
contents’ demands. It is necessary to explain that throughout
this Conference Mr. Bunting had been its acting and most active
Secretary. Mr. Newton, on his re-election to that office, con-
fessed to Conference that even his so powerful frame had been
shaken by the excitement and anxieties of the preceding year,
that he was under medical law to abstain from all public
speaking for a considerable time; he must therefore ask the
Conference.to permit some one of its members to discharge his
vocal functions. He was assured that he might make his choice.
On what young man will this opportunity of showing forth his
capabilities be graciously bestowed? Crowther? Prest? Bedford?
West? George Osborn? All were under Mr. Newton’s eye in
206 History oF METHODISM.

Manchester and Stockport. But on none of these did he cast his
patronising glance. He startled Conference, if not the honoured
individual himself, by promoting to that office one Jabez Bunting,-
whom no one else would have then thought of for such a
secondary dignity.

This, however, gave to the leading spirit of the Conference
another coign of vantage, especially under the question : Are there
any objections against any of the brethren ? as they are examined
one by one ; for was it not his part to read the names? and no
one in that body could read like Jabez Bunting. Besides, he
could cut short an inconvenient speech by calling out the next
name. The first name after Samuel Warren, in the regular
course of business, at which a pause was made was that of
Jonathan Barker, a supernumerary in Manchester, worn down
by four-and-forty years of earnest and successful service. Mr.
Newton, his Superintendent, complained of his not having
cordially acted with his District in opposing Dr. Warren.
He replied: ‘There is not a man more attached to Conference
than I, and I am of an old Methodist family.” (He might have
added, more useful and devoted.) “The only thing that can be
brought against me is that I have restrained myself from the
vehemence of language which some others have employed.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘You should tell the world of your disapproval of the
Association and of its wickedness.” -

Richard Tabraham was charged with having restored Leaders who had
been excluded by his predecessor. His defence was that they had been
illegally expelled, without trial by the Leaders’ Meeting.

Luke Barlow, Superintendent of the Burnley Circuit, was interrogated as
to why he had not signed the Declaration. But this question was not enter-
tained by the Conference, though Mr. Bunting thought ‘that we might ask
the question.”

Matthew Lumb had been for several years one of Wesley's
preachers, and since that had been one of the nine members
of the Managing Committee of Methodist Missions, and had
fought through the heroic age of the West Indian Mission,
having suffered many ‘‘trials of cruel mockings . . . . yea, more-
over, of bonds and imprisonments.” He was now in the fifty-
third year of his ministry, and had settled as a supernumerary
in the Leeds Brunswick Circuit, but was still, as I can testify.
an animated, earnest preacher. He was charged with having
published a letter, written by him to Mr. Bunting during the
Leeds organ troubles, recommending milder measures ; but this
THE SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835. 207

letter Mr. Bunting had not acknowledged during the six inter-
vening years, so its venerable writer had thought it might
receive some public attention in the present troubles. It was
pronounced “mischievous” by the minister who brought the
charge.

Mr. Bunting: “I remember a foolish letter about the Leeds business, but
I took no notice.”

Mr. Entwisle moved for a committee on the case, but none was appointed.
So the veteran missionary was left in peace.

Zechariah Taft was charged with having attended one of Dr. Warren's
agitating meetings.

Mr. Bunting asked whether he approved of ‘‘the polity and constitution
of Methodism.”

Mr. Taft answered that he cordially approved of the Methodism to which
he had been admitted and to which he had then pledged himself, but there
were a few things in what was now called Methodism of which he could not
approve. These he instanced, beginning with the expulsion of members and
Leaders without the fair trial guaranteed to them by Conferencelaw. ‘ This,”
said he, ‘‘ could not have been done when I entered this Body.”

Robert Melson stoutly defended Mr. Taft’s position, ending with a
protestation of ‘‘ unabated love to the Methodism to which I was pledged
at the beginning.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘ What he loves is Melsonism, not Methodism.” 4

Three ministers were detailed to converse with Messrs. Taft and Melson,
but nothing came of it.

The second preacher in the Dudley Circuit was charged with having
announced from the pulpit one of Dr. Warren's agitating meetings, and
with having obstructed instead of helping his Superintendent in enforcing
discipline. 5

Mr. Bunting said: ''A Superintendent who does not consult his colleagues
isa Turk and a tyrant, but ‘a helper’ who will not help his Superintendent in his
care for Methodism is unworthy of it. Ihave long known and loved Mr. ——.
and love him still; but as Mr. Bromley has done himself the honour of sub-
mitting to the censure of the Conference, so must Mr. ."

 

The case occupied the attention of Conference a considerable
time, and the offender’s self-defence struck Mr. Fowler as “ very
flippant.” He was censured from the Chair, and required to
give pledges.

A Superintendent was charged with having allowed improper resolutions
to be put at a meeting, and with having ruled that the expulsion of a member
was in the hands of the Leaders.

Mr. Bunting: “I think Mr. should plead incompetence, and beg never
to be appointed as a Superintendent again. He ‘ makes a desert, and he calls
it peace.’”’

Mr. —— handed up in self-defence a copy of the Rules of 1797, printed
at the Book Room, - ; :

 
208 Hlistory or Meruopism.

It was decided that the President should inform him that he had not been
sufficiently firm.

The President stated that he had received a letter from ‘three gentlemen
delegates, who in presenting it to him behaved in a most gentlemanly, bland,
arfd civil manner.” It was read. It dwelt upon ‘the serious state of the
Methodist Societies.” ‘We speak not in anger, but in sorrow.’ They
requested to be allowed to ‘‘ speak to the Conference, either by admission or
in some other way, and are ‘ready to state what we think necessary for the
peace of the Societies.’

Mr. Bunting: ‘There is also a body of delegates from the London
Trustees. I propose a committee to deterfnine what answer shall be given to
these notes." A committee was appointed: Taylor, Treffry, Entwisle, James
Wood, T. Jackson, etc.

Mr. Bunting read a second letter from the delegates, and warned the
Conference against yielding to “‘ ungodly pressure from without." ‘‘ They have
printed and circulated their appeal. I think the London preachers have
greatly erred in not calling the dissatisfied together. We can beat them
hollow in argument.”

Mr. Gaulter said: ‘‘We want a bridge between us and them.’”” It was
agreed that the Superintendents of circuits should converse with their dis-
contented people.

Mr. Fowler notes: ‘Mr. Bunting’s speech was more liberal
than, those of several others. He defended the action of the
English people in the Revolution of 1688, and added, ‘ The
sacred right of insurrection’ is a ‘true thing.’ A state of
things is possible in Methodism itself in which the people
would not only have the right to resist the Conference, but
would be dound to do so—e.g. if the Conference should ever
prove unfaithful to its trust as the custodian of our doctrines.”
A committee of distinguished ministers, including Atherton,
was appointed to confer with the trustees and delegates.

Mr. Bunting was requested by the President to give his views on the
changes proposed by Mr. Bunting to the meetings of ministers and laymen
which had been convened in Sheffield for that purpose five days before the
Conference.

This quasi-constituent assembly consisted of the committees
of the Missionary and Auxiliary Societies, with the addition
of some other selected and invited laymen, who raised the
number to about eighty.

Mr. Bunting : “T have great reluctance to be prominent in this matter. i
do not wish to be in battles more than others. I have an objection to be
considered as a moderator between the Conference and the people. I am
greatly offended at the representation in the Watchman, It talks of concessions!
THE SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835. 209

I came to Conference in great fear—not terror. I did not know whether I
must retire into retirement: I told the gentlemen that we must not do any-
thing to court popularity. Questions of Church Government are very knotty.
Much may be said by ingenious men on both sides. My opinion is that the Lord
Jesus has left His Church very much at liberty but He has laid down principles.
I do not blame a man for being an Episcopalian. My opinion is that the plan
of Presbyterianism is the nearest to the New Testament at first, but it was
found to need some form of Episcopacy. There is (1) the rule of Purity—
purity of doctyine and of character. (2) The rule of Peace. Whatever would
turn our Conference or other meetings into mock or miniature Houses of
Parliament is wrong. Talent may be brought into play and operation, but
such displays as are made at parish meetings are very injurious. (4) The
Rule of Ovdey. Ministers must not be put out of the Chair of Church courts.
People must not speak their mind under a pretence of plainness, It is not
always right for a man to speak his mind. Never unless it be a good mind.
(4) Fidelity. Methodism is the work of God, through the instrumentality of
Mr. Wesley. Some great and essential points he has tied us upto. These
are not to be changed by mere majorities, either in or out of Conference.
Methodism has all the checks and securities which the voluntary principle
affords, with all the unity and stability of establishment and endowment.”

Mr. Bunting followed up these weighty observations by
pronouncing a funeral oration over “ lay-delegation.” He said,
“ Lay-delegation is dead and buried.” This was simply a strong
and, as he found it, a telling way of expressing his own wishes on
the subject. His optative mood resolved itself into the zzdicative
or the categorical zmperatwe , as some men now éxpress their
wishes in the tone and terms of infallible prediction. He then
tried hard to show that the changes that had been made at his
own instance and by his own initiative were quite in accordance
with the principles of Wesley’s own arrangements and provisions.
But his reasoning proved too much. For example, he contended
that his own proposal that men who had travelled fourteen years
should be eligible for election into the Legal Conference, was but
a carrying out of Wesley’s principle. When there were but two
hundred ministers he had made one hundred constitute the
Conference ; and widening the range of election and electors was,
he urged, but an application of the same principle to the greatly
increased number of ministers. As to what he justly called
“ clandestine expulsions,” he attributed them to rash and
inexperienced Superintendents. But alas! the rashest Super-
intendents were not always the most inexperienced ones. The
custom which had prevailed immemorially in some societies—
Bristol, for example—of reading to the Leaders’ Meetings the
names of newly admitted members, he pronounced to be ‘‘ too
great a concession to democracy.”

oO
210 HT1sToRY OF METHODISM.

He proceeded : “ As the rules now stand, it would seem that no person can
be put out of the society without a trial. But it is not the rule nor the practice.
The rule does not say that the charge shall be proved to the satisfaction of
the Leaders’ Meeting. But it ought to be sointerpreted. But the preacher
must pronounce sentence, otherwise the rule of purity cannot be maintained.
The talk about mercy and all such is the artillery of rebels against truth.
The leaders cannot naturally care for the flock. They have no special call
of God for such work. We have too much put our Pastoral Office into com-
mission. But I would have some guard. Some Superintendents are young and
unexperienced. I would retain the power but make it as palatable as possible.
We have always had rash men. They have all gone now, it is to be hoped,
but they may come in again—men who ride on the neck of office and bully

the people and District and Conference.”

“There should be a facile and regular access to Conference, The rule of
1797 provides for this. My opinion is that if some of the preachers had called
the disaffected together, as their pastors who had the authority to do so, it
would have been better. I think a representation of the leaders and local
preachers, not by election, should be called between June and the Conference,
limited in its object, not allowed to oppose the Constitution, as a memorial
meeting. Do not be afraid of having gentlemen associated with us in money
matters, but. not by election.”

One of the most important reforms agreed upon was an
emendation of the law of the Special District Meeting, allowing
the Czrcutt to choose half the additional ministers, instead of the
Superintendent choosing all. This had the additional advantage
of removing the temptation to tamper with the legal composition
of the meeting, as had been done at Leeds, by rendering
unnecessary a restriction in the range of choice.

The -great fault of these concessions, as Dr. George Smith
points out, was that they were ‘too late and too limited.”
Had they been made earier, much mischief might have been
prevented in the past ; if /arger, much loss and friction would
have been precluded in the future.

A committee was appointed to prepare resolutions on what
Mr. Bunting had said.

Mr. Bunting gave it as his opinion that Mr. Aitken’s
proceedings would end in a division. This came to pass in
Liverpool, Spitalfields, and Lambeth.

A painful and unseemly collision took place between the
Secretary of the Conference and his assistant, the only one,
I think, that ever came to pass between the chieftains—Newton
and Bunting. It occurred on this wise. By a most untoward
coincidence, at the Conference after the Warrenite secession
in Manchester, the three years’ terms of six of the most
THe SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835. arr

powerful pulpit-men, and most capable administrators in the
body, came to an end—Newton, Grindrod, Anderson, Squance,
Hollingworth, and Bedford. After such a concurrent depletion
of members and of distinguished ministers, poor Manchester
might well request the most restorative and healing ministerial
appointment that could well be found. But the appointment
made by the Stationing Committee was comparatively tame and
unattractive. With a high level of respectability, it contained
but two fresh men of mark—Robert Wood, and a young man
in the second year of his probation, F. J. Jobson. Both these
were in the Grosvenor Street Circuit, which then included
Oxford Road. Instead of Grindrod, Harrison Walker ; instead
of Squance, then a giant in his impetuous eloquence, William
Wears; and instead of the overpowering Hollingworth, the
correct and gentlemanly Calder. “Fhe Manchester Stewards
lost no time in coaching it to Sheffield, and during the second
reading of the stations the Secretary, as the Manchester
Chairman and representative, gave notice of some changes
that must be made in Manchester. Thereupon the Secretary's
assistant (not the Asszstant Secretary, but a much more
extemporised and ephemeral functionary), Mr. Bunting, resisted
any attempt at changes. He declared: ‘The appointments
cannot be mended. We must tell the people that the stationing

. rests with us.” The majestic Secretary collapsed before this
shaking of his armour-bearer’s spear, and the latter hastened
on to Stockport. But ‘the Manchester men” were not so easily
silenced, even by the dictum of their redoubted fellow-townsman.
So Mr. Newton must needs return to the charge. To avoid
another open contest with his principal, the Secretary’s assistant
had left him for a little space to do his own work. But the
Oldham Street Steward had fixed on Peter McOwan, who was
down for London (City Road), so Achilles soon returned to
camp and council and plunged at once into the fray.

Mr. Bunting: “ We must not submit to this sort of intimidatory delegation.”
Someone said the City Road appointment would have a sufficient number
of competent men if Mr. Nelson or Edward Walker went there and Mr.
McOwan came to Manchester.

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘Who are your competent preachers on the London
Circuit ? Is it John Bowers or William Bunting? They are not the men
to raise the circuit. They want such a man as Peter McOwan. John
Bowers and William Bunting can do a certain sort of work better than
some others. Having said an evil thing, I may say a good one without

QO 2
212 History oF Meruopism.

complaint, A few years ago Mr. Dixon was objected to by the Wakefield
Circuit, and now we have more petitions for his appointment to circuits than
for twenty of us besides. After a while Mr. Nelson” (who was down for the
wrecked Oldham Street) and Mr. Walker may have as many.” A very long
and spirited conversation took place upon the question. But Mr. Bunting’s
voice prevailed, and the City Road was allotted Joseph Taylor, William
Toase, John Bowers, Peter McOwan, and William L, Thornton, with an equal
number of “ unattached’’ ministers resident within the circuit, who had such
names as Jabez Bunting (now D.D.), Thomas Jackson, Dr. Beecham, Dr.
Alder, Joseph Entwisle, and Dr. Hannah, all available for the Sunday
services in its attractive chapels,

Meanwhile the shattered Oldham Street was left to pull itself
together as it might by the aid of three right loveable and
worthy men, whose-reputation, never brilliant, was chiefly yet to
make.

Mr. Galland very generously and justly moved the vote of
thanks to Mr. Bunting for his services as President of the
Institution ; and Mr. Bunting, in reply, announced his judgment
that London was not the most proper place for young men in
training for the ministry. He proposed that all but the first
year of studentship should count as probation.

The Auxiliary Fund was so heavily in debt that Mr. Bunting
“felt some difficulty in admitting laymen on the committee until
it should be cleared.” Poor Jonathan Barker, who had held by
the election of his brethren the honourable office of Treasurer of |
the Auxiliary Fund (now held by ex-President Walford Green)
had borne the burden and heat of the debt without any lay
colleague. But after the setting down he had received from the
Secretary’s assistant, he felt that it should be transferred to
unwhipped shoulders.

The committee on William Griffith’s case recommended that
his name should be replaced on the Minutes as having travelled
three years.

Mr. Bunting: ‘It is of importance that we should know whether he will
render the required submission to his Superintendent.’ The President said
that such inquiry would be necessary before his admission into full
Connexion. He complained that four hundred persons had been applied to,
to subscribe to a presentation of plate to Mr. Griffith ‘as a testimonial of
their approval.”’

Mr. Bunting, on reading the name of Daniel Chapman, said: Mr.
Chapman should have some fitting counsel as to the voluminous works
which he is about to publish. Mr. Bromley ought to complain of the loss
of time to the Nottingham Circuit.” ,

Mr. Bunting was requested to join the committee appointed to meet the
delegates of the London Trustees, who, Mr. Taylor explained, ‘had nothing
THE SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1835. 213

to do with the association.’ But Mr. Bunting objected, saying: ‘I hope we
shall never again suffer ourselves to be intimidated.” The address to the
delegates of the association, prepared by the committee, was then read—a
most admirable production. The ex-President said that he had received sixteen
letters of remonstrance against the suspension of Dr. Warren; and the
President stated that he had received similar letters from Rochdale, Lynn,
Daventry, Blackburn, Bury, Clitheroe, Darlington, Burslem, and Todmorden.

Thanks were voted to the Town Council of Edinburgh, which had voted
£3,000 towards the debt on our chapel in that city.

Mr. Bunting remarked: ‘‘I think if Methodism in Scotland were put up
to auction, it would be the best thing that could be done with it, except
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Perth, and perhaps Ayr. We have spent more
money in Scotland than we can account for to God, or to our people.”

Mr. Bunting again opposed the codification of our laws, either after the
manner of the Code of Justinian, or the Code Napoleon.

Mr. Bunting insisted that if Mr. Lord, the representative, bore a letter
with him to the American Conference, it must contain some explicit but
very carefully worded protest against slavery. He said: ‘It must be
drawn up by someone with a cool head.”’

Messrs. Dixon and Isaac Keeling were appointed for this service,

This Conference was, as might be expected, unusually long.
Towards the close of the morning session on the third Saturday
Mr. Fowler dropped his pen in utter weariness, after recording
—" The unexampled prolixity of the last three days has given me
a distaste for any more of the like kind.”

Nevertheless, he reports some rich things which were said
whilst Mr. Bromley alluded to some differences of opinion
between members of the Conference, and to lively discussions
between himself and Mr. Bunting.

Mr. Bunting: ‘If there are differences of principle amongst us I
know nothing about it, and, unfortunately, I have always happened to be
out when those lively discussions have come off between Mr. Bunting and
Mr. Bromley.”

Mr. Bunting, however, happened to be in during one of these
discussions. He had been delivering a homily on the necessity
of tractability on the part of young ministers, and used the name
of Joseph Beaumont to point his moral thereupon.

Mr. Bromley said: ‘I do not approve of innuendoes circulated from the
platform. Either there isa case against Brother Beaumont, or there is not.
If there is, bring it forward; if not, insinuation ought to be silent; and I
think that Mr. Bunting is a master of Methodist matters in general, but
he errs in insinuating an implied charge after mentioning. a brother’s
name,”

Mr, Bunting: ‘I mentioned the name as a matter of history, not as an
214 /T1sroRY oF METHODISM.

accusation. Friends on the opposite side must not monopolise freedom of
talk. I mean to have a little of it. I have myself been subject to.‘ friendly
inquiry’ for about six days. Iam glad to be the subject of such inquiry, .
because I think it useful, and might be resorted to without being pronounced
accusation.,"’

Two things are to be noted in this speech: (1) The recog-
nising two sides in the Conference—the side to which he himself
belongs and the opposite side ; (2) the only inquiry which had
occupied nearly six days was the Leeds case. To this, therefore,
he must have referred when he said, ‘ I have myself been subject
to friendly inquiry for six days.” Here, then, he distinctly.
authenticates the public judgment and his son’s pronouncement -
that the policy adopted in that case was fundamentally and essen-
tially his owz, so that to subject it to inquiry was to subject Azm-
seif to inquiry. It must be seen at once that the principle
here laid down by Mr. Bunting is a complete explosion of the re-
doubt behind which he entrenched himself on the occasion he
refers to, when ‘‘he at once declared that he should not notice
any strictures on his conduct” unless a charge against him was
submitted in writing. (Vol. iii., p. 131, Smith’s “ Methodism.”)

In the obituary of a very popular young Irishman who had
died in the English work, Mr. Stephens said, “He was brought.
to a premature grave by loud and long preaching.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘“ Mr. Stephens’s advice is so rarely necessary that it should
have been given in private.” :

Mr. Moore: ‘' Mr. Wesley said of a preacher, ‘ He speaks correctly, but as
if he was afraid that he might wake somebody.’ Mr. Wesley was willing to
trust to anyone, but would give the quiet preacher a hint, so he told him a
story about a man who appeared before a magistrate, and spoke so calmly that
the justice said he did not believe it. The man exclaimed, ‘ What! is there
no such thing as justice in England?’ ‘Oh!’ said the magistrate, ‘I think
there must be something in it.’ Mr. Wesley never found fault with a preacher
who preached as if he were half mad with zeal.”

The President: ‘‘A Welsh scholar told me, ‘Your preachers speak the best
Welsh of any speakers.’ ”

Dr. Bunting, in pleading for a brother, said: “It is a bad precedent, but
it is a bad-case.”’

The Conference hit upon a way of meeting a bad case without making a
bad precedent. They there and then subscribed £100.

BIRMINGHAM CONFERENCE OF 1836,

The Warrenite disturbance’ vastly strengthened the position
and the influence of the great man against whom it was directed,
and thus effected a purpose directly contrary to that which it
‘

THE CONFERENCE OF 1836. 215

contemplated. The outrageousness of the measures adopted by
the malcontents, and their utter discomfiture on their own chosen
battlefield—the highest court of Equity—had evoked a strong
reaction in favour of authority and order. The name of Jabez
Bunting thus became a symbol and a synonym for the stability,
security, and continuity which Englishmen desire. Hence, at
the Conference of 1836, he was again voted into the chair.
Mr. Stanley was once more the second on the list. No one else
had more than one or two votes.

Beecham, Galland, and William Shaw were elected into the
Hundred, a right worthy trio.

The President said: “It would be unpardonable to interrupt business
above a moment or two, but I must be permitted to say that I am unable to
give expression to my thanks for the vote which has placed me in the most
honourable of all earthly situations. I hope I may say that by this vote you,
whose opinion I most value, acquit me of the calumnious imputations cast
upon me.” In presenting the vote of thanks to the retiring President, he
alluded to Mr. Reece’s apostolic addresses and his sure pilotage through the
tempest.

Mr. Atherton: ‘‘ I think something should be done by way of resolution to
perpetuate our sense of obligation to the Secretary's Assistant" (Dr, Bunting)
“for drawing up three documents. Let the world see to whose head and heart
and hands we are indebted for them.”

The President suggested ‘that it would be well for himself to have a
committee of advice or sympathy, in these times especially,”’

The students who had behaved well for two years were allowed the jirst
year as well as the second one of their probation.

A candidate from South Wales named Hughes was warranted to be ‘of
Methodistical habits.’

The President: ‘‘One old Methodistical habit was to repeat the Lord’s
Prayer after one’s own. I wish it was revived.” A question having arisen as
to the precise duties of a Quarterly Meeting in reference to candidates for the
ministry,

The President said: ‘‘ The Quarterly Meeting is not required to recommend
a young man; it is asked whether it has any objection.”

A great addition to the interest of this Conference arose from
the presence of Dr. Fisk, the representative of the American
Conference. He was one of the most graceful, charming speakers
that I ever heard. He bore upon his face and style the
unchallengeable impress of a scholar and a gentleman. He said:
“We Americans look on you as our fathers and exemplars. Our
standard of faith is the same as yours. We hold to the doctrines
taught by Mr. Wesley. Methodism has been, and still is, the great
check upon Socinianism on the one hand, and Calvinism on the
216 History oF METHODISM.

other. The Methodist Church system is the most effective of all
evangelistic appliances. I cannot help advocating the Missions in
the Western Country, supposed to reach 3,000 miles into the
wilderness, founded by two young men born in Canada, who with
their guns killed buffaloes and ate them without bread or salt.
You have the advantage over us in the selection of your ministers.
Your list of reserve is a list of men ; ours is a list of places. We
are frequently obliged to admit incompetent men. If you can,
spare some men not quite eligible for your work.” Dr. Fisk then
explained the great educational schemes of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, of which he was the principal advocate and
director. There had been a decline in the Church of late years,
which he could only account for by political excitement most
injurious to religious character. ‘I met a Presbyterian in England
who said ‘ party politics had injured the Independents,’ but who
eulogised the Methodists for their wise abstention from mixing
with politics. I congratulate you on your neutrality.” He
boldly touched on slavery :

“T think slavery only evil continually. We have no pro-slavery
party in the American Conference. There may be individuals ;
but you must not blame the body for that. There is some
difference as to the best mode of getting rid of slavery. You may
be better judges of abstract principles than we are ; but there are
present difficulties. We need not your censures ; we have them
wholesale. I am asked why we don’t pass a law to put down
slavery. I might as well ask why you don’t pass a law to put
down slavery in South America. We can do nothing but by
moral means. The progress of emancipation is being accelerated.
Since our independence six States have emancipated. There is
a slow but safe advancement of emancipatory principles. Your
slavery was at a distance ; ours is mixed up with our fellow-
citizens. Your Parliament has an authority over your colonies,
which our Congress has not over individual States. The more you
chafe people who are not in your power, the more you distance
the day of emancipation. You have treated me like a brother : I
expected to be met with a rod or a club at every point.” He then
read enactments of the Methodist Church in America which
evidently showed that it disapproves of slavery. He addressed
the Conference in a very interesting style ; his manner is very -
unobtrusive, and his language very plain and perspicuous.

Mr. Lord said : ‘Some of the Abolitionists have acted very injudiciously,
particularly in forming themselves into a Wesleyan Anti-slavery Society—an
THE CONFERENCE OF 1836. 217

infraction of the Connexional principle.” Mr, Galland: ‘Has not some
alteration been made touching slavery in the book of Discipline? Mr, Lord:
‘Yes : but the original words have been restored,”

The President : ‘In the West Indies no one was put out for holding
slaves.” Dr. Fisk; ‘‘ There has been no alteration in principle in the Book
of Discipline.” Allusion was made to something George Thompson had said.
Dr. Fisk: ‘‘I am not here to reply to Mr. Thompson.”

A plan was proposed for employing Scripture Readers in Ireland. Mr.
Bromley: ‘I feel an objection to such a novelty. I think it is not God's way.
I doubt whether we have a warrant to create a new class of men not
expounders nor preachers. I feel an objection to give the sanction of Con-
ference to anything not recognised in the Bible." Mr. Grindrod: “I
recommend Mr. Bromley to consult the very next chapter to that which
sanctions Sunday School Teachers, etc.”'

The President : ‘I somewhat sympathise with Mr. Bromley, but do not
carry the principle quite so high.”

, The Schools Fund discussion was unusually lively.

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘I would have the Eton grammar continued in the schools
as it is used in other schools.”’

Mr. Burgess advocated Valpy’s. Mr. Hannah was for Eton. Mr. A E.
Farrar moved: ‘‘That the same grammars be used at both schools.’ Mr.
Burgess moved : ‘‘ That this be left to the discretion of the masters.” So the
matter dropped.

To an old Grove boy these details are of no small interest.
We Grove boys lost a full year of classical reading through
being detained so long over the cumbrous Eton grammars.
Hence the Kingswood boys were always ahead of us in that
important matter. Happily for the next generation, the Grove
system was, on this point, assimilated to that of Kingswood.

Some Hull ladies had raised £200 for the Schools Fund by a bazaar, Mr.
Bromley ‘' objected to bazaars for such purposes.”

The President : ‘‘I rank myself with Mr. Bromley. I think it goes too
much upon the principle that the Schools Fund is a charity. I have a strong
objection to appealing to the charity of our people. We ought to appeal to
their justice.”

The irrepressible James Bromley sent a letter to the Con-
ference which he insisted on being read when his name came up
under the question: Are there any objections? etc. It simply
expressed his disapproval of something in a foregoing Conference.
The President ruled it out of place under this heading.

It was proposed, however, that a letter should be written to him, inquiring
why he wished his demur to a regulation of Conference to come under the
question of character. The President: ‘‘I wouldask a question, but would not
press for an answer.’ Mr. Pilter, Mr. Bromley’s Superintendent, gave a
diverting rehearsal of a conversation he had held with him on the subject.
The President said: ‘‘ We must look at the matter with calmness and sobriety.
218 History oF MrtxHopism.

Mr. Bromley does not object to our discipline, but has a peculiar way of
objecting to particular rules. We cannot bring a man to trial for this as fora
serious offence.”’ It was agreed to refer him to his Superintendent.

A. W. was brought up for having expelled a man without trial. He
admitted the fact, but pleaded ignorance of the rule against it. .

The President: ‘‘A preacher may withhold a ticket until inquiry is made
or trial had, but no man can be expelled without trial."'

Mr. W.: ‘If a minister may not expel a member without trial, I have been
acting wrong all my ministerial life.’’. An allegation which was believed by all
who knew him.

The President: ‘I think it dishonest to put such a construction upon the
law as Mr. W. has done. We must not quibble about a rule and thus set a
bad example. Mr. W. should remember that a document so historical must
be taken as a whole. The man in question has not excluded himself. We
must execute our Rules in a spirit of kindness or we cannot defend our
conduct. Brother W. is quite wrong. I am alarmed at the spirit of dis-
content. There isan attempt by some ministers to resume practically what
we have given up. On the whole, Mr. W. has acted firmly. He may have
been driven beyond port by stress of weather.”

_ Mr. W. was instructed to let the man have a trial if he
desired it.

The examination of ‘the candidates for ordination” as to
doctrine was thorough and most interesting. It was conducted
by the President himselt.

He said: ‘I have spent nine hours with these young men in private, inquiring
into theiv religious experience, and am thoroughly satisfied.”’ In the course of the
theological examination in Conference, Mr. Melson observed upon the great
importance of ‘insisting with the like emphasis on the divinity and the
humanity of Christ.”

The President made some invaluable observations on the
imputation of Adam’s guilt to his posterity, which were so
strikingly Fletcherian as to make one wonder how he had
conceived such a low opinion of Fletcher as a theologian. He
showed that there could not be an imputation of Christ's
righteousness without an imputation of Adam’s guilt ; but, unfor-
tunately, he had not time to show that there could have been no
imputation of Adam’s guilt without the predetermined corre-
sponding imputation of the righteousness of Christ.

Some candidates quoted the passage : ‘‘ Godly sorrow worketh repentance.”
The President observed on the inappropriateness of the quotation as applied
to the penitence which comes before justification by faith. He insisted that
the passage refers to ‘‘a case of ecclesiastical discipline,” and that as God
“‘ justifieth the ungodly," no sorrow before justification can be called “godly
sorrow.” He alluded to ‘Mr. Scott's (of Hull) attack on Wesley, and
THE CONFFRENCE OF 1836. 21g

thought it ought to be noticed in the Magazine.” The President maintained
that ‘the penitent is considered under the wrath of God until he believes.”
Mr. Grindrod: ‘‘ Repentance does not abate the judicial displeasure of God.”

Dr. Fisk, who took an animated part in the ‘‘ conversation,” introduced
the subject of the witness of the Spirit. Next came the doctrine of Christian
perfection. Mr. Treffry attributed the Calvinistic denial of that verity to
the preposterous and unscriptural tenet that ‘the body is the seat of sin,
and therefore the dissolution of the body is necessary to the extermination
of sin.”

When the doctrine of Baptism came on,:a minister asked
the judgment of the Conference on a brother’s having refused
to bury a child of Methodist parents because it was unbaptised.
The President : ‘“ This is one of the follies which make good
men ridiculous.” The affair was, however, satisfactorily
explained. This introduced the subject of the Baptismal
Service for infants, which Mr. Atherton pronounced to be
in some points at variance with our doctrinal standards.

The President : “ There are many things in that form which
nothing in the world could induce me to use.” Mr. Dalby:
‘May we use the sign of the Cross in Baptism?” The
President was indignant at the question, and ruled that “we
should not allow such foolish questions to be proposed.”

Nevertheless, this very “foolish thing ’ had been done by
a very prominent minister.

The whole “conversation” was interesting and significant
in a high degree. It reminds one of the ‘Minutes of Con-
versation” at the first five-and-thirty Conferences, in which
doctrine was the very staple of deliberation. Zhe first question
ever proposed in a Methodist Conference was: ‘ What to teach ”;
and the second was, ‘‘ How to teach it.” (Minutes, 1745.) At
a later Conference Wesley clearly pointed out that the secret
of the success of Methodism lay in these two vital fundamental
facts: that God had taught the Methodist preachers —(1) What
to teach, and (2) how to teach it; first, the matter of our
- teaching, then the manner. He showed how our whole
organisation and finance had grown out of our doctrines first,
and then out of the way in which they were proclaimed,
with all the fire and urgency of a most vivid personal con-
viction and experience. He shows that the class-meeting was
created by the preaching, and xecessitated by the God-given
unction and success of Methodist preaching. These wise
master-builders of 1836 had sufficient insight into and interest
in the glorious work in which they were engaged to see that
229 History oF MEruopism.

in order to preserve its solidity and symmetry it must be
formed according to the line and rule of Wesleyan Methodist
doctrine.

Hence, having secured our chapels to our doctrines, these
wise-hearted ministers of the Word saw and felt the necessity
of securing our doctrines to our chapels. They rightly felt that
even had we lost our chapels, the power of our doctrines,
preached with the genuine Methodist conviction and fidelity,
would soon have built us more. But once let slip our
Methodist doctrines, and we lose the identity and continuity,
the homogeneousness and harmony of our doctrinal teaching,
and we throw away our vital energy, and the very reason of
our existence as a distinct Christian Church.

Two things, however, one can but wish for in reading this
examination: A Greek Testament, placed beside the well-bound
Minutes of the successive Conferences, and a scholar like
Thomas Galland to take part in the delightful conversation.
A reference to the “ original Greek’ would have cleared away
all difficulties, and Thomas Galland was a master in Biblical
theology. The observations he let fall during my own ex-
amination for the ministry have been of service to me
throughout the more than fifty-seven years which have since
elapsed. But Mr. Galland was away on his benevolent
mission to comfort the poor Preacher who was crushed by his
censure at the last Conference.

The number of members lost to the Connexion by expulsion
or secession during Dr. Warren’s agitation was, as nearly as
could be ascertained, 7,800—about half as many more as were
lost in the disruption under Mr. Kilham. '

Samuel Dunn, who had not been received into full Connexion
on the ground of his disbelief in the Dawine Sonship of Christ,
avowed his having arrived at a firm conviction of that Verity,
through reading Wesley’s Works. He was asked whether he
would be ordained with the candidates pubicly, or in the old
form, henceforth to be disused, by simple vote of Conference. He
preferred the public ordination by zmposztion of hands. His re-
nunciation of his error caused “ great joy among the brethren.”
Ordination by “ laying on of hands of the presbytery,” which Mr.
Fowler had so earnestly advocated at the foregoing Conference,
was, notwithstanding the strongly expressed misgivings of Mr.
Grindrod, now cordially adopted, with but two dissentients,
R. Melson and John Moulton.
THE CONFERENCE OF 1836. 221

An interesting discussion took place with regard to a Theo-
logical Institution for Canada. Messrs. Alder, Beecham, Marsden,
Grindrod, and S. D. Waddy were appointed to prepare a reply to
the proposal.

The Editor, Thomas Jackson, laid before the Conference the
unavoidable alternative of a second Editor or his own retirement.
Mr. John Brown had long been the Editor of The Child's Maga-
zine, large sums being paid for articles by the most popular
children’s writers of the day, such as Mrs. Sherwood. An eminent
minister was unanimously appointed as Mr. Jackson’s colleague.
A new periodical was proposed—-Zhe Christian Mrscellany —for
the special purpose of interesting our young people iz favour
of Methodism, and as subsidiary to our more solid and doctrinal
adult magazine. Hence originated Zhe Christian Miscellany.

A motion to extend the term of the Book Steward’s appoint-
ment caused “a spirited debate’’ on the general question of
departmental appointments, in which Mr. Fowler took part.

The President ‘thought Mr. Fowler’s remarks too free,” and indulged
himself in some uncalled-for observations ‘‘ rather full of asperity.”

Mr. Gostick said: ‘‘I am firmly fixed in Methodist principles, but do
not worship Presidents, but look at the platform as having on it fagging
men.”

Mr. Scott proposed the term of six years for all offices, ‘‘ the lease to be
renewable by Conference.”

The President : ‘‘ We are not afraid of the term collective pastorate, though
it is objectionable to Radicals.’ The ordination question then cropped up.

Mr. Galland: ‘Mr. Wesley did not introduce the question of ordination
by laying on of hands because it was not good, but because it was not rife. It
is now ripe: let us pluck it.”

Mr. Powell (Apostolical Succession) thought it should have another year
to ripen.

The President proceeded to catechise the Superintendent of the Frome
Circuit, saying: ‘It is the only way to arrive at the facts. J like old
Methodism as it is.”

Grantham having applied for an additional minister at the expense of the
Connexion, the President remarked: ‘‘Let Grantham raise less for the
Missions and more for the Circuit. I am indignant at brethren boasting of
what they do for the Missions, and coming here to beg for their Circuits in
the spirit of pauperism. We have no increase of members to justify an
increase of ministers.”

The President also commented on the fact that Dr. Coke, the
great missionary advocate, had left such a large sum for the
sustentation of the home work. For it was one of the many
noblenesses of Jabez Bunting that he never pressed the financial
claims of his own department beyond its due proportion.
222 Flistory’ oF METHODISN.

Liverpool had been so wrecked by the Warrenite agitation
that it was obliged to ask for an unmarried man instead of a
married man.

A request was received from Mr, Gwyther, vicar of Yardley, to be allowed
to take the Lord’s Supper along with the Conference. The President gave
the answer without putting it to Conference, saying : ‘‘ We encourage free
communion with other Churches.”

The President : ‘‘On the Committee of Privileges we want working men
in London, and men of influence in the country.” Mr. Atherton had not
introduced the propositions as to the Children’s Fund into this Quarterly
Meeting. Mr. Scott had, ‘as it might concern the friends in the Circuit.”
Mr. Taylor had ‘made it a Circuit matter, since, if Conference adopted it,
the Circuits would have to bear the expense.”

The President : ‘The error is here: to carry a good point, you have
done wrong; you cannot justify it, but must acknowledge it to be wrong.
You have given to the Conference the origination of new rules, to the
Quarterly Meetings a vefo on serious alteration. I fear I shall trespass on
the impartiality of a President by giving my opinions too freely, but I think
you have acted with too much impetuosity. You have on hand, at once, the
Children’s Fund, the School Fund, and the Dawsonian Fund. I wish well to
the Dawsonian Fund, but you have acted with far too much impetuosity.”

Mr, Burdsall blamed the Watchman for the introduction of all these
matters to the Quarterly Meetings. Mr. Pilter thought that Quarterly
Meetings might be allowed to recommend that we should not let our children
starve. Mr. Lord having informed the Conference that the burning of ‘‘the
book concern”’ in New York involved a loss of 300,000 dollars, there and
then made a collection on its behalf. Mr. Ryerson was also authorised
to collect subscriptions for the Institution in Canada, the Canadian Con-
ference having calculated upon raising in England at least £2,000. Mr.
Farmer had engaged to advance them all the money they might want;
but the President thought that Conference was in honour and spirit,
though not under pledge, bound to see that the interest was paid. He said
that ‘‘a committee must be appointed, consisting of a few gentlemen, to
converse on the subject.’ He deprecated any discussion on the subject, as it
was a mere private arrangement to which we were bound in honour.

Thus was planted the vital germ of the great educational
establishments of Canadian Methodism. It was simply christened
“the Coburg Academy.” Its Principal was appointed by the
British Conference. The foundations were laid in troublous
times—the days of the rebellion in Canada ; and one main reason
of its starting was, as stated by the representative, “to prevent
their young people from being trained in Republican principles.”

The President suggested that “the Book Committee should be
instructed to make a present of books to the Academy.” He
“thought that the Institution might counteract the effects of
Popery.”
THE CONFERENCE OF 1836. 223

A farewell letter from the venerable James Wood was ordered
to be “ printed in the magazine.”

Under the head of Misszons, the question of the term of the
appointment of departmental officers came up again, and was
freely discussed, and determined as it now exists. Mr. Dixon
said; “ The great point is to get rid genteelly of unsuitable men.’ ’
Messrs. Keeling, Scott, Burdsall, Atherton, and Stanley urged the
wisdom of keeping men of proved capability as, long as possible.
Mr. Galland : “J at first looked upon the question with fear, but
have been led to think that the proposed arrangement is the best.”
Mr. Dunn objected.

The President : ‘‘It is of no use to visit Scotland.” But it was decided
that ‘' the President should go to Scotland.” He asked: ‘What am I to do
there?” It was answered: ‘‘Take the chair.” Mr. Reece said that Dr.
Beaumont had ‘‘not permitted him to take the chair at Edinburgh.” The
President : ‘‘It is quite lawful and becoming to ask the President to take the
chair, especially during some part of the business.” Dr. Beaumont was not in
the Conference at the time.

Large balances were due to the Treasurers of the Auxiliary
and the Seniors’ Funds. Mr. James Wood, of Manchester, had
generously cohsented to become the first lay Treasurer of the
former. The new ministerial Treasurer, after Mr. Barker’s
resignation, pleaded for a larger grant from the Book Room.

The President: ‘If we cannot do all the good we would, let us do all the
good we can."

The President: ‘‘I think the Chapel Building Fund wants a little more
talking about.”

Mr. Allen: ‘' We have lost half our chapels in the Shrewsbury Circuit,
and have been obliged to build somewhat prematurely.”

The President: ‘If you had taken your stand in the street, chapelless, you
might have done more good.”

On the reading of the obituary of Joseph Hollingworth, who
had fallen at the age of fifty-five, after but twenty-eight years of
ministry, Mr, Newton gave it as his conviction that he was the
victim of the Manchester troubles.

This is my own conviction, too, for he was blessed with the
powerful, fresh physique of a Derbyshire farmer, and was endowed
to a high degree with the bodily, the mental, and the spiritual
constituents of a mighty preacher of the Gospel. But such scenes
and struggles strike deep into the vitals of a loving, tender-
hearted minister of Christ.
224 History oF METHODISM.

As another sad relic of the disturbance of the preceding year,
it was announced to the Conference that W. S had so laid to
heart the reproof he had received at the last Conference for the
slack rein which he had held as Superintendent, that he had
become quite unfitted for his work. Kind-hearted Mr. Galland
offered to go to Madeley, where Mr. S—— was then stationed, to
ascertain his state of mind and body.

A highly interesting session was that in which the ladies were
admitted to present medals to Mr. Reece and Mr. Ryerson. Mr.
Edmund Heeley presented them, on behalf of the ladies. He
said “‘ His 2ztimidation had been removed by the manner in which
he was received.”

 

The President addressed Mr. Reece in very appropriate terms, emphasising
his great respect and affection for the Established Church,

On ‘the third reading of the stations the President said: “If all the
Circuits must have young men, there is nothing for it but to shoot the old ones.”

Another interesting break in the proceedings was the reading
of the letters of the counsel on our side in Dr. Warren's case, in
acknowledgment of a present of Wesley’s Works. Sir W. Horne
said: “ Notwithstanding his professional vocations, he found
time to read religions books ; and Wesley's Works would find an
honoured place in his library.’ Rolfe said: “He had found it
very difficult to make people understand our case.”

The Conference received a somewhat admonitory communica-
tion. It will be retnembered that Mr. Bunting had published
a letter in opposition to the candidature of Lord John Russell to
represent the family town of Bedford in the reformed Parliament,
and that the Whigs and Methodists alike attributed to Methodist
hostility his most mortifying defeat ; and Robert Newton had
made a political excursion into Devonshire to prevent the
Methodists from voting for him in the other family borough of
Tavistock. A deputation of the Methodists had waited on the
Duke of Bedford and requested him, for these courtesies, to give
them ground for a chapel. His Grace replied: ‘We have an
account to settle with the Methodists.’

On the reading of the letter which conveyed this information
and solicited advice, Mr. Atherton said: “I think we should
learn a lesson from this not to take a forward part in
electioneering matters.”

‘The President : ‘‘'The Whigs seldom look at both sides. I never wrote
a letter about the Devonshire election.”
THE CONFERENCE OF 1836. 228

Inquiry was made as to some of the Circuits where secessions
had occurred since the last Conference. London, City Road, had
lost 150; Sunderland had lost 650 ; etc.

The President: ‘ Putting a man out of the society is often the way of putting
him into honour. Let us learn lessons from the past. Radicals in politics are
inconsistent in joining Methodism.”

The President: ‘‘The English Preachers never did concede the principle
that a Preacher may not expel a member without trial. In some places
Preachers sought the advice of the people, and kind lenity has given rise .to
the statement that they could not expel without it. Joseph Taylor said that
‘he would never have discretion in the matter.’ We must refrain from
conciliation if it be abused.” .

A deputation of four distinguished ministers was appointed to visit
Bramley, and meet the members who are dissatisfied. The trustees who
have come forward in this emergency are to be respectfully addressed.

The Book Committee was authorised to present books for the Methodist
University in America, and Coburg Academy in Canada, to the amount of
not less than {100 each. Some objected to the paragraph on slavery in the
reply to American address.

Dr. Fisk: “I wish the Conference would state in their address all that
they intend; or I will faithfully represent your wishes. I would suggest that
some notice should be taken of what the American Conference has done.

The President: ‘‘ The leaven of abolition is in the meal, but it is not
yet ready to be baked. I would assert great and eternal principles, now
ripe.’ The paragraph was modified.

The President prepared a resolution restraining the ‘‘ wandering brethren.”
A debate took place on the admission of members. Mr. Pilter advocated the
reading of new names at the leaders’ meeting, but no one else approved.

The President : ‘‘We must be cautious; much may be said on both sides.
The question was much discussed in Kilhamitish times. Hanby unfortunately
sanctioned the practice; but Benson, Mather, and others adhered to the
Methodist and Scriptural plan.”

Mr. Taylor: ‘‘Great caution is required in the admission of members.
Expelled members easily find their way back again. Mr. Reece: “A
member cannot find his way into the society without the consent of the

preacher.” Mr. Taylor: “‘I have a member in my Circuit whom the
Conference says should not be in it.” Mr. R. Wood: “I always inquire
of a member, ‘Have you been in the society before?’ Mr. Entwistle:

‘““A change of class-books encourages improper introductions by a side
door.” :

A digest of Methodist law was again requested by memorials, and again
opposed by the President: ‘It is encompassed with insurmountable
difficulties.” The Dawsonian Fund was introduced. Mr, Atherton: ‘As they
have begun without the Conference, they must go on without it.” Mr. Scott:
“I approve of Mr. Atherton’s speech; but I would have the object
accomplished.” Mr. Bowers: ‘‘It would be a disgrace to us if it were not
accomplished.” '

The President: ‘‘ I approve of the great principle stated by Mr. Atherton.
I have refrained from giving the fund further sanction than my subscription,

P
226 History or Meruopism.

x

but if a wrong thing start we had better go with it. If we do not go with them,
they will go without us.”

The President's requested Committee of Advice and Sympathy was
appointed, consisting of six London Superintendents and several country
brethren.

The President expressed his thanks to the brethren and said: “If I have
grieved any of the brethren, I humbly ask pardon.”

A brisk debate ensued on the application of the Committee of
the Sheffield Proprietary School for the appointment by the
Conference of one of its members as Governor and Chaplain of
that institution.

Mr. Grindrod: “I advised the chief projector of the scheme to wait till
Mr. Bunting visited Sheffield; but he did not happen to come, and Church and
Dissenters commenced Proprietary Schools, and our people were likely to
“connect themselves with one or the other. I do not justify our haste, but may
be allowed to make an apology. Sheffield has some claims as to situation.
Some might prefer London, but that has the Mission House and Theological
Institution; Bristol has Kingswood; Manchester and Leeds have other
duties. Sheffield is very healthful, and no other place is so thoroughly
Wesleyan. If you do not appoint a governor, they will abandon the scheme,
The committee must be members of the Methodist Society.”

The President : ‘‘I wish to know if there is anything Connexional in the
scheme,”’ This was disowned.

The President: “I think there is something Connexional in the head of the
promoters,”

Mr. Grindrod: ‘‘ There is no intention that it should be the only school.”

Mr. Burdsall: ‘If there be many schools, many preachers will be
abstracted from the work.”’

Mr. Reece: ‘It would be a good place for a man who cannot do the whole
work of a Circuit.”

Mr. Rogers: ‘‘ It seems anomalous to have such an institution over which
we can have no control.”

Mr. Entwistle: ‘‘I approve of the project, but care should be taken with
the details.”

The President : ‘‘ I think it may be proper for me to suggest the course of
argument, which has been departed from. The question is not whether such
a school is desirable, but whether you will appoint a Governor and a com-
mittee, and take the institution under your care, and are prepared to do the
same for six other schools."

Mr. Waugh talked of Church and Quaker Schools, and approved of this.

Mr. Galland: ‘I think it a serious matter for Conference to pledge itself
to a public school, with hints thrown out of others being established." (J. F.
spoke).

Mr. S. Waddy: ‘‘ We wish to have the sanction of the Conference and th
appointment of a governor. A committee may be appointed tovisit the place
and determine the details. Our people complain that we provide for our own
sons and will not, provide for theirs. If refused, it will injure our funds. A
man may be as useful in a school as in a Circuit.”
THE CONFERENCE OF 1836. 227

The President: ‘‘ You are asked to give a sanction to the whole system—
not only to find someone to conduct family worship and take the boys to
chapel, but to the plan of education. This is full of difficulties. It is a castle
in the air, and will end in disappointment." He maintained that what was
wanted was not a provincial or West Riding school but a central Connexional
university, and we must ‘consult our people"’ about it, and secure their
approbation.

Mr. Grindrod assured the Conference that if no Governor were appointed
the Sheffield gentlemen would sell the land that they had bought. He con-
tended that a number of schools of this kind might lead to a Connexional
university.

Mr. Scott: ‘‘ What we want is five or six such schools, from which our
youths could be drafted into a central university." :

Dr. Fisk showed how the American Methodist system of higher education
had sprung out of schools of a lower grade, and that the American Conference
had only an indirect connection with the opening and management of the
Methodist collegiate establishments. The committees and the influences were
entirely Methodist, and neither principal nor. professor could be drawn from
the ministry without the consent of his bishop.

J. F. spoke a second time. .

The President drew up a resolution: ‘‘ The Conference has heard with
great pleasure and yet with great apprehension and agrees to appoint
as Governor a minister who either now is or may become a supernumerary.”
The President thus explained his own resolution : ‘‘It pledges us to nothing.
He must become a supernumerary before he can take the situation."’

This resolution was carried with but two dissentients—
Grindrod and 8. D. Waddy. Why they should object it is hard to
see, inasmuch as the resolution practically conceded everything.
The most able-bodied and the most.able-minded minister in the
whole Body was eligible for the situation, on the one condition
that he should become a supérnumerary, and that only for the
nonce. For, as the President explained, “after a rest he may
return to Circuit work.”

It was announced that Mr. Fernley offered a prize of £100 for the best
essay on the Pastoral Office, Messrs. Bunting, Grindrod, and Scott being the
appointed judges.

Mr. Galland : ‘'I think it would be better to have the examination at the
Institution every six months instead of every three.” Agreed.

The President: ‘‘ When principle is triumphant we shall be able to give all
our young men the advantage of the Institution.”

Mr. Grindrod: ‘‘Can the young men on trial have the benefit of the
visitation of the tutors, as proposed?”

The President: ‘‘ That was only an elegant effusion of Mr. Lessey’s
mind. It is quite impracticable. We want a new edition of the Chmstian
Library in a cheap form.”

This was moved and carried.

P 2
228 History oF Maeruopism.

The President: ‘‘ The Districts are representatives of the Conference. It
will be well to give the District power to determine the case ofan organ. As it
is, we are laughed at.’’

So much for the decision on the Leeds case !

The President said, on the obituary of David McNichol: ‘* Dr.
Clarke said,‘I am «a fool compared with David McNichol,’ I heard Mr.
McNichol say he never was at school till after he became a Methodist,
when he attended a night-school, What a man may accomplish by
industry !"'

One hundred and fourteen Circuits petitioned for allowances to the
children of supernumeraries.

The President drew up five resolutions on the subject. A friend offered
£150 towards the purchase of Mr. McNichol’s library for the Institution.

The President: “In stationing, we should take off a little of our feeling
for a man who is present, and put it to the man who is absent.”

A letter of complaint was received from the Trustees of the Conference
chapel.

Mr. Naylor: ‘The trustees question my right to nominate the men to
represent them.”

The President: ‘‘So doI. The case is different in reference to the appoint-
ment of stewards. Stewards are middlemen. You have no right to nominate
a representative. You may consult and propose; and this is straining a
point. Construe our laws liberally for the people. Avoid all debatable
ground.”

Oh, that this wise advice had been acted on in the Leeds
case, and in all subsequent disputes !

The President added: ‘‘I have some difficulty as to what advice should be
given. The Superintendent should speak to the trustees.”’

Mr. Marsden brought forward regulations relative to society meetings.

Mr. Leach: ‘‘ Long preaching prevents the society meeting.”

Mr. Newton: ‘I think the reason of their decline is that wrong subjects
are chosen.”

Mr. Entwistle: ‘‘ I always prepare for my address to the society. Some
preachers may preach long, but others imitate them because they think it
makes them seem great.”

The President : ‘ Sing, pray, or preach, or do as you please; but two hours
in the morning and two hours in the evening—we cannot feed our people with less.
Many people cannot stay on the Sunday evening; the Sabbath afternoon or
week night might be better.”

The first Birmingham Conference marks an era in the
constitutional history of Methodism, as being the first at which
the lay element of a Connexional committee was supplied by
representative election on its present baszs. So early as 1819,
indeed, the embarrassments of the Chapel Fund. had obliged
THE CONFERENCE OF 1836, 229

the Conference to evoke Connexional sympathy and succour by
elective representation on the pre-Conference committee of that
fund, upon a much more popular principle than the present,
but upon a more restricted scale and area. The Committee
of Distribution for the Chapel Fund was reinforced by
fifteen trustees, not ministers, elected by the Quarterly
Meetings of Circuits in or near the town in which the Con-
ference was held, those Circuits being named year by year in
the Minutes of Conference. The principle of selection was not
strictly that of contiguity, and it was sometimes not so easy to
divine why one Circuit should be taken and the other left ; as,
for example, at the Sheffield Conference of 1835, why Belper
should send a representative, while the nearer West Riding
Circuits, Barnsley, Wakefield, and Huddersfield, were left out
in the cold; why the far-away Newcastle should send its
representative, yet York, with more members and but one
intervening Circuit, should be without the franchise !

Up to the year 1835, the most time-honoured of all, the
Contingent, originally the General Fund—a sort of casual
ward where all claims were sent which had nowhere else
to go—had been admihistered by ministers alone, the
names of the Treasurers and Secretaries only being printed in
the Minutes. But the in every way costly experience of that
depleting year had taught the Conference the lesson that
lay shoulders must be set to the clay-clogged wheels: al-
though Dr. Bunting had, in expounding his proposed con-
cessions, explicitly and emphatically declared that the lay
members of Connexional committees must be chosen zot by
election of the laity but by selection of the Conference. When
Mr. Scott proposed that a certain number of lay geritlemen
~ should be zzvited to attend the committees of the School
Fund, Dr. Bunting had declared that was the limit of his
Liberalism.

But in the case of the Contingent Fund, it was found
expedient to change the principle of representation from the
Circuit to the Déstrict. Eleven of the twenty-eight Districts
were to send representatives to this committee, chosen by the
Circuit Stewards, out of their own number.

It is not easy to correlate the sage, paternal utterances of
Dr. Bunting at this Conference with the extreme ecclesiastical
positions taken up by 4zm at the self-same conclave. But this
will be more advantageously attempted in our closing general
230 flistory oF METHODISM.

survey of his conceptions of the polity of Wesleyan Methodism
and the true policy of its administration.

LEEDS CONFERENCE OF 1837.

The Conference of 1837 was held in Leeds, under the
Presidency of the Rev. Edmund Grindrod. Before Dr. Bunting
left the chair, in the course of elections to the Legal Conference
by seniority, Mr. Slugg and another minister were found to have
an equal vote.

Dr. Bunting asked whether of the two would give way to
the other. Mr. Slugg at once expressed his hearty readiness
to concede the honour to his brother. ‘Then, said Dr.
Bunting, “I give my casting vote to Mr. Slugg.”

Before the vote of thanks to the retiring President was
passed, Mr. Galland said that although he should heartily
concur in the vote, he felt bound in conscience to make two
exceptions. The first was the severe rebuke administered to
Mr. Fowler from the chair at the last Conference for the frank
and honourable statement of his views with regard to the
question then before the Conference, with respect to practically
permanent appointments to the Mission House and other
Departments.

The President : ‘‘I would submit whether this is in order.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I would have him proceed, and be pardoned for disorder."
Mr. Galland refused to commit even a pardonable disorder, but would pro-
ceed to express his total want of concurrence with what Dr. Bunting had done
at a meeting in Exeter Hall in reference to Church rates. He then read an
extract from The Watchman, but was called to order by the President. Dr.
Beaumont: “I think Mr. Galland has a right to speak his honest, upright
mind. He may be put right, but he must not be put down."

Dr. Bunting: ‘I will scorn to put any man right again. If my brethren
will not defend me, I shall not defend myself." Mr. Lessey: ‘‘ Mr. Galland

should not have stated this on mere newspaper authority. I move the order
of the day.”

Mr. Galland: ‘I think there is not the freedom of debate there should be.”’

Mr. Atherton: ‘‘ Mr. Galland has a right to speak. Some others of us
thought there was asperity in Dr. Bunting’s treatment of Mr. Fowler.”

Mr. Scott: ‘In respect to the meeting at Exeter Hall, Dr. Bunting was
mentioned because of his station. -We must protect our officers.”

Mr. Reece: ‘I am surprised that any man can say anything for a right to
act contrary to a right feeling.”

Mr. Galland: ‘I have no unkind or disrespectful feeling towards Dr.
Bunting ; but have frequently defended him.”

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘ Not more than I deserve. I have an objection to occupy the
time of Conference. Mr. Galland knows that he owes to me his continuance in
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837. 231

our body. The men I have rendered most service, in my humble way, take
Opportunities to attack me.”

Mr. Galland: ‘I have no wish to make any ostentatious claim on the
ground of anything I may have said or done for Dr. Bunting, or for any
brother. I am prepared to acknowledge my obligation to Dr. Bunting; but
I do not know that I owe my continuance in the Body to Dr. Bunting.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I thought I had had some influence in keeping him in
Methodism ; and there is no other 'ism half so good for a man’s soul.”

Mr. Newton: “ Weall anticipated a peaceful Conference and a unanimous
vote.” The vote of thanks to the retiring President was passed without a
division.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I feel thankful. Whatever defects there may have been
in my administration, as it has been somewhat pompously called, I have not
compromised the character of the Body. If I have gone to the meeting,
I said nothing beyond the purpose of the meeting, or un-Wesleyan, or dis-
respectful to such men as Mr. Galland. Those who cannot go so far asI do
have my full liberty to stop short. The gratification of such thanks is much
taxed by the time occupied in defence.”

Mr. Galland: ‘I wish to make some inquiry.”

Dr. Bunting : ‘I have an inquiry to make about an incendiary letter.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I think it unfair to call a letter incendiary before it is
put in evidence; and thus make a prejudicial impression.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Such cavilling shall have no quarter from me ; I thought it
had subsided. This is miserable petty jealousy.”

Dr. Beaumont : ‘I enter my protest against such epithets in the Wesleyan
Methodist Conference.” A straggling fire ensued. Thanks were voted to
a number of officials.

Mr. Galland: ‘I think these offices do not circulate sufficiently.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I did not apply petty shuffling jealousy to Dr. Beaumont.
But Mr. Galland I do think has revived petty jealousy. Places of honour
ought not to be objects of ambition to a Methodist preacher. Men who wish
to displace officers are seldom fit to occupy them.”

When Conference reached the question, “Any objection
against any of the brethren?” the first pause was made at no

less a name than that of Jabez Bunting. But the questioner was
no other than that strong man himself.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Has Mr. Lumb any objection against me?”

It will be remembered that Matthew Lumb, one of Wesley’s
preachers, and one of the heroes of the heroic times of our West
Indian Missions, had been at a former Conference called in
question as to a letter written to Dr. Bunting during the year of
his second Presidency, to which, as the great man had taken not
the slightest notice of it, the stout old minister had compelled
attention by publishing it to the world. When the General
Declaration of the Methodist Preachers, embodying a denial of
a decisive influence of any person or party, was issued by the
232 flisTory oF METHODISM.

London preachers he at first signed it, but, no doubt confronted
by the inconsistency of the Declaration with his own published
views, he had written to the issuers of that document and with-
drawn his name. Hearing that the names of the signatories to
the Declaration were to be printed in the Minutes of Conference,
he had written more than one letter to the Conference, protesting
against his name being appended to that document. To his
surprise and annoyance, on reading the Minutes he found the
name of Matthew Lumb attached to the Declaration contradictory
of Matthew Lumb’s published opinions. At this he was not only
riled but was twitted as not having the courage of his convictions.
Now the sturdy spirit who could smile at chains and dungeons
and the threats of tar-and-feathering from men whom he knew
would enjoy the fulfilling of the threat, could not endure the
seeming to suppress his sentiments for fear of consequences.
After long struggling, in a mood of irritation, Mr. Lumb wrote
to the President, Dr. Bunting, complaining in unmeasured terms
of the publication of his name against his earnest protest, and
denouncing this arresting of letters as something like a crime
against society. The President’s keeping back a letter intended
for the Conference had been distinctly forbidden by a special law
of Conference on the occasion of the keeping back of Dr. Clarke's
communications to his brethren. It was admitted that letters to
the Conference signed Matthew Lumb had not been mentioned to
the Conference.

Dr. Bunting said: ‘‘I do not know whether I shall muster courage to
read the letter. It charges me with a passion for fame. I have no particular
love of infamy.”

Dr. Bunting read portions of the letter. With the excep-
tion of the printing of his name against his protest, and the
arresting of his letters to the Conference, it consisted wholly
of remarks he had heard made by others upon Dr. Bunting
and his policy. But, judging from its effect upon the brethren,
it must have been worded very rudely and most wildly, and
have been a distressing contrast to his thrilling correspondence
from the West Indies, which had for so many years stirred up
the missionary flame in England. In fact, he evidently did not
like the sound of it as reproduced by the elocution of one of the
most masterly readers of his time. But the gravest matter it
contained was this: It charged Dr. Bunting with having caused
the loss of 1040 members in Leeds,
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837. 233

Dr. Bunting finished thus: ‘‘I would rather have ten thousand accusations
than these defences. Tell me who my accusers are, and I can defend myself.”

The President : ‘* Will you allow this attack upon the President and upon
the system of Methodism?”

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘I ask that Mr. Lumb will prove these charges.”

Mr. Lumb began his reply, but was by the President forbidden to revert
to the past. Mr. Lumb: ‘I am sorry that I have written as I have done, but
do not recant my views—I cannot.’’

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I would ask Mr. Lumb whether he acquits me of all
sinister motives and want of love for Methodism?’’ Mr, Lumb’s reply to this
appeal was forestalled by four successive speakers, who interposed their own
views upon the question. Old Joseph Gostick, however, gave one of those
humorous speeches which the Conference looked for as a breezy interlude.
He finished thus: ‘‘ When I entered Leeds I felt unutterably thankful to be in
this tip-top of Methodism, and I did not dream that I was going to have this
awful Lumb-ago.” (Great laughter.)

When Mr. Lumb was permitted to reply to Dr. Bunting’s
question he entirely and most heartily acquitted him of all
sinister motives and want of love to Methodism. ‘Dr. Bunting
loves Methodism as much as I do. If I have said anything to
hurt Dr. Bunting, I humbly ask his pardon. As to particular
ways of carrying on Methodism, Dr. Bunting will hold his
opinion and I will hold mine.”

This explanation was pronounced not quite satisfactory. lt
was moved “ That Mr. Lumb’s letter is unchristian ” (with other
still more vehement expressions) ‘‘and requires an apology.’”’ Dr.
Bunting pressed that Mr. Lumb should “ take the letter and tear
it, and perhaps the Conference would be satisfied.” An eminent
minister on the platform would have the addition: “and if Mr.
Lumb refuse to tell the name of the person quoted in his letter
and to make an apology,-his name be dropped from the Minutes.”
Dr. Beaumont demurred to the resolution in the form proposed,
and said that the charge implied in it should be more patent
and explicit. Several ministers cried out that the crime was
“manifest enough.”

Mr. Reece: ‘‘I would have Mr. Lumb answer the question: Who was the
person that made Mr. Lumb’s defence of Mr. Bunting necessary? Who is the
man that said these things ?”’

It is to be noted that Mr. Lumb in his letter brought no
charges personally against Dr. Bunting, but asked what defence he
was to make of Dr. Bunting against the charge brought by others.
This in a purely przvate letter could hardly be brought under the
heading ‘‘calumny,” under which it was now placed.
234 flistoryY oF METHODISM.

At this stage Mr. William Bunting deprecated any further
pressing of the matter, especially out of consideration of Mr.
Lumb's advanced age and the fact that he had written under
extraneous influence, concluding thus: ‘Mr. Lumb cannot
disclose the names.” ' The President ruled that Mr. William
Bunting’s remarks would come better after the resolution was
passed. The resolution was accordingly put and passed.

Mr. Lumb: “Iam sorry that I have pained Dr. Bunting and reflected on
the Conference.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I wish to be put in collision with those who render it,
necessary to defend me, and know them, and see them, and deal with them.”

Mr. Lessey pressed to know whether it was a Preacher who had said what
he had reported to Dr. Bunting.

Mr. Lumb: ‘It was a preacher, but Mr. Bunting does not require the
name.”

The Conference clamoured: ‘‘ We must have the name,” and this was
carried by vote.

Mr. Lumb then explained that in yielding to the demand of Conference he
should make no breach of confidence. The words quoted were not like his
own letter to Dr. Bunting, a strictly private communication never meant to go
any farther, but were spoken in public by—he then named a venerable
member of the Conference, resident in Leeds—John Farrar, senr.

A powerful sensation was produced,

However, neither Mr. Farrar nor any other person said a word
upon the subject until, four days later, the question came in the

regular course: ‘‘ Any objection to John Farrar, senr.?”’ The
answer was ‘The question could not yet be answered, but must
stand over.” This naturally raised the apprehensions of the

brethren that the case had proved of greater gravity than was at
first supposed. But not a word was said about the case till it had
been allowed another week to ripen. On the last day but one of
Conference, when all the odds and ends of business must needs be
cleared away, Dr. Bunting, of his own accord, informed the Con-
ference that he had put a question to Mr. Farrar, and if he had not
denied having said anything of the kind on the public occasion
referred to, he at least denied recollection. ‘So the matter ends

between me and Mr. Lumb, who, we hope, is not quite right in
his mind.”

The President : ‘‘Is the matter between Mr. Lumb and the Conference
ended?" It was decided that a letter should be sent to Mr. Lumb.

Many readers probably will sympathise with Mr. William
Bunting in the wish that this matter should not have been
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837. 235

pressed to such a profitless extreme. Looked at calmly, it must
be seen to be of comparatively slight importance beyond that
which Dr. Bunting chose to give it. The letter being strictly
private, he might, without the slightest loss of dignity, have
performed for it in private the office which he wished the
writer of it to perform in Conference : tear it into tatters, and
have done with it. Mr. Lumb made no statement, on his own
authority, but what was admitted to be true—namely, that his
name had been appended to a document, and printed in the
Minutes, despite his own repeated protest ; and that his letters to
the Conference on the subject had been intercepted and suppressed.
This was a real and provoking grievance, for which the venerable
missionary hero could get no apology whatever. The other
matters were what he believed a brother minister had said in
public ; with a request to know how he might rebut the
accusations. To call this “calumny,” as it was called in
Conference, was itself an unwarranted abuse of language. Stout
old Matthew Lumb was not the only man in that same
Conference who had ever been betrayed into regrettable
extravagance of speech. The affair had a lame and impotent
conclusion. Ten days elapsed before the Conference could
ascertain whether Father Farrar had really said these things in
public, or had not. Yet he was on the spot, and, as I can
testify, was well able to defend either his Master or himself.
His memory could not have been much more trustworthy than
that of his old friend Lumb, since it required ten days to be
quite sure he did not recollect it. Even then it required the
practised questioning of Dr. Bunting: in private to bring it into
proper exercise, and the task of conveying the results to Conference
was put into the same most competent and able hands.

When the question came: ‘Any objection to Samuel D.
Waddy?” the question was put by the President whether he
and his colleagues had taken some part in speaking in behalf of
some Parliamentary candidate ?

Mr. S. D. Waddy : ‘‘I claim the right to be heard, I supported a candidate
on religious grounds ; one who would support the established Church.”

Dr. Bunting interjected : ‘‘ That is the backbone of conservatism in our
Body.” Mr. Waddy: ‘I am not prepared to say I will not do as I have done.
I think I acted in accordance. with the principles of the Minutes. If the
Established falls, we shall suffer. I question the soundness of the argument:
If you take one side, I shall take the other. No man has aright to take the
wrong side.”
236 HAlistoryY or METHODISM.

The Secretary of the Conference, Newton, spoke twice, and strongly
against Mr. Waddy’s public interference with electioneering matters.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I am not prepared to state the matter so broadly as Mr.
Newton has done. I think it indiscreet in Mr. Waddy and Mr. G. B.
McDonald to speak in committees and meetings preparatory to nominations.
Let a man do it under responsibility. We (on the Church side) are in a
majority. Why can't the minority let us alone? Mr. Wesley would have
interfered with elections. He did so in the sending for John Crickett. I think
Messrs. Waddy and McDonald have acted indiscreetly in mixing themselves
up in the way in which they have done. Not in having appeared upon the
hustings in favour of a party candidate.”

Mr. Taylor: ‘‘Did not Mr. McLean attempt to harangue a mob out of
doors?” Mr, McLean : '‘ I must say that in a sense I did so. I went to hear
the Tory candidate speak. I had declined to speak, and advised my brethren
not to do so; but I attempted to call a meddling lawyer to order, That is
the head and front of my offending. I acknowledge I did wrong ; I went a
step too far... Mr. George B. McDonald: ‘' We took part in the election on
religious grounds, we wished to increase the number of religious persons in
the House of Commons,”

Thus three of the ablest and most popular of the younger
ministers in Methodism had taken a prominent and eager part
in an electioneering contest in the Methodist town of Sheffield.
As is well known, Dr. Waddy lived to blame his conduct in this
matter quite as strongly as he had once defended it. He
confessed to me that the meddling lawyer had made the three
brethren look and feel particularly small.

So far as I remember, not one of these effective ministers was
ever tempted to repeat the escapade.

Dr. Bunting finished the discussion thus : “I am of opinion
that with the machinery of an election a Methodist preacher has
nothing to do. Some have said Mr. Baines is a good man ; if Mr.
Baines was left to himself, I might not differ much from him.”

The regular course of business was broken into by a request
from Bedford for advice in regard to licensing their chapels, the
Bill for the solemnisation of marriage in Nonconformist chapels,
by Nonconformist Ministers, having passed not long before.

Dr. Bunting : “I am glad the people have had the discretion
to wait. I wish the Conference to come to no decision. It is not
a matter of conscience. The Plan of Pacification was a matter
of concession, and not an everyday occurrence.”

Dr. Bunting denounced the Bill at some length, and with
great warmth.

Mr. Bardsall: “If any conscientious man wishes to be married by me,
what am I to do?”
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837. 237

Mr. Scott : ‘* We are not to be understood to prohibit it. I would not say
that the chapels should not be licensed or a preacher prohibited. I should
seriously deprecate being placed under any interdict. It would do harm.” —

Mr. W. Bunting : ‘‘ Marriage is no part of the ministerial function. The
Apostles did not marry people. The distinction must be kept up between
the Sacraments and marriage. It is a practical fallacy to talk of accepting it.
We did not seek the Bill. I have no objection to it in perpetuity. I should
like to go to Church to be married to my wife once a quarter.”

But it was of little use for Mr. Bunting to “ Go on refining, and
think of convincing, while men thought of dining,” in the
Conference as he did in the pulpit. The dinner-hour had come,
the debate was adjourned, and was not resumed. Thus Dr.
Bunting’s point was carried, ‘to come to no decision.” Things
remain as before, no opinion given ; the question left open.

On the question being put : ‘‘ Any objection against Thomas
Galland?” Dr. Bunting said: “I wish to ask if Mr. Galland is
the author of an incendiary letter ?"’ Mr. Galland replied that he
was not aware that he had ever written any letter to which a term
so offensive could be truthfully applied. But since Dr. Bunting
had used that term with regard to some production which he
supposed to be that of Thomas Galland, he must request and, if
necessary, require that the letter be submitted to the judgment
of the Conference, who must pronounce whether it deserved or
not the stigma of being incendiary.

This was an incident in the Church rate controversy.
Statements had been made and arguments set forth by the
Wesleyan ministers, as well as clergymen of the Established
Church, and reported in the newspapers, to show that no
Wesleyan Methodist could with any show of consistency oppose
the Church rates, although two Government Bills had passed
the House of Commons for the abolition of that, to many,
very irritating impost. The vicar of Leeds, Dr. Hook,
had pressed this contention against the anti-Church Rate
Methodists of Leeds, who were headed by a Wesleyan Methodist
alderman, one of the founders of our Missionary Society, and,
along with Dr. Bunting, a speaker at the first missionary
meeting. He was a member of Mr. Galland’s flock. Now the
Wesleyan anti-Church-Raters thought that they had both the
Christian and the Connexional competence to defend themselves
against these charges. So Mr. Galland, who had taken it into
his Yorkshire head that he had as much right to oppose Church
rates as any of his brethren had to advocate their penal
238 History oF METrHODISM.

enforcement, wrote to the Zeeds Mercury, rebutting the
assumption of the vicar and his Methodist sympathisers that any
Wesleyan Methodist who supported the Government measure
for the Church rate abolition was disloyal to the principles of
Wesleyan Methodism. Now it was Dr. Bunting’s vehement
contention that this was even so. When, therefore, Mr. Galland’s
‘letter appeared in the Leeds Mercury, consisting of arguments
which were very ‘bad to beat, and a job to answer,” the fat was
in the fire; and although the Connexional chimney had more
than once been strenuously swept, the Church Rate pleaders
set up the cry of ‘ incendiary.”

Dr. Bunting would not withdraw the offensive epithet, but
added others not so violent :—

“T think the letter unwise and indiscreet. There are principles we are
pledged to maintain; they are our property: they are Wesleyan. We
do not insist on your agreeing with us in holding principles; but we must
act upon our Wesleyan principles. Ours is the Wesleyan principle acknowledged.
We will think no worse of you: will give you a hearty shake of the hand,
and will not go to extremes. We will treat you with forbearance, and will
not wound your feelings. Ours is and must be, to all eteynity, Wesleyanism.
I take this opportunity of delivering my sentiments.”

This deliverance of Dr. Bunting’s sentiments is as explicit
as his pronouncement of the Wesleyan principle is peremptory
and, in his own view, obligatory and final; what must be to
all eternity. His practical position, his working hypothesis, is
also clear and positive. We, who have publicly defended
Church rates, have but been acting out our loyalty to the
eternal principles of our Connexion. You, who have stated your
objections to this impost, have been undutiful to your father
Wesley, and your mother Methodism. We will treat you
with forbearance, and will not hurt your feelings ; but we must
brand as incendiary your taking the opportunity of delivering
your sentiments.

Mr. Galland’s answer was both apposite and simple. He did
not think that the Minutes of 1834 on Mr. Stephens’s case
required our allegiance to the principles laid down by Dr. Bunting.
Mr. Wesley's practical principle is stated by himself ina letter
to his brother Charles: “I will neither set up nor pull down
establishments.” Mr. Galland’s own opinion was that the
Establishment is good ; though both his private and his public
opinion was that Church rates were fairly questionable, even
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837 239 »

by those who wish well to the Establishment. He complained
of “the interruptions he had suffered” in the expression of his
conscientious convictions as a member of the Conference.

It will be seen at once that Mr. Galland makes here a
point of great importance. The Wesleyan principle which
Dr. Bunting strove to make “ eternal” was not a_John Wesleyan,
but a Charles Wesleyan principle, which Dr. Bunting had
insisted on with Charles Wesleyan finality.

Mr. Galland finished by repeating his request that either
the offensive epithet should be withdrawn or the letter should
be read to, and pronounced on, by the Conference.

The President: “Mr. Galland should have the letter in
his hand, say if it his, and have it read if he choose.” Mr.
Galland: “I claim this.” But Dr. Bunting paid as little heed
to the ruling of the President as to Mr. Galland’s claim. He
persisted in the epithet, and would not hand over the letter
to be identified and read. Mr. Galland declared that until the
President’s decision was fulfilled, or until Dr. Bunting would
in some way retract his opinion expressed in Conference in
such an unconferential style, he could neither vote nor speak
in Conference any more.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘Mr. Galland will never get me to withdraw whatever
I called it. I did not call it ‘incendiary’ because it appeared in the
Mercury.” Mr. Scott referred to the mischief of going into the discussion
any further.

Dr. Bunting: ‘“ Will Mr. Galland do me the injustice of stating that
I said he was the author of the incendiary letter?” Mr. Galland: “I
will not sit as a dishonoured member of the Conference. If I cannot have
what the President says I ought to have, I will make my bow.’’ Mr. Naylor
hoped that Mr. Galland would withdraw anything which sounded like
a threat, as otherwise the brethren could not freely adjudicate upon the
case. Mr. Galland: “I withdraw anything which might seem a threat.
Were I compelled to leave Methodism, it is I that should be loser. I
never could be an enemy.”

Mr. Lessey: ‘‘ Mischievous as the discussion of political matters
unquestionably is, it could not be forbidden on the one side and allowed
upon the other." Mr. Galland: ‘‘As a gentleman by education, and in
character and conduct, I cannot sit down under Dr. Bunting’s imputation
unless the letter be adjudicated on.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘For the fifth time, I said nothing about authorship.”

This was a feat of forgetfulness; Dr. Bunting had started
the discussion by saying: “Is Mr. Galland the author of
an incendiary letter?”
240 Hisrory or Meruopism.

Mr. Galland: “If Dr Bunting will withdraw the word incendiary,
the whole affair shall drop.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘No; I must not be drawn into a Personal matter; I,
have no wish to say anything about the authorship. I thought my opinion
might have weight with Mr. Galland. If you must adjudicate on any
point, let it be on the point I brought forward, and not something as wide
as the poles asunder. I move: ‘That no brother shall circulate a political
pamphlet.’” Dr. Beaumont: ‘I move the addition, ‘or write a political
letter to a newspaper.’” ;

But that would never do: it would have linked together
Dr. Bunting and Mr. Galland in the self-same condemnation.
And to see these two handcuffed together and marched off to the
Connexional “correction of the stocks” would have been too
grim ajoke. The line of legitimacy must be drawn outside the
precedents which the mover of the resolution had himself set.

The last speaker on this subject was Mr. William Bunting,
who declared: ‘If this resolution is to preclude the appeal of
Mr. Galland for the withdrawal of the word ‘incendiary’ or
the reading of the letter to which it is applied, I cannot
approve of it.”

The President ruled Mr. William Bunting out of order, and thus reversed
his former ruling, on the ground that no charge can be brought against Mr.
Galland or Dr. Bunting.

The resolution passed.

Mr. Galland: ‘‘I am not satisfied. It would have been more grateful to
me if the letter had been gone into. I can take no part in the business of
Conference. I am thankful to Dr. Beaumont for his interposition at the
proper time.” ;

Dr Bunting: ‘I am prepared to return a friendly salute; if a hostile shot
be fired, I am also ready.’ But I hold the same opinion of the tendency of the
letter. I believe that Mr. Galland intended nothing mischievous. I still hold

my opinion of the impropriety of Dr. Beaumont’s reference, and of Mr.
Galland’s animadversions when the vote of thanks was moved.”

One can but ask why the rightful, equitable ruling of the
President in favour of Mr. Galland’s reasonable claim to have his
branded letter read should have been so coolly and so firmly dis-
regarded. I can conceive but two causes for this resolute resistance
of authority in its impartial adherence to the established rule of
procedure in all such cases: (1) The reading of the letter would
have been the completest refutation and the most condign rebuke
of the opprobrious adjective adopted and persisted in. There was
nothing in the letter in the least degree inflammatory. It owed
its cogency to its calmness, its moderation, and sobriety ; for
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837. 241

extravagance was no idiom of the Galland dialect. (2) The letter
entirely exonerated Methodist objection to the levying of Church
rates from the charge of hostility to the Church.

It showed how widely the tithes and offerings of the City of
God in past ages differed from the enforcement under penalty
of an irritating tax upon multitudes who were already burdened
with the sustentation of their own ministers and churches, to
meet the current expenses of the wealthiest denomination in
the land. But Mr. Galland was “no his lane” in the charge of
pamphleteering in defence of Nonconformity. The Superin-
tendent minister of the very chapel where the Conference was
sitting was shortly afterwards called in question for ‘having
published a pamphlet” replying to a letter in favour of Church rates.

The redoubtable vicar had opened his commission in that
great Nonconformist centre, Leeds, by what looked like, and
what proved to be, a declaration of war against all Nonconformist
intrusionists in his domain. Mr. Vevers, the Superintendent of
Leeds Brunswick, had replied to this in A letter to the Rev. W.
Hook on his Inaugural Discourse, by an Observer. This pamphlet
was now challenged in the Conference as an obnoxious interference
between a vicar and his parishioners.

Mr. Vevers answered: ‘I complain of not having any notice, but am
ready to meet any accusation.”
Dr. Bunting: ‘‘In a house called ‘honourable,’ when a member has

anything to say to another, he gives him notice; it is not necessary to
give it in writing.”

If this rule had been adhered to by the great Methodist
debater who here so opportunely called attention to it, how
much unhealthy soreness and heart-burning had been saved!
For instance, in the case of Thomas Jackson, sensitively
detailed in his Recollections; and if the “ proprieties of that
honourable House” in the employment of epithets in inter-
rogating an opponent had also been observed at this same
Conference, how much time and temper had been saved! But
stout old ex-President Treffry remarked that the real fault of Mr.
Vevers’ pamphlet was its fameness.

The President reminded Mr. Waddy, the questioner, that
“The vicar of Leeds claimed all the Methodists within his parish
as his own parishioners.” This point was as strong as it was
sharp, for what space was there for any resident in the parish
to interfere between the man and his parishioners when the fact

Q
242 flistory oF METHODISM.

of his residing within a certain boundary constituted him a
parishioner himself. So this indictment was allowed to drop.

Some sensational exorbitance of the irrepressible James
Bromley seemed at this time to be provided always as a part
of the unwritten Agenda of the Conference, and this year he
out-Bromleyed Bromley. The most renowned professor of strong
language might well have taken lessons at his feet. Afterwards,
however, he made a very humble apology in writing. He expressed
his adherence to the general polity of Methodism, and promised
that he would refrain from intermeddling in ‘the future. On
this ground the District recommended the acceptance of his
apology. A charge was made against his general conduct; but
nothing tangible appeared.

Dr. Bunting took occasion, from the loss to Methodism of the
eloquent, able young Forsyth, to offer to the younger brethren
some most judicious and helpful observations on the responsibility
of Conference as the custodian of the doctrines which had been
the making of Methodism.

Ralph Gibson, Superintendent of the Mansfield Circuit, was
interrogated closely. as to a secession which had there occurred,
but was found to have “acted with propriety.” A younger
brother was charged by the District Meeting with not having a
right sense of common things, and not behaving properly in the
house of his Superintendent, and was recommended to be
continued on trial. Very strict inquiry was also made as to the
mental competence for our ministry of the candidates for ordina-
tion. Two were kept on trial for a fifth year, and one was
“ dropped.” One of the former had not made the proficiency in
his studies which he ought to have done. Mr. S. Dunn spoke
kindly of another candidate as to his ‘affectionate disposition
and the passability of his MSS. sermons.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘Many men can write sermons who cannot preach successfully.
I would ask if there is any other preacher to whom objection has been made on
the ground of incompetence? I believe the answer will be ‘No.’ Then I
would ask if there are not men in our Connexion who are manifestly unsuit-
able? Why not name them? Is this to be everlastingly the case ?”’

Dr. Bunting: ‘I am almost ashamed to mention something with regard to
myself. I must say that I have had no time to prepare the ex-Presidential

charge. Will the Conference allow me to read, instead, some heads of a
former charge. I shall esteem it a personal favour.” (Agreed.)

To hear Dr. Bunting read the outline of an old charge was
better worth the young man’s while than to stand a brand-new
charge from almost any other man.
THe CONFERENCE OF 1837. 243

Some fine fellows were received on trial, such as Louis Rees,
from City Road, and James Calvert, a Methodist preacher of the
primitive class.

Of all the odztwaries of the year, the most touching to myself
was that of John Bakewell Moulton, who died at the age of thirty,
in the sixth year of his itinerancy. He was, I think, the most
fascinating young Methodist minister I ever met with. He was
the first Moulton it was my privilege to know, and had all the
gentleness, and manliness, and native. gentlemanliness charac-
teristic of that family. He seemed built for a long, effective
ministry. An appreciative memorial was read, which Dr.
Bunting wished to be “qualified,” as he had ‘not been Metho-
distically loyal,” having differed on a constitutional point—
namely, the ordination by imposition of hands.

A complaint was made against a young minister who had pre-
viously been stationed at the chapel where the Conference was
being held. The Superintendent designated him as “the most
perfect mischief-maker.” It was proposed that he should be sent
for, but this was deprecated, ds, if he were brought to Leeds, he
would do more mischief than he had done, and it was suggested
that he should be tried in the District where he then was.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think it would be well to bring him here, but must say
that the Conference has the power to drop him, as heis on trial. Mr. Wesley
did so sometimes, and, rightly or wrongly, we have done it hitherto.”’

He was sent for, but replied that he had not sufficient money
to pay his fare to Leeds, and complained that his Superintendent
had given him no intimation of the charge till two hours before
he left for Conference. This was declared to be insufficient. The
Bristol preachers were commissioned to investigate his case, and
authorised to dismiss him if they thought it best. I remember
him well at Leeds. His reading and his intellectual power gave
promise of effectiveness, but an over-developed and aggressive
self-esteem appeared to have disqualified him for Connexional
service. He found a more congenial sphere elsewhere.

The Liskeard Superintendent was closely questioned as to a
division in the society. It appeared that the Superintendent
had acted unconstitutionally.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘We must take our people with us, and not act in the
Bashaw style. To give notice of leaving a man off the plan won’t do; you
must have the consent of the local preachers.’ A conversation took place on

Q2
244 . History or METHODISM.

the power to retain a local preacher on the plan, against the judgment of his
brethren. The conversation was adjourned.

The case of a well-conditioned supernumerary was again
referred to, who, with his family, regularly attended church, not
chapel. His son was a distinguished Oxford don, the first—but
not the last—Regius Professor of Divinity in Oxford who had
been trained in Methodism.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I contend that the system of Methodism must be kept open.
We will not have Methodism a sect ; we may go to church, and we may go to
chapel and be Methodists. I knew a deacon ofa chapel in Manchester who was
a Methodist. We must have the generous, noble character of Methodism
upheld. The point is, his regularly attending church instead of chapel, not
attending District Meeting, etc.” Decided to send him a letter requiring his
presence at the District Meeting. :

I have myself been Superintendent of a City Circuit in
which one of the two Circuit stewards was at the same time a
leader and a local Preacher, and churchwarden of the parish
church. ,

The brother of the Secretary of the Conference was charged
with the unconstitutional expulsion of members of the society. A
Minor District Meeting had so found. He was condemned and
removed from the Circuit. Another brother was accused of
“not having much love to Methodism.” Sentence: To be tried,
another year, and specially reported on.

This long-suffering discipline awoke in him a potential love
of Methodism, and he proved a steady-going, manageable, and
managing Methodist preacher.

Mr. Dixon, Chairman of the Liverpool District, reported
the proceedings of a Minor District Meeting held at Chester,
on an individual who had been expelled.

Mr. Lessey: “It was not a Minor District Meeting, but a
deputation to inquire into the case.”

Dr. Bunting: “The explanation to the Conference may
go on, but I protest against an inquiry three years after the
event.” The case was very peculiar.

And so was the individual “ put out” ; yet he was a Methodist
minister’s son, and a President’s son-in-law, and father of one
of the very best Methodist laymen that ever lived, and loved,
and laboured, who was sorely missed when he was gone.

On the motion for a vote of thanks to Dr. Hannah for his
pro-Presidential sermon, Dr. Bunting gave it as his judgment
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837. 245

that, instead of appointing the officials to preach before the
Conference, men of leisure and of talent should be chosen.

The theological examination of candidates for ordination was
once more a delectable oasis of sweet springs and palm trees
in the dusty pilgrimage of ecclesiastical business.

Dr. Bunting was again the real examiner. The chief subject
was our birth relation to the first Adam and the second.

Dr. Bunting said: ‘He who refuses to come to the second
Adam adopts the guilt of the first Adam, and makes it all his
own,”

Here, again, Dr. Bunting was perfectly Fletcherian.

Dr. Hannah said that he was specially careful to inculcate
on the students’ minds this vital and essential truth. It is
certainly the key of the true Arminian position and, indeed,
of the New Testament position too. The same doctrine was
discussed again in the conversation on the Pastoral Address.
As Mr. Dixon had again the writing of this, it was listened
to with even more than usual interest.

Dr. Bunting objected to the phrase ‘grace of justification.” He said:
“Our people are not accustomed to this language.” Mr. W. Bunting:
“I object to the phrase used with regard to infants—'state of initiatory
justification '—as unscriptural.” Dr. Bunting: ‘It would be more correct °
to say, ‘initiatory or provisional acceptance.” Mr. Hannah: ‘It would
avoid an ambiguous expression.” Mr. R. Wood demurred to anything that
might suggest baptismal regeneration. Dr. Bunting thought that Mr.
Dixon’s phrase did this. ‘This is the High Church principle; mind
what you do.” Mr. Entwisle: “I am afraid the expression would do
harm, Our people will think that we believe in baptismal regeneration.”
Mr. Dixon defended his expression. Dr. Bunting: ‘Are you getting
into the Church notion? I deny baptismal regeneration. When children
can become holy, God has not told us; it is one of the secret things
that belong to the Lord.” Mr. Marsden. ‘‘ The Apostle, in the
passage quoted, makes no reference to baptism. The question is, what
velative change takes place in infant baptism?’’ Dr. Bunting was not
prepared to answer Mr. Marsden’s question, but ‘‘ must insist that, when born,
we are placed in a provisional state of salvation.”” Mr. Dixon: ‘I should,
be sorry if any document of mine contained contrary opinions. I believe
and preach that by baptism we are brought into visible connection with the
Church.” A committee was appointed to revise the sentence in question.

In this most interesting discussion we again miss the voice
of Thomas Galland, whom Dr. George Smith (‘History of
Methodism”) justly regards as, perhaps, the greatest éxpositor
of his time, truly pronouncing his expositions ‘ wonderful.”
246 ffistory or MEruHonism.

But that “incendiary” torch was for the time damped and
dimmed.

Mr, Naylor: ‘I think the reference in the Address to ‘the prosperous *
state of the Connexion’ is not borne out by facts, especially the decrease of
numbers.” Mr. Dixon: '‘I was not aware of the decrease at the time I drew
it up; the numbers had not yet been reported, through the remissness of the
Superintendents"; and on Dr. Bunting’s motion it was resolved that hence-
forth the numbers should be taken in March. Dr. Busting: ‘‘ Boasting is the
sin of Methodism; everybody else sees it. I wish we saw it. I have no
sufferance for this self-glorying. Witness all that stuff in the Watchman
about our funds, when we are at our wits’ end to keep from want our widows,
and must have another collection." Mr. Dixon: ‘I am not in the habit
of boasting; it is wrong, and does us harm. We should go from this
Conference humbled, and determined to devote ourselves wholly to our
work.” Mr. Melson having repeated in Conference what he had said in the
District Meeting as to the hindrances to the work—

Mr. Bunting said: ‘‘ We are not at liberty to say in the District Meeting
what Mr. Melson says he has said. We are there to perform administrative
acts. If we have anything wrong to say, the Conference is the place.”’

The conversation on the decrease was most instructive.

Mr. S. D. Waddy said: ‘I think we should be guarded in speaking
against revivalism, saying the cause of declension is the having had a revival.
We are naturally given to lassitude, and need stirring up.” Mr. Reece: ‘If
after the revival there comes a decline, I ask, Were the converts nursed? I
have found early morning services and band meetings most useful in con-
serving converts.’ Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ We may excel in getting revivals, but we
have yet to learn how to manage them.’ Mr. Lessey: ‘‘ Many are called
revivalists who are not so; there is too much artificiality in our revivals.
A revival of the work of God must begin in the minister's own heart, and we
should look for converts in all our services. We should then have a con-
tinuous operation of the convincing Spirit. I regret the distinction between
a revival-preacher and others.” Dr, Bunting: ‘‘I agree with Mr. Lessey in
the main, but as in nature there are thunderstorms, so in grace God sometimes
goes out of His ordinary way.’ Mr. Lessey: “If God pours a mighty flood
from heaven, we thank Him for it.’ Mr. Marsden: ‘I wasawakened under
Mr. Benson.” He then enlarged on the qualities of Benson’s preaching,
which made him a revivalist from the beginning to the end of every service.
He dwelt upon the usefulness of the society meeting in attaching young
converts. Mr. McLean dwelt first upon the sovereignty of God in the choice
of instruments and seasons, Mr. Fowler thought, unduly and unpractically,
to the overlooking of the fixed conditions of ministerial success. Yet he
admitted that our unfaithfulness might break the continuity of the Spirit’s
work. Mr. Burdsall: “I hope that God will make us all revivalists in the
best sense. But I think we may mistake a spirit of excitement for religion.
What should be done is this: Do not let revivals get into the hands of persons
who are a discredit to us." The President : ‘We are dishonoured by such
Jigs as ‘Come to Jesus.’” Mr. Newton: “I have heard ‘Come to Jesus’
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837. 247

sung by the people with profit, and I am Methodistical."". Dr. Beaumont :
‘I would have the ministers themselves take part in revival services. I wish
we went more frequently into those meetings, and more willingly. I think
this conversation is the most important part of our Conference. This decrease
deeply affects me. We need both ‘the early and the latter rain,’ the gentle
showers and the thunderstorm.” Dr. Bunting: ‘Instead of ‘Come to Jesus’
and ranting tunes, we should have ‘God of all grace and majesty.’”

It was found that, whilst the Connexion generally had suffered
loss, the contiguous districts of Lincoln and Hull had been
enjoying great prosperity—the former having an increase of 564
and the latter of 458, about half the latter District being situated
within the former county. This occasioned comment on the
high quality of Lincolnshire Methodism. All who knew the
Founder’s native county at the time could not only confirm but
also account for this blessed fact. For at least a generation “the
Lincolnshire preachers” had been a proverb of simplicity and fer-
vour, and of hardy, plodding earnestness. At this very Confererice
of 1837 the two most stirring sermons it was my lot to listen
to were from men whose humble names were household words
amongst the farmers and the fisher-folk of that productive shire—
Leonard Posnett and Thomas Padman. There was about these
men an animation and a realistic energy which caught hold upon
the hearers like a reaching tongue of flame. Posnett’s text was
“How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” and
Padman’s ‘‘ Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly
purge His floor and gather the wheat into His garner, but will
burn up the chaff in unquenchable fire.”

The crucial case in stationing was that of a successor to James
Dixon in the Liverpool South Circuit. That some hitch was
toward was indicated by a grave deliverance from Dr. Bunting on
“the importance of not disturbing the stations as drawn. up by
the Committee, especially in the case of Superintendents.” The
worst of Dixon was the awkwardness of finding his successors.
The Liverpool people thought the appointment of two steady-
going, sedative Superintendential ministers to the same Circuit
inexpedient, especially in the neighbourhood of Raffles and
McNeil and the brilliant Martineau. So the tranquil Mersey
found itself a little ruffled.

But Dr. Bunting seemed more resolute than ever. He said: ‘‘I must say
that the preachers have been parties to this opposition, which has been carried
on in a most insulting way. It has been a most perfect job. I never but once
received such a vituperative letter.’ He then read a communication to
248 History oF METHoDISM.

himself from the leading men in the Liverpool South Circuit. ‘It addresses
me as ‘ Honoured Sir,’ and says I ‘sway the Conference’; and youare a parcel
of dummies if such a fool as I am can do this. I am one of the worst of men
in the Body at the beginning of this letter, and a great darling at the end. Is
this to be submitted to ?"’

Voices: ‘‘ No.”

Mr. Marsden: ‘‘ Thave received a similar letter.’

Mr. Dixon: ‘‘No man can regret more than I do the spirit manifested in
that letter. But this revolt isa loyal revolt. The rebels are your friends, who
stood by us in the late secession. We Preachers have been reflected on by
Dr. Bunting. What we have done was regular. The evil has occurred
through disturbing our arrangement originally made. Mr. Young's conduct
has been most honourable.”’

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ I would give up anything but principle to meet the case.”’.
The Conference seemed nonplussed.

At last Mr. Squance was named.

Dr. Bunting: ‘If Mr. Squance will go, I will submit; for it is submission.’’
But Mr. Squance was engaged to and down for Birmingham, and its represent-
ative objected. ‘‘ That will just disturb a quiet circuit to quiet a disturbed one."

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I am sorry that the spirit of enterprise has deteriorated.
In enterprise Methodism as it is is not Methodism as if was. When Mr.
Wesley was written to for leave to give up a horse, he just replied: ‘I cannot
make preachers ; I cannot buy preachers ; I will not kill preachers.’

Dr. Bunting referred to the liberality of Mr. Lloyd, vicar of Llanbister.
He had paid him ‘‘a most delightful visit. He said he had been a member
of our society for fifty years. Mr, Wesley sent for him to the Bristoi Con-
ference in the Old Room, He saw Fletcher coming into the room supported by
two others. Mr. Wesley invited Mr. Lloyd to be an itinerant preacher, but
he could not. However, he could give money. He was the spiritual child of
Sammy Bardsley. Bardsley’s sermon which awakened him was from the
text, ‘ Unto you is born this day a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.’ His
mother, too, was awakened, and found peace before he did. He became an
exhorter, but wasinduced to apply for orders. Not being a University man, he
was ridiculed by the rest; but after his examination the Bishop said: ‘ Mr.
Lloyd is the best scholar: he knows more of his Bible than all the rest of you
put together.’ He was, however, driven from his curacy, and returned to
Herefordshire. But the Bishop, hearing of it, appointed him to the small
living of Llanbister. He had been vicar of the parish five-and-forty years.
He is distinguished for his mathematical genius.”

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘1 am glad to know from Mr. Galland that there are not
two parties in the Conference on the Sabbath question. I would have it
introduced into the Pastoral Address.’ He referred to the candidates for
Parliament who had lost on this ground.

It would, indeed, be a deplorably inauspicious sign if Method-
ism should give in to the rationalistic hostility to the sanctity
of the Sabbath now that Germany is striving hard, though
almost hopelessly, to recover to the Fatherland its Sabbath, of
which the critics have deprived it.
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837. 249

Dr. Bunting was requested to publish his charge: third time of asking.

His reply was the same as after his two former presidencies : ‘I will publish
it as I have leisure.”

Mr. William Bunting was also requested to publish a sermon which he had
preached during the Conference. He replied: ‘I am obliged by the request,
but more obliged for permission to disobey it. My commission is to preach
the Gospel, not to print it.”

Dr. Bunting urged his son to print this sermon “ by his filial relation.”

E. Parry, who had been an Independent minister, but, having
become a Wesleyan Methodist in doctrine, offered himself-for the
Methodist ministry, was put through the sieve by Mr. Reece. At
the close of a strict theological examination he was asked whether
he would adhere ‘to our principle of abstaining from political
agitation, and to neither pull down nor prop up the Established
Church.” His ordination was, of course, recognised, and he was
authorised to administer the Sacraments. Like Storry and
Priestly, the ex-Congregationalists, he made an effective Methodist
minister, faithful to pledges, although he was a warm pro-
Liberationist, and never waxed so eloquent in private colloquy as
in declaiming against the State-Church.

Dr. Bunting protested against ‘Any settlement Circuits for young men.”
He instanced Gloucester Circuit, in which the two younger men looked after
each other at Tewkesbury, whilst a multitude of villages were left on the
hands of the Superintendent. He proposed that the chairman of the District
should give the Superintendent a list of the neglected places that lay round
George Whitfield’s birthplace, and see that they were properly attended to.
After a warm debate, it was decided to “let it lie over." A long and stormy
debate took place as to whether of two brethren should be chairman of the
Shetland District.

Mr. Jackson, Senior Editor, said: ‘‘As long as the Magazine bears the
title Wesleyan, it must maintain Wesleyan principles.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ We should give away, by wholesale, Daniel Isaac’s sermon on
Church Communion,”

Mr. Mason placed at the disposal of the Conference, as the year’s profit of
the Book Room, £6,940, which was distributed amongst the Connexional
Funds. The Book Steward stated that he had hoped to be able to hand over
to the Conference £3,000 more, but had been disappointed by the general
commercial depression.

Two cases of discreditable insubordination on the part of young
ministers to Superintendents occupied the time of the Conference.
They were both fine fellows, neither of them without an occasional
up-cropping consciousness of that fact. They only wanted break-
ing in, being mettlesome and of the highest blood. One, who had
250 ffistory or METHoDISM.

been cordially censured by a Minor District Meeting, proved how
‘““sweet are the uses” of that peculiar part of our well-devised
discipline, by filling worthily the Presidential chair ; the other, a
richly endowed and richly cultivated minister’s son, died after a
short but brilliant course. He had acted in defiance of the
authority of his Superintendent. He was ordered to make an
apology to the Conference. Instead of this, he made a statement
more likeia defence ; but, on being pressed, he acknowledged that
he was in fault.

Mr. S. Waddy spoke in honest condemnation of youngsters opposing
their Superintendents.

At the morning session of the last Monday of the Conference, Dr. Bunting
not being present, only small miscellaneous matters were attended to. At last
the President proposed the adjournment of the Conference, a very proper
suggestion, as in Dr. Bunting’s absence it appeared that nothing could
be done. On the reassembling of the Conference, Dr, Bunting having
returned, business was resumed, Another case of discipline being reported
on, he observed : ‘‘ Brother has fallen into‘ man’s first disobedience,’ the
being ruled by his wife to do wrong.”

As the first business of the Conference had been the moving an address to
Queen Victoria on her accession a few weeks before, so one of its last was the
reading of the address as drawn up by Mr. Hannah. A debate ensued as to
the mode of présentation. Mr.S. Waddy and Mr, Burdsall proposed the
asking permission for its presentation by the President and a deputation in
person.

Dr. Bunting : ‘I am sorry to see such childish feeling. If you ask you will
be denied, and how shall we look ?”

 

The Conference of 1837 was the second to which I had the
privilege of being admitted for an hour, this time as a Tutor at
Woodhouse Grove. Jt was a most impressive sight, although
the two noblest worthies, Clarke and Watson, were no longer on
the platform. The choice of speakers was felicitous. The address
of Edward Frazer, the ex-West Indian slave, was exquisitely
tasteful and appropriate. He told us what an interest he took in
the sons of Methodist preachers on account of the obligations of
himself and his race for spiritual and civil freedom to the self-
sacrificing labours of their fathers. He had heard many of them
preach in that distant land. This was a homefelt truth, for a
large percentage of the Grove boys of that time were West
Indian missionaries’ sons ; amongst them lads like R. N. Young,
the Shrewsburys and Rabys. He expressed a hope that some of
those to whom he was then speaking would preach the same
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837. 251

Gospel in the now liberated islands. This also came true in
the case of lads like Theo. Gregory.

Walter Oak Crogon, late missionary in the Isles of Greece,
who was endeared to all of us by his charming papers in the
Youth's Instructor, gave us an animated account of the schools
that he had visited in classic and in Bible lands.

Our head master, Joshua Wood, M.A., a clergyman of the
Church of England, surprised the reverend fathers by appearing
in all the lustre of his academicals. The son of a distinguished
Irish preacher, he spoke with emotion of his devoted father and
of the disadvantages which the Irish Preachers’ sons had suffered
from the non-existence of such schools in Ireland. He spoke with
devout thankfulness of the quickening and deepening of his.-own
spiritual life by breathing the atmosphere of earnest Christian
living which prevailed at Woodhouse Grove. The President
informed us that George Morley was appointed Governor for
another six years’ term, to the thorough contentation of all whom
it concerned.

Dr. Bunting advised the committee on the case to come to a
conclusion with ‘the same wise velocity’? with which the re-
appointment of Dr. Beecham to the Mission House had been
determined.

One of the most striking features of this Conference was the
tropical luxuriance of Dr. Bunting’s influence. This may be
accurately gauged by comparing the state of matters at the
Leeds Conference of 1830 with that which was conspicuous in
1837. The Conference of 1830 was the first from which Jabez
Bunting had been absent since his admission to the ministry.
His absence was deeply felt and much deplored, but the Con-
ference pulled itself together, and, doubtless to its own surprise,
found itself quite competent to administer Connexional affairs
with—as history records—exceptional effectiveness, facility, and
smoothness. But at the Leeds Conference of 1837 Dr. Bunting’s
absence for a single session brought business to a standstill,
insomuch that it must needs adjourn itself till his return. But
how came this about? The reason is not far to seek. During
the seven intervening years—which had been thin, and
blighted with the east wind of baleful Church contention—at
least five of the ablest Conference men had died, who also
were in the ministry before him: Clarke, Watson, Gaulter,
Daniel Isaac, and James Wood. Their measured and delibera-
tive cadences were no longer to be heard, and the honoured
252 Alisrory or MeTuHopIsSM.

places which “once knew them so familiarly, now knew
them no more for ever.” There was no one now to measure
swords with Jabez Bunting. We have seen to what a large
extent the Warrenite excesses had augmented and confirmed the
preponderance of Dr. Bunting in Methodist affairs.

In a single sentence Mr. Fowler rendered permanent the
impression which the discussions of this Conference had left upon
his mind. It was ‘the most unsatisfactory Conference I have
ever attended.” The unpropitious elements may easily be seen.
The ecclesiastico-political spirit had been disturbingly apparent.
That which had been foreseen and foresaid had been all too
soon manifest—the neutrality between the Established Church
and political Dissent had proved to be a one-sided neutrality,
which is just as unfair and as absurd as a one-sided reciprocity.
The appearance of the President at a pro-Church Rate Convention
in Exeter Hall, the glaringly uncivil handling of such a man as
Thomas Galland for his animadversions on this and other
indefensible proceedings of the retiring President, the gentleness
towards political publicity on the one side, and the denunciation
of it on the other, the discountenancing of the marriage of
Methodist people by Methodist ministers in Methodist chapels ;
all this had seriously precluded one main purpose of the Con-
ference, the “endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in
the bond of peace.’ The “rift in the lute’? had been rather
widened than repaired.

But, happily, in the public services no sign of this was seen.
There was “joy and peace, and heaven on earth begun.” The
thoroughfares of that great industrial centre were thronged with
a multitude that kept holy-day. In they flowed from all the
towns and villages of that great colony of the Methodists. In
they poured, bright, fresh, exultant as ‘the streams that come
Running down from Libanum.”” For the lamented decrease was
not the result of depressed vitality in Methodism, but of the
depletion caused by parties in the Church. The preaching.and
the worship showed Methodism in its pristine might. The most
memorable service was that in the Conference chapel on the
Conference Sunday evening. The preacher was James Dixon,
the text : “ According as it is written, I believed, therefore have
I spoken ; we also believe, and therefore speak.” He began by
saying: ‘‘I am not about to preach a sermon to the ministers;
that would not become me.” It was, however, a sermon about the
ministry, especially about the Methodist ministry. It struck the
THE CONFERENCE OF 1838. 253

true keynote of Methodist preaching, and let out the secret of
its marvellous success. In strength of conviction and energetic
earnestness it was a noble illustration of his theme. It was
strikingly confirmatory and elucidatory of one of Dr. Bunting’s
weighty sayings in the debate on the decrease : “ Nothing can
keep up Methodism but the spirit of conviction in its preachers,
with an awakening preaching which must thence result.”

But powerful as the preaching was, the giving out of the
preparatory and applicatory hymns, and the resultant voicing of
them by that mighty mass of Methodism, as it heaved heaven-
ward with emotion, was more kindling and inspiring still.
With impassioned and sonorous elocution the preacher filled
the spacious sanctuary and the expanding heart with such
sentiments as these :—

‘Jesus, the word of mercy give,
And let it swiftly run;
And let the priests themselves believe,
And put salvation on.”

And then, as the culminating aspiration—

‘'Give me the faith that can remove,
And sink the mountain to a plain.”

I want an even, strong desire ;
I want a calmly fervent zeal,
To save poor souls out of the fire;
To snatch them from the verge of hell,
And lead them to the pardoning God,
And quench the brands in Jesu’s blood.”

BRISTOL CONFERENCE OF 1838.

The Conference of 1838 was held at Bristol. As it had
been determined to celebrate, during this Methodist year, the
centenary of Methodism as a Church organisation, it was felt
advisable to elect as President the minister who was most
familiar with the chronicles of early Methodism, that he might
most fittingly preside over and address the great centenary
meetings through the land. This man was clearly Thomas
Jackson. :

On the election into the Legal Conference of John
Waterhouse, who was ready to depart for New ‘Zealand, Dr.
Bunting remarked “that Wesley had himself placed in that
254 HAlistory or MeruopisM.

body men who were unable to attend the Conference.” Some
awkward blunders, which had been made in the Conference
Journal, induced the brethren to decide that each day’s entries
should be read next morning. The mover of the vote of
thanks to Mr. Keeling as a letter writer, having dilated on
his acquirements in philosophy and history, Dr. Bunting, in
seconding, congratulated him on his having kept both his
philosophy and his rhetoric out of his letters from the Con-
ference. The ex-President moved that, to save the time of
Conference, one person should only speak once on the same
subject.
Dr. Bunting objected to any such restriction.

It being proposed to admit a member of the Baltimore
Conference,

Dr. Bunting said: ‘‘ There isa mistake about Dr. Fisk’s book. The author
was educated a Republican. I was educated a Wesleyan Loyalist. The
book is eulogistic : it says better things about us than we who know ourselves
think we deserve. We must not be over-sensitive. It is well to hear what
other people think of us.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I concur with Dr. Bunting.”’

A curious case was that of a Quaker, who had been baptised by Mr.
Bowers.

Mr. Prest: ‘'I refused to baptise him merely to pass the Conference.”

Dr. Beaumont : ‘' I think we have too loose notions about baptism.”

Mr. Grindrod: ‘‘ Better have the whole case before us, and then reason
upon it.’ It appeared that he wished to be baptised in a solemn public
manner.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I wish to know why it was not so done. I think we are
going as remote from the Bible as are the Oxford tracts; an error not as
fatal but as remote from the truth. It is quite Methodistical to lay the blame
on the absent ; but why lay it on a venerable supernumerary?" (it was said
to be attributable to Mr. Roberts). ‘‘ Why not lay it on persons in heaven,
who care nothing about it? We should not shift it from ourselves to
venerable supernumeraries.”’

Mr. Scott: ‘‘When I went to Bristol I found that Mr. L. and several
other members of the society had never been baptised. The blame
rests with Mr. P. Turner and Mr. J. Taylor.”

Mr. Taylor: “I think taking the Lord's Supper is necessary to membership,
but not the being baptised.”

Dr. Bunting spoke against private baptism, and said he never would
perform it.

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘ Baptism should never be smuggled into a private
room.”

Mr. Duncan: ‘Where there is one baptism by a travelling preacher,
there are five by local preachers.”

Mr. Scott: ‘Mr. L. should not be put to disadvantage in this
matter.”
THE CONFERENCE OF 1838. 255

Dr. Bunting: ‘He should be carefully questioned on this subject and on
the Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s Day.”

William Clegg, jun., a medical man, was accepted, whose “plain, pointed
preaching was attended with much Divine influence.”

This continued through his brief ministry. His character
and preaching were exquisitely simple and refined.

The character of John Hartley, of Leeds East, affirmed him ‘to be
in the apostolical succession.”

Dr. Bunting : “I strongly reprehend the introduction of this expression.”

It was stated that Henry Hine had expressed doubts as to the observance
of Good Friday. ;

Dr. Bunting: ‘I would have him questioned as to his general thinking.”

Dr. Bunting, on the case of E. B., said: ‘‘Men of classical education
and medical knowledge ought to go to the foreign work.” Edward Horton,
from the New Connexion, was required to sign the Minutes of 1797 and 1835.

He proved a powerful preacher, but died young.

Joshua Priestly, an Independent minister, who had passed five years at
Airedale College (his mother was a Methodist), was heartily received.

Mr. Fowler notes a discreet settlement of a difficult case.
One of the most popular probationers in the Connexion had
been convicted of having “neglected” the lady to whom
he was engaged. He was put back on the list of reserve and
required not to pay addresses to any other lady; but if the
one to whom he had been engaged positively refused to
renew the intimacy, we could not pass on him a sentence
of celibacy. A charge brought against a brother was declared
“frivolous and vexatious,” and recommended “to be laid on
the table.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘An affectation of Parliamentary language by one who
is unacquainted with its usage. To lie on the table means that a motion
may be grounded on it at any future time.”

Mr. Duncan: ‘Was nothing done in the Sheffield District relative to

Mr. T. and Mr. W.?”
Mr. Reece: ‘A letter was read, but nothing was done about it and

nothing recorded ”
Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ That is wrong. You had no right to swamp it.”

It appeared that Mr. W. had offended Mr. T. by an off-
hand word, and not made a satisfactory apology. The whole
affair passed off with one of Mr. W.’s daring witticisms.

A charge was brought against a popular young minister by a Quarterly
Meeting, of his not having honourably adhered to his engagement to the
Circuit. The committee found that he was not free from blame in the affair,
256 Aitstory oF Meruopism.

James Bromley signified that he ‘retains his objection to some rules
of some year, as to the mode of admitting members into the society.”

Dr. Beaumont referred to a correspondence on the subject between
Dr. Bunting and Mr. Hopwood.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I declare that it is against our rules to propose members
for full admission.”

Mr. Taylor: ‘‘ The law requires the reading over of the names."

Dr. Bunting: ‘The reading of the name is often the mere recognition
of new members.” Some disputation ensued between Mr. Taylor and
Dr. Bunting, who did not appear to harmonise.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think it is a bad plan. Bad passions may be aroused,
and old prejudices. Good men might not be kept in, and bad men not kept
out. Men who have allowed this system have done wrong, whether Mr.
Taylor, Edmondson, Entwisle, or whoever they may be. You put out A.
for not agreeing to it, and brought B.totrial. You are democratic at bottom
—more democratic than you know. With intentions like angels, you do the
case great harm. If Leaders stay away from a meeting, what harm? If some
men should only attend the Leaders’ Meeting once a quarter, to pay inmoney,
and stay away all the rest to say their prayers, what harm? I am sorry to
hear from a man I greatly revere what I have heard."

Mr. McLean: “If it were possible to prevent Mr. Bromley’s annual
appeal against our discipline, it would be very desirable.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘If the Chairman would say nothing to him, on condition
of his keeping his peculiarities to himself, he may think himself well off.”
Thomas Ludlam had published a book, ‘‘ Robert Newton, a Minister of Jesus
Christ,” in reference to which Dr. Bunting said: ‘Courtesy is regulated by
the conventional rules of society, and sometimes in violation of the Scripture
rule, ‘ Be courteous.’ ””

Isaac Keeling ‘‘had got into trouble in Sunderland by attempting to
break down the usage of proposing new members at the Leaders’ Meeting. He
had found them jealous and imperious, and he wished to know how he was to
proceed.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I would pass sentence of death upon it, as upon slavery.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘'I have received a paper from Scotland in which it is stated
that the Superintendent at Montrose had been making a speech against the
Bible Society at a meeting of the Liberal Association.” A letter of inquiry to
be sent. The case was found to have been exaggerated. A request was
presented that the public examination of the candidates might be held in two
chapels. :

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I think that can’t be done, but we might appoint a Love
Feast.” It was replied that two services had been held at the Birmingham
Conference, when Dr. Bunting was the President. He, however, objected to
a repetition of this, and that settled the affair. ;

Dr. Bunting, at the close of the theological examination of the candidates
for ordination, referred to the Tractarian controversy. He said: “ We are in
danger of going to the opposite extreme. I think Mr. Ely’s * pamphlet goes
too far. He seems to have no idea that baptism takes the place of circum-
cision. The Oxford tracts contain what is highly perilous, but there is

* The eloquent Congregationalist minister of Leeds.
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837. 257

danger of going to the other extreme. We spent great labour on the article
on baptism in our catechism. We want nothing more but to have it attended
to. Our using the form adopted by the Conference is not optional. I dislike
the Dissenting term ‘the ordinance.’ Baptism and the Lord’s' Supper are
something more.”

Mr. Edmondson: ‘I very much admire the form for the administration
of baptism, but there are some expressions which I can ‘hardly use. I wish
we had a form in which we can all agree.”

Dr. Bunting gave some very suitable admonitions—e.g. ‘‘ Tremble to borrow
money,”

Dr. Bunting warned the young men against the injury sustained by an
hour's prayer-meeting after the evening service.

Mr. Newton: ‘I give the young men the advice an old man gave me.
‘Better be long little than soon nothing.’ '' On reassembling, it was announced
to Conference that the Stationing Committee had not completed its work. The
Secretary proposed the adjournment of Conference.

Dr. Beaumont ‘thought that so many ministers, finding themselves
together and disengaged, might profitably devote a session to consultation as
to the spiritual interests of the flock."’

Mr. Atherton reminded the Conference that ‘‘ this year Dr. Bunting was
not a member of the Stationing Committee; and that, he being present, there
could be no reason for waiting for anybody else.”

One cannot but discern a squeeze of Atherton’s lemon-juice in
this remark. As senior Missionary Secretary, Dr. Bunting was
a permanent member of the Stationing Committee, but its
arrangements having been overruled at the last Conference,
despite his protestations in the case of the Liverpool South, he
had refused to serve on it again. But the brethren had acquired
a taste for adjournment amidst the charms of Clifton, so they
voted themselves a holiday.

The cases of J. H. J. and W. J., whose health had given way during the
first year of their probation, were tenderly considered.

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘ We should be careful in reference to statements of health,
and inquire just before the Conference. It is better to let a young man rest
a few months than have to call out a supply.”

Both these able, though at that time delicate, young men were spared to
do along and hard day's work, and one of them is still afield.

Dr. Bunting: ‘No man should offer himself for a Circuit or say that he is
fit for it.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘You never heard me talk about any marvellous effect
produced at the Institution. So much the better. Whatever rule may
be adopted with regard to single men not staying longer than two years
in a circuit, an exception should be made with regard to David Hay at
Burslem.”

What was the charm of this young David, fresh upon the
battlefield, from the waving corn lands and the closely nibbled
R
258 History or Meruopism.

pastures, with his scanty commissariat, his ephah of corn, his
ten loaves, and his ten cheeses? Short time had the Institu-
tion to produce its marvellous effects on him. He had not
learned to shine in Saul’s armour, nor even essayed tc go in
glittering accoutrements. He went with his five smooth stones
out of the brook, polished by no lapidary but the ripple of
the glancing stream. It was the brightness and the braveness,
the youthful, dauntless faith of his Lincolnshire revivalism, the
alertness which “ran to meet the foe,” the deft directness of
his aim, and his childlike confidence in “the God of the armies
of Israel,” whom Satan had defied.

Mr. C. was called to account for his absence from Conference during the
afternoon sitting. Answer: ‘I was hearing Mr. Frazer.”

The President: ‘' You ought to have asked leave of the Chair.”’

Mr. Beecham asked permission for himself and Dr. Bunting to go off to
London by the evening mail ‘‘ about the mafriage business.”

Dr. Bunting, before he left, gave an account of his having been pressed as a
sailor in London. In answer to his statement that he was a licensed minister,
the captain of the gang answered that he-had impressed a surly parson.

Dr. Bunting pleaded that Mr. Loxton should go to West Bromwich. ‘ Mr.
Dawson told me that he was the finest young man he had ever known, and
if he could adapt his preaching to the middle class, would be among the
greatest. Any Circuit would gain by his appointment to it.”

May I add my testimony to that of these great men, since
there are very few now left who remember Samuel Loxton?
West Bromwich was his last Circuit. If not quite the finest
preacher, he was one of the very finest men I ever knew.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ The genius of Methodism is not the genius of democracy.
The two can never harmonise. This party spirit of democracy is very
injurious.”

Mr. Newton: ‘‘I am a missionary man; but had rather Circuits did a
little more for the home work."

Dr. Bunting: ‘Methodism has had a long trial in Scotland and little
productiveness."’

Mr. Bell pleaded vehemently for the continuance of the preachers.

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘Even Gospel ministers in Scotland do not preach the
whole Gospel. I dined with Dr. Chalmers, and he contended that death
alone can prepare our souls for heaven. I replied: ‘Then one petition in
the Lord’s Prayer was never meant to be fulfilled.’”

The President said that the vote was carried to continue the preacher
at Banff.

Dr. Bunting : ‘*I think it was lost.”

The President: ‘Then my sight is failing.” The vote was counted, and
there was found to be a majority of seventy-six in favour of Banff.
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837. 259

Almost the whole of two sessions has been consumed in altering the
Stations. The noise and disorder have been very great. More insipid,
weary work I have seldom suffered from. Very much we needed a master
mind. The absence of Dr. Bunting occasioned considerable delay in
business. He had gone up to town about the Marriage Bill.

Dr. Bunting reappeared in Conference in the midst of chapel affairs.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘There is no pecuniary responsibility on the Conference
for any chapel. We should get rid of this monstrous doctrine. You must not
ask the Conference to violate its own rules. We had better not open the chapel
if it be not settled. We talk about chapel property as if what our enemies
say were true about ‘our’ claiming the buildings. The buildings belong to
the doctrines contained in our standards, not to us, or the trustees either.”

Attention was called to the immense improvement in the financial con-
dition of the Book Room during the last ten years. Its capital in 1838 was
more than sixfold that of 1828.

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘I most sincerely regret that prayer-meetings in chapels on
Sunday evenings have superseded meetings in houses up and down a town
as formerly."

As might have been, and was expected from the character
of the preaching at and since the last Conference, the ebb-tide
of decrease had turned. The increase in Great Britain was 4,158.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I had thought of retiring from the Presidency of the
Institution, but, in prospect of the centenary, will continue another year.”

The retirement of Mr. Entwisle from the governorship of the Institution
and from the full work was duly dwelt upon. He gave a most touching
account of his conversion and call to the ministry. Brought up a Socinian
in Manchester, he had been persuaded by a playmate to go to a Methodist
chapel, '‘ where there was plenty of fun.” As he entered he was arrested by
the text which the preacher was giving out. This impression deepened into
conviction as he listened to the sermon, from ‘Get thee from thy country
and thy kindred and thy father's house, unto a land that I will tell thee of.”
God ‘laid hold of him. He ‘‘knew nothing of experimental religion, and
knew no one else who did.” He bought a hymnbook, and whilst reading
“My God, I am Thine,” etc., found the Spirit of Adoption. Before he
was sixteen he began to call sinners to repentance. His outward call to
the ministry was Wesley’s: ‘‘ You must go.’ In his judgment, ‘the most
beneficial and important part of the Institution training is theology." Heretired
because of “ physical inequality to the work of governing young men, which
requires great firmness and vigilance of oversight.”

The report of the Education Committee was of great interest
and importance, as showing the root-principles of our educational
policy. The first resolution was : ‘‘ The Conference approves of
the principle of general education.” Here the word ‘‘ general,”
of course, means universal, as in the hymn lines, “ The general
Saviour of mankind” —‘ The Gospel of Thy general grace "=

R 2
260 Hitstroryv oF Meruovism.

universal Saviour ; universal grace. It is to be noted that it was
felt to be quite superfluous to affirm that religion is an essential
part of even elementary education, and that no education can
deserve the name which does not recognise and teach this fact.
At that time—so little “advanced” was the human intellect—no
one thought of questioning the fact except avowed, aggressive
infidels ; and that as a part of their aggressive infidelity. The
first Government measure put this principle in the forefront, and
nothing could induce the Government to even subsidise a merely
secular education. (2) Each circuit must appoint an Education
Committee, and a Connexional visitor be appointed to see that
this is done. (3) Each committee must consist of an equal number
of ministers and laymen. (4) That a general agent be appointed.
It was reported that we had half'a million scholars in our
Sunday Schools.

Mr. Blackett : ‘‘Of course the Sunday School Committee will be kept
under the management of the leaders' meetings, as determined by the
Minutes of 1827. .

Mr. Atherton : ‘' The Scotch bring all their children under their Pastoral
charge. So should we. If we are pastors, we should have our lambs under
our own supervision."

Mr. S. Jackson : ‘I always feel it my duty to bow to Dr. Bunting, but in
this matter my judgment differs from his. If we do not look after our
children, infidels and political theorists will do it for us.”

Mr. Rogers: ‘If you create such a system as this, you will create a
power very difficult to control."

Mr. Scott : ‘It will require a Managing Committee in London. Perhaps
we are not ready for this, but might take a move in that direction.”

Dr. Bunting’s objection to Mr. Jackson’s scheme was that it
was too large, including “Sunday School teachers, choirs, etc.”
We might appoint a committee to collect information. To form
a Sunday School Union of our own might bring us into trouble.

Mr. Atherton insisted on ‘' the importance of the preachers seeing that the
Conference Catechisms should be taught in the schools, and examining the
children on it."

Dr. Bunting had ‘‘little fear of any scheme the Government might
propose of their own accord, but the political Dissenters would set themselves
against any definite doctrinal instruction. The Established Church will
claim to have the religious education of Church people in its own hands, and
we must claim to have that of our children in our own hands. I would have
a good threshing out of the matter.”

Mr. S. Jackson : ‘ As to our oversight and feeding of adults, we ave unequalled
as a Church ; but not so as to children. The English and the Scotch Churches
THE CONFERENCE OF 1837. 261

are before us. I do not feel particularly thankful for the committee’s resolutions.
I think they do not place us in a right position. Iam glad a little has been
done, and hope for more.”

Dr. Bunting: “Mr. Jackson is a capital speech-maker, but he does
nothing. We have to make his plans for him. Education will not do
everything. We are committed to the plan of meeting children. Not to do so
is a grievous error, if not a great sin. We should meet the children as
regularly as we go into the pulpit. I am afraid we shall talk too much about
the matter of improving methods.”

The President was authorised to nominate the committee to arrange for
the celebration of the centenary.

Dr. Bunting : “I hope a spirit of praise will come upon the preachers.”
Mr. Anderson moved that a day of fasting and prayer be set apart in
preparation for the meetings. (Agreed.)

It was resolved that Dr. Bunting should be a member of the Stationing
Committee as President of the Theological Institution.

It was proposed to raise £2,000 for the relief of a minister who was a
trustee of the Edinburgh chapel.

Dr. Bunting : “I do not much like this going about for a particular case.
Many people are pressed to give who cannot afford it.”

Dr. Bunting’s leaving Conference to look after the Negro
Marriage Bill still further accentuated his ever growing importance
in the Conference. The missing of the ‘‘ Master Mind ”’ by such
a keen and sensitive observer as was Mr. Fowler is too significant
to be ignored. The observation of Atherton and that of Samuel
Jackson, ‘I always feel it my duty to bow to Dr. Bunting,”
were doubtless half in seriousness and halfin satire. But there
is many a true word spoken in jest. Much, of course, must be
allowed for the Conference having accustomed itself so long to
lean on Dr. Bunting ; but with such men in it as John Scott and
Joseph Fowler, who had the truest instinct of business and
administration, the Conference could very well ‘fen’ for itself.”
And, as I can testify, Joseph Beaumont was as able in the chair
as in the pulpit.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION.

THE Conference of the Centenary year was held in Liverpool,
Theophilus Lessey in the chair. On Mr. Cusworth’s nomination
for the Hundred, it was asked from the platform whether he had
signed the General Declaration issued by the London ministers
in 1834, as his non-signing should be regarded as a disqualification
for the Legal Conference.

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I protest against any brother being held up as unsound
because he has not signed a composition drawn up by ‘certain brethren
stationed in London. But since this has been done, I demand the reading of
the letter which I wrote, explaining why I could not sign.”

Dr. Bunting replied with warmth, and dwelt on the “forbearance” with
which the brethren had been treated who declined to sign. -

Dr. Beaumont: ‘If I quarrel with Dr. Bunting, it is for quarrelling with
his brethren. It is five years since this Declavation was sent out.’ Here Dr.
Beaumont was called to order. i

The President: ‘‘I repel this train of observation and the use of strong
epithets.”

Dr. Beaumont proceeded: ‘If I use strong epithets, it is because I am
myself the subject and the victim of strong epithets. I think I am injured in
not being permitted to defend myself against unfair attacks. I have been
held up as unworthy of admission into the fellowship of the Legal Conference
for no other cause than that I did not see it best to put my name to a
document sent out by brethren who had no more right to send it out than I
had not to sign it. And now it is attempted to make the having signed that
document a sine gud non of admission into the Legal Conference. I do
complain of the intolerance of Dr. Bunting; I can find no softer word. I
admire Dr. Bunting’s character and his energy, but I claim the right to differ
from him. If I use that right improperly, let me be corrected. But I
disclaim all personal feeling against Dr. Bunting.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I have often found that my honour is not in my own
keeping, but that of Almighty God. Who believes I said anything in Dr.
Beaumont's absence I would not have said in his presence? If any man tries
to believe it, let him believeit. Istill maintain that no one who did not sign the
Declaration ought to be elected into the Legal Conference. But I do not main-
tain it intolerantly or excessively ; but I think it isatrust. He is not prevented
from entering the Hundred by seniority, but by election. That isa favour
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 263

conferred upon a man. I think that Dr. Beaumont should give us a reason
why he did not sign the Declaration.”

Doubtless Dr. Beaumont would have gladly answered Dr.
Bunting’s challenge if this explanatory letter, written years before,
had been at hand, but Mr. Reece interposed :

“In common with my brethren, I feel pain at the introduction of the
subject.”

Mr. Entwisle : ‘‘ I would have the Conference present an example of unity
and concord. I have heard Dr. Bunting speak favourably of Dr. Beaumont.”

Mr. Grindrod: ‘‘I made the inquiry playfully, but had a right to express
my judgment.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I would make a friendly inquiry of Dr. Beaumont. Is he
satisfied with my explanation?”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I am satisfied.”

Mr. S. Dunn; ‘I must speak; I have not said a word out of the Con-
ference.’ He then exonerated himself from all blame in not having signed
the Declaration.

Probably most readers sympathise with the venerable
Reece and Entwisle in the pain they experienced at the
reintroduction of the Declaration business to the interruption
of the unity and concord of the brotherhood in the midst of the
Centenary celebration. Everyone had joined in it with the utmost
cordiality, and it ought to have drawn a broad epochal line
between the future and the past, or at least have effaced the
party line in the Wesleyan Methodist brotherhood. The truce of
God had been proclaimed. Beaumont had kindled into his
most flaming eloquence. Galland had been lavish of his gold and
of his richest vein of literary illustration. He had made the
noblest Centenary speech J ever heard or read, going to the very
heart of the historical significance of Methodism. Even Everett
had thrown himself enthusiastically into the gladsome celebra-
tion. It was fondly thought that the hatchet of contention was
buried out of sight and out of search, or sunk five hundred
fathoms deep in the waters of the returning tide of revival and
rejoicing. But this attempt, on the very threshold of the
Conference of the Centenary year and in the very act of con-
stituting that Conference, to stamp stigma and to inflict a
humiliating disability on law-abiding, loyal brethren who had
not felt free to commit themselves publicly to a fairly questionable
statement, drawn up by a self-constituted authority—this seemed
to prove that, whatever might have been the case in pre- -Centenary
times, there was now to be feared on the part of some undue
264 flistorY oF METHODISM.

assumption in the Conference. The most loyal, humble-minded
Methodist preacher might blamelessly refuse to sign on the bare
ground of questioning the authority and competence of a number
of ministers to issue such a test, simply because they had the good
hap to be stationed in London in that year of grace 1834. The
personal and particular reference of the officious circular was
announced in its first sentence. It announced itself as called for
by individuals “charging some with undue assumption.” This,
then, was no constitutional question ; it was, properly speaking,
no Connexional question. It was a matter to be settled in
Conference itself. The one ‘some’ who had charged the other
“some with undue assumption” should have been brought face
to face and had it out, and not put into a ferment “the Connexion
at large.” It was permissible in any case to hold—at least, as a
“pious opinion ’’—that any assumption at all is ‘ undue assump-
tion.” Full half the men, dear souls! whose names were
appended to this document had not been inside the Conference
half a dozen times since any “some” that could be referred to
had begun to be “somebody.” There was in the document no
statement of principles whatever.

The present and the permanent, if not the frequently recurrent,
interest of this matter is the mischief and the wrongness of
issuing any test like this, excepting in some crisis of doctrine or
morality. The first great evil is delusiveness and unreality as to
matters of fact or of conviction. Excepting as a kind of party
tactics, the whole value of such documents depends upon the
pure and perfect spontaneity of signature. If any disadvantage or
discredit be supposed to be attached to the not signing them,
they become forthwith a delusion and a snare. If the not signing
brings men into disfavour or discomfort, if it seems likely to
bring a man under the dislike or the distrust of those with whom
he wishes to stand well, if it would incur the displeasure of those
who are in authority or in the ascendant, or unpopularity with
any influential party, then the value of the individual autograph
cannot be confidently relied on. This applies equally to one
side of a question or the other.

Signatures under pressure of declarations drawn up by some-
one else are invalid and misleading. But signature under penalty
is worthless altogether ; and the attempt in 1839, of all years,
to afhix a disability, disqualification, and dishonour on the very
worthiest of those who ventured to withhold their names from
a manifesto to which they found themselves unable to assent,
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 265

had a very unsalutary and undesirable effect. It was avowedly
intended to preclude the election or even the nomination for the
Legal Conference of a man like Dr. Beaumont. The venerable
ex-President, who except as a partisan was incapable of such
a move, who yet suggested its adoption, confessed to Conference
that when he put the question as to Mr. Cusworth, he aimed at
someone else, as he knew perfectly well that Mr. Cusworth had
signed the Declaration. The laying down of the “ doctrine,”
so explicitly affirmed and so resolutely held, that no man who had
not signed the Declaration was eligible for nomination to the
Legal Conference, demonstrated to many minds the very fact
which he denied— undue assumption” on the part of some
member or members of the governing body of the great Methodist
Connexion. Thusthe pre-Centenary side-taking was deliberately
carried over to post-Centenary years.

The new President on taking the chair remarked: ‘'I feel the necessity for
calmness, benignity, and firmness in the discharge of my duties. I am the
first son of a Methodist preacher ever elected to this office. We must abide
by the first principles of Wesleyan Methodism. I hope the brethren will
maintain manners and avoid vociferation.’’ A good address and well
received.

Mr. Entwisle: ‘‘ Mr. Pawson proposed something on which Mr. Charles
Wesley remarked, ‘If I had wings, I could fly... To which John Wesley
answered, ‘If God bids me fly, he will give me wings.’ This he said had
been fulfilled in the case of the retiring President.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I have never seen the office filled with more heart, piety,
zeal, and efficiency. ButI fear that one of his official acts has given a political
character to the Connexion. Methodism ought to have no political line,
Whig or Tory. Our mission is chiefly to the poor. As to politics, no
Methodist minister must interfere with, or be interfered with, by any of his
brethren. It is soin the Established Church of England and of Scotland;
it should be so in our own voluntary Church. I am jealous for the high
spiritual character of Methodism, Every step we take towards politics
reduces our character for high spirituality; thereby some are alienated
from us by our political tone.”

Mr. Reece: ‘‘ Many of our people, wishing to do right in political matters,
are wanting direction; and to whom should they look but to the President
and to the men in London, who are wiser than we are?”

This was a shrewd hit. Father Reece did not feel one whit
less wise for being an ex-President instead of a President; or
find less intellectual ozone exhaling from the bridgeless Humber
than from the many-bridged and not quite smokeless Thames.

Mr. Dixon: ‘‘Dr. Beaumont only imputes evvor in judgment to the late
President in this one instance, not any political motive, but what had behind
it a political effect.”
266 HAlisToryY oF METHODISM.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I hope that Dr. Beaumont will withdraw his reservation
and lift up both hands.”

Mr. Galland: “I would have the thanks couched in general terms."
Thanks were voted nem. con,

Mr, Jackson: ‘I never thought myself competent to the duties of the
chair, and view with devout astonishment my having been enabled to fulfil
them to the satisfaction of my brethren. I have received great benefit from
writing the Centenary volume. I have had daily communion with the spirits
of just men made perfect, I have had a glorious year; I never felt a year so
short. It has been full of labour, but the labour has been rest.”

It is very interesting to read the little notices of the men
received on trial. Philip Fowler was objected to on the ground
of his age—twenty-six years.

Dr. Bunting : “I am against setting up an abstract principle. I do not
know that God will not call a man at twenty-six years of age.”

It is instructive to notice how the fine young men who entered
the Theological Institution in the Centenary year fulfilled the
prophecies that went before them. Dr. Beaumont heard Henry
Young preach at the District meeting, and gave a very high
character of his sermon. Luke Wiseman, “an extraordinary
young man.” G.C. Harvard, “strongly recommended.” John
and Joseph Gostick, John S. Jones, George Perks, “ excel-
lent natural abilities and- exceptional acquirements.”’ John
Bowman; John Kirk, “recommended from Hull by Reece” ;
and S. R. Hall. With regard to John Kirk, Dr. Bunting
reintroduced the question of proposing members for admission
at the leaders’ meeting. Mr. Dixon, who as Superintendent
of Sheffield West recommended a candidate for the ministry,
stated in his character that he had left the New Connexion
because he was tired of the despotism of -liberalism, and the
practice so strongly objected to seems to have still obtained in
Hull, in spite of Mr. Reece’s quiet efforts to induce its dis-
continuance.

Dr. Bunting observed: ‘‘ The Kilhamite practice of proposing members at
the leaders’ meeting is one of our abominations.’ And, commenting on Kirk’s
character, who appears to have been so admitted, Dr. Bunting said of and to
Mr. Reece: ‘Influence is a trust, and in nothing more so than in regard to
age and character. I am taking a liberty, I know, but I dave not do so with
young men. I hope that if Mr. Reece go back to Hull he will finish this
abomination.”

Richard Reece had to take this uncharged for lecture as
best he could. But its secondhand delivery to the most
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 267

influential Methodist layman of Hull, both in regard to age
and character (Mr. Henwood), was as uninfluential as the
flutter of a flag. The only man who could restrain the tide
of Mr. Henwood’s great influence was one Joseph Fowler.
And how was this accomplished? Answer, by one who watched
the process: By the influence of mutual respect.

This same question was put with regard to another " highly
recommended” neophyte, by Joseph Cusworth. Is it not the
practice to read the names of members for admission at the
Lincoln leaders’ meeting ? and whether this young man had
been distinctly instructed on the subject? Among these
promising and performing candidates are Dr. Bunting’s nephew,
John Fletcher, John H. Lord, Thomas Vasey, and William
Davidson. Of the 121 candidates for our ministry in the
Centenary year nine men, having warred a good warfare, still
survive—George Barnley, G. A. Page, W. Peck, John H. Lord,
John Fletcher, W. L. Bestall, J. Dyson, J. Hearnshaw, and C.
Nightingale.

The case of a brother who had been expelled along with Dr. Warren, but
was wishful to return, was carefully discussed. Mr. Rigg: ‘‘I request that
Mr. Taylor be allowed to speak.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘Mr. Taylor does not speak by commandment, but as a
man.” Mr. Newton: ‘I believe the brother is sincerely sorry.”

Mr. Taylor: ‘‘The late President advised this brother to lay his case
before the Conference. Needing mercy myself, I cannot refuse to hear a man
who throws himself upon the mercy of the Conference.’ Mr. Rigg: ‘I
know that this brother acted in the way which caused expulsion under the
direction of another man.” Extracts were read from his letter to Mr.
Jackson. Some cried out for the order of the day. Mr. S. D. Waddy:
“IT would not have the appeal so summarily dismissed.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘This brother has done nothing to agitate for three years.
I always suspect a man who canvasses the laity. This man has written
to a gentleman for his influence. We had better pass to the order of the day.
Every man ought to have signed the Declaration.”

The most remarkable obituary of the year was that of
ex-President Gaulter, drawn up by Mr. Atherton and Drs.
Beaumont and Bunting. Mr. Grindrod and Mr. Vevers said
that Mr. Gaulter was their spiritual father; and Mr. Entwisle
said that Mr. Gaulter had spiritual children in every Circuit
in which he had laboured. Mr. Stanley told of the benefit
he had received in early life from free access to Mr. Gaulter’s
library.

On the question of character, Thomas Rowland rose at
268 FfistoRY OF METHODISM.

the mention of his-own name, and said he “thought he did
not stand well with his brethren.” He complained of his
appointment.

Dr. Bunting: “Brother Rowland should converse with a
few friends before the Stationing Committee.”

W..B. was kept another year on trial for having ‘ behaved in
an insubordinate way to his Superintendent.” It was found that
the Superintendent of Newcastle West had left his Circuit to
come to Conference without leave from the District meeting.

Dr. Bunting: “I do not think that a Superintendent has
any right to come to Conference. He is in the hands of the
District as well as others.” He was instructed to pack up and
pack off at his earliest possible convenience.

The honoured name of Thomas Galland was once more
paused at by the Secretary of the Conference under the
question of character. The Secretary, Mr. Newton, stood in
a unique relation to the subject of his complaint. Mr. Galland
was his Superintendent, yet the charge was brought by Mr.
Newton as chairman of the District. Again the trouble was
about a letter on an ecclesiastical and political subject, published
in the Leeds Mercury. The Government had brought in a
scheme for National Education in England, very much on the
same lines as the Irish National System of 1832. The
arguments fro and com in each case were almost identical.
The Bill provided that the Bible shall be read and taught
in all State-aided schools, but it did not forbid the teaching
of the Douay Version to Roman Catholic children. There
was, of course, the same diversity of judgment amongst
Methodist ministers and people about this Bill as about the.
other. The view in favour of the principles common to
the two Bills, which had been so ably advocated by Watson
and by Thomas Jackson, and so determinedly resisted by
Dr. Bunting, had their steadfast and convinced adherents.
Mr. Jackson, who was now President, called together the
united Committees of Education and of Privileges, with a few
other ministers. Dr. Bunting drew up a series of resolutions
condemnatory of the Bill and the Minutes of Council which
embodied the Government scheme, and drew up a form of
petition to the House of Commons, to be transmitted to
the various Methodist chapels in the land.

Mr. Galland, the Superintendent of the Leeds West Circuit,
was convinced that the scheme was the best procurable in the
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 269

then condition of the Churches and of public opinion, and
that its rejection meant either Secularism on the one hand
or, on the other, the handing over to the clergy of the Church
of England the State-aided education of the young.
Nevertheless, when the petitions came to Mr. Galland as
Superintendent of Leeds West, with a request that they might
be exposed for signature on the various trust-premises in the
Circuit, with exhortation to the congregations to affix their
names, Mr. Galland distributed them amongst his colleagues
to dispose of them according to the request of the committee.
The result was that the Tory papers claimed Mr. Galland,
a proclaimed Liberal, as an opponent of the Government
proposals, whilst the Whig papers bewailed as loudly the
defection of a distinguished member of the party. Mr. Galland
did not like the situation, so he wrote to the Leeds Mercury
explaining that his own mame was not appended to the
petition from Oxford Place Chapel or any other, but that
he had allowed the petitions to be introduced in deference
to a Connexional committee, of which the President was
chairman.

Mr. Galland then went on to show how, as in the case of
the Bill for the Abolition of Church Rates, a consistent Wesleyan
Methodist might take the Government view of the question.
His view was substantially the same as that of Dr. Rigg, in
his able essay on Popular Education.

“On a calm review of the past, we do not believe that history will
condemn the action of the Whig Government in this matter, They were
pledged to bring in a measure for the education of the lower classes. Such
a measure, they saw clearly, could not be based on the High Church theory,
which regarded the clergy of the Establishment as of right the educational
executive of the nation. There seemed to be no alternative but to en-
deavour to make direct and definite provision only for secular instruction,
and to protect the rights of conscience by securing perfect liberty to the
parents to select the school, and to regulate the religious instruction of the
child.” :

But in defending himself against the seeming inconsistency
in having allowed petitions against the Bill to be presented
for signature on chapel premises of which he had the charge,
he had so put his case as to impinge on the susceptibilities
of members of the committee, and especially of the drawer up
of the resolutions and the form of petition against the measure
of the Government. The course taken by Mr. Newton with
270 flisToRY oF METuHopismM.

regard to his Superintendent comes out in his self-incriminating
speech.

Mr. Newton: ‘‘I must express my personal respect for Mr. Galland,
who has been made specially useful to some members of my family” (he
had brought them to religious decision). ‘‘But on reaching home (from
a round of services in various parts of the kingdom) I was supplied with
the Mercury. I was very much grieved; and had a meeting at Leeds
of gentlemen, who, with one exception, were of one mind in disapproving
of Mr. Galland's letter.”

It is impossible not to stand and admire the xaiveté of the
Secretary of the Conference in thus incidentally and self-
approvingly bringing forth against himself a charge of
insubordination against his Superintendent far more flagrant
than that for which young Bedford and young Rossell had
been so condignly rebuked at the preceding Conference. He
had coolly called a “meeting” of /zymen to consider and to
pronounce upon, and, with one exception, to condemn, the
action of his Superintendent. In this instance the letter
complained of was allowed to be read to the Conference, but
not, as it surely ought to have been, by the proper official,
and in the first instance without note or comment. It was
handed over to the elocution of Dr. Bunting, who, in his own
style of forensic eloquence, enlarged upon the great blame-
worthiness of each successive paragraph. He objected to
Mr. Galland’s informing the public that in allowing the petitions
against the Government Bill, he had acted under zzstructions
and not upon his own judgment. Dr. Bunting proceeded: “TI
object to language which implies that we think that the Minutes
ought to be burnt by the common hangman. We do think it
‘deserves it, but we don’t talk so to the House of Commons.”
Dr. B. admitted that Mr. Galland had not in the least
misrepresented what he and the committee avowedly thought
of the scheme, and Mr. Galland never hinted that they talked
so in the petition to the House of Commons. Dr. B.
next interpreted the declaration of loyalty on the part of the
supporters of the scheme into a denial of the loyalty of its
opposers. “ Above all,” he added, “we think it an imputation
that Methodism can possibly be made a dangerous political
engine, and obstructive to the action of the Government.”
Mr. Galland had intimated that should Methodism ever come
under the predominating influence of either party in the State,
it would not only lose its own proper character and be diverted
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 271

from its own mission as a spiritual agency, but by reason of
its compactness, coherence, and ever-growing strength, it
might become a formidable antagonist to an Administration
which was endeavouring to carry out a measure called for by
the needs and the voice of the nation.

Dr. Bunting next complained of Mr. Galland’s talking of
official men as using tact. He had, indeed, recognised that
quality in the drawing up of the resolution and petition.
He was next charged with having even gone so far as to
describe the drawer up of the petition as “the author of
the manifesto.” Whether the designation “author” be less
honourable than that of drawer up might be a matter for
individual taste; but the style and composition of the form
of petition were much’ more like those of a “manifesto” than
those of a memorial.

Mr. Galland, finding that his letter had displeased his
admirable colleague, had written to the Mercury an ex-
planatory and apologetic letter. This also Dr. Bunting read;
but as it stopped short of retractation and of recantation, it
did not satisfy its commentator.

Mr. Galland’s next accuser was Mr. ex-President Jackson.
Extremely sensitive for a public man, he was especially
uneasy on this question, inasmuch as the principles of the
Bill condemned by the committee, of which he was the
chairman, were essentially the same as those of a former
Government Bill for the advocacy of which he and Richard
Watson had received full forty stripes in Conference eight
years before. He now exclaimed :

“A great principle is involved in this,matter. Mr. Galland has reflected
on the President (himself now ex-) and the committee. I ask whether any
preacher has a right to do that? Mr. Galland does not impute corrupt
motives to the committee, but what he says may lead others to do so."

Mr. Galland : ‘‘I am too unwell at present to go into this business until
the case is properly prepared, so that I may clearly know wherein I am
supposed to have offended. Let the objections to what I have done be
simply and fully stated. I will endeavour to respectfully and affectionately
supply all the needed information.”

It was decided to allow the objectors time for the preparation of their
case. :

On the resumption of the case, Dr. Dixon said: ‘‘As this business is
closely connected with the minutes of the London committee, I propose that
those minutes should be read first.”

Mr. Joseph Fowler: “I think that would confuse the issue and complicate
272 ffistory or MEruopism.

the question of the rightness or wrongness of Mr. Galland’s action with the
much larger question of the future action of the Conference with regard to
national education."

The fairness of this observation was at once felt by Con-
ference. The case against Mr. Galland was put by Mr.
Keeling, to whom the task seems to have been deputed.
It made the parties to the question to be—the two combined
Connexional committees in London for the one part and
Mr. Galland for the other. The committees appointed in
London possess rights and privileges which individual
ministers have not. Is it right to appear in a newspaper
against constituted authorities? We have no such right. If
each were to claim and use this right, what would be the
consequence ?

It will be seen at once that this was a very grave issue,
involving a constitutional question of no slight importance.
It came to this: ‘“There’s a divinity doth hedge” a London
committee that makes whatever document it issues sacred
from discussion by a Methodist minister through the public
Press. This was carried to such an extent that a minister was
not allowed to defend himself from newspaper misrepresenta-
tion and public misconception if self-explanation and _ self-
defence involved the expression of an opinion diverse from
that of a partly extemporised London committee. Mr.
Galland had never set himself against the action of the
Committee in issuing petitions adverse to his own views.

Mr. Galland: ‘I must ask leave to notice some preliminary personal matters
in order to set myself right with my brethren. I am thought to be political.
I have decided views, but in my ministerial and pastoral duties I have never
meddled with politics, I am charged with hostility to the Established Church;
and it is said that I was on that account denied the degree of LL.D. at
Cambridge.”

He then explained that he had himself abandoned the
purpose of taking that degree in deference to his father’s
wishes, who at first intended him to take up his own pro-
fession of the law, but changed his mind, and had chosen for
him a different career. At this point Mr. Fowler was called
out of Conference by a deputation from Hull. On his return,
he found Mr. Galland still upon his feet, and resumed his
Journal.

Mr. Galland: “I thought that I was bound to set myself right with the
public when I found myself misrepresented publicly as an opponent of the
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 273

Government scheme, whilst in reality’ I was grieved to think that the
Wesleyan Methodist body had, by misapplied ingenuity, been led to obstruct
the Government in its honest efforts to supply a universally confessed need
of a Christian population. I thought that my letter would render service to
Methodism.”

He here read a letter addressed to him by a beneficed clergyman to show
that his own letter was not viewed even by the clergy in the light in which
so many of his brethren viewed it.

Mr, G. then proceeded to answer objections to his letter: ‘I did not
impute low motives to the opposite party. I am surprised that anyone
should imply that I did. Such motives could be imputed to such men by
those only who did not know them so well as I do. I felt great pleasure
in admitting the fact that the preachers now in London are men of
unquestionable loyalty. But by the eagerness of party feeling they may
be betrayed into errors which they may hereafter see reason to regret.
I rejoice in the immense power for national good which belongs to our
Connexion; but I calmly deprecate any movement which may be called
forth by one party in Methodism to embarrass the Government when the
other party is in office. I am actuated by no lurking disloyalty towards,
or distrust of, the powers that be in Methodism. I appeal to my past
conduct as evidence against the charge of my not treating the Conference
with respect. I do not think that anyone but myself was implicated by
my letter. My colleague Mr. Newton's letter intimates that I sacrifice
principle to party.”

Dr, Bunting interrupted : ‘‘ Our objection is that Mr. Galland wrote as if -
we had regarded the Privy Council as fools, We do deplore their incapacity.”

Mr. Galland resumed by reading the report of a public speech by Dr.
Bunting, in which he calls the Government plan “'ineffably absurd, and quite
impracticable.” He resumed, ‘I admit that some words in my letter are not
happily chosen, but for the Conference I have nothing but respect.”

Mr. Rattenbury (Mr. Galland’s junior colleague) said: ‘‘ Mr. Galland,
considering his predilections, has made great concessions, and displayed great
moderation in this affair. He did not prevent petitions against the Government
Bill being sent from the Leeds West Circuit.”’

Mr. Galland: ‘(I now think that what I did was unconnexional. I would
not do so on any like occasion in the future. In any future Connexional
movement of the kind I will, even if Superintendent, give up to my colleagues,
and submit in silence and, as far as possible, with concurrence. Resolve
what you will about my conduct, I shall still say, and still feel: ‘Here my
best friends and kindred dwell. Here God, my Saviour, reigns.’ Mr. Galland
seemed deeply affected. :

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children
of God.” The scene was described by those who witnessed it
as very touching, and as, above all, very edifying. The self-
repression, the all but self-effacement of a scholar and a gentle-
man, a first-class preacher and a noble, manly character, and the
submissiveness of a lofty, independent nature, were subduing and

s
274 fistory oF METHODISM.

constraining. It was seen how easily he might have carried the
war into the opposite camp, by a counter-charge against his
accuser for calling together a meeting of laymen to consider and
pronounce upon his Superintendent's action ; and in adducing
their judgment as incriminating evidence against the authority to
which he himself was far more directly bound to adjust his own
conduct than to that of any committee whatever, or of any
document drawn up by them.

Mr. Dixon: ‘Iam more anxious to defend the Committee than to make
any remarks on Mr, Galland. I wish, however, to imitate his moderation.
The spirit of his explanation is most satisfactory. He is not a political
agitator. He thinks that we are under political bias, but vindicates himself
from it. I believe that he is under political influence. The committee were of
different politics: Whigs and Tories. If the Government retire from the
Protestantism of this country, may we not interfere? Mr. Galland thinks
with me on the question of Popery, but differs as to the mode of dealing with
it. What means the introduction of the Popish Scriptures into State-aided
Schools, except to corrupt? My politics are undying attachment to the
Constitution ; I think that the political power of the Methodist body may be
dangerous, but am sorry that allusion was made to it. I should be sorry if we
could fraternise with Chartists. But there is also danger from Popery. Let
it proceed, and our liberties are gone. It may become an antagonistic power
in politics little feltacentury ago. As to Mr. Galland, let the Conference meet
him in the spirit that he has manifested." The speech was loudly cheered.

Mr. Vevers : ‘‘ The London committee either did right or did wrong. If
right, it ought to be supported, and Mr. Galland did wrong in writing his
letter. Yet I know that Mr. Galland is strongly opposed to Popery. I have,
and do, and always will support the London committee. I would have
Mr. Galland met in the same spirit which he has manifested.”

This speech was amusingly characteristic. Mr. Vevers always
began an argument with “ either is, or it was not,” insomuch that
we youngsters called it “ The Veverian dilemma.”

Mr. Atherton: ‘I think that some -would not oppose Popery and
Socinianism, lest that should injure an Administration.”

Mr. Galland : ‘I would not support a Cabinet of angels if they favoured
éither Popery or Unitarianism.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘1 would wish, if possible, to perfect Mr. Galland’s
explanations. We offer him some thoughts. Mr. Galland does not wish to
attack the London committee, or differ from his brethren, but his principles
will not let him be quiet. I daresay he does not see this. The London
committee acted with great caution. I do not say that Mr. Galland ought to
have made himself prominent in the matter on our side. I was in the House
when the Leeds West petition in favour was presented.* It contained very

* It must be here noted that after the petition against the Bill had been sent by
Wesleyan Methodists, a petition in its favour had been sent by those Leeds West
Methodists who thought it the best that had any probability of passing,
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 275

objectionable passages. We are, as a body, Conservative. Let aman keep
his principles to himself. If the few oppose the many, they are bound
to make a Scriptural defence of their conduct. I think Mr. Galland
has not rendered to the friends of the Administration such service as
he supposes. They will not think so well of us to find that we are not
united. To many others he has done as great dis-service. The number
of Methodist signatures against the Government plan amounts to 126,595.
I think Mr. Galland had a right to be silent. I do not wish him to
sign a petition against the Bill. But he should be quiet. With respect to
motives, I think a little more explanation on that point is necessary. Mr.
Galland complains of the ‘celerity’ of our movements, of want of time for
the Connexion to think the matter out. Whose fault was this? Not ours.
Lord J. Russell, to the astonishment of everyone, just before the Whitsuntide
holidays, gave notice of moving for the grant. I believe he was sorry for
it. But he was acting under a coalition of O’Connell and Home Papists, etc.,
not to say infidels.’ He made the ballot an open question to satisfy one party ;
and the education question to satisfy the other. I think we must have some
further explanation ; some reason with respect to the writing of the letter. I
would have it done mildly.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘I do not agree with Mr. Dixon. Were petitions not sent
down in favour of the measure for withdrawing the Government patronage of
idolatry in India as well as against the Douay Bible in Roman Catholic
schools? We should be consistent in these matters. I think New Testament
politics should restrain us from bringing the Government into contempt by
calling their measures ‘ineffably absurd.’ I wish the committee had shown
the moderation shown by the Archbishop of Canterbury. I think it wrong to
charge the Administration with doing everything we disapprove of from a
party motive. Many think otherwise. I think others, besides Mr. Galland,
might profitably make concessions. I hope, at any rate, that the matter will
be settled amicably, so that the fellowship of the body and the integrity
of Methodism may be preserved for at least another Centenary celebration.”

Mr. Entwisle: ‘‘I am neither Whig nor Tory. I take my sentiments from
the New Testament. I ask whether it is right to oppose committees. The
Committee of Privileges want your protection, and they ought to have it.”

Mr. James Smetham (father of the painter-poet) maintained
that it was gratuitous to charge the Government with merely
party motives, since there were many practical points of view
from which a patriotic statesman might think the scheme the
safest and the best attainable at present. He proceeded to
instance some of these considerations, but was told that his
remarks were irrelevant. To his dying day he could never
make out how the imputation of unworthy motives to the
Government could be relevant, yet their defence against such
imputation inadmissible.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I propose that the Conference is satisfied with the
concessions and admissions made by Mr. Galland, and with his declaration

$8 2
276 History or Meruopism.

that he will refrain from prosecuting the question any further.” Mr. Galland’s
concessions were most cordially received by the Conference. He said: “I
have no objection to that resolution if you don’t print it in the Minutes nor
send it to the Watchman." ;

Mr. Dixon then read some very stringent and lengthy resolutions on the
Government scheme, which he purposed to propose. Mr. Joshua Wade: “I
think it inconsistent to oppose Popery now, in brethren who would not oppose
Roman Catholic Emancipation, and have not opposed the annual grant to
Maynooth.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Before this year it was not proposed to grant State money
for the support of Popery in England. I move that the resolutions of the
committee be laid before the Conference, with the exception of that respecting
the Council.” It was resolved that they should be referred to a committee to
make the needed modifications and omissions. The President said: ‘ As the
omissions and the alterations are made on Dr. Beaumont's suggestion, let him
be on the committee.”

Dr. Bunting: “No! We cannot have an opponent in preparation of
our plan.”

Dr. Bunting’s Vo/ round, short, straight, smashing, overbore
the wise, conciliatory judgment of the President. Dr. Beaumont
was, as a London minister, a member of the committee, yet was
not allowed to assist in the emendations to be made on his
suggestion. Dr. Bunting and three others constituted the
Emendation Committee.

Three resolutions were proposed to Conference condemnatory
of the Government plan, and justifying the action of the
committee. Dr. Bunting explained them.

Mr. Galland: ‘‘I think it wrong to charge the Government with ‘ teaching
Popery and promoting infidelity.’ I do not think the Minutes of the Privy
Council deserve that imputation. I cannot say that permission to read the
Popish version of the Scriptures in Roman Catholic schools is declaring it of
equal value with the Authorised Version. Many years ago the University of
Oxford declared that, next to our own, it is the best version in existence. I
cannot affirm that a Bill which makes the Christian religion and the Bible the
basis of all instruction is promotive of infidelity. I do not see how it can
‘ promote infidelity’ to have Socialists’ children taught the Holy Scriptures.
They have no pastor to teach them. On this point, at any rate, the scheme
is a barrier against infidelity. With respect to violating the principles of the
British Constitution, how does this Bill go beyond what Tory Ministers have
done? ‘Witness the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill (which Dr. Bunting
had advocated). Grants to Roman Catholics were made under Pitt's
administration. In these times of disorganisation the existing Government
should not be blamed either without cause or beyond their cleay blame-
worthiness. Many of our people are much dissatisfied with this way of
wielding our power in the field of politics. On the question of Lord
Sidmouth's Bill and slavery, the Methodists, asa people, were united. It
is not so in this case; I believe that the Government proposition for a
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 277

normal training school was defeated chiefly through the published pro-
ceedings of our London committee and the petitions which they advised.
I believe that if you record these resolutions in the Minutes you will weaken
the influence of Conference on our societies. If these resolutions are put
without a modification of the language I complain of, with unflinching loyalty
to this body, I cannot give them even a tacit assent, and my duty will not
require me to be present at the voting.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘Mr. Galland says that in former movements, in our
Parliamentary matters, our people have been with us. Yes; but who Jed
them? Iwas then Editor of the Magazine. I deny that they are against us
now. The Church of England, high and low, are with us; excepting here
and there a solitary clergyman or Bishop, who owes his preferment to the
present Ministry. Our people generally are with us. But we are sometimes
to lead our people. I object to the doctrine that if a thing is unpopular we
are not to do it. I believe that our usefulness is not narrowed. In Lord
Sidmouth’s Bill it was county justices we had to deal with; here it is the
Commissioners; the one affects adults, the other children. We will not
accept support from such a Ministry, and no other Ministry would have
proposed this measure. In reference to West India affairs, Lord Glenelg
gave us money on condition that we carried out our Wesleyan principles.
He said the same to the Church, the Baptists, etc. Some part of Mr.
Galland's remarks is a copy of O’Connell's speech, or else an odd
coincidence." Mr. Galland, being appealed to by Dr. Bunting’s look and
tone, assured the Conference that he ‘‘did not owe to Dan O’Connell
any one of his ideas on the subject.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Then it is an odd coincidence, and shows that Mr. Galland
keeps the same company as Mr. O'Connell. I am sorry that a brother of Mr.
Galland’s respectability says what he has said. I think he does encourage
Popery. Popish chaplains are to be employed; does not this encourage
Popery? I believe the country is in our favour. Our Methodist documents
are conservative (to coin a word) of the principle of liberty against the
ridiculous pretensions of the High Church party. I would object to any
version of the Scriptures but one in the schools. But all this springs from
Liberalism. While Mr. Galland holds this I cannot see how we can agree.
There is O’Connellism, again. I am against schools being established
by the State. Let every denomination educate its own children. Mr.
Galland said these were to be veligious schools, because the Scriptures
are to be read. If that be sufficient for children, why not for adults?
Why does Mr. Galland preach? The instruction provided in these schools
is said to be religious instruction. That I deny. I defend my own
expression. The distinction between general instruction and_ special
religious instruction is ineffably absurd. No man was ever converted by this
general instruction, What right have we to separate what God has joined
together? What right have we to think that education sufficient for the poor
which is not sufficient for our own children? Popish priests can attend from
three to four o’clock, but what other ministry can? And Popish priests are
not married; they may do it. They have no itinerancy, no leaders’ meetings.
This system was smuggled into the Colonies. Mr. Galland attacked the Duke
of Wellington and Sir R. Peel when they brought in the Roman Catholic
Relief Bill. He did not then say anything about what Pitt had done.”
278 HisToryY oF METHODISM.

Mr. Entwisle followed Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I am sorry to hear a Methodist
Preacher say anything in favour of Popery."’ This remark was not entertained.
Mr. E. had mistaken Mr. G.

Mr. Galland was heard in explanation. ‘'He had merely quoted the
Oxonian opinion that, ‘next to the A.V., the Douay version of the Scriptures
was the best.’”

Mr. Rowland attempted to speak, but so loosely that the President said :
“It is difficult to obtain a hearing for remarks that are not relevant.”’

Finding that the resolutions were about to be put without
modification of the expressions which he thought unwarranted,
Mr. Galland quietly withdrew, feeling unable to vote for them
and unwilling to put himself any further into seeming opposition
to the conclusions of the Conference.

It seems impossible not to appreciate the arguments, and
especially to respect the aims, of doth parties in this significant
debate. It is plain that Dr. Bunting and his followers were
actuated by a sincere, intelligent, and healthy dread of the
encroachments and the blandishments of Popery on the one hand
and Latitudinarianism on the other. This dread has been all too
much justified by the portentous successes of both the one and
the other during the eight-and-fifty intervening years. The
Episcopalian and the Wesleyan point of view was admirably
marked by Sir J. Kay-Shuttleworth, the fair-minded and judicious
statesman under whose guidance the Government drew up the
Minutes of Council. He remarked that these communities
regarded the school as “‘ che nursery of the congregation, in which
the children and youth were to be trained not szmply in the
rudiments of Biblical and catechetical knowledge.”

The other side took also a very practical point of view. They
saw that the Government plan was, at that date, Hobson’s choice ;
that if it were defeated the whole question must be indefinitely
deferred. And this was what took place. The Ministry could
not face the disapproval of the two most powerful religious bodies
in the land—the Established Church and the Wesleyan Methodist
Conference. The main part of the scheme was dropped. Not
that there was a near approach to unanimity on the subject in our
own Church. The Government had strong and warm supporters.
The only time I ever witnessed the interruption of a Wesleyan
Methodist minister in the pulpit by a Methodist seatholder in his
family pew, was in connection with the announcing and appealing
for a petition against this Bill, in a large Circuit town chapel at
the close of the Sunday evening service. The minister's putting
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 279

of the case was controverted by a member of his flock. The
effect of this unseemly altercation was most unedifying and most
unsabbatic ; it gave a rude and wasteful kick to a good warm
pailful of the sincere milk of the Word.

No doubt the political proclivities and antipathies of the
worthy Methodists of both colours more or less unconsciously
influenced their views of the merits or demerits of the measure.
Dr. Bunting made a frank avowal of his own. His allusion
to O’Connell, and to his own presence in the House of Commons
at the presentation of the petition of Leeds Methodists in favour
of the Bill, recalls a rather comic incident. The Popish dema-
gogue and the Methodist leader seldom came upon the stage
together, except upon the platform of an anti-slavery meeting.
A speech of Dan. O’Connell’s created much amusement at the
time. I cannot put my hands upon a record of it, but it was to
this effect: “ The Wesleyans oppose the Bill! This means one,
Mr. Jabez Bunting, whose figure has of late become familiar to
this House.” Then, turning towards the Speaker’s Gallery,
“You may recognise him and his attendants by their big, stiff
neckcloths,” with more of his rough caricature.

It must not be supposed that it cost Mr. Galland no self-
conflict to submit so meekly as he did. At this time it was
my great privilege to see a good deal of this Christian gentle-
man and scholar. I dined with him not infrequently, and
heard him discuss the question with some of the most capable
and best informed members of the Conference. I vividly recall
a dinner-table dialogue between him and Philip Garrett, in
which I thought the mathematician got, for once, the better
of the classic. It seemed to me then, and it does still, that
Mr. Galland underrated the menace to religious liberty and
Gospel truth involved in the pretensions of the Papacy. But
what tried him was the feeling of unfairness in the un-
restricted license allowed to the opponents of the Government,
and the strict and stern repression of its adherents and sup-
porters. The only time I ever saw the slightest perturbation
in his genial, re-collected spirit was when, in course of table
talk, someone asked him what he thought of the pamphlet
lecture against the Government scheme which had just been
published by a distinguished Methodist minister. He replied:
“J was brought to a strict account for a-letter in a newspaper
on the subject, which was distinctly not forbidden by the
Conference ; but Brother is commended for lecturing on

 
280 fiistoryv oF MErTuopDIsM.

the subject in a Methodist chapel and publishing his lecture
in a pamphlet form, which the Conference has forbidden on
any question of Church politics.”

A most cheering increase was reported: 10,267, with
20,000 odd on trial; ‘so hallowed and so gracious was the
time.”

The theological examination of ‘the young men’’ was
again made a most important part of Conference proceedings.
The Centenary year, the era of recurrence to first principles,
was not likely to be marked by any slackened interest in the
doctrines which had been seen and felt to be the vital force
of Methodism. Dr. Hannah noticed the discrepancy in some
of the statements of the candidates, especially in relation to
the transmission of guilt.

Dr. Bunting: ‘The depravity results from the guilt.”

The President required a distinct definition of each doctrine from each
brother; and Dr. Hannah “ gave a statement" as to their ‘‘experience”’
and his own satisfaction with the clearness and convincingness of the answers.
Mr. Fowler evidently regarded the theological examination as one of the
most interesting portions of the Conference business.

Mr. Bromley expressed by letter his dissent from the rule which allowed
inquiry into the character of a brother without previous notice.

Dr. Bunting: ‘It is not the thing that a brother should repeatedly object.
Though he may not approve, he must acquiesce.’’ The resolution of last year
on Mr. Bromley's case is to be sent to him. Brother , whose case was
referred to a committee at the last Conference, declared most unequivocally
his belief in our doctrines, as contained in our standards.

When the name of Brother was read, the Chairman of his District
answered ‘‘No."’ A brother rose and said he had addressed a letter to
the Chairman containing matter of accusation. The Chairman replied that
he had not had time to read the brother's letter. A somewhat extraordinary
circumstance. Referred to a committee. An admonitory letter was sent
to a brother who was convicted by his District Meeting of ‘‘ insubordination
to his Superintendent, and being inclined to mental indolence.”’

Mr. Burdsall moved ‘“‘ That the sermon preached by Mr. Lomas should
be printed.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think that, as it was a doctrinal sermon not preached
before the Conference, we should be careful in inviting its publication.”

Mr. Lomas: ‘I am glad that Dr. Bunting has extricated me out of the
difficulty. Had I known that my audience would be so distinguished, I
should not have had the temerity to preach; much less have I now to
print the sermon. I beg Mr. Burdsall to withdraw his request.” He
did so.

An interesting debate took place on the division of the Hull Circuit.

Mr. Reece: “ The District Meeting said ‘No,’ but the June Quarterly
Meeting decided on a division, and agreed to a boundary line.”

 

 
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 281

At J. Fowler's request the Minutes of the meeting were read. The
President called on me, but I referred to Mr. Reece, who remained silent

Dr. Bunting: ‘It is well known that there is a division of judgment on
the matter, We should hear from the Preachers in a manly manner.”

Mr. Reece referred to the various doings and undoings in the matter by
the Quarterly Meeting. J. F. addressed the Conference.

Mr. Duncan: ‘‘ There are 3,000 members in Hull. We are obliged to
build a new chapel, there being a large number of applicants for sittings
who cannot be supplied. I believe the new chapel will not be erected till
the Circuit is divided. If the Circuit be not divided, you will put the
friends of Methodism under the feet of one person not very friendly to
the Conference,"’

Mr. Ranson: ‘I cannot cordially consent to the too personal sentiments
of Mr. Duncan. The facts are these: Three ministers are in favour of
division; two against it. The people want it, and will be restless till they
get it. But the division will offend some of the best friends of Methodism."

Mr. Reece: ‘‘I was sorry to hear Mr. Duncan’s disparaging remarks.
My colleague’s threat of not going back to the Circuit if not divided does not
weigh with me. Give me aright man who will stand by his Superintendent,
and I do not fear going back.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I hope I shall speak as a judge. I think the Stewards did
wrong in not consulting Mr. Reece sooner, and in treating him as a mere
Chairman of the Quarterly Meeting. I think it time for the collective
pastorate to interfere. A great principle is involved. I differed from the
Conference on the Stockport question; but in Hull there are 3,000 members.
I differ from Mr. Reece with great diffidence; but how can any man, however
ably supported, superintend 3,000 members? If my venerable friend will
forgive me, I will propose that the Hull Circuit be immediately divided.”

The Secretary : ‘‘ If I were one of Mr. Reece's colleagues, I should propose
the postponement of the division for another year.” J. F. explained to
the Conference why he could not make that proposition. The Hull division
was carried unanimously.

When in reaching the stations Dr. Bunting’s name was reached, he rose
and said : ‘‘I complain of the annual annoyance to which Connexional officers
are subject. I wish the Conference to say whether the offices are to be abolished
or not. If not, let men occupy them without being badgered. I have felt
it a tax upon my time, and must protest against it.”’

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘I have never objected to the office. But I think that so
long as a Methodist Preacher is physically capable he should preach at least
once every Sunday.”

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘ I know I can’t preach, or speak either, as I-used to do; but
that is because I am so taken up with the Mission House.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I never hinted that Dr. Bunting could not preach and
speak as well as ever.”

The fact is that at this time Dr. Bunting was haunted by an
almost morbid feeling that his pristine power of public speaking
was beginning to decline. The sustained impetus of his youthful
oratory might well be somewhat slackening after well nigh half
282 HtstoryY oF METHODISM.

a century’s expenditure ; but his matter was as weighty as it ever
was, and his manner was still vigorous and manful to a very
effective degree, and had gained as much in calm, impressive
dignity as it might have lost in youthful impetus. In truth, it
was the prestige of his popularity that hampered him. Strangers
pressed to hear him with vast and vague anticipations, according
to their own ideal of what a pulpit orator was like, and were
often taken quite aback by his absolute simplicity of language
and the total absence of pyrotechnic brilliance and of fiery,
flaming rhetoric. What really had begun to fail was the
conscious power to make fresh sermons as strong as those which
had earned him the exacting reputation of being one of the very
greatest, if not, as many able judges thought, the very greatest
preacher of his time.

‘

Mr. Beecham expressed himself with great propriety and modesty. Many
cried, ‘‘Go on.”

The President: ‘If we go on, it must be with the understanding that
there shall be no more complaining.” A discussion followed on the President’s
removal from Bristol to London. Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I do not mean to say that
it is indispensable for the President to live in London, but it is extremely
desirable. I hope the time will come when we shall have a house for the
President in London." The state of a brother’s health being mentioned in
connection with the stations, Dr. Bunting said: ‘‘He has only got the
August influenza.” A brother had been engaged to one Circuit, but put down
for another, because his circumstances rendered his appointment to the
latter indispensable, but now expressed his willingness to go elsewhere. It
was asked, Why could he not as well go to the Circuit to which he had been
pledged at first ?

Dr. Bunting answered: '‘ Because they do not wish to have him now,
in consequence of the manner in which he has behaved to them. I am glad
the Circuits are resenting this whissy-washy conduct." But the brother made
out a good case.

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘ I complain of Mr. Burton's being poached from the mission
list.”

The President : ‘‘ I have received a letter from Mr. Bromley.”

Dr. Bunting: “I object to the reading of that letter. It is contrary to
tule.”

Mr. Reece: ‘There will be no difficulty with Mr. B. if the Chairman
be firm and the brethren united.” The committee appointed to converse
with Mr, Rowland touching his complaint that his appointment showed that
he was not so cordially respected by the brethren as aforetime brought in
their report : ‘‘ Brother R. promises amendment.”

Mr. Newton: “I hope Brother R. is not keeping up the habit of
calling himself the People's man, and talking about the gentlemen on this
platform." ;

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ These are not the times for us to talk thus. I would,
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. : 283

however, have the affair terminated as pleasantly as we can do.” It was
pleaded that though he had not co-operated with his Superintendent in
opposing the Government Education ally yet he had not publicly taken the
other side,

In connection with an appointment to Western Africa, Dr.
Bunting uttered a sentiment worthy of being remembered among
the oracles of Methodism. ‘“ A missionary ought to be willing to

live anyhow, and die anywhere.”
‘“The Sheffield school’ again demanded the attention
of the Conference.

\

Mr. Dixon: ‘I propose that the Sheffield school be under the direction
of the Conference, and that Mr. McLean should receive his appointment
from the Conference. I think a sort of independent Methodism will spring
up, which I should greatly deprecate. I move Mr. McLean’s appointment.”
Mr. S. D. Waddy seconded.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I feel an objection I cannot get over. We have not
the appointment of masters or committee, nor ought to have. If the
experiment succeed, others will follow, and we shall be bound to help. ~
I feel something about Mr. McLean; but for the school, he would take
a Circuit, In looking at the school I find the élite of our society. I am
not sure but that we should do a wise thing to take it under our care
religiously. I should be glad to get rid of the first objection, and to
meet the second.” Mr. Dixon: ‘I wish we had more schools, and Preachers
appointed to them. I believe that Mr. McLean is doing more than he
could in any other situation. I wish for the school a more Connexional
union.” Dr. Beaumont: ‘I think we cannot do better than go on as we
are.” Mr. Lord: ‘‘We have no cause to be ashamed. I wish we had
many such schools." Mr. Scott advocated the appointment of a chaplain.
Mr. Dixon by advice withdrew his motion. Mr. Newton called attention to
a circular which has been diffused, speaking of the undue influence of a
particular Preacher. The speech was received in silence.

The Book Steward reported that the sales for the year had
increased by £6,000, and the capital increased by £5,377.

Remarks were made on the singing at Brunswick Chapel, Leeds
complaining of improper tunes, and giving out four lines instead of two.
Mr. Burdsall: ‘I think the singing is too slow.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I think that is somewhat a matter of opinion. I think
we are in danger of irreverent singing. These galloping tunes are bad.
It is a great scandal to have persons conducting our singing who are not
religious. I would insist on good men. to conduct our singing, as well

as to read prayers.”

Another wise and weighty axiom. Dr. Bunting knew of
a deplorable case in point in the leading singer of a famous
a

«

284 ffistory oF METHODISM.

London chapel, with a fine round, sonorous voice, but with
very unreligious tastes and habits. As to galloping tunes, the
singing pew in our smaller chapels was too often turned into
a circus for grotesque performances. But, except at a re-
vival prayer-meeting, one could not imagine such a thing
in Brunswick, Leeds.

Allusion was made to a lawsuit; a Preacher was being prosecuted for
falsehood. It is suggested the Committee of Privileges should take up
the case. ‘

Dr. Bunting: ‘The Scripture cannot be broken. It is better sometimes
to put up with a little wrong. ‘If a man smite thee on the one cheek,
turn,to him the other also.’ Who can foresee the consequences of mooting
questions in a court of law?" Mr. Reece stated a case of aggravated
persecution in the Newbury Circuit. Parsons in Berkshire refuse to bury
children who are not baptised by themselves.

Dr. Bunting: “I think we should bear rotten eggs. If we can get
relief easily, let us do so. But we must bear a little.”

«A rather spirited conversation on the Marriage Bill took place.

Dr. Bunting assumed that there was a “joint understanding that the
Preachers would not perform the marriage ceremony.” The brethren could
not recollect any such understanding.

* * * * * * *

It was objected that the Pastoral Address was too long.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘Perhaps too long for the writer, taxing his health, his
time, and privileges; not too long for the people in the closet, and for our
families; and if not listened to by us to the end with great pleasure,
it is our own fault.". Mr. Galland: ‘I think there are some sentiments
to which the Conference should not give official sanction. The Address
Mr. Watson published in the Magazine expressed sentiments opposed to
those in this Address. I am sorry to dissent.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I think that Mr. Galland has been treated generously ; he
should not repeat his dissent but his acquiescence. I deny most solemnly
that the Conference has given even a qualified, modified sanction to the
views of Mr. Watson. The very next Conference disavowed the view of that
dear and honoured individual. He had no authority given to him to
state those sentiments. I do regret that in an hour of physical weakness
he issued those sentiments.” (About the first national system of education.)
“If he were here now, I have no doubt he would concur heartily with us.”
The Address passed unaltered.

The Conference of the Centenary year did not prove so
conducive to the oneness of the Body as was reasonably hoped.
Many matters were observable which tended rather to sunder
than to solder the diverse elements of which so large a body of
strong-minded men was sure to be composed. Amongst these
have been noted the attempt to fix a Connexional discredit and
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 285

a Conferential disability on the very best of the brethren who
declined to put their signatures to an unauthorised document put
forth by the London Preachers, which would commit them toa
statement, as to matter of fact, of the accuracy of which a true and
loyal man might fairly entertain a doubt, by making all non-signers
ineligible to the Legal Conference. This was followed by the
setting up a claim on behalf of “the committees appointed in
London,” to be “constituted authorities,” whose judgment on
Parliamentary proceedings bearing on religious questions was
binding on each individual minister in such wise that, however
strongly he might dissent in a judgment from the London view
of the impending matter, he was bound to abstain religiously
from any published exposition or expression of his views ; his
only right being to take no public part either for or against his
own convictions ; but to be silent and “ keep his principles to
himself.”

This was carried to such an extent that even a.member of the
minority in the London Committee, who had made good in
Conference his objection to certain expressions in the resolutions
to be printed in the Minutes, reflecting on the motives of the
Government, was not allowed to be put upon the committee for
emending those expressions ; although the President himself had
pointed out the propriety of that appointment. Then came
Dr. Bunting’s protest against any of the officials, at least of the
Mission House or of the Institution, being troubled—as he phrased
it, “‘ badgered”'—with any animadversion upon any act of their
administration. He had, indeed, repeatedly resisted all such
interrogation himself, but this was the first time that he had drawn
the protective cordon round his colleagues also. This was in the
face of his own judicious and most accurate delimitation of the
responsibility of the officials of the Book Room in the case of Mr.
Jackson and of Mr. Mason.

The exact point of the proceedings chosen for thisdemonstration
made it all the more significant. It was naturally asked, Why was
this brought out on the reading of the stations, and on the
occurrence of his own name, and not under either of the
departments of which he was the head? He had not been called
in question as to any one of his official acts. The names of the
two Editors and of the Book Steward had, as usual, been passed in
silence. What relevance could there. be, then, in the putting forth
of this indignant protest by Dr. Bunting on the reading of his
own name in the stations, unless it meant, If you inquire into the
286 History oF METHoDISM.

reason or the rightness of any administrative act of mine, you
must look out for another Secretary at the Mission House, and
another President of the Institution. In what other way could
the stations be affected ?

Then came the bringing in of a man’s bearing with regard to
the Government Education Scheme, as affecting the question
of the class of Circuit he is fit for, and his appointment to
the Superintendency. And then the construing of the non-
pronouncement by the preceding Conference on the question of
the marriage of Methodist couples by Methodist, ministers in
Methodist chapels as a ‘joint understanding ” that no brother is
to do this, and the thus bringing those ‘‘ who do such things ”
under the imputation of unfaithfulness to a fraternal compact.

The inevitable result of all this was most unfortunate. With the
exception of the Education Committee, which had already passed
under review, the reports of the various departments fell flat upon
the Conference. The votes of thanks were moved and passed in the
most routine and perfunctory style, without a comment or inquiry.
An affair of such importance as the taking of asecond house for
the Theological Institution, in another part of London, and the
consequent appointment of an additional Governor and a Tutor
was received in silence: 2o one making any remark (the italics are
Mr. Fowler’s own) excepting Dr. Bunting, who moved the
resolution.

At this period I came into the frankest and most familiar
intercourse with many ministers, and with influential laymen not
afew. To my great surprise, I found sporadic indications ofa
restless, almost restive spirit, and a fear of the formation in
Methodism of a kind of oligarchic Cabinet, and an autocratic
administration. Never had the importance of Dr. Bunting’ in
and to the Conference been more deeply felt or more gladly
recognised. Never had he spoken with more wisdom and
convincingness. No man needed less than he the assumption
of a magisterial tone or attitude, or style of speaking, to add
to the native authority of his simple utterance.

THE NEWCASTLE CONFERENCE OF 1840.

The first Conference in the second century of Methodism
was held at Newcastle, Dr. Newton in the chair. It fell to
Mr. Fowler’s lot to be the first speaker after the President's
inaugural address. As Superintendent of the Circuit in which
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 287

the Conference chapel was located, he was commissioned by
the Methodist ladies of Newcastle to request the acceptance
by the Conference of a robe of office for their President, in
token of their appreciation of the honour conferred upon the
town by the holding, for the first time, of the Conference
therein. Assuredly no one of Nature’s noblemen had less need
of any dignity of dress than Robert Newton ; yet no peer of the
realm would set off by his majestic figure the finest raiment
of needlework ever fashioned by the deftest and daintiest hand.
Father Entwisle treated the affair as a serio-comic inter-
lude. The Rev. T. Powell, the author of the work on “ Apos-
tolical Succession” evidently felt that the ladies of Newcastle
might have found better employment for their needles in
pricking the bladder of Episcopal assumption than in fabricating
decorative drapery for a President of Presbyters.

Dr. Bunting: “I am of opinion that a fitting costume rests
upon a good principle.” He moved, however, not that it’ be
laid upon the table, but the bare, bald “ previous question.”

The next conversation of much interest or significance was that upon the
case of a candidate who had ‘travelled in the New Connexion,” and now
expressed a wish to travel out of it, ‘on account of its democracy.”

Dr. Bunting suggested that the signing of the Declaration would be the
best test of his recantation of all democratic errors. Dr. Beaumont: ‘I
complain of this persistent allusion to the London Declaration of 1834. Dr.
Bunting has no right to drag before the Conference, year after year, the
brethren whose.conscience would not let them sign that document. It had
no reference to the New Connexion or democracy. How can a young man,
who has never been in Conference, give evidence as to whether or not there
is any undue assumption on the part of any members of this body?” Mr. S.
Dunn spoke to the same effect.

It came out that a candidate had passed the District Meeting by a
majority only. .

Dr. Bunting: ‘' Did the young men on trial vote? They have no right to
do so.” Mr. Galland: “I think they should be allowed to vote for the
representative.” Dr. Bunting: ‘‘With great respect I differ from Mr.
Galland.”

A brother acquitted by a Minor District Meeting had been retried at the
ordinary District Meeting.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think this unkind and unfair. The question should
not be reopened.” Two brethren, colleagues in a delightfully prosperous
' Circuit, were severely reprehended by the President for ‘‘quarrelling, to the
serious detriment of their flock.”

It seems a funny reminiscence that I took tea and supper
with these brethren before and after a missionary meeting some
288 HAlrstoryY oF METHODISM.

two months after their co-appointment, and I thought to myself,
“Those two good men will never pull together at the Gospel
plough.” It was a pictorial example of the wisdom of the
Mosaic prohibition of yoking together two serviceable creatures
of a different species. It was sure to come to a competition
between horn and hoof. And the result was a very unstraight
furrow, and the necessity of paring to the quick both hoof
and horn.

Another lively Superintendent was. brought up for having
turned the Quarterly Love Feast into a Court of Appeal against
the decision of the Circuit Quarterly Meeting, which had been
adverse to his staying one more year. He was warned that a
repetition of the offence would inflict upon his brethren the
painful necessity of disciplinary action.

In the midst of these investigations some distinguished
foreign laymen were admitted to a privilege not often shared
by British Methodists. These, although “the servile progeny
of Ham,” were of royal blood. They had come from a far-off
land, and were the conquests of the Gospel. They were
introduced as the “ Ashantee Princes,” and were “ appropriately
addressed by the President.”

The ex-President being disabled from attending Conference,
Mr. Dixon was appointed to preach the sermon to the Con-
ference. Mr. Fowler pronounces it to have been “ appropriate
and admirable.” ‘

Mr. Beaumont expressed his satisfaction that it was ‘‘ preached, not read."

Dr. Bunting: ‘I am of a different opinion, Mr. Wesley did so (in
preaching before the University), and an apostolical epistle was read to all
the holy brethren.”

Dr. Bunting alluded to the ‘Wesleyan Centenary Takings,” and said:
‘‘No Wesleyan Preacher should give any countenance to such a book.” He
admitted that condemning a book might give it publicity and promote its
sale; nevertheless, ultimately it would do good. Those who purchased the
book would be less likely to be injured. This was prefatory to the reading
of a letter condemnatory of the book, but he did not give the name of the
writer. He added: “I think we should discountenance this book.” A
popular brother said: ‘I have some knowledge of the author of the book,
but am under obligation not to disclose his name.” Dr. Beaumont: “I
think we should not condemn the work until we know what it is we are
called upon to condemn.” Mr. Naylor: ‘I wish to know, from the brother
who says he knows, if the writer is a brother." Brother ——: “I cannot do
so directly and individually; none could do so.” Mr, Reece: “I would not
have any brother pressed to betray confidence. Let the writer himself
confess to his brethren.” Mr. S. D. Waddy: ‘I hope that brother will
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 289

not yield to any pressure or thumbscrewing to disclose what was told to
him in confidence.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think that Brother —— should go to the author and tell
him that if he will not confess, he, Brother ——, will be obliged to disclose his
name.”

A brother whom no one could ever suspect of having been
able to write the Zakings, entertained the Conference with an
elaborate exculpation of himself, which drew forth from Dr.
Bunting and the President a testimony to his character which his
after conduct did not verify.

Although Mr. Everett had spent in Newcastle five of the
six years which elapsed since his return to Circuit work, and was
now stationed no farther off than York, he did not deem it worth
his while to attend the first Conference ever held in his own
native county. He, however, wrote a letter complaining that in
the Magazine advertisement of his “ Life of Daniel Isaac,” a part
of the title had been left out: ‘“Polemic Divine.” The defence
was that the alternative had been the leaving out of those words
or of the whole advertisement, since that title was itself polemic,
and needlessly and unduly emphasised the point on which that
worthy man had differed from his brethren.

Dr. Bunting again called attention to the ineffectiveness of
the disciplinary deprivations of one or more years of ministerial
standing, which were sure to be restored.

It fell to Mr. Fowler to present to Conference from certain
Methodist laymen of Newcastle a request of quite another kind
from that which the ladies had preferred—namely, to set aside the
reading of the Liturgy in the Conference chapel on the morning
of the Conference Sunday.

The President : ‘I should not have asked permission of the Superintendent
or the trustees or anybody else to introduce the Liturgy." Complaints were
made of laymen reading the prayers.

Dr. Beaumont took a different view.

Mr. William Bunting: ‘I think we are now a Christian Church, and
should assume all its functions and discharge all its duties. I differ from Dr.
Beaumont’s view.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I feel it in my heart to propose that at each Conference
the official sermons be preceded by the reading of the prayers. If necessary,
I will give notice of motion.” The motion was called for immediately, then
many hands were held up; but several were neutral.

The increase during the year in Great Britain was 16,158, with
19,603 on trial. Such, and so blessed, had been the result of

T
290 HAlistory oF METHODISM.

the recurrences to old principles, and the reviving of the old
spirit by the Centenary celebration. The increase in Ireland was
661, and throughout the Connexion 22,557.

The most exciting and prolonged discussion was that on the
dispute between the Canadian Conference and the Mission
House in London. The original subject of dispute is all the
more interesting and important as forming part of the ecclesias-
tical and Parliamentary history of both Canada and the Mother
Country. The merits of the question can in no wise be made out
except by going back to the origin of the question. It arose on
this wise : On the division of Canada into Upper and Lower, in
1791, by the same Act of Parliament it was determined that one-
seventh of the land allotted, either by grant or sale, should be
reserved for the sustentation of ministers of religion, so that the
settlers and their children might not become “ Christian savages,
wild as the untaught Indian brood.” The result was that in less
than half a century the Government had upon its hands a large
number of separate blocks of land ‘‘reserves” for religious
purposes. In 1791 there was no recognisable Church organisa-
tion connected with the Crown. When, therefore, it became
necessary to apply these blocks of land to the purposes for which
they were set apart, the question arose: To what body or bodies
of Christian ministers should these allotments be assigned? The
clergy of the Anglican Church laid claim to every single block of
land ; but the Government of Upper Canada, taking into account
the fact that at the time of the appropriation there existed no
organised body of Anglican clergy in the land, and that the
settlers themselves belonged to various Christian denominations,
saw that it would certainly be the most satisfactory and the most
beneficial arrangement to distribute land proportionately among
the principal denominations. In 1832 their offer to build “ rec-
tories” for Wesleyan Methodist ministers, on selected blocks of land,
had been accepted as a ‘worthy deed, with all thankfulness,” by
Mr. Lord, the British representative ; and Dr. Alder had grate-
fully accepted £900 in hard cash on behalf of Canadian Missions.

But some leading ministers at home objected to the reception
of any part of the reserved land.

Mr. President Jackson in 1839 had written to the Canadian
Conference remonstrating against the receiving of what was
claimed by the Episcopal clergy, the latter having adroitly begged
the question by calling the allotments the “ clergy reserves,”
confining to their own body the title clergy.
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 291

But the annual Government grant of £900 was a totally
distinct subsidy in a different form—cash instead of land or
houses, and for a different destination: “The Wesleyan
Methodist Missionary Society,” on behalf of, not the settlers,
but the “aborigines.” This sum Dr. Alder had regularly
drawn from the Colonial Office in London.

But, on applying for the grant for 1840, he was informed that
a previous application had been made on behalf of the Methodist
Conference in Canada by an official signing himself the Rev. J.
Ryerson. This was very awkward, disconcerting, and annoying,
as it placed the Missionary Secretaries in a very questionable
light. On the part of Mr. J. Ryerson it was as cool and keen as
the Canadian climate. He had no business with the money
whatsoever, being neither President nor Secretary byt simply
Book Steward. Lord John Russell, the Colonial Secretary,
declined to pay the grant until the applicants could agree to
whom it should be paid.

The two Ryersons appeared at the British Conference. Mr.
E. Ryerson justified the acceptance of lands from the “clergy
reserves” on the ground (1) that Methodism was the oldest
ecclesiastical organisation in the province, and (2) that the
representatives of the British Conference had approved, as had
Dr. Alder, the only Missionary Secretary who had the slightest
personal acquaintance with Canada. He was strongly in favour
of the continued acceptance of the grant, especially as a check
to the claims of the clergy, and as a practical protest against
the assumptions in Canada of a dominant Church. During his
speech Mr. E. Ryerson was repeatedly interrupted by Dr.
Bunting, against which interference he and his brother besought
the protection of the chair. Some irritating language had been
used. Mr. Galland moved, and Mr. Fowler seconded, a string of
resolutions on the subject, prefaced by an expression of respect
for the Canadian brethren and a hope that in any further dis-
cussion all intemperance of language would be avoided.

Dr. Beaumont: “I think the censures on Mr, Ryerson should be
qualified.”

The President : ‘‘ Have we not heard enough on this subject ?”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘The case has not been heard, and cannot be heard. Of
all the Conferences I have attended, this has given me the most trouble.
I will have nothing more to do with this case for ever. Nothing shall compel
me ‘to have anything more to do with it. Iam sure it would be better to
separate.”

T 2
292 AlistorY oF METHODISM.

Mr. W. Bunting: “I am averse to this mode of determining a half-heard
case,"

Dr. Alder: ‘The union has been of great service to Canada, and if dis-
solved the blame must be imputed to the Guardian newspaper.”

Mr. Taylor: ‘We want more light on the subject than we seem likely to
get at present. It is admitted, however, that to dissolve the union would
place things on a worse footing. But if we must dissolve, let it be done in
the kindest and most affectionate spirit.” This sentiment was warmly
cheered.

Mr. W. Bunting: ‘‘I would have the whole case heard."

The President: ‘‘It is Friday, and the Conference cannot legally sit longer
than next Tuesday.”

Mr. Lord: ‘Politics have been the bane of Wesleyan Methodism in
Canada. There can be no quiet in the land while the Guardian supplies the
Sunday reading of our people in Canada. It is a most able and popular
publication, wiih a large circulation amongst our ministers and people.”’

Dr. Bunting suggested the mode in which the matter should be settled.
This was adopted. Various conversations succeeded. At last .it was pro-
posed, ‘‘ That the allegations against Mr. Ryerson are proved.”

Dr. Beaumont: '‘ But there were extenuating circumstances.”

Dr. Bunting drew up a resolution from which Dr. Beaumont disagreed.

Dr. Bunting: “I am for separation. If not, you must appoint a new
Canadian Committee. But I will not be a member. I must be excused
from spending any more energy on the union business.”

Mr. Dixon: ‘‘ We shall be better without the connection, and they will do
better without us.”

Mr. Lord: ‘‘I should deplore the separation. Evils would arise to the
cause of Methodism. If it must be, let the onus of disunion be with them,
and not with us.” at

Mr. Reece: ‘I have travelled in Canada, and have been on the committee
up to the present time. I should regret the separation, Methodism is as
uncompromising as the truth itself in regard to its doctrines and its
original principles and aims; but when these are secured, it is the most
accommodating system in the world.”

Dr. Alder: ‘ Unhappily, in this case it is our principles that are at stake.
With the prevailing party in Upper Canada, whose organ is the Guardian, the
mission of Methodism is not to cry, ‘ Ye must be born again’; but they think
they are called to lay the foundations of political government.”

Mr. Marsden (who had been our representative in Canada): “On this *
account, I had not much hope of the connection being maintained.”

Mr. Haswell: “If only for the sake of future emigrants from this country
to Canada, I would have the union maintained.”

Mr. Galland read the principles on which he thought the union might be
perpetuated : ‘‘ That the Guardian be no longer a political paper, but, as at first
announced, a purely religious and literary journal, and that this principle be
maintained—the right of the State to secure religious instruction for the
people.”

Mr. McLean: ‘'I think that, as Canada is becoming more unsettled, we
had better not dissolve the union at present."’

Mr. W. Bunting: “I cannot hold up my hand in support of a summary
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 293

dissolution, even if I stand alone. I would have a government body apart
from the Mission House.”

The next day, the last of the Conference, the resolutions on the Canada
business were read in Conference, moved, and seconded. Mr. E. Ryerson
complained of the lateness of the stage of Conference proceedings at which
the decision was to be arrived at, and the consequent thinness of the Con-
ference, this being the very last day, and a very large proportion having
left already. “I will keep my feelings within my own bosom; but I do
entirely dissent from the resolutions. I have not been permitted to look at
them, but have subjected myself to a mortifying refusal by asking to do so.
I think there is ambiguity or indistinctness in them, and that there is no
probability that the Canadian Conference will alter their judgment on the
points at issue.”’

Dr. Bunting: ‘I move that Brother Joseph Fowler be the President
of the next Canadian Conference.”

This most ridiculous proposition was carried.

Mr. Ryerson: “The Canadian Conference will claim the privilege to
exercise their judgment on all and every point not included in the doctrinal
standards or the constitutional regulations of Wesleyan Methodism. You
require that the Conferences in Canada shall receive through you the Govern-
ment grant, even if paid from Canadian property. This seems to us unjust,
and even inconsistent. You have no business with the clergy reserves. Mr.
Stinson himself stated that he would defend everywhere our right to deal
with Canadian money voted for Canadian purposes.”

Here Mr. Ryerson was interrupted by Dr. Bunting: ‘‘The money from
the clergy reserves will be applied by the Mission House to missionary
purposes, for the benefit of the aborigines.” :

Mr. Ryerson: ‘‘ This is no answer at all. The Mission House in London
can have no power to divert the land reserves from the purpose for which
they were expressly veseyved—namely, the religious instruction and oversight
of the settlers themselves. This is beyond your power, as well as beyond
your right. The yet unappropriated property is in the hands of the Governor-
General; and the letters of the Missionary Secretaries have made on him
a totally different impression from that which they now seem to have been
intended to make. Lord John Russell acts as a politician. He will make
use of the Methodists, as of other people, for political purposes.”

Mr. Ryerson resumed: ‘‘ Wehave no objection to your receiving the grant ;
but not in such a way as would imply that you are ‘the Methodist Church
in Canada.' The Conference in Canada will resist that. But the affair is at
present in the Governor's hand.”

Mr. E. Ryerson: ‘We think the resolutions of the committee very
extraordinary—little less than cruel. You impute to me disingenuousness and
want of integrity. You say of my esteemed brother that he has acted dis-
honestly. If you wish him to go back to his own country branded, let him
go; but do not wish him to write to Lord J. Russell the opposite of what
he has written. My brother will deem it his duty to refer to your decision
in his communication to the Governor-General. I am sorry that you have
passed the resolution condemnatory of my injured brother; it will not
favour your views with the Governor, but may operate otherwise.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘On great public matters we must merge our opinions
294 Flistory or MEruHopism.

We cannot let the Connexion be committed to the violation of principles
which the Conference has affirmed. Lord John will not do a dishonourable
thing excepting under pressure.”

Mr. Galland expressed ‘the feelings of respect entertained by the
committee with regard to the brothers Ryerson.”

Mr. E. Ryerson: ‘It is wrong for the Methodist Conference to try to
get from one source what, if you get at all, you ought to get from another.
If the committee here cannot get a grant from the territorial revenue, it has
no right to get it from ‘the clergy reserves,’ and then apply it to a purpose for
which those reserves were not intended. They were expressly ‘reserved for
settlers,’ and never meant for missions.” ,

Dr. Bunting:.‘‘If a man receives a promissory note from the Governor,
and transfers it to another, is the original giver prejudiced? His claim now
belongs to the man who holds the note, who must have his full claim.”

Mr. E. Ryerson: ‘‘I will not advocate your claim against ours. You
can have no right to apply money received expressly for one particular
purpose to any other purpose. We regard these resolutions as a virtual
dissolution of the union. This Conference is the parent of Canadian
Methodism. But the preachers in Canada are not now in their minority.
Your preparation of candidates for the ministry is much below ours. Ours
are especially trained in Wesleyan polity.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I agree with very much that Mr. Ryerson has said;
but I think the union is a.perfect ignis fatuus. Will the Canadian Con-
ference maintain the like relations to the English Church in Canada to
those which are maintained by the British Conference to the Establish-
ment in England?”

Mr. J. Ryerson: ‘In the Old Country an Established Church is good;
it is not suitable to ours.”

Mr. Naylor moved, and Mr. W. M. Bunting seconded: ‘That the
separation do not take place.” The latter said: ‘I am unwilling to throw
them into the arms of what the Bishop of Exeter foresees with sagacity,
and I fear with too much truth—Puseyism, or to buttress up American
institutions in British dominions.”

Mr. Galland, too, pleaded for the continuance of the union.

Dr. Alder: ‘I lament the haste manifested by the Conference. The
decision will be most important.”

The vote was: For immediate dissolution, 38; for postponement, 13.

This was indeed a-thin house for the decision of a matter
of such grave, far-reaching moment: not above one-seventh
of the Conference, which closed after two hours’ further session.
Mr. Fowler adds: “I believe not more than thirty of the
One Hundred" were present when the Journal was signed.”

It seems impossible to read this memorable debate without
agreeing with the ministers who knew most about the case,
that the union of the Methodists of Upper Canada with the
British Conference was wrecked upon the treacherous, shifting,
sucking sands of worldly politics. This was the deliberate and
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 295

firm conviction of Mr. Lord and Dr. Alder, who had lived and
laboured in the country: Dr. Alder for a course of happy,
fruitful years. He knew the heart of a Canadian, and had the
key to it. He had threaded its wildernesses, and made himself
at home within its shanties and its wigwams, and had charmed
its towns and cities with his strong, commanding eloquence.
He knew the genius of the people, and he loved it; and was
in quickest sympathy with their temperament and tone of
mind, He knew that what the people wanted and, still better,
what they wished for was the “glorious Gospel of the happy
God,” A keen-eyed Christian statesman, he saw that this
alone could build them up into a Christian State, and make
of them an integral and healthy portion of this mighty British
empire.

This question I had the opportunity of thoroughly discussing
with Dr. Ryerson himself, a generation later, at the Conference
of 1876. As he then looked at it through the aerial per-
spective of six-and-thirty years, and the softening, mellowing
haze of holy, tender memories, with the eyes of a chastened,
long experience, he saw that he had been entangled in the
errors of self-cqnfident, impatient youth. He was but thirty
years of age when sent over to this country as representative,
to negotiate the union. This he accomplished with such
ability and success that he was entrusted by both Conferences
with special and yet undefined constituent powers. The
gentlemanly brother who was sent from England as General
Superintendent was scarcely older than the man he had to
manage, who was constitutionally the stronger of the two,
and he had to be posted up by his subordinate in all the
details of administration. Dr. Ryerson was Canadian born,
and had made his mark upon the Connexion and the country.
The result was that the General Superintendent soon found
himself to be generally superintended by the official brothers,
who were more au fazt than he. He soon found himself in
danger of being transferred from the quarter-deck to the
bowsprit, as not the captain but the figure-head. This did
not suit the British constitution.

And this was not the worst. The two brothers were
political leaders. They served two masters: the Governor-
General first, the General Superintendent second. They took
a decided party position with the Governor, Lord Durham,
against the Colonial Secretary at home. They made their
296 History or MErHODISM. :
paper a powerful party organ. The new wine of the kingdom
began to contract a bitter taste and a heady, heating quality
from the coccus Indicus of party strife. The condition of the
country greatly aggravated the evils of the situation. It was
fast becoming one great mashtub of fermenting faction. The
British Conference could not compromise itself with home
Administrations. When unity is at an end, union has become
delusive and disturbing. It would, I think, have been better
to give the Ryersons another year to think about it. This
would, at least, have thrown on them the responsibility of
the division.

Other utterances of Dr. Bunting during this Conference
were very illustrative of his views and sentiments, and style
of speaking in debate—eg.. “There was once a national
fury against organs, as there was against robes the other day.
The deputation which presented addresses to the Duke of
Kent wore robes. Is there to be no censure for this departure
from primitive simplicity?" Dr. Beaumont: “That was a
harmless concession to an ancient custom of the Court; the
robing of the President of the Methodist Conference would be
an idle pageantry.”

The decisive ‘‘Gedney case” came up before the Conference :
a Lincolnshire parson had persisted in refusing to inter
anyone baptised by a Methodist, though most courteously
warned of the illegality of his conduct by the Superintendent
of the Circuit and the Bishop of the diocese. Mr. S. D. Waddy
blamed the Committee of Privileges for having in any measure
compromised the matter.

Dr. Bunting advised the Conference to be silent on the
subject till the law courts had pronounced,

It was reported by the Education Committee that there
were ascertained to be 101 Wesleyan Methodist Day Schools
in Great Britain, and the list was not yet complete. It was
recommended that three selected young men should be sent
to Glasgow to be trained as day-school masters.

Mr. Taylor referred to conversations in the Manchester District relative
to the mode of administering baptism. Some wished to do without a form
rather than use the Prayer Book form.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Who is it that wishes to do without a form?”

Mr. Atherton: ‘I ask permission to report myself. The Prayer Book
form is full of heresy."

Dr. Bunting complimented Mr. Atherton on his attachment to order.
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 297

But as a Connexion we must have some rule. ‘I would propose some
Instructions in the Minutes. There are two objections to private baptisms :
(1) It is contrary to Scripture ; (2) to our express Minutes.”

On two important practical matters Dr. Bunting modified
his own strongly expressed views, and changed the policy of
Conference. The first had reference to “Sheffield School.”
The Sheffield District Meeting sent up a “suggestion” that
the word “supernumerary” should no longer be attached to
the name of Mr. McLean.

Mr. S. D. Waddy: “The principle is adopted in Canada, why not at
home? Iwish the governor to consider himself responsible to Conference.”
Mr. Atherton: ‘If we appoint to this, we must appoint to other schools.”
Mr. Lomas: “I think there is no comparison between this and other
schools. It has been reared at an immense cost and not for private gain
All our ministers on the Sheffield Circuit are ex-officio directors.”

Dr. Beaumont: “I think it has as much connection with the Conference
as it ought to have.” Mr. McBrair thought so too, as we had no control
over the appointment of masters or the character of the instruction.
Mr. Galland: “I should have liked the proposal better if some things were
not connected with it which tend to make the youth dissatisfied with the
simplicity of worship in their own chapels at home. Our object should be
to keep them to Methodism. I begin to feel uneasy about my own children.”
It was answered: ‘‘ There is no law against the gown. It is worn in mission
stations,”

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘ I have seen the school, and am, on the whole, pleased with
it. There are the children of the élite of our Connexion. We had better
take some notice of it by appointing a chaplain and governor. With respect
to the gown, you have a university gownsman as head master, and others
wear their robes as scholars. It is very proper that the governor should
wear his Presbyterian gown. It would give him a visible standing. I did
not wear the gown at the chapel opening. Not that I had any objection
to it or no right to it. I have worn a gown in Surrey Chapel, and as a
supply in a Methodist chapel in London have worn one, and have seen
Mr. Benson and Mr. Rodda wearing one. I think we should send a man to
secure the good and prevent the evil, and he should have as much authority
as we can give him.”

Mr. Rogers: “I have some doubt whether we can appoint~a governor
whom we have no power to control. It is childish to suppose that we can
exert much influence over the school without this authority. I doubt
whether we can settle the chapel on the Conference plan.” The motion was
carried by a large majority.

Of course, the question of marriages in Methodist chapels was
still a vexed and vexing question, which was bound to rebound
upon the Conference year after year, with gathering force, until it
was determined. —
298 Hltsrory or MErHopism.

Dr. Bunting : “In the licensing of chapels for marriages I would have the
word ‘ preachers’ substituted by ministers ; and in the heading of the stations,
etc. Time is a great repealer. I think our danger is not from Churchmen but
from Dissent. I would have no mention of our present position with regard
to marriages, but leave it as it is. Marriages may be quietly introduced. But
I must maintain that the Conference has expressed its judgment that
marriages in our chapels should not be encouraged.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘ I want to know why they should be discouraged. If we
are admittedly in danger from both Churchmen and Dissent why send away
our people to be married by Churchmen or Dissenters! Let them have the
ceremony in our own chapels, Why should we talk up the Church in its high
notions, So long as we refuse to marry our own people we shall be said to
admit that we are not full ministers. If we call ourselves such in the Minutes
of Conference, let us be such before our people and the public.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting : ‘I would have the distinction introduced on the
plan : Pastors.and Preachers, This was cheered by some and objected to by
others. Many said that the matter of marriage should rest, and others that
the Conference had discouraged it. J. Fowler: ‘ No opinion has been given
by the Conference, on one side or the other.” The President confirmed this :
“No opinion or advice has been given. The matter is to take its own course.”
Mr. Stanley: ‘‘ The time will come when it will be as common to solemnise
matrimony as to administer baptism.’’

J. Fowler complained of ‘many highly objectionable sentences in the
answers to the Ivish Addvess containing political allusions quite out of place in
such a document, and with nothing to call for them in the Address to which it
professed to be a reply.”

Mr. Waugh : '‘ The least said about politics the best. You had better
leave such matters to our own prudence and Protestantism. We Wesleyan
ministers are objects of jealousy to all parties." Dr. Beaumont spoke on the
same side. Mr, Burdsall also. Mr. Dixon: ‘I hate neutrality. We are
bound by past professions.” Mr. Waugh defended his anti-political position
triumphantly. ‘‘ Let us devote ourselves wholly tothe work of God. Why
should we turn aside to keep up an establishment which does not require its
members or its ministers to be converted? The judgment of the Irish
representatives as to our meddling with Irish politics should surely have great
weight.”” Mr. Scott: ‘‘ We should not with so much frequency allude to our
support of the Church. I would avoid it now.”

Dr. Beaumont moved: ‘‘ That if reference be made to the Church it should
be coupled with condemnation of the cruelty, bigotry, etc., of clergymen who
refuse to bury children not baptised by themselves.” Mr. W. M. Bunting
seconded. J. Fowler moved that no allusion to Irish politics should be made
in the Address. This was carried unanimously, with the exception of Dr.
Beaumont and Mr. W. Bunting, the latter protesting that he would not
second such a rascally resolution. This word was loudly condemned, and
Mr. W. Bunting withdrew it.

This was first-rate fun between two men so closely related, and
such mutually attached and admiring friends, as Mr. Fowler and
Mr. W. M. Bunting. The Address was sent back to be “ amended.”
When it came home from hospital Dr. Bunting, who had been
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 299

singularly silent through the first discussion, spoke most wisely in
approval of the toning down of the terms of the Address.

Dr. Bunting : ‘I have lived long enough to know that large, sweeping
censures against Christian bodies are generally unjust. I think we are in danger
in these Centenary times of going to extremes. Mr. Wesley was asked by Mr,
Moore if Mr. Fletcher had escaped this precipice. Mr. Wesley kept on
writing ; the question was reiterated. At length Mr. Wesley threw down
his pen and said: ‘Yes, Harry, I think he has; but if any man attempt to
follow him, he will be sure to tumble over it.’”

On the reading of the Address to the Queen, Prince Albert, and the
Duchess of Kent, Dr. Beaumont objected to the phrase: ‘ Protectress of the
Church.” ‘It will be taken to mean the Established Church. If that phrase
be retained, it is incumbent on us to state the true meaning of the word
‘ Church.'’’ ‘The objectionable phrase was crossed out.

The Pastoral address was of unusual length.

Dr. Bunting : “I admit the talent of the writer; but there are some
sentiments which I think should not now be put before our people. I would
have no reference to the Church or Dissent. All the authorities are in favour
of ecclesiastical Establishment. I would have a committee to make some
alterations.” Mr. P. McOwan: ‘I know myself to be totally incompetent to
write the Address. I never expected it to be accepted without revision.” The
Editor and another were directed to make the required changes.

The American Addvess was accompanied by the President's account of his
visit to the last General Conference as representative.

Dr. Bunting: “It is a monstrous thing that in a Methodist court a
brother's evidence is not to be received because he is black."

Mr. Ryerson: ‘In this country the law governs the people; in America,
the people govern the law. If all the slaves were emancipated to-morrow,
what could they do in the present state of public opinion, which, in America,
is above all law and Gospel too? You had better bring them to the block at
once,”

Dr. Hannah: ‘I think we had better not print the Address this year. If
printed, copious notes may be added.”

Dr. Bunting noticed ‘‘ the difference between West Indian and American
slavery. I disapprove of great agitation; but wherever there is a slave there is
asin. Christian people should appeal to God. We should have an annual day
of fasting and prayer. We do not groan under this evil as we ought. Let the
Address lie on the table. I am of opinion that silence is the best.”’

Mr. Lord: ‘‘The Americans will have no cause of complaint. The
Address from England four years ago was not printed.”

Dr. Dixon: ‘‘ The Americans have stated their case, and we should answer
in fraternal terms.”’

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘Our communication called this forth. We cannot print
our answer till they have received it. Weshould not bein a dignified position
in fighting the American Methodists. It is not courteous to address them
through the English Press.” It was determined that the Address do lie upon

the table.
The President started a very significant conversation with regard to ‘some
300 History or METuHoDISM.

chairmen of Districts who had returned no answer to a circular addressed to
them by the authorities in London.”
Dr. Bunting: “I think it uncourteous in these chairmen.” *

Such loyal, law-abiding men as ex-President Taylor, chair-
man “at Manchester, and R. Waddy, chairman at Birmingham,
defended their own reticence and that of their brethren. The
point was: That the communication had not come to them as a
matter of courtesy, but as from authorities. They wished to
know whether the authority of a secretary of a London committee
empowered him to impose any duty on the chairman of a District
which was not laid upon him by the Conference.

Dr. Bunting moved and carried a resolution ‘authorising the committee
appointed by the Conference to manage the several departments of the
business of the Connexion in the intervals of its session, in order to be
furnished with statistical information on the matters of business severally
confided to their care through their appointed officers, to send—when they
deem it expedient—to the Superintendents or Chairmen of Districts suitable
circulars and schedules, and direct the preachers duly to return such schedules
properly filled up.”

It is to be noted (1) that the defaulters in this case were not
prickly and impracticable brethren, but steady-going and Metho-
distical fathers in the Connexion, devoutly and good-temperedly
intent upon their duty. The very smallness of the thing required
of them only emphasised their neglect of it: (2) All that the
Conference entitled a Connexional committee to require from
Superintendents or a Chairman was to schedule “ statistical
information on the matters of business severally confided” to the
schedule-sending committees. Does not this go to show that the
claim set up at the foregoing Conference, that “the London
committees” were “ authorities,” whom to disobey would bring
the delinquent, of whatsoever age or standing, into Connexional
discredit, was beginning to cause a sensitive uneasiness even
among the most solid, trusty brethren ?

Another very noticeable thing was the formal and unin-
terested way in which the reports of Departmental committees
were received in silence, and the votes of thanks proposed and
passed without remark. The officers had, this time, no “com-
plaining” to complain of, and no badgering to groan at. The
brethren might seem to have been immersed in conjugal corre-
spondence, or in studying the stations. Yet some interesting
particulars came out. “The Sheffield boys” had raised £300
for the Ashantee Mission.
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 301

Dr. Bunting proposed: “That there should never be more
than three Welsh ministers in the Hundred, a larger number
being out of all proportion.”

MANCHESTER CONFERENCE OF 1841.

The Conference of 1841 was held in Manchester, Dr.
Dixon being elected to the chair by a very large majority.
Joseph Fowler and Isaac Keeling were elected into the Legal
Hundred.

A somewhat stormy conversation took place as to the young
men recommended to be received on trial. There were seventy-
seven candidates. Mr. Fowler called attention to the new and
startling position in which we found ourselves. We were
building enormous chapels with enormous debts, around which
the population was growing fast; the Lord of the harvest was
answering our prayers by sending forth labourers. Better have
more moderately sized chapels, and more pastors to look up and
look after the hungry multiplying sheep. ;

Dr. Bunting argued that in commerce it was thought good to keep the
supply in advance of the demand.

J. F. thought this an inaccurate analogy. Even in commerce a large
excess of supply over demand must inevitably produce a glut, which would be
followed by revulsion; and in the labour market the consequences are very
serious. Increase the number of moderately sized and debtless chapels and of
ministers to shepherd those who came to hear them.

The brightest name upon the death-roll was Theophilus
Lessey. High testimonies, fully merited, were paid to him as a
preacher of the foremost rank. But the point most dwelt upon
was the untiring freshness with which he had dwelt exclusively—
in the most glowing and persuasive manner—on the vital truths
of the Gospel, such as the priesthood of Christ, the power of the
Atonement, and the paternal providence of God in Christ. Dr.
Bunting and Dr. Beaumont were equally strong on this point.

The President remarked that Lessey was all the more popular because so
evangelical and earnest. To aim at popularity was very paltry in a minister
of Christ. :

Dr. Bunting recommended the book on “ Preaching" by the Bishop of Ohio.
Mr. Scott also insisted on the evangelic element in Lessey’s preaching.
Mr. S. Jackson described the holy indignation which Lessey had expressed on
listening to a non-Methodist sermon from a Methodist pulpit. Lessey said:
“I could have collared the man.”
302 HAlistory or METHoDISM.

Mr. W. M. Bunting said: “I can’t imagine how any Methodist preacher
can have any pleasurable feeling in preaching anything else than the vital
doctrines of the Gospel.”

The most touching record was that of S. L., admittedly the
ablest young man in our ranks, who had died in the sixth year of
his itinerancy. It was said that he had impaired his constitution
by smoking.

Dr. Beaumont said that he remonstrated with him on the subject, and
warned him of the effects of this overpowering habit. It unfitted him for the
strain of a Methodist preacher's duties. ‘I would not say anything about it
now if I had not said the same to him. I hope I may be excused for these
advices. As I am now getting among the seniors, whether I will or not, I may
give this admonition as a service to young men.”

Mr. Reece: ‘I concur with Dr. Beaumont.”

The President: ‘I hope that the medical speech of Dr. Beaumont and
the paternal speech of Mr. Reece will convince us all of the evil habit of
smoking. There is to be no more smoking ” (cheers and clapping) ‘‘and no
more clapping.”

Dr. Bunting paid a warm testimony to old John Barrett, who had
finished a ministerial course of fifty-five years. ‘‘ His ministry was energetic,
simple, pointed, and he could not rest until it was saving souls.”

A very sad case, which touched me rather closely, was
that of a devoted and laborious minister who was struck down,
at the age of forty-three, by a fever caught in the discharge
of his pastoral duties.

Mr. Duncan asked whether there was any truth in the current report that
he had sent successively to each of his three colleagues, requesting them
to come and pray with him, but they all refused to visit him. The chairman
of the District said that it was too true.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ There is not a Catholic priest in the kingdom who would
not have visited him.” Mr. Reece: ‘‘ This is a fearful novelty among us. I
would have a suitable letter sent to them.” Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘The man who
desérts a dying brother through fear is more likely to catch the disease than
the man who obeys the call of humanity, religion, and duty.” An-extenuation
was pleaded on behalf of the youngest colleague on the ground ‘‘that, though
nervous, he was kind-hearted.” Dr. Bunting : ‘He is wrong-hearted. There
can be no doubt what sort of a letter the Conference should send. It should
begin by stating our incredulity that a Methodist preacher could be guilty of
such neglect.”

By the blessing of God upon his strong constitution and his
abstemious habits, he survived the fever, but sank under the
consequent exhaustion. J dined and took tea with him a little
while before his fatal illness, and was greatly charmed by his
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 303

simplicity, humility, and devotion to the work. He seemed built
for a long, effective ministry.

Under the question ‘‘ Any objections,” etc., the first name paused at was
that of Henry Moore.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I always feel it my duty to object to Mr. Moore’s neither
printing nor destroying Mr. Wesley's papers, as directed.” Mr. Reece: “I
have done all that could be done with him.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ There is one practical use. We shall not canonise him.”

The next case of interest was that of a probationer, who
had been emboldened by the denunciation at the last Con-
ference of the objection to a Presidential robe as “ irrational
fury,” and by the repeated declarations that there was no law
against a Wesleyan Methodist minister appearing in the pulpit
in “clerical costume,” to astonish the Methodists of his circuit
by “trying zt on” his own person. For this the District
Meeting had reproved him, and also his Superintendent for not
having expressed his disapprobation so strongly as he ought
to have done.

Dr. Bunting moved for a committee. Dr. Beaumont contended that, as
this was not the only offender, the whole case should come before the whole
Conference.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Whatever be the judgment of the Conference on. the
general question, there can be no doubt that it is improper for a man to
assume the ministerial costume who is not in the full ministry.” The next
case was that of W. M. Bunting. On the reading of his name Mr. Powell
and Dr. Beaumont rose together. J. Fowler rose to order. Mr. Taylor
stated “the facts of the case,” that Mr. W. M. Bunting had worn a gown in
the pulpit of a chapel in Manchester, which Mr. Taylor thought to be a
literary distinction; but, as Mr. Taylor thought, ‘contrary to the rule and
injurious to the peace of the society.”

Dr. Bunting : “I protest against the inaccuracy of Mr. Taylor's sentiments.
I would take up the case of the individuals, and, if necessary, have a general
discussion at a proper time.’ Mr. Entwisle: ‘I would have us to be calm,
as worthy of a deliberative assembly. I think our societies are perilled.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I rise to order. If we are to be calm, we must not talk of

the peril of our people.”
The President : ‘‘ There was nothing against Mr. William Bunting in the

District Meeting.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I rise to order. It is for the Court to determine when the
case shall be heard; if Dr. Beaumont choose to be accuser, he must not
be judge also. He must retire till the others judge.” Dr. Beaumont: “No
party has ever been so interrupted.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I deny that the case has been opened.”

Mr. Beecham: ‘Dr. Beaumont has no right to force the time of discussion.
He is all right in pressing the charge, but the time must be settled by the

Conference.’ The President: ‘‘The consideration of the general question
304 Arsrory or Meruopism.

should be deferred till character is gone through.” Mr. W. M. Bunting: “I
do not see why I should be dealt with differently from the probationer. I
scorn to avail myself of a refusal to answer the questions of my brethren. I
will not allow it to be said that I was treated at the District Meeting with
‘tenderness.’ I was treated with justice and dignity, but not with a particle
of tenderness. I have a strong feeling, but not a childish fondness, for gowns
and bands. I hope when the subject comes in for discussion that I shall not
be made to appear ridiculous. I would let Dr. Beaumont know that satire is
a game at which I am not afraid to enter the lists with Dr. Beaumont, but I
do not approve of it on such subjects. I think there is not that strict regard
to equity and consistency which is a branch of eternal justice. I am afraid
of myself, but I hope I shall have courteousness.”

Dr. Beaumont : ‘'I approach this question with all seriousness, I think it
most important to the body. I hold that Mr. William Bunting, by assuming
the gown without the leave of Conference and without, if not against, the
advice of the father and brethren so accessible to him, has broken a brotherly
contract and committed an unconnexional and dangerous act.”

The subject came up again on the mention of the name
of 5. D. Waddy, who was charged with intruding gown and
bands into the pulpit of Waltham Street Chapel, Hull, in
opposition to the authority of his Superintendent. The District
Meeting had spent two days upon the case, and acquitted
Mr. Waddy of blame, with ‘but one dissentient. His Super-
intendent appealed against this decision. With this appeal
was connected a charge against the Chairman of the District
for having counselled Mr. Waddy against the counsel of this
Superintendent on the matter of the gown.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think the matter might have been easily settled if there
had not been so much personal feeling in it. I fear some brethren wish for
debate. I feel tempted to give them my opinion, No one has the liberty
to introduce the gown into a Methodist pulpit without the authority of
Conference. After what was said at the last ‘Conference, no one should have
done it, especially against the judgment of his Superintendent and his express
disapproval. That was still worse. I do not think any man is personally
implicated. We are not in a state of unity on the subject. Some of us cannot
go to the other side. It would be a condemnation of Wesley and Coke,
and of other Churches. Why go out of our way to condemn them? I should
object to any assuming of the gown as matters stand at present. Leave it
till there is harmony of opinion. For the Lord's sake, let us talk about other
matters.”

Mr. Marsden: ‘‘ Dr. Bunting has spoken under a gracious influence. I
hope all may be amicably settled now.”

Mr. S. D. Waddy: ‘If any man think I would contend for a gown he
is utterly mistaken. There are principles involved in this affair.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting: “I say it in calmness, that if the party is to
triumph of which the Superintendent of Hull West is the type, I must
resign my office among you. I am sorry to see so bitter a party spirit.”
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 305

Mr. Scott: “I would recommend to Mr. William Bunting and Mr.
Waddy the spirit which Dr. Bunting has exemplified in his excellent
speech. I think the opposition to the gown has been very unfairly met,
and that the objection to Mr. Powell and Dr. Beaumont was unjust. I
regret these attacks of one member of the body upon another. Let us
cultivate the spirit of brotherly kindness. We shall work the best together
as we approach the nearest to one another.”

Mr. S. D. Waddy: ‘I do not intend to give any threat; I only wish
to be relieved of the degradation of my present association as to my
Circuit.”

Mr. Newton: “I cling to the hope that the Conference may be able
to settle this'’ (after whispering to some around him). ‘' Perhaps in the
present aspect of the affair a committee is inevitable.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I must not be misunderstood; there is no declaration
for the gown ‘and no declaration against it. No one should take upon
himself to wear the gown without the consent of Conference.”

After an uproarious talk, it was decided that there should be a
committee.

Four days later the committee brought in its report,
which was: “That all the brethren should desist from wear-
ing the gown without the express sanction of the Conference,
and that it was expedient that all the brethren now stationed
in Hull West should be removed.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘‘I propose that the word ‘abstain’ be substituted
for the word ‘desist.’ With all respectful and deferential regard to the
judgment of the Conference, I cannot consent to be deprived of the right
to make a statement in which my honour and my personal connection
with this body are involved.”

The President: ‘‘Mr. Bunting shall have full opportunity at a convenient
time.”

Mr. S. D. Waddy: ‘I wish to express my approval of the kind and
courteous manner in which the investigation has been conducted. I should
like to know whether the vote includes the removal of the present ministers
from the Hull West Circuit.”

It was answered that it did.

The Superintendent said: ‘‘I heartily concur in that decision.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘“‘Iconcur in what Mr. Waddy says as to the
courteous manner in which the business has been conducted. I entirely
submit to the decision, and shall not assume the gown (whilst retaining
my opinion), notwithstanding any authorisation to the contrary.”

Dr. Bunting: “I am of opinion that the two brethren should remove
from Hull. They should relieve us magnanimously from the difficulty of
discussing the grounds on which it is recommended by the committee. The
tattle about organic changes originates with the devil. This talk about ‘a
ministerial party’ in the Conference originated with the Radicals. I know it.
It did appear to me that the rule about the gown might be -rescinded, and
it was rescinded on a motion in full Conference. The question is now

U
306 flistory oF MeEruHopism.

closed as effectually as if there were an enactment on the case. We have
something better to do than dispute on such points.”

Mr. Atherton: ‘I do not recollect the enactment against the gown
being rescinded.”

Neither Dr. Bunting nor any other member of the Con-
ference was able to supply the required date, and no record
of any such rescinding was produced. Thus this crumpled,
rumpled, sorely-pulled-at gown question was at last neatly,
softly smoothed and folded, and sprinkled with the fragrant
and protective “holy water” of fraternal kindliness, and
deposited serenely in the wardrobe of Church History. It
has only been disturbed a time or two, and aired respect-
fully, and then put back again. This was the jubilee of its
origination. In 1792, the year after Wesley had been laid to
rest, the whole Connexion was disturbed, as a placid pool
might be by some hissing aerolite, by the appearance in
canonicals, in gown and bands, of two of Wesley’s preachers,
Bradburn and Roberts, at the opening of Portland Chapel,
Bristol.

The next Conference, however, threw a thick wet blanket
on the business by enacting curtly, “No gowns, cassocks,
bands, or surplices shall be worn by any.” Next year the rule
was re-enacted, with the penalty attached of self-expulsion by
the very act; and this decision was embodied in that authori-
tative compendium “The Large Minutes.” No less a man than
President Pawson was obliged to doff his gown and wear
instead the white sheet of a candle-bearing penitent. No
wonder that the fear of being so ignominiously “ unfrocked”
had deterred for very nearly half a century all further intro-
ductions of the clerical costume into Wesleyan Methodist
pulpits.

But the assertion by ‘the highest authority in Methodism”’
that there was no existing prohibition of the wearing of the
gown in a Methodist pulpit, and the strong liking for it
which he had manifested during the debate on the governor's
gown at Sheffield and on the proffered Presidential robe at
the Newcastle Conference, and especially his denunciation of
the opposition to such vestment as an “irrational fury,” had
emboldened certain brethren with strong proclivities in that
direction to assume the ministerial garments, which were as
much disliked by many as they were desired by some. Not
only had two of the very finest of the younger ministers
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 307

adopted these habiliments, and a pert probationer astonished
the unambitious natives by appearing in this garb, but a
literary brother in the ninth year of his ministry had surprised
and astounded the soldiers and dockyard men and contractors
of Portsmouth by an ecclesiastic escapade of the same kind.
More than once the discussion in the Conference had assumed
a rather serious aspect. Besides this uproarious talkation which
preceded the appointment of a committee, Mr. Fowler notes
at another point that the Conference was very clamorous and
in great confusion, and again the President was called upon
to interfere between the combatants. Again a long and noisy
discussion wastes the time of Conference; this Mr. Fowler has
not patience to record. Twice during the debate even William
Bunting lost that classic, Christian calmness which gave an
added charm to his deliverances. The two Doctor B.’s came
into unusually sharp collision. Dr. Bunting said, with regard
to his noble son: “He does, unfortunately, bear the name of
Bunting, and that is the reason why he is treated so unfairly.”
To which Dr. Beaumont answered: “I regret the fact that
one of the parties in this case bearing the name of Bunting
should be mixed up with the matter in the least.” Whereupon
Dr. Alder said: “I protest against Dr. Beaumont occupying so
much of the time of the Conference. I have been twenty-
eight years in the Body, and have not occupied the time of
the Conference thirty minutes.”

Dr. Bunting did himself great honour and vastly added to his
influence by the mediating posture and position he took up in
this debate. He put his point admirably in these words: “TI
appeal to the good feeling of the Body. The law of 1793 was
made to please the High Church Party, who denied that we are
ministers. Are we now to enact any law which will establish this
hypothesis? Would this be wise ? Let us leave the matter as
it is, and advise any brother not to adopt the gown.” |

This was the real point both of William Bunting and of
Samuel Waddy, and of the best laity who thought with them.
To the Hull ladies who were the prime movers in the movement
it was a mere esthetic preference. To Bradburn in 1792 it was
both ecclesiastic and esthetic. To an able man, so intent on
his own way, and so accustomed to enjoy it as Dr. Bunting
unquestionably was, the self-conquest which was involved in his
giving up the gown was a notable achievement. If the like
moderation and predominant regard for the peace and the

U 2
308 flistory or MEruHopism.

spiritual prosperity of Zion had prevailed in the Organ Case of
1827-28, hundreds of devoted members would have been saved to
Methodism. The gown question in 1841 did too much mischief
as it was, especially to the noble Methodism of the Hull West
Circuit. It deprived the people of the ministrations of a preacher
who had taken a strong grasp upon the population. His combined
massiyeness and gracefulness of style was specially adapted to the
genius of the people. The town and gown disturbance delayed
the first Hull Conference for six years. It had been determined
to hold it there in 1842, but letters came to the Conference of
1841 from the stewards of both Circuits, complaining that “ the
feeling in favour of the Conference is not so strong as it was, and
it will not be convenient to hold it there next year.”

Another painful subject of discussion was the first volume of
the Wesleyan Takings.

Dr. Bunting read a minute from the London District which referred to that
book. This mentioned the names of several brethren said to be suspected of
its authorship, at least in part. Amongst these suspects occurred the honoured
name of the President himself, who justly claimed precedence at the bar.
Being interrogated, he denied positively. Dr. Beaumont stepped next into the
dock. He said: ‘I have never written a word to which I was ashamed to
put my name. But I do not think it for the honour of the Body to prosecute
this inquiry in this fashion ; I object to it.”

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘ The book is a distinct attack upon the Conference. I have
a contempt for the understanding of the writer. It is the most illogical
production that I ever read. I will not defend my character ; it is not worth
defending. The book would not kill a flea.” Mr. W. Bunting: ‘ I think that
no man should refuse to answer ; that Mr. Everett be sent for and the question
put to him. No man should do, as a Christian minister, that for which: he
would be horsewhipped if he were not a minister. I am sorry that I am
not endowed with power to give utterance to my abomination of this low
morality.” :

Dr. Beaumont : ‘If we press this question any further we shall invest an
ephemeral matter with an enduring interest, and excite a ferment which it
will be hard to settle or suppress.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I complain of the personality of Dr. Beaumont’s speech."

Dr. Bunting read a letter which he had prepared to be sent to Mr. Everett,
calling upon him to deny the imputation if he pleased ; and saying that his

ministerial character would be ‘higher if he could with truth make this
disclaimer. :

To this letter Everett returned a very lengthy reply. As
might have been foreseen, he seized immediate advantage of a
mistake, amounting to a misfortune: the assumption of the London
District Meeting to inquire into the characters of brethren
belonging to five other District Meetings, which alone were
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 309

charged with the responsibility. He himself turned accuser, by
charging the London District Meeting with “assuming the
prerogatives of a Court of Inquiry over other districts. I
resolved at once, and at all hazards, to resist the encroachment.”

This was his only point. It formed a cutting counter-charge
against the chairman of the London District—Dr. Bunting—and a
thetorical declaration that he would not plead in the case at all,
either guilty or not guilty. It is just a contemptuous snapping
of the fingers that held the pen that wrote the Zasings, and then
clenching them into the fist of defiant challenge. The position
taken up by him is just the same as that in which he intrenched
himself seven years later, in 1849—he demands a “regular trial, or
to be let alone.”

Mr. Cusworth inquired if any question had been put to Mr. Everett in
his own District Meetings. Answer: ‘‘No.” Mr. Rattenbury : ‘I introduced
the subject at the ‘ preacher’s meeting,’ but it was difficult to be serious.”

On the reading of Mr. Everett's reply, Dr. Bunting said: ‘‘ I deny that
there is an interrogative in the ‘letter from the London District. We desired
the Conference to do so. The man who is guilty of dishonourable concealment
is not to be trusted. He is said to have made a brilliant atonement by taking
a missionary deputation. He complains that he has not had the honours of the
Body, has not been on committees. We put him on the Book Committee; he
did not attend. He says: ‘Twenty years ago he cut with me!’ Why?
Because he was not made a sub-editor. This was not my fault. He was
rather unpleasantly obsequious. I have a poor opinion of a man who will not
answer, unless he be ‘sui generis’ like Dr. Beaumont, and I think him incapable
of writing the Takings. I had nothing to do with the London District Meeting
excepting being the chairman against my will.”

Mr. Burdsall’s letter was read. He refused ‘to meet’ the mere
assumption that he was guilty.

Mr. Reece: ‘‘ I think the Editor should be protected; he brought the
matter before the District Meeting.” The senior Editor, Mr. T. Jackson: ‘‘I
knew that some of the things said against me in the book were flagrantly
untrue; and doubted whether some parts of it could be written by a Methodist
preacher. But I wished for nothing personal; I thought something was due
to the Conference. Iam of opinion that the writers of those two letters have
set the Conference at defiance.”

Mr. Atherton: ‘If Mr. Everett were to swear in my presence that he is
not James Everett, I should as soon believe him as if he were to say that he
is not the author of that book. He says that he has three styles; he has
four, one of which he cannot conceal. There should be some notice taken
of this.”

Mr. S. D. Waddy: ‘'I protest against the siitatiieiesaaaede and the
wickedness of the book. No principle on which it is written can be sustained.
The book refers to personal defects in a most ungentlemanly manner. I will
say, not in the spirit of contumacy, these questions are not to be answered.
I will answer no questions."
310 Hisrorv oF Meruovism.

Mr. Atherton: ‘I think the author’s name would have subjected him to
an action for damages. Men’s characters and usefulness are injured by it.”
Mr. W. S. made some foolish, frivolous remarks.

Mr. Grindrod: ‘The book will send our young people to quiz the
preachers."

Mr. Galland: There is much to admire in the characterisation of the
deceased preachers, but the book as a whole is to be condemned.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting: “ We shall do little good if we have not the courage
to carry out our inquiry about the men who have not the simplicity and
chivalrous impatience to answer it. The Taking of Mr. Bowers is shameful.
I know but one man who holds such a ridiculously low opinion of himself as
John Bowers, and that is Jabez Bunting.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘I complain of my name having been called in question
in my absence, in a District which had no jurisdiction over me whatever, and
on no evidence but that of a report contained in the very preface the truthe
fulness of which is at the same time denied. It is below the dignity of the
Conference to notice such a book as the Wesleyan Takings. I move the order
of the day.”

Mr. S. Dunn seconded.

Dr. Bunting referred to the ‘Brotherhood of the body, so much closer
than that of the Church of Scotland, which did not exchange livings every
three years.”’

Mr. Bowers: ‘‘My feelings are painfully excited. I feel myself deeply
injured: not so much from being described as cultivating an oratorical manner
as from the imputation of motive. If I am a public actor, you should drive
me from amongst you. I have many infirmities, but I claim to be an honest
man. I am now afraid to go into the pulpit, fearing that the book may have
been extensively read.”

It was moved and carried: ‘‘ That the Conference expresses its regret that
this book has been published.”’

It was then moved: ‘That the letters of Mr. Everett and Mr. Burdsall
are unsatisfactory, and unworthy of Wesleyan ministers.”’

J. Fowler objected to this resolution.

Mr. Stanley: '‘ The review contained what I wish had not been there. I
am in a difficulty about Mr. Burdsall. Some of the descriptions of the
deceased are powerfully written.”

Dr. Bunting: “If Mr. Everett and Mr. Burdsall are censured, so ought
Dr. Beaumont to be.”

Dr. Beaumont: "I complain that the Conference should return upon its
track to brand a name which has been passed ten days ago.”

Nevertheless this fresh brand was stamped on Joseph
Beaumont’s name.

On looking back on this unhappy and unseemly sequel to
the Centenary celebrations with eyes which eagerly perused the
Centenary Zakings within a few weeks of its untimely publication,
and which looked upon the stir it made with wonder what might
come of it, one cannot but confess that there is little else but
warning to be gathered from the contemplation. As to the

s
THR CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 311

book itself, it is universally admitted to be the work of a very
cunning draughtsman ; but he was lamentably lacking in some
essential elements of high-class literary portrait painting, espe-
cially in geniality and sympathy and a generous catholicity of
appreciation. He held a hard and sharply pointed pencil, but he
sadly wanted tenderness of touch and delicacy of handling,
breadth of treatment and wholeness of- impression. He could
better draw an abnormally or imperfectly developed feature than
he could present a contour or a full-length figure. A tendency
to exaggeration was disagreeably apparent. Priding himself on
not leaving out the wart upon a hero's front, he would magnify
the wart into a wen, and, boasting that he would call a spade
a spade, he scrupled not to call a spade a spear. Hence it has
long since been confessed, even by the writer’s warm admirers
and adherents, that the condemned book was really reprehensible
in several respects. There was a Carlylian cynicism about it
which would be endlessly popping up like a Punch with his baton
and grimace. But its worst fault was its irreverent abuse of
Scripture for the purposes of cheap and flippant punning. This
most despicable form of profane buffoonery was stamped. upon
the very title-page in a shocking perversion of the blessed
Master’s saying, ‘‘ Whose is this image and superscription?” It
was, moreover, mischievous in tendency, prompting not only
young people but readers of all ages to “ quiz” their ministers.
In most uncivil fashion it held up to public scorn the physical
disadvantages of individual ministers, and with bad taste and
feeling called the attention of hearers to the peculiarities of
pronunciation, and constitutional defects, with all the carnality
of Corinthian criticism. ‘ His bodily presence is weak, and his
speech contemptible.” It made game of awkward mannerisms
of which the minister was himself too discouragingly conscious,
and the listener too apt to notice of his own accord. It was,
above all, unbrotherly in a very high degree. The victim of such
heartless vivisection for the entertainment of the public might
most fittingly complain : ‘All my faults observed, set in a note-
book, read, and conned by heart.’ The usefulness of a minister of
Christ was thus lessened and imperilled, and it tended to reverse
the couplet, “Those remained to scoff who went to pray.” It
was a sinful violation of the address of Wesley to the preachers :
“ Let them beware how they despise each other's gifts. Let them
never speak slightingly of each other in any kind.” But the
wisdom of the course adopted to unearth the midnight prowler
312 ffistory oF Meruopism.

may be gravely questioned. It is only fair to notice. that no
action was attempted till the third edition of the book was
published, with an acrid and aggressive preface. The faithful,
honest strictures of the Magazine upon the objectionable aspects
of the Zakings had aroused the anger of the Zaker against the
officials of the Book Room and the other departmental men in
London, and he was resolved to “ feed fat the ancient grudge he
bore them.” So he waylaid the posse comztatus, sprang out upon
them from his thicket, and belaboured them with all the force
and fury of John Bunyan’s Giant Maul. The sensitive senior
Editor, on the calling over of his name at the London District
Meeting, stood on his defence against his nameless and masked.
assailant.

The position was forthwith taken up which had been
silently conceded by the Conference of the Centenary, ‘That
any reflection on the acts of any London official is a reflection
on the Conference itself, whose appointee and agent the official
is.’ The principle was precisely that laid down by Governor
Morley at the Grove: ‘He that insults a monitor insults the
master, and he that insults the master insults the governor and
insults the committee, and he that insults the committee insults
the Conference!”’ which Benjamin Brown carried to the
ultima ratio by exclaiming, ‘‘ And he that insults the Conference
insults the Connexion at large !”

Thus the namés of seven several ministers, at that time
assembled in five different Districts, were brought beneath the
cdgnisance of a District under the single question, “ Any objection
against Thomas Jackson?” with immediate action thereupon.
Resolutions recommending that the Conference should institute
close inquiries on the subject were proposed and sent up to that
body. Written notice of these resolutions was officially
communicated to each one of the seven suspected brethren,
and on the strength of these resolutions, each one of the
suspected members was called in question by the Conference.
This was, to say the least, a novel and questionable method of
procedure, which required an after resolution of the Conference
to invest it with legality.

This unique irregularity was all the more unfortunate from
the fact that the innovating District Meeting was no other
than the Lozdon District Meeting, and the chairman was no
other than Dy. Bunting himself. This gave Mr. Everett a
chance of which he was sure to take advantage. Mr. Everett's
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 313

counter-question was in one sense very easy, in another very
hard, to answer. How would Dr. Bunting, and how would
some others have felt if the brethren of the York District had
taken hold of reports concerning London brethren, and given
them an opportunity of this sort of clearing themselves. Would
they have concluded it right and kind? York has just as
much right to take cognisance of reports concerning London
brethren as London has of York— unless, indeed, London were
at liberty to constitute itself a sort of Scotland Yard for the
whole Connexion. Dr. Bunting seems to have seen this when
he strove to divest himself of all personal responsibility in
the affair. “I had nothing to do with the District Meeting,
except being chairman against my will.”

One cannot but feel wonder that the conscript fathers of
the London District should commit themselves to such a
course without first asking what might readily result from it,
and determining what counsel they should give if the worst
should come to the worst. That one District Synod comprised
full fifteen presidential men, besides a plethora of other sages ;
“men of understanding to discern the times, to know what
Israel ought to do.” At their head sat the very chiefest of
Church statesmen that Methodism has .ever yet produced
or seems likely to produce as yet. One might blamelessly
have thought that in taking such a step they would have
looked where they were going, and made their ground
fairly sure before they trusted to it such a battery. The
brethren to be questioned were, to a man, somewhat
strong-willed personalities: If a trio or a brace of them should
elect to throw the onus probandi on the propounders of th
theorem, what then? Were they prepared to push and press
the matter to the bitter end?

One member of the London District Meeting was prepared
for this, and proposed to the Conference to disown the brethren
who refused to answer, to leave them stationless, and without
name or place in the Minutes of the Conference. Two of the
very young men in Methodism strongly advocated that
conclusion. But this was not generally entertained. The
result was that the Conference found itself in a most humiliating
and perplexing plight—the condition of an assaulting host
which has plenty of powder but no shot to spare. Whoever
claimed the victory, James Everett was left in full possession of

the field.
314 History oF Meruopism.

But surely a brother so unbrotherly must have found
himself in unendurable restraint and isolation ! But he had
read the situation more correctly. He had gained in notoriety
far more than he had lost in the respect of the fraternity.
His congregation-drawing and money-raising power was much
enhanced. But what Superintendent would invite into his
Circuit a brother under ban? A greater number than had
ever done so yet. He had more invitations than ever. He
was more delighted than distressed or disturbed by the, to him,
innocuous ado which he had succeeded in creating.

And what had been gained by the action instituted by the
London District Meeting, which had to be legalised after the
fact? A profitless commotion, an insolent, aggressive answer
from the only minister whom there was any solid reason to
suspect, and what might just as well have been done without
all this intervening trouble—an impotent expression of regret
that the book had been published.

And was it wise to handcuff Dr. Beaumont with James
Everett in the same condemnation? I do not plead for his
refusal to reply in express and formal terms. But had he not
implicitly replied in the indignant disavowal of ever having
published an anonymous attack on anyone? That sort of thing
was not in Beaumont’s line. He had for it as little liking
as he had leisure. Dr. Bunting, who proposed the degradation,
had a little while before avowed his conviction that Dr.
Beaumont was incapable of such an act. Of course, the object
was to let down Beaumont to the level of James Everett.
The effect was rather to haul up Everett to the place of
Dr. Beaumont. Besides this, it stung an able and admirable
preacher with a bitter feeling of unfairness and injustice.. He
said, “I leave the Conference with a new brand upon my
brow, which fools may mistake for a laurel.”

The general question of the brotherly question must be
deferred till we come to the expulsions which resulted from
its ultimate enforcement. IJ will only say that Mr. William
Bunting, with his usual felicity and force of phrase, expressed
the true sentiment and feeling when he said that a frank
answer was required by the “simplicity of a true Methodist
preacher, and a chivalrous impatience of everything like un-
brotherliness, or meanness, or duplicity.”

Dr. Bunting, when the case was closed, said: “I should
like to give Mr. West an opportunity of denying any
DHE CFNTENARY CELEBRATION. 315

knowledge of the authorship.” But Mr. West let slip the
opportunity.

A very painful case brought out the gentle side of Dr.
Bunting’s nature. A well-connected brother, accustomed to
the higher range of Circuit, was charged by the son of a peer
with attempting to obtain land for a Connexional purpose by
promising Methodist votes at an election. This had become
matter of public animadversion by the publishing in the
newspapers of the Methodist minister's application and the
candidate’s reply. Lord B. had called the attention of the
Conference to this attempt of a Methodist minister to
‘corrupt the morals of his son.” It was determined that a
letter should be written to his lordship, accompanied by a
resolution strongly condemnatory of the minister’s act, and
that the:delinquent should be deposed from the Superintendency
and removed from the Circuit, and that he should be rebuked
from the chair. The President informed him that “his conduct
was unworthy of a Methodist preacher, and compromised his
Church ; that a’ Methodist preacher should keep away from
political struggles and political trickery.”

The theological examination of the candidates was got through more
quickly but with less interest. I think a great improvement might be made.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘Pardon is a remission of the penalty, but involves also
restoration to right and privilege.” Mr. W. Bunting: ‘God will by no
means clear the guilty, but He accepts the Divine substitute.” The President
recommended to the young men submission to the Conference and respectful
obedience to their Superintendents. “I am quite sure that the Wesleyan
Methodist system is more Scriptural than that of any other body.” Dr.
Bunting took occasion to remark: ‘‘ Fewer chapels and more horses would
save more souls.’’ (Eight hundred chapels had been built in five years.) ‘I
think we are forsaking our calling. We should preach in barns, the cottages
of the poor, and out of doors.”

Dr. Bunting; ‘I oppose the division of Districts. I think it well to
have many preachers together once a year, and if a spirit of disaffection
prevails we may need large Districts.”

In any case it would have been a blunder to divide the
Bedford District.

Leave was asked by letter that Brother Caughey might be present at
the Conference.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think he should be told that he should not write letters
to be published in American papers, etc.” Application was made for a
brother to come into Conference who had refused permission from the District
Meeting to attend, but, being dissatisfied with his appointment, had thought
316 FAlstory or Mernopism.

it worth his while to come. It was at length decided that he should come in
‘but it is not to form a precedent.”

Mr. Parry having been ordained as an Independent minister, ‘‘had a
scruple against re-ordination."”” Agreed that he be simply recognised.

A letter was-received from the venerable ex-President Treffry, Governor
of the Theological Institution, saying that the state of his health made it
necessary for him to become a supernumerary. He had just completed the
Jubilee of his ministry, having entered it the year after Wesley's death.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think there may be some temptation to become a
supernumerary which did not exist before; we must look after this case.”
The case was left in Dr. Bunting’s hands. Mr. T. died about a year later.

The President was directed to visit Scotland at what time he pleases.

Dr. Bunting: ‘This is not necessary, but it is comely. Methodism is
catholic before anything else. We should not'now be backward to embrace
opportunities of showing ‘this spirit.’’’ This remark was intended to
promote fraternisation with the leaders of the Free Church movement.

Dr. Newton notices an instance of catholic spirit in a Scotch minister,
who said: ‘The Methodists have the eye of an insect and the eye of an
eagle. John Wesley was the star of the last century which will never set.
I have never heard anything at a Methodist meeting, either in prayer or
speech, which I could not live and die by.”

Dr. Bunting was appointed to accompany the President to Scotland.

Mr. Fowler strongly opposed the appointment of the minister
chosen to succeed Mr. Treffry as governor of the Theological
Institution. It was strange indeed that those who knew him
much more closely than did Mr. Fowler, did not detect his
exquisite unfitness for the post. It proved to be a melancholy
blunder. The only reply to Mr. Fowler’s objection was that
‘the appointment was for three years only.” The nomination
was received with marked coldness, but the secretary read on.
But the indifference to departmental matters which had ensued
on the announced understanding in 1839, that animadversion on
official acts, described as ‘‘badgering and complaining,” should
henceforth be ‘“‘no more” heard, was just as marked in 1841
as in 1839 and 1840. Even the appointment of Mr. Jackson to the
theological tutorship was passed without remark and without
vote.

An excellent letter, breathing a most Catholic spirit, addressed to the
President by the Rev. Mr. Hodgson, a clergyman, was accompanied by a
pamphlet containing a plan of reunion with the Methodists, which he had
“submitted” to the dignitaries of the Church, and they had received with
much condescension.

Mr. Reece: “Such a letter I did not expect to receive from a High
Churchman. He places himself where he ought. A letter must be sent to
him in the same spirit.”
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 317

Dr. Beaumont: '‘I would not have Methodism confined within a clipped
hedge. We have our own way, which is the best for us.” Others opposed
any reference to reunion with the Church.

Mr. Scott: ‘‘ Mr. Hodgson told me he had no expectation that the subject
of union could be practically taken up by the Conference.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘‘I know that Mr. Hodgson has an ultimate inten-
tion of union. I believe that our union with the Church in any formal way is
impracticable.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘My name is ludicrously introduced into the question. The
Conference is to blame for this, and I suppose I have some influence in the
Body. No person on earth or in heaven—if I may use the language—can
reconcile Methodism with High Churchism. I have always said that amalgam-
ation is impossible. I wish the Evangelicals would disavow the Puseyites.
When Mr. Wesley was alive something ought to have been done; but not
now. We must now maintain a separate and distinct position, and yet hope
that the time may come for a more formal union to be effected. But we must
look toward the millenium. At present it is not practicable nor, in our cir-
cumstances, desirable.’ (Loud cheers.) ‘' Unless the Church of England will
protest against Puseyism in some intelligible form, it will be the duty of the
Methodists to protest against the Church of England. I have said this to
the first men in the land.”

This speech, so interesting on its merits, has much additional
importance as a landmark in the history of religion in England.
It will be noted that Dr. Bunting divided the Established Church
into two great sections—the High Church and the Evangelicals.
He knows nothing of the party self-styled Broad Church, the
party opposed to all definiteness of doctrine, and to the absolute
authority of the Holy Scripture as the conclusive standard both
of faith and morals. The truth is, the party was at that date yet
unborn. It was still an embryonic zendency. It was not .yet a
stream, but intermittent ooze and drip. Archbishop Whately
has been deserted by this new sect. He was the most deter-
mined champion of definite doctrinal teaching in all State-aided
schools, and Dr. Kay-Shuttleworth, the giant’s armour-bearer,
was of the self-same spirit. Let anyone who claims Maurice as a
sort of evangelist of the party read the admirable Educational
Magazine, of which he was at this time the editor. He contends
earnestly for catechetical instruction in Christian doctrine as
an essential element of any sound educational system. Jowett
was not yet ordained, and Matthew Arnold was as yet an under-
graduate. Can anyone who knew the men who took part in the
discussion in Oldham Street chapel in 1841, for a moment doubt
that if this aggressive form of specious and seductive encroach-
ment on the authority of Scripture had then shown its front, the
protests against it of both sides in the discussion—alike of
318 Alistory or Meruopism.

Beaumont and the Buntings—would have been most solemn and
determined.

The President : ‘It is most desirable to direct a debate in a straight line,
but I will not put any man down.”

Dr, Bunting introduced another matter which greatly agitated the Con-
ference—" the teetotal business.’’ He said: ‘I think it is a terrible thing to
start a new controversy instead of following after peace, as we ought to do in
these times."

Mr. McDonald: “I am committed to the question, but with a proper
regard to ministerial dignity and fairness.”’

Dr. Bunting spoke of ‘‘the annoyances arising from teetotalism. There
are two points on which we must insist: (1) The use of bond fide wine in the
Lord’s Supper; (2) the not allowing teetotal meetings in our chapels. I
question whether we have any legal power to do this. I have spoken of
mutual forbearance on this question at former Conferences.”’

Dr. Beaumont: “I agree with Dr. Bunting that we ought not to allow
anything but wine to be drunk at the Lord's Supper. It requires great know-
ledge to determine whether any beverage is the pure blood of the grape and
yet altogether free from alcohol.”

Mr. Marsden quoted specimens of the intemperate and excited and exciting
talk of teetotal advocates. Cornish Methodism was described as in a state of
“fermentation "’ on the subject, and the Rev. W. Burt said: “If a teetotaler
be not appointed to Penzance, I fear there will be a division.”

Dr, Bunting’s points were passed in the form of resolutions, but Dr.
Beaumont objected to the closing of our chapels against teetotal meetings, and
said that he believed there had been but one case in which any liquid had been
substituted for wine in the Lord’s Supper.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think Dr. Beaumont is mistaken."’ The resolutions were
carried with two dissentients, Dr. Beaumont and S. D. Waddy.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I would say a word to young men. They should not be
tenacious about forms. I wish Mr. S. Waddy would withdraw his honoured
hand—it might embarrass his Superintendent. There must be deference to
the brethren in this body. It has always been my wish to collect the sense of
Conference, and give way in little matters. We may agree on various grounds,
but since we agree in the thing, what matters little grounds of disagreement?"

Mr. Macdonald made remarks in favour of teetotalism.

The President : ‘‘ Weare not enemies to sobriety, but to vituperation. All
members of our society are bound to observe the former, and totally abstain
from the latter.”

Dr. Bunting: “I go a good way with Mr. McDonald and the society to
which he belongs. I think there is need in our society for more restriction.
It would make good men better and more cautious.”

A most irregular brother had been interfering seriously with the comfort
and the edification of the participants at the Lord’s Supper by unaccountable

‘and perplexing variations in the mode of its administration ; and remarks by
Dr. Bunting on the case had struck the Journal secretaries as too valuable
to be lightly lost. They had therefore entered them upon the daily record,
on the reading of which next morning Dr. Bunting was terribly annoyed. He
rose and said: ‘‘ Why all this made matter of record? Unless we have more
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 319

protection and freedom from the reign of terror in this Conference, you shall
never s¢e my face in it again, God helping me! I am distressed exceedingly ;
it is perfectly unbearable.”

No remark was made upon this outburst. The delinquent
innovator on the sacramental service was condemned to be a
supernumerary for one year, a few hands being lifted in favour
of the sentence.

Mr. Fowler: “I object to this sweeping manner of exercising discipline
upon a brother.”

Dr. Bunting, before proposing that Dr. Newton should still be allowed
a young man as his assistant, delivered « strong testimony against any other
man than Dr. Newton devoting himself to ‘‘ the general work.” ' ‘I think we
are too much in the habit of making a sort of ecclesiastical stir, in the getting
up of which local men take too much upon themselves. The Superintendent
is the only man who used to invite preachers into his Circuit. Notice the
lengthiness of placards about chapel openings. It is made a sort of Methodist
wake or rush-bearing, and a great many rushlights are puffed as wax candles.
I think there should be no going out of a Circuit without the Superintendent's
leave, and every Superintendent should learn to utter an animated No. Mr.
Newton has peculiar gifts for extraneous work, having peculiar endowments
and entire freedom from what would be injurious to others: We wish for no
apostolic successor in this course.”

Mr. W. Bunting: ‘‘ The bearing of some of the remarks just made is too
hard upon an eminent opponent of mine.”

Assuredly Dr. Beaumont was neither a rushlight nor a wax-
light, but a gleaming, flashing star on the Master’s own right
hand.

Dr. Bunting gave notice that he would apply at the next Centenary
Fund Committee for money to build a residence for the President. This was
moved, seconded, and hastily put after 9 p.m. About one-sixth of the few
hands present were held up for it. ‘

In the Daily Record next morning it was said to have been “ carried
unanimously that a house be bought or built as a residence for the President."

J. Fowler suggested that a regular order and form of inquiries to be
proposed at District Meetings should be drawn up and authenticated by
the Conference.

This was adopted unanimously; and Dr. Bunting suggested that Mr.
Fowler should draw up the plan and submit it to Mr. Grindrod and Mr.
Keeling. He added: ‘I am said to be the great fault-finder, but Mr. Fowler
is far ahead of me in that line.”

This was very wholesome pleasantry, but “ fault-mender ”
would have been a better word. This originated the most
useful little manual, Zhe Order and Form of Business, etc.
320 Hisrory or Meruopism.

Mr. S. D. Waddy: “I think the Journals of Conference should be in safe
custody.”

Mr, Reece: ‘‘ Permission to inspect them should not be a matter of private
friendship.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think the key of the safe should be in the hands of the
President.”

Much dissatisfaction and unhappy feeling was occasioned by
the action in the case of a leading layman. He had married
his brother’s widow. The committee to which the case was
referred recommended the condemnation of the act.

Mr. Galland asked: ‘Is there any law in the New Testament or rule of
the Methodist society which condemns this union?"

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘‘ We had better take Mr. Wesley’s view of the case
than that of the committee.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ The decision of the committee is advisable. Such usage
is not comely. I never gave a vote with more satisfaction than I shall do
in this case.”

» Mr. Powell: “I think that the Conference should take time to consider a
question which has never been determined by the Conference, especially as
strong difference of view exists among us. Mr. Galland’s and Mr. William
Bunting’s point of our founder’s own judgment on the subject should at least
be met.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think we are prepared to vote.”

The vote was forthwith taken. About half the hands being held up, it
was decided to be carried.

A series of strongly condemnatory opinions of the Conference
was published in the Aéizuzes, and thus the Wesleyan Methodist
Connexion was agitated by the identical problem which had
disturbed the peace of England and of Continental Christendom
more than three centuries before.

Mr. Grindrod: ‘I have drawn up a compendium of laws and regulations
of the body, and wish permission to publish.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ I hope this will be a preparatory work for something drawn
up with great deliberation and with the authority of Conference.”

It was hinted that the Pastoral addvess was too long.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I have never been able to sympathise with those who call
for brevity.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘I would have some of the obituary passages left
out, and Sabbath obligation brought out more prominently. I approve of .
the recognition of the ecclesiastical principles of the New Testament.”

Dr. Bunting stated that the deed of the Centenary Hall secured that, if
used for religious services, no other doctrine should be taught in it but
those of our legal standards.
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 32i

LONDON CONFERENCE OF 1842.

The Conference of 1842 was held in London under the
Presidency of Dr. Hannah. The Secretary, Dr. Newton, was
summoned home the same day by the fatal illness of a daughter ;
Mr. Scott was asked to take his place. ,

Dr. Bunting, on a motion for a committee of inquiry on an important
matter, said: ‘It is the duty of any brother moving for a committee to
nominate its members, and fix the time of meeting.”

Dr. Bunting announced that the health of a probationer of the brightest
promise—John Smetham (eldest brother of the artist), stationed in the
Lambeth Circuit—had so completely broken down as to compel his retirement
from the work.

Mr. Galland, who knew him well, suggested that a letter of condolence
should be sent him from the brethren, and Mr. Scott, the acting Secretary of
the Conference, asked permission to perform that duty, since he felt that he
could do it with all the tenderness of a personal friend.

_ The letter was no mere official document, but a gem of
Christian correspondence, which soothed the last days of a sadly
shortened life, and poured balm into the hearts of the bereaved.

Dr. Bunting, on announcing the name of Theophilus Woolmer as a
candidate from the London District, said: ‘He is a youth of rare maturity,
ready for any work, at home or abroad.”

Dr. Bunting, on the proposing of another minister's son by his own
father, said: ‘‘ We should be careful on the point. I have the honour of a
son in the ministry, whom it would have fallen to my duty to propose, but
I thought it not honourable, delicate, or just to him or to me.”

On the morning of the second day J. Fowler noticed the importance of
having a day set apart for consideration of our present position, there having
been a decrease in Great Britain of 2,065. He also dwelt on the importance
of avoiding hurried legis/ation through putting off the weightiest matters to the
close, when the Conference was thinned and jaded and impatient to get home.
Dr. Beaumont strongly emphasised both these points.

Dr. Bunting spoke very strongly against men running away from Con-
ference directly after ordination to be married.

Mr, Atherton inquired whether the chairman of Districts had notified to
the President the Circuits from which all the preachers were present.

President: ‘‘ I have had no notification of the kind.”’

Dr. Bunting: I think this a very serious subject, but the matter is
hurriedly brought forward by Mr. A. Let us know who are here without
leave, and the matter be brought forward again.”

G. B. offered for the mission-field ; has a matrimonial engagement.

Dr. Bunting: ‘If a man thinks that he is called to the mission work, he
is not therefore called to have a matrimonial engagement.”’

Cries of ‘‘ Put his name down."

Dr. Bunting : ‘Then tell him the truth: that his name is put down out of
compliment.”’

Vv
322 HAlrsrory or Meruopism.

Another brother was stated to ‘have an impression in favour of the
home work.”

Dr. Bunting : ‘I wish those who use this phrase would write a pamphlet
on Impressions. Impressions are not the rule of conduct. A man who objects
to the mission work is not devoted to the work of God, but to the home
work."

Dr. Beaumont: ‘ Not to every man is this grace given to preach among
the Gentiles.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think if Dr. Beaumont were to pray for it, he might
receive grace enough to be Bishop of New Zealand.”

(This new bishopric was then under discussion, and Mr.
T. Jackson’s son became the Bishop designate.)

Dr. Beaumont: “I can most honestly and heartily return that com-
pliment. No one would make a more superb Bishop in partibus infidelium than
would Dr. Bunting. I am willing to go wherever my brethren think that I
can best serve the cause. But I would not promise to put on a Bishop's
robe.”

Dr. Bunting : ‘I offered myself for India; my heart was there. But as I
was not sent, the grace was taken from me.”

Dr. Beaumont: '‘‘Those who refused to let Dr. Bunting go to India
incurred a very grave responsibility.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘ This is too personal.”

Dr. Beaumont: “Not more personal than the remark which called it
forth.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘Many preachers err by choosing their own appointments,
as the event proves.”

A candidate strongly recommended by Mr. R. Wood had been a minister
in the New Connexion, but had been refused his certificate of approval from
the Quarterly Meeting.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘We should not take him without further inquiry.” The
case of a well-educated candidate provoked a long discussion.

Mr. W. M. Bunting remarked that the character contained nothing
sufficiently distinctive to mark him out for the ministry rather than a con-
secrated secular life.

Mr. Galland (who had seen a good deal of him): intimated that this was
just what the man himself seemed to be lacking in, and recommended that he
should ‘‘ remain as and where he is ” till some more satisfying manifestations
of character should come to light.

Mr. Reece: ‘‘I am surprised that we should hesitate so long upon this
case. The testimonies even place him in a very exceptionable light before the
Conference ; as if any amount of talent could fit a man for the ministry
without decisive evidence of a strong Christian character! "’

Happily for Methodism, he was not accepted.

Another candidate of superior educational advantages had passed the
District Meeting against the judgment of some of his competent triers. The
Chairman said : ‘The long and short of the matter is, he has not paid the
attention to the study of our doctrines which he might have done, and ought
to have done.” A very effective minister said that he seemed defective in fire
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 323

and life as well as light. Mr. Scott: ' Want of interest in and acquaintance
with our doctrines as a candidate for our ministry is a very grave
objection.’

During the reading of the obituaries of ministers, Dr. Bunting took
occasion to remark: ‘‘I think that, as a Body, we have too strong a tendency
to guard the Gospel. Iam of Rowland Hill's opinion : ‘Better leave the
Gospel to guatd itself. Let us preach the whole.’’’ An obituary described a
brother’s manner in the pulpit.

Dr. Bunting said: ‘‘That is more fit for the Wesleyan Takings than the
Minutes." The Editor was requested to correct it.

Dr. Bunting truly said of winsome, good John Walmsley: ‘‘ He preached
the Gospel because he felt it in its all-sufficiency.”

The most touching scene during this Conference was that
which followed on the reading of the character of Joseph Entwisle.
Richard Reece rose up and told the Conference how, this time
fifty-five years ago, Mr. Wesley had sent out from places wide
apart two young men to the same city, Oxford. One of them was
not yet one-and-twenty ; the other was afew months older. Their
names were Joseph Entwisle and Richard Reece. ‘It was a
rambling Circuit, which took six weeks to get round. Then as
ever, Mr. Entwisle was mild and gentle, on his lips and in his
heart was the law of kindness.”

The foregoing Conference had decided a brother should make an apology
to an aggrieved party for improper conduct; or that his name should be
dropped. The apology was deemed unsatisfactory. A committee was
appointed. It was asked that he should be sent for.

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘No! Let him come if he pleases. If a man makes an
appeal it must be at his own expense, not that of the Contingent Fund.” His
offence was the having given a young lady sufficient reason to believe that he
intended matrimony and then retreated. He was condemned to begin his
probation afresh, and not to make any fresh engagements for three years
to come.

A very gentlemanly brother had been charged by his District Meeting with
having used unseemly language towards, and having unconstitutionally ex-
pelled, a local preacher. Against this he appealed.

Mr. Dixon: ‘‘ Brother --— has been wickedly used. If he has acted
unconstitutionally, he has had abundant provocation. Iam sorry that he has
been betrayed into angry expressions, and do not see how the District Meeting
could have come to any other decision.”

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘I must enter some protest against Mr. Dixon’s doctrine.
I do not see how the case could be so fully, justly, and impartially before him
as before the District Meeting. We must uphold our proper tribunals.
Cross-examination is a very important thing.”

- Mr. Dixon: ‘‘1 imputed no blame to the District Meeting or its decision,
but, on the contrary, expressly approved of both. But is the endeavour to
extenuate the fault of a brother overtaken in a fault a matter to be protested

v2
324 Lfisror¥ or Mernonpism.

against as an attack upon our proper tribunals? I did not profess to know th

case as well as the District Meeting did ; but if unlimited correspondence can
put a man in possession of the facts, I know it pretty well.” The Appellant :
“IT withdraw my appeal at Mr. Dixon’s desire.”

After the question : ‘‘ Any objection against S. D. Waddy?” Dr. Beaumont
said: ‘I wish to inquire whether the Chairman's ‘No ‘ acquits Mr. Waddy
of having since the last Conference worn a gown during his discharge of
ministerial duty?"

Mr. Reece: ‘I think that Mr. Waddy can say ‘ Ay ’ or Nay.’"”

Mr. S. D. Waddy: ‘I must decline on conscientious grounds. I approve
of the rule on a friendly ground; but the man who pertinaciously refused
to give a direct answer shall have no answer from me.”

Mr. Powell : ‘: Then I will ask the question.”

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘ Let Mr. Powell first put the question privately. We have
not repealed the New Testament rule.”

One would have liked to be one of the ‘‘ one or two more”
when Mr. Powell popped the question on the second time of
asking.

Samuel Dunn came once more before the Conference ; but
this time in a new character; not for insubordination to his
Superintendent, but for intemperate administration as a Super-
intendent. His District Meeting had found him guilty of (1)
an arbitrary mode of conducting the Quarterly Meeting, and
introducing questions which did not belong to it, (2) Of applying
novel and unauthorised tests to the lay officials of the Circuit.
(3) Packing the Quarterly Meeting in order to carry his policy.
(4) Of arbitrarily dissolving the Quarterly Meeting when he found
that he could not carry it.

The chairman of the District explained that the special
object of his overstretching of authority was the gentleman who
had come to the rescue in the last great agitation and saved to
the Connexion its chapels : Mr. Cox (father of the three ministers,
John G., Josiah, and Stephen Cox). A specially irritating element
in this application of novel and unwarrantable tests, was that all
this time he wrapped himself in an impenetrable cloud. It was
stated by another able minister that the District Meeting had
treated him with the utmost tenderness. When the Chairman
handed him the resolutions he dropped them on the floor, and
walked out of the meeting.

Although he had been in London during the whole time of
its session, he had not entered Conference.

Dr. Bunting : ‘I would propose a committee to look over the resolutions,
and request Mr. Dunn’s attendance.” (Agreed.) Mr. Dunn, on appearing
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 325

in the Conference, inquired why the letters he had sent through the
ex-President had not been read to the Conference ?

Dr. Dixon: ‘I refrained from reading them because I thought they
would prejudice Mr. Dunn’s case.”

Mr. Dunn: “ Has not a brother a right to be heard in Conference if he
request it?’’ Answer: ‘ After the committee have had the letters before
them they may come before the Conference.” Mr. Dunn: ‘I would meet
three individuals, if Dr. Bunting was one of them.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think Mr. Dunn's proposition is unreasonable, to create
a new tribunal; keep to our constitutional method. We should stand by the
District Meeting. He pleads that he stands by our rules and usages; let
him do sointhis instance.” Mr. Dunn: ‘‘IcallDr. Bunting toorder. I have
suffered much, and expect to suffer more. If my appeal to the Conference
is denied, I will have nothing more to do with it. I am prepared for the
consequence.”’

Dr. Bunting: ‘'I would add two others to the committee on Mr. Dunn’s
nomination.” Dr. Beaumont: ‘I think that, as a Methodist preacher, Mr.
Dunn has no other course but to submit to the committee appointed by his
brethren.” Mr. Dunn: ‘I will not name anyone. This is my deliberate,
decided, final opinion.” Mr. Galland: ‘‘ Would it not be well to allow Mr.
Dunn a little timeto think?" The President: ‘‘ I approve of this suggestion.”
Mr. Dunn: “'I have had sufficient time for decision, and what I have said
is my final decision.”

Mr. Fowler notes here: ‘‘ Mr. Dunn’s conduct was the most
indefensible I ever saw or heard of; most discourteous to the
Conference.”

The committee met, but Mr. Dunn would not appear before
it. The committee was to meet again, with or without Mr. Dunn,
as soon as Mr. Dixon had received the papers left behind. The
ultimate report of the committee condemned him, and con-
firmed the decision of the District Meeting. It suggested that
some admonition should be addressed to Mr. Dunn, but Mr.
Dunn kept as far aloof from Conference as from committee. He
“dared depart in sullen grandeur home,” setting at defiance with
impunity alike his brethren and his people. In this respect
he outdid Everett himself. Like bold and cunning chess-players,
they had given to the game an unexpected, awkward turn,
and cried Check, and quietly awaited the counter-move of the
opponent. For his part, Everett, seeing that he had baffled
Conference, and weakened and worsened its position on the
board, pursued a very clever, comfortable policy. He had been
three years at York, and was once more weary of the itinerancy
and Circuit work. His biographer informs us: ‘“ Experience
had taught him that he could render a larger amount of service
to the Connexion provided he could regulate his own labours.
326 _ Hisrory or Merxovism.

He believed he would be able to do more work, and labour for a
longer period, by sitting down. His services were in great
demand and his engagements numerous.” (Chew’s “ Everett,”
PP- 344, 345.)

The Conference must have felt as foolish as it looked when
it found itself shut up to allow the irrepressible James Everett
to “sit down” to his “career as a supernumerary.” A more
descriptive word could not have been supplied by Johnson,
for he went careering over the country, as the best treatment
for that strange form of clerical sore throat which absolutely
demands incessant change of air and large, excited, and exciting
audiences. That this down-sitting was not sedentary may be
seen from his own description: “ During the last four weeks
I have travelled more than pne thousand miles, and preached
between twenty and thirty occasional sermons, and delivered
half that number of public addresses. Praise God.” (Ibid.)
Many a poor Methodist preacher, trudging along the country
roads, would have sung a devout doxology over such a career
of sitting down as that. He adds: ‘“ Having been relieved
from the general drag of the work, I have been enabled to
‘help the Church by excursions to different places. Praise
the Lord !” :

The Conference inducted Mr. Everett into the second
stadium of his arduous sitting-down career in a puzzled silence,
as far from ease as dignity. They evidently felt “least said
soonest mended.”

It was announced that H. C. had retired and become a
Chartist lecturer. Poor C., ‘by that wrong tack he lost his
course, and his after-life was bound in shallows and in miseries.”

Dr. Bunting remarked upon the case of an utterly unmanageable brother :
“We can account for his case on a theory of our own. I do not believe
that we can bring him to observe our discipline. The less notice we take of
him the better. I would leave his name off the Minutes.”

Very wise advice this, upon the then existing evidence.

A special District Meeting had been called with regard to
disturbances in Louth. Good John Hanwell had tried to do
for Louth what Dr. Bunting had hoped that Mr. Reece would
do for Hull—namely, break up the immemorial usage of
reading to the Leaders’ meeting the names of new members.
The Superintendent was entirely exculpated. Thus began
the disturbances in Louth, which in 1849 rose to such a
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 327

disastrous pitch. The sudyect was left over to be taken up with

miscellaneous matters. And a most miscellaneous matter it
turned out to be.

A most interesting episode in this Conference was the
introduction, at the request of Dr. Bunting, of two distinguished
German clergymen, the venerable Dr. Steinpkoff and the Rev.
Mr. Sydow, Chaplain to the King of Prussia.

Dr. Steinpkoff: “ The labours of the Wesleyan Methodists are known and
appreciated on the Continent. We pray God that you may be strengthened
in your inner man to still resist and bear testimony against the evils of
the time, especially Rationalism and Popery. It is only the oneness of the
faith which gives importance and reality to the oneness of the body. And
it must be a simple faith in Scripture truth. It is of great moment that,
courteous and affectionate relations should be maintained between believers in
Germany and the British Methodists. There is now a powerful body of the
young ministers in Prussia who are determined to know nothing among men
but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Weare becoming a great Missionary
Church. I have been connected with the German mission. When I joined
the German Evangelical Missionary Society it was very small; but I have
met in London with 200 German evangelical missionaries, on their way to
and from their stations in different parts of the world.”

The President made some apposite remarks on the indebtedness of
Methodism to Germany, of Wesley's obligations to Luther's exposition,
and to the Moravian ministers.

Mr. Sydow referred to the decline of evangelical religion in Germany
through the prevalence of Rationalism, Naturalism, and Utilitarianism.
“ Rationalism began in the colleges with the professors, and thence, through the
students, into the pulpits and the homes of all classes of society. Through
this, error in almost every form, even to the extent of various shapes of
Atheism, has extensively prevailed.

“The Rationalists deny the authoritative inspiration of the Scriptures.
They strangely wish to connect themselves with the religion whose
foundations they undermine. They explain away the supernatural element
in the Scriptures and in Christianity. In this way infidelity has spread
most widely, till very little is known of spiritual religion. The political
elements in the Church have greatly aggravated the mischief. But within
the last twenty or thirty years another spirit has begun to spread, and a
more happy state of things has been growing up. Scriptural Christianity
has been revived, and faith in Christian doctrine is more common, Our
seats of learning are not abandoned to Rationalism; men of learning are
not ashamed of supernatural Christianity. And a corresponding change
has taken place among the educated classes. The old king had no sympathy
with Rationalism. Methodism is exciting interest in our country. The
literature of your Centenary celebration and the reported speeches have
done great good in Germany. You have many features in common with the
Pietism of our country, which has been of such great service to our churches.
Besides, you seem to have what we most want: discipline, order, and the
right and power of self-regulation. The Church of Christ should not be
328 History or Meruopism.

open to political influence. There should be no intermeddling, on one
side or the other, of the Church with politics, or politics with the Church.
I do not see how you could address us with a view to establish fraternal
relations between British Methodism and Evangelical Protestantism in
Germany. In our country the king is the supreme bishop, though he may
not administer the sacraments. But now the higher classes in Germany,
and especially our beloved king, again believe in supernatural religion. You
have repaid your obligations toGermany. It is your inspiring example which
awoke in us missionary zeal. Our old king will struggle against Rationalism,
Neology, and Popéry. In spirit he is Christian and kingly. The brethren
who have separated from our Established Church are of a very Catholic
spirit, are fond of unity, and have separated in a spirit of love, and have
been a great blessing to the Established Church. I should have been glad to
compare notes with you on the Scriptural theology of the inner life—
justification, regeneration, sanctification—but my knowledge of English is too
imperfect.”

Mr. Fowler suggested that the German brethren should be
invited to remain during the theological examination of the
candidates, and many voices expressed strong approval. But
Dr. Bunting seriously questioned this, so the matter dropped.
Dr. Steinpkoff retired ; but Mr. Sydow, felicitously misunder-
standing Dr. Bunting’s demur, remained a little longer.

This voice from the land of Luther and of Peter Béhler,
addressing Wesley’s preachers in Wesley’s own chapel upon
the subject of their mission, fifty-one years after his decease,
was very striking and impressive; and even now, seven years
after the celebration of the centenary of his death, is not without
a warning and arousing message to those on whom devolves
the glorious, solemn task of carrying on the work which they
so steadfastly advanced.

The theological examination was vigorously conducted, as
was to be expected the first time that a theological tutor
occupied the Presidential chair. But Mr. Fowler felt it
“tiresome,” as serving rather to set forth the views of the
examiner than to ascertain the ‘soundness and proficiency of
the candidates themselves. This might be partly due to the
presence of a stranger who was wishful to be made sure of our
precise doctrinal position. But it arose in some degree from
the fact that only two besides the President took part in the
investigation—Dr. Bunting and his sensitive and subtle-minded
son; not that their deliverances were pointless or irrelevant.
On the contrary, they were the weightiest utterances of all.
The President had defined transmitted guilt as “ obligation to
suffer”? on account of our first parents’ sin,
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 326

Dr. Bunting: ‘Not only obligation to suffer but actual suffering, not only
in physical mortality but, what is worse than any bodily infliction, a nature
which God cannot look upon with complacency, but must look on with
positive displeasure, so that the very best of us ‘were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others.’ Man’s nature is depraved, however education may
restrain it. We must all preach the broad, deep doctrine of man’s sinful
nature, and the equally broad, deep doctrine of the Divine and all-sufficient
remedy. We cannot preach it too freely if we preach it fully. Leave the
guarding to itself and to the Spirit. Only make men understand that there is
‘no other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved,’
and press home the question : ‘How shall we escape, if we neglect so great
salvation ?'"’

The President: ‘‘I wish Dr. Bunting would lay me and the Conference
under still greater obligation by further deliverances of this kind.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting:: ‘If you do not mind, you will countenance the error
that men are born justified, and not justified by faith.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘The passage, ‘The free gift came unto all men unto
justification,’ does not imply innate justification.”

The President : ‘‘ The antithesis in the text may be maintained, if we had
time to go into it.”

It need not have taken much time to clear this very
important matter to anyone who had read Fletcher, or had
duly studied the passage in the Greek.

Practically, Dr. Bunting’s position was impregnable, but it
was a great pity that the exegetic point was not put with
more precision, so that Bunting senior and Bunting
junior might have been brought into perfect sympathy.

The question of the Divine authority and sanctity of the
Christian Sabbath was appropriately dwelt upon in the presence
of the German minister. For more than half a century the
Fatherland has been vainly striving to recover and enjoy the
Sabbaths of which it had let itself be cheated by a crude and
shallow but pretentious criticism. And unless Great Britain
guards itself against the same critical cajolery, we shall find
ourselves floundering in the same unwholesome swamp.

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘I wish to know if these young brethren are entering our
ministry not as a passport to some other but to preach our doctrines and to
. work our system so long as they can say with truthfulness that they ‘ believe
and preach our doctrines’; and should they cease to believe and preach
them, not to misuse our pulpits for the preaching of something else until
they find some comfortable call elsewhere." The candidates were interro-
gated on these points, and all gave the required pledge. Dr. Beaumont: “I
wish that the charge could be delivered immediately after the ordination.
I think the interruption in the service is a pity.”
330 History oF Meruopism.

On the transference of Mr. Jackson from the editorship to the Theological
Tutorship, it was asked whether two editors would still be necessary.

Dr. Bunting contended that they would. Mr. Cubitt avowed his inequality
to do the work single-handed. The retiring Editor took the same view. He
said: ‘‘Great controversies are likely to come on, and we must enter fully
into the warfare. We want two men with leisure for large reading. I should
do an unrighteous thing to our great work if I did not say this.”

Mr. Cubitt: “My health has suffered from want of change and relaxation.
I am unable to attend many public meetings in London. MSS. require
careful revision, volumes sent for review have to be read thoroughly, origina
articles have to be produced, papers on such questions as the Scotch Church
have to be composed with the greatest care and most accurately drawn up,
critical judgments in the Magazine must be honest and impartial. To meet
the questions of the day there must be a reading-up of the literature of the
day. Puseyism is not to be put down with a laugh, nor with offhand quotation.
All my time has been occupied. I have found that I cannot get on without
time for thinking and prayer.”

Mr. B. Slater moved an amendment, which was hastily put; but this
was objected to by J. Fowler, and was pronounced by Dr. Bunting to be
irregular.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ The Magazine does us honour, never more so than now.
We must not let it down to the tastes of our young people, but lift them up
to it. The Magazine should uphold our ecclesiastical policy as far as it
conscientiously can. I would call attention to Mr. Osborn’s papers in the
Magazine.”

Dr. Newton: ‘If the Magazine, as now edited, is not appreciated by our
people, it is a proof of their sad want of taste and sense. The biographies
and reviews are of special value.” Two editors were appointed.

Mr. Mason: ‘Robert Hall had to give the charge at the induction of
a Baptist minister, who told his people: ‘] take care never to read the
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine. Hall said: ‘I always read the Wesleyan
Methodist Magazine first, the Baptist next, and all the rest indiscriminately.’ ”’

The Sheffield school again demanded the solicitous attention
of the Conference. It had drifted into pecuniary straits to an
alarming extent. There had been no dividend, and the mutual
relations of the Governor and the directors had become strained
almost to snapping. The composite qualifications required for
such a complex functionary had not been found co-existing in the
same individual. The committee appointed by the Conference
recommended Mr. Edward Walker, a very competent and fitting
person.

Dr. Bunting moved his appointment as ‘‘ most suitable.” It was carried
unanimously. Mr. Walker, however, peremptorily and finally declined the
honour, because he ‘' much preferred the ordinary ministerial work.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘'I think we never were in circumstances which rendered

it more difficult to spare a man like Mr. Walker from our Circuit work than
we are at present.”
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 331

Dr. Bunting: “I must protest against this theory. I consider depart-
mental work pre-eminently the work. Did Mr. Wesley take John Atlay and
George Whitfield out of the work? Was Robert Lomas taken out of the
work? I object to men taking themselves out of the work to run about in the
Circuits, Dr. Newton has permission.”

Mr. Dixon: "I am cheered to hear Dr. Bunting say that the supervision of
the Sheffield school is part of the work.”

Dr. Bunting : ‘I did not say so; the Conference said it.”’

Mr. Brown pressed that Mr. Walker should not be withdrawn from
Birmingham. The committee retired, and, returning, recommended S. D.
Waddy. A long discussion ensued. Great confusion prevailed. Dr. Newton
proposed Mr. Isaac Keeling.

Dr. Bunting eulogised Mr. Keeling as ‘‘most competent for training a
school.”

Mr. Keeling: ‘I am astonished! I don’t think that I am fit; but with
the support of my brethren I will undertake it." (Agreed.)

Dr. Bunting here made a most extraordinary speech on the importance of
submission to Conference. He said: ‘‘No man should object, even to go to
Hull.”

Mr. Galland stood up for his native town.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Mr. Waddy speaks his sentiments and those of the
proprietary, who act on him. I would ask Mr. S. Jackson” (Superintendent
of the Circuit and Chairman of the District in which the school was situated)
whether there has not been dispute as to who should take the chair.
We must have the entire government of the religious instruction, not control
over beef and mutton, but religious instruction, I think the school ma
become a blessing, but not by canvassing and by elections. How is the deed
to be altered? Make this a one year’s appointment, and right matters before
next Conference.”

Mr. S. Waddy: ‘‘ There are provisions in the deed for altering it.’

Mr. McLean: ‘Five directors lifted up their hands against having a
preacher, four of them Sheffield men.”

Mr. S. Jackson: ‘A large number of directors and shareholders are anti-
Methodists. Some change is necessary, or the connection between the
Conference and the school cannot be honourably maintained. The present
constitution of the school will not do. There has been no attempt at
excessive control. The idea of having a supernumerary over such an
establishment is a mistake.”

Mr. Dixon: ‘I concur in this. The present duty of the Conference is to
appoint a Governor for one year, and see if the alterations are made which
will lead to a continuous connection.”

Mr. S. Jackson: ‘I deny that beef or mutton has anything to do with the
dispute.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ A man of Mr. S. Jackson's power and talent is not the man
to fight a windmill. The question is: What is the Governor appointed to do?
It was understood that Mr. Cusworth was elected chiefly because of his
financial ability. The Governor should see the masters in private and exercise
salutary control."

Mr. Haswell: ‘‘ The Governor should have nothing to do with finance.”

Mr. McLean: '‘ Who isto dismiss an immoral servant, if not the Governor ?

\
332 HisToRY OF METHODISMN.

Who is to discountenance improper books? The proprietary don’t. Whatever
Governor or Chaplain you may appoint, his unpopularity will be in proportion
to his faithfulness. I have not sufficient tact. I am too anxious and too
young of standing. They dispute my knowledge of Methodist law, and
attribute my adherence to it to a love of power.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I have seen a man who talked about the expenses of the
school in the offensive terms which Mr. McLean has quoted.”

Mr, S. Waddy: “I have never heard of this before, and will make no
reply.”

Mr. Waddy was at that time resident in Bath.

Mr. Galland: ‘I spoke as a shareholder. I was not aware of the defec-
tiveness of the deed. I had nothing to do with drawing up the deed, but
found it in operation. Make a suitable appointment for one year.”

Dr. Bunting: “I agree with Mr. Galland. There is a great difference
between originating a system and finding it in operation. I would throw out
a resolution: That, under all the perplexities of the case, we will appoint
a Governor for this one year in the hope that the proposed changes will be
made.”

Mr. R. Wood: “If no dividend is paid, and there is, as stated, a debt of
£13,000, how is it thatthe report says nothing about the item of interest on
that sum ?”

Answer: ‘‘ That is included under the item ‘ incidental expenses.’”

Mr. McLean ‘showed that certain heavy drains upon the funds belonged
much more legitimately to that enormous item than did the interest upon
deliberately borrowed money. ‘‘Ministers would be invited for various
occasional purposes, and were entertained as long as they might wish to stop.
Sometimes parents would save hotel expenses for a week or a fortnight
together by boarding and lodging at the school. Out of these financial
difficulties has grown a fierce attack upon Wesleyan Methodism. I heard
one director cry out at the top of his voice: ‘We have nothing to do with
the Conference.’ Of course the only answer to that was: ‘ Then Conference
has nothing to do with you.’”

In the course of this discussion a difference of memory
between Dr. Bunting on the one hand and Mr. Dixon on the
other led to a new arrangement and appointment by the
Conference.

Dr. Bunting maihtained that the deed of Sheffield school misstated the
decision of Conference with regard to the Governor. Mr. Dixon maintained
that it did not. The Journal, being consulted, confirmed the accuracy of Mr.
Dixon's recollection.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘The Journal contains many mistakes. No one man is
competent to keep the Journal accurately.” He therefore moved that Dr.
Newton, Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Scott should be a committee to verify the
Journal daily before it be read to Conference. This was carried.’

Mr. Haswell refused to be the colleague of Mr. McLean on the ground
that he had voted in favour of Church rates.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ The question of the Superintendency of any Circuit should
not be matter of talk amongst the ministers and people, but should be left
entirely to Conference. Young men should not be invited to Conference.”
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 333

A request was made by Mr. Scott for a young man to assist Mr. W. M.
Bunting for one year. Dr. Bunting remarked: ‘‘ Our existing system requires
aman either to starve or work himself to death. Many valuable lives have
been lost by this alternative.” The young man was granted.

The Committee on Methodism in Scotland recommended that the under-
standing about the gown should not apply to Scotland.

Mr. Powell: ‘(I wish for time to consider this proposal. I think the
people should be consulted in the matter.”

Mr. Dixon: ‘'I would ask if we are to legislate according to the wish and
judgment and taste of the people?”

Dr. Newton: ‘I travelled thirty-eight years ago in Scotland, and wore
bands and gown. I believe if Wesleyan Methodism is acted on in Scotland, in
six months a very beneficial change will follow. If I was appointed to
Scotland, I should ask permission to wear gown and bands.”

Mr. Atherton: ‘‘When I was stationed in Scotland no minister was
allowed to administer the sacraments unless he had been ordained by imposi-
tion of hands. I was thus ordained.”

Mr. J. McOwan: ‘ Gown and bands will do very little towards reviving
or relieving. Get rid of the chapel debts that have done so much mischief,
and get the people to meet in Class.”

Mr. Rule: ‘I would ask if we area Church? If we areregular Presbyters
of our own Church? If so, we ought to have the proper vestments.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘The best way to make Christians on either side the Tweed
is to preach experimentally. The reason why people do not meet in Class,
both in England and in Scotland, is because they do not like to be put under
spiritual supervision of Leaders or of Ministers, and into close spiritual con-
nection with a spiritual Church. There is no lay-elder in the Church of
Scotland. The elders, teaching or ruling, are all ordained. I think the gown
and bands should be granted in Scotland. We care nothing about gowns,
but we are not restricted. I have been presented, as a precious relic, with the
bands of C. Wesley. These are not times to blink our orders; we claim to
be true ministers. We must maintain the claim not by bespattering every
clergyman who chooses to be a bigot, but by doing the work.” "

Mr. Reece made a long speech against the gown.

Mr. Dixon: ‘The ministerial costume was worn by Mr. Wesley; yet he
was no Puseyite. There is a more friendly feeling between the Church of
Scotland and the Methodists. Why preach in the Church of Scotland in
a gown and in our chapel without one?”

The motion for the use of vestments in Scotland was carried by a large
majority ; about eight hands against it.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I would have the question, for the present, at least, con-
fined to Scotland and the Sheffield school. I think we are not sufficiently
solemn in our administration of ordinances. Immediately after a hallowing
sermon we begin to sing in order to induce a few more to stay to the prayer-
meeting.”

It is worth noting that the two questions came before the
Conference fifty-five years ago which have lately been made
the subject of discussion in the papers—the difference between
334 HlistorY oF METHODISM.

Wesleyan Methodism and Presbyterianism, and the status of a
ruling elder. It is a staring blunder, impossible to anyone
who has looked into the matter, to suppose that the Wesleyan
Methodist idea of the Christian pastorate is identical with that
of historical Presbyterianism. One immense and most im-
portant difference is that the Wesleyan Methodist idea is clear,
consistent, and intelligible ; that of historical and contemporary
Presbyterianism is opaque, confused, self-contradictory to a
hopeless degree. The highest Presbyterian authorities are at
variance upon the subject of the classification and the category
of the ruling elder as to whether he is a layman or not. He
is certainly not a minister, either in the Scottish or the Wesleyan
Methodist sense of that term. He is not required to preach
in public. He is, on the other hand, not only not forbidden
but obliged to get an honest living as he can, seeing that he
has no stipend, salary, maintenance, allowances, or sustentation.
In the Conferential sense of the word the ruling elder is a
layman. And for the purposes and bearing of the gown-
discussion he is more a layman than the verger. A ruling
elder may not wear the gown, though he may on an
emergency take the pulpit.

Dr. Beaumont was not present, having been called home
towards the close of the Conference. He could have thrown
light upon the subject, having been stationed at Glasgow in
his early ministry, and having been Superintendent of the
Edinburgh Circuit and chairman of the District for three years.
As an appropriate sequel, the first address from the Scotch
Kirk to the Wesleyan Methodist Conference was received
and read. ,

The Conference did not find time for a conversation on the
decrease, although it sat till the Saturday evening of the third
week ; and there had been a financial falling off corresponding
to the numerical declension. Mr. Fowler tried his best to
bring it on after the reading of the pastoral address; but Dr.
Bunting deprecated much talking about it. He justly said that
the only remedy was very patent—more earnest evangelical
preaching, more effective spiritual intercourse with our people,
and the steering clear of politics. ‘(I know that the King of
Prussia has been told something of our decrease.” Never-
theless, he insisted: ‘‘ We should tell our people in the Pastoral
address of a sad falling off in numbers and in other respects.”

The non-devotement of a single session to a conversation
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 335

on the state of the Connexion was much to be regretted. Mr.
Fowler's suggestion to that effect was met by the remark: “If
we keep to business, we shall have time enough for that.” But
this condition was, unhappily, lost sight of. As in some former
Conferences, the temporary absence of Dr. Bunting brought
business to a standstill, or reduced it to a talking against time
till he should reappear. At another time Mr. Fowler enters:

“During a great part of the session there was nothing done
or attempted.”

The address of Bishop Soule, besides its many interesting details, con-
tained some points of special weight. He said: ‘I wish the principles of
original Methodism may never be interrupted, much less left behind. | I
have no interest disconnected from Wesleyan Methodism. The Methodists
are a witnessing Church. I find an indescribable oneness of spirit with this
Conference. There are many erroneous notions respecting the democracy
of American Methodism which it is important to have corrected. There
are two points of difference between American and English Methodism
which involve a principle: (1) You give your laity a power to veto the
receiving of new members; with us they rest entirely with the ministry.
(2) We have an ordination of deacons, elders, and[bishops; but we have
only two ordevs. A bishop is but an officer in the order of elders. A
Preacher is ordained deacon when received into full Connexion. A bishop
cannot disfranchise without the consent of Conference. The appointment of
ministers, though in the hands of the bishops, is not arbitrary, and is not
a lottery. We station under one immutable principle: Individual convenience
must be given up to general good. I have been a bishop eighteen years, and
have given thousands of appointments, and have only met. with one man
who said: ‘I cannot go.’ Qnce I was reading out the stations, and read
what was considered the worst Circuit. The brother appointed said:
‘Thank God, I am accounted worthy.’ It would be impossible for us to
carry on our tremendous itinerancy if the bishops did not labour, travel,
and suffer more than the others. I have frequently slept on the ground
in Indian wigwams, but I would not turn my hand for the difference
between that and the best accommodation. The believing soul is not
dependent for its happiness on circumstances. If the day should come
when even the bishops will be located, our system will be at an end. But
the bishops’ power has checks. We are responsible to Conference. If I
see a Circuit suffering from defective administration, I can lay my hands
on any man “suitable and transplant him to that place. When the stations
are once read in Conference there is no appeal. It is obligatory on all our
members to attend Class. If they neglect, they are subject to admonition.
If this be the only fault, we bear long with them. But if they still neglect
Class, we exclude them. We do not create officers unnecessarily. We
ordain local preachers to the office of deacon, and sometimes to the office
of elder, but never to that of presiding elder. There is not a perfect
uniformity of usage as to the ordaining of local Preachers. But all the
local Preachers are amenable to the Quarterly Meetings.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘There is one point of difference between English and
336 Firstory of Merxnoopism.

American Methodists: the making Fletcher of equal authority to Wesley.”
The bishop showed satisfactorily that Dr. Bunting had been misinformed on
this point.

A highly respected supernumerary minister was charged with having been
connected with a bubble company, in which he had induced many leading
Methodists to invest, to their financial ruin.

This was one of those denominational dabblings in financial
speculation which have from time to time wrought devastation
in so many households. It-doomed to exile several of our finest
laymen for a weary length of time. The only defence was that
he had persuaded them to take this risky and disastrous step with
the hope of doing good. It was decided that his name should be
left off the Minutes, and that the law against supernumeraries
being engaged in business should be more strictly carried out.

Mr. Mason asked whether the being in a joint stock company was being
in business in the meaning of the law.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think it might be very useful to have a conversation on
‘preachers being in joint stock companies. ‘But that is very distinct from
going into business. Perhaps, let them come to the District Meetings. I am
not clear about that. I think they should be debarred from performing public
religious duties. But whether it might not be going too far and hurt good
men who go into business of necessity? Perhaps it is best to proceed step
by step.” ,

It was decided that an elegantly bound copy of Wesley’s Works should be
presented to Mr. G. Osborn as an expression of obligation and gratitude for
his services in the Gedney case.

The consideration of a resolution of the Book Committee for ‘‘ the alteration
of our formularies ” was postponed, as Dr. Bunting had not yet arrived in
Conference (10 a.m.); and a long talk against time as to granting permission
to the Book Room to sell vols. 2 and 3 of Isaac’s works was kept up till Dr.
Bunting came in. He condemned the mooting of the question. But it was
shown that the Book Committee Minutes compelled its being brought before
the Conference. J. Fowler objected to Dr. Bunting’s objection. Mr. Haswell
said: ‘I think it distressing that such works should be discountenanced.”

Dr. Bunting moved the order of the day, and so the matter dropped.

J. Fowler moved that inquiry be made at the District Meeting as to
whether the stipulations made to the Chapel Committee with regard to new
trust property had been fulfilled. (Agreed.)

Dr. Bunting moved for ‘‘a committee to make some alterations in our
formularies. But great caution must be used. Mr. Wesley said: ' The
Americans leap like a flea, I am obliged to creep. " .

I heard Dr. Bunting quote that saying in committee some
years later.
Complaint having been made by the examiners at Kingswood
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 337

and Woodhouse Grove that during the year the religious
instruction of the boys had not been attended to so carefully as
heretofore, a committee was appointed to look into the matter.
It “strongly recommended that more vigorous religious teaching
should be given at both schools.’ The Conference accordingly
made P. McOwan and S. D. Waddy responsible for seeing
that this was done at Kingswood, and F. A. West and A. Barrett
for securing it at Woodhouse Grove. A better selection could
not possibly be made. It was decided that a letter should be sent
to the Louth Leaders’ Meeting, pointing out the impropriety of
its insisting on the submitting the names of the new members to
the Leaders’ Meeting. Mr. Galland, who had laboured on the
ground, said: ‘I would have the explanation cautiously worded,
lest we should appear to be infringing upon the liberties of the
people.” _

A most important caution this! It is a very difficult and
delicate affair to deprive a Church Court of a right which it has
been allowed to exercise for more than forty years. I happened
to preach in Louth just after the decision was made known, and
saw clearly that it would not make for peace.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘The American principle of suffering no member to
exclude himself is a good one.”

Great pains were taken with the American Address, which was
drawn up by Drs. Bunting and Alder, Scott and Jackson, and
the senior Editor.

It is to be noted that this was the Conference at which the
most befitting usage was adopted of reading a portion of Scripture
before entering on the business of the day. Mr. Duncan, in
alluding to his honourable reception by the General Assembly of
the Kirk of Scotland, had dwelt upon the utility and impressiveness
of this observance. i

It is matter of surprise that no mention is made in the Life
of Dr. Bunting of this very interesting and, in some points,
memorable London Conference. This, of course, is owing to
the straitness of the lessening space. Yet this Conference greatly
strengthened his legitimate and beneficial influence ; and that by
force of gentleness and moderation. He was evidently in a
subdued and chastened mood. When it was moved “that some
admonition be addressed to Mr. Dunn, and that he be exhorted
to conduct himself with propriety in the nes Dr. Bunting
pleaded for the leaving out of the '‘admonition.” He added,
‘‘ Perhaps something may be due to his standing. He makes no

w
338 History or Meruovism.

difference between great things and small; and makes as much
sacrifice for the one as for the other. I think his conduct most
indiscreet ; I do not know what is meant by abstract theories.
The best way is to be guided by circumstances.” Dr. Bunting
carried this last rule of action much too far at times.

But in one of the discussions, in his eagerness to secure an object
upon which his heart was set—which was indeed most desirable
if it could have been accomplished lawfully—Dr. Bunting took
up one of those untenable and perilous positions which too oft
exposed both him and Conference to the gravest dangers. He
said ‘Adapt your principles to your exigencies.” Mr. Fowler
immediately gave utterance to his entire dissent from such a
maxim of administration for the guidance of the Pastorate ;
whilst he disclaimed all opposition to the proposal itself, if it
could be rightly met.

This certainly was as neat and portable a formulation of the
doctrine of expediency and opportunism as could well be devised.

It was an inauspicious fact, however, that two popular
ministers were with impunity setting Conference authority at
naught.

THE SHEFFIELD CONFERENCE OF 1843.

This Conference was held in Sheffield, under the mild,
sagacious Presidency of the Rev. John Scott.

Mr. Vevers complained of the extravagantly complimentary strain in
which some documents were drawn up.

Dr. Bunting: ‘We should cultivate simplicity of style in the Minutes.
We say things which we would not say at the Market Cross. We want more
of the scissors and less of the pen in getting up the Minutes. Above all,
we should not compliment one another in prayer to Almighty God.” Dr.
Beaumont expressed his agreement with Dr. Bunting in the use of the
scissors rather than the pen. ‘‘I doubt the good taste of much that is
allowed to appear in our Minutes. Weshould not be quintessentially polite
in print.”

Dr. Bunting: “I had rather have a soldier than a doctor for a
Governor. We must have more discipline in our Institutions.”

Mr. T. Jackson having resigned his post as letter-writer, Dr. Newton
moved, and Dr. Bunting seconded, that Mr. Fowler should be appointed
in his place.

Dr. Bunting made some pleasantries about J. F., to the great amuse-
ment of the Conference. The Conference clamoured for the appointment,
and, in spite of all I could say, I was obliged to submit.

An important conversation arose out of a Minute, from the
Nottingham and Derby District, of inquiry touching the
THe Centenary CELEBRATION. 339

authorisation of instructions sent out by London committees.
A similar resolution was passed by the Birmingham District to
the following effect: ‘That this meeting is at a loss to know by
what authority these inquiries are made and these instructions
given, and with what authority they are clothed.” This was
moved by Edward Walker, seconded by John Topham, and
unanimously passed. That such steadfast, loyal men as Edward
Walker and John Topham, and such large and well-manned
Districts as Nottingham and Derby, and Birmingham and
Shrewsbury, should have sent up to Conference resolutions
like these was amongst the many indications of an upgrowing
mistrust lest a Metropolitan Administration should unduly
influence the Connexional Administration.

Dr. Bunting noticed the fact of Wesleyan ministers opposing their sons
going abroad. ‘One candidate refuses to go abroad unmarried. So long as
he has no wife the heathen people must have no Gospel.”

The most affecting obituary of the year was that of
Thomas Galland, who had been cut off in the midst of his
years and labours. No satisfactory characterisation having been
prepared, Thomas Jackson and James Dixon were requested
to perform this service. The death of Galland at this time
was a Connexional calamity. He was one of the steadying,
mediating forces in the Conference, equally regardful of the
rights of Pastorate and people.

Mr. Vevers thought it proper to notice the petition in favour of the
Scotch Church.

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I think it should be the individual act of everyone who
signs; and that, as a Conference, the less we intermeddle with the disputes of
other Churches the better.”

Conference discreetly took Dr. Beaumont’s view.

Dr. Bunting moved that one of the candidates for ordination should be
admonished from the chair for highly improper conduct, of which he had
been convicted at the District Meeting, but too leniently dealt with there.
This was done in a solemn and suitable manner. The offender answered,
‘The admonition was worse than death, but he hoped it would not be lost
upon him.” A complaint was laid against a minister on account of his
frequent absence from the Circuit.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think that a Superintendent should not go out of his
Circuit without consulting his colleagues; but other Preachers not without
the Superintendent's consent.” Two ministers had left Shetland without leave
on the strength of a medical recommendation to remove to a warmer climate.

WwW 2
349 flistory oF Meruopism.

¥

Dr. Bunting: “I propose that letters be sent to them advising them
to retire.’ (Agreed.)

These letters proved more medicinal than the medical
prescription, and more bracing than the Shetland climate.
They were not much worse for their trip to those interesting
islets or their hyperborean boating and fish diet.

An inquiry came from New Zealand whether Roman
Catholic converts to Methodism were to be rebaptised. Of
course, it was decided in the negative. It was at first pro-
posed to submit the question to a committee ; but Dr. Beaumont
said: ‘Don’t send such a question to a committee ; it will
look as if the Conference were in a fog.” A committee was
appointed on an emergent matter, and the President wished
the committee would now retire.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I object to men being ordered out of the Conference amid
important questions.” Nothing more was said.

The collection in the classes for the Auxiliary fund was found to be
‘£2,000 odd less than last year.’’ J. Fowler proposed a collection, on
the earliest Sunday practicable after Conference, in the Circuits which were
deficient.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I second Mr. Fowler’s motion. I would not have a
smaller sum paid to the poor claimants. Their allowance must be certain.
The Centenary money which would have gone to this purpose is given
away; our people are pledged to us.” It was suggested that the subject
should be brought before the Leaders’ Meetings.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘You will ruin your pastoral power by giving up
everything to Leaders’ Meetings.”

Dr. Bunting was obliged to intermit his attendance at the
Conference for about a week ; and he was sorely missed, even
with such an accomplished administrator in the chair as John
Scott, his second in command. Business drove heavily ; like
the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots, and with much creaking
and with many a jolt. Yet there was quite enough of grim
humour. A brother objected to 1:is appointment on the
ground that “the South of England was injurious to his
health.” He was at once informed that there was a most
opportune opening in Shetland. Another brother came to
the rescue by saying: “We must not make Shetland a penal
settlement.” A retiring official had made a request to the
Managing Mixed Committee for a concession and indulgence
which would have been not unreasonable in the circum-
stances if it could have been accorded without inflicting on his
successor an equal inconvenience, as well as detriment to the
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 341

department itself. They had not felt at liberty to grant the
hampering indulgence. So the brother was induced to appeal
to Conference for that which the Committee did not think
it right to grant. Mr. Fowler shrewdly reasoned that to
reverse the decision of a committee, half composed of laymen,
to meet the wishes of a member of our own Body would
be occupying debatable and risky ground; inasmuch as it
could not be claimed as a right, but was expressly craved: as
an indulgence and accommodation. As it would clearly involve
a question of finance, as well as one of easy and efficient working,
he did not see how the Conference could do more than
suggest some mutually unexceptionable temporary arrangement. ,

The case was stoutly argued fvo and con, and Mr. Fowler
significantly notes : ‘The Conference seemed perplexed.”

After a weary, weltering discussion, the President suggested
that ‘it would be best to leave the matter with the Managing:
Committee, and that the Conference should not interfere ; we
shall thus avoid collision with a committee to whom we
-have confided all such details.”

Some objection was made to the use of the term “ Ordinance” instead of
Sacrament. Dr. Beaumont: “I do not object to the word Sacrament, though
it is a heathen term, but I will not be manacled and shut up to it.”
Mr. Atherton: ‘I would have the Scriptural words used, ‘ The Lord’s
Supper’; keep to that.”

The first answer to the question, ‘‘ Any objections to any
brother?” was ““W. H. Rule has worn a gown.” Mr. Rule
had been present at, and taken part in, the discussion on the
gown at the last Conference, when the wearing of the gown
in England had been restricted to Sheffield school. He had
done this despite the protestations of the people. His
only defence was that “he had worn it abroad, and thought
fit to wear it at home.”

Thus three prominent ministers were acting in open
defiance of the Conference—James Everett, Samuel Dunn,
and William H. Rule, the two latter in contempt of the wishes
of their people also, and the last-named in overt opposition
to his Superintendent’s judgment.

The gown had done so little to retrieve the Scottish
difficulty that the Chairman who proposed it and carried it
now felt himself obliged to recommend the withdrawal of several
ministers and the sale of several chapels. The Chairman,
342 Hsrory or MEruHopism.

Dr. Beaumont, earnestly protested against this. He powerfully
pleaded the rich contribution which Scotland had made to.
England in the bright succession of effective preachers it had
supplied from the second President, Alexander Mather, to the
powerful men then present ; such mighties as Dr. McNicholl,
the two McOwans and McLean, and the very man who now
stood up to advocate ‘the withdrawal of ministers and the
sale of chapels—the energetic Peter Duncan. He also showed
what an education Scotland had conferred on the many worthies
who spent their early ministry in that inspiring, educated
country — Robert Newton, William Atherton, George Cubitt,
and the rest. His argument was persuasively sustained by
men who had spent in Scotland some of their most fruitful
years, such as Timothy C. Ingle and Alexander Bell.

So it was resolved that such world-renowned historic places
as Ayr and Perth and Leith should, like a penitent probationer,
“be tried another year.”

One of Dr, Beaumont’s telling points was this: ‘‘ We support a minister
at Leyton, within walking distance of two of our most powerful London
Circuits—the First London, with its seven ministers, its strong staff of
departmental men, and its body of students, and the Third London, with its
four ministers and great force of local Preachers with not half enough to do—
and yet you can’t afford to keep a Preacher in towns remote from help.”

Dr. Bunting reappeared in Conference in the midst of an animated con-
versation. The venerable Richard Reece, now entering on the fifty-seventh
year of his itinerancy, after being for three years the Superintendent at City
Road, was now appointed to Margate.

On the reading out of this, Mr. W. M. Bunting said: “I think there is
a want of due respect in this Body towards the fathers of the Body. This is
the first deviation from that respect which has ever been manifested by the
Conference, I oppose this deviation because I am ajunior. If we take this
course, there will be no security for the juniors who may be spared to
become seniors."

Mr. Reece: ‘I am willing to go to Margate; or to become a Super-
numerary, if the Conference so think fit. I am quite prepared to do what I
have for fifty-five years been doing and advising other men to do—acquiesce
in the judgment of my brethren. I have still extraordinary strength. But I
could not be happy to displace any other man.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘I concur with Mr. William Bunting. A royal oak should
not be supplanted by a sapling.”

Mr. Dixon: ‘If we let Mr. Reece go from City Road to Margate, will it
not appear that he is lowered in his last days? I recollect with delight his
counsels and his ministrations at the last Conference. We owe it to ourselves
to do honour to such a man as Richard Reece.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I have only been here a few minutes. Mr. Reece is worthy
of all honour. But the flock of Christ is in question. There is no fear o
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 343

creating a precedent in this case. Place his name without affixing the word
Supernumerary. If he will accept it, let him have a pecuniary provision.”

The venerable veteran exclaimed indignantly : ‘‘ Not a penny!”

Dr. Beaumont: “ Mr. Reece will not so dishonour himself.”

Mr. Vevers remarked on the love in which Mr. Reece was held in his old
Circuits, Hull and elsewhere.

The next contested case of stationing formed so strong a
contrast to the foregoing as to call forth the exclamation : ‘‘ Look
on fhzs picture, and on ¢kat.” The case occupied a considerable
time, as, indeed, it had done statedly for a succession of removals,
through a considerable stretch of years. It, too, was that of
asenior. He was entering on his forty-seventh year of ministry.
But once more the Stationing Committee had failed to meet his
wishes and, as he thought, his clazms.

At last Dr. Bunting rose and said: ‘I disclaim all cant. I think that
Mr. ’s age entitles him to what is called a good Circuit. I think he
would do well in Bristol.’’

The sturdy claimant said: ‘I cannot submit to this.”

 

Another Circuit was named where he might be Superintendent,
and there was a torrent of Noes and Yeses. It was ruled that
the Yeses had it.

So the persistently importunate self-advocate had conquered
an appointment as much superior to the one that he was leaving
as Mr. Reece’s Margate was below his City Road. Small wonder
that William Bunting should observe: ‘I think that Mr. Reece
has been unkindly treated.”

Dr. Bunting, on the report of the Committee of Privileges, said: ‘‘We
should have a working sub-committee. If the few had not done most of
the work, the many would have done nothing.” This was agreed to, and
“the designation of the acting committee was left to Dr. Bunting.”

This year Mr. Fowler succeeded in securing a session for
a conversation on the state of the societies.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I very much doubt whether the practice of holding prayer-
meetings after service instead of society meetings is not a great calamity. In
Cornwall there are great revivals, but in the regular work there is little done.”
Manchéster District reported a decrease of 295.

Mr. Taylor: ‘‘ There was no instance of a Methodist being concerned in
the late riots. Some have been compelled by the others to leave their work.
But many complain that they are not attended to as they used to be.”

1

The riots here alluded to were the riots instigated by Feargus
O’Connor, the protevangelist of Chartism, which paralysed
344 Firstory or Meruopism.

industry and proclaimed a civil war between employers and
employed. In many of the great Lancashire manufacturing
towns the military had to be called out. One of the favourite
watchwords was “More pigs and fewer parsons,” including in
the last term all ministers of religion whatever.

Mr. Caughey, the American, was inquired after.

Mr. A. E. Farrar: “On his appearing in Liverpool, I could not do

otherwise than invite him to preach. He has been instrumental of great
good.”
' Dr. Beaumont: “I do not think Mr. Caughey a tourist or an experimenter,
but a man of God. I think Mr. Atherton’s remarks are characterised by
levity. I told the people I could not give up my pulpit to Mr. C. He
assisted me in the prayer-meeting after the service. I thank God for what
followed.”

Mr. Osborn: “I am told that he wished to preach twice every Sunday.
and to have exclusive possession of the pulpit for the rest of the week; and
that he required this, and had so occupied Brunswick Chapel for some time.
His mode of procedure seems mechanical ; and, if so, justifies Mr. Atherton’s
expression. He supersedes the regular ministers.”

Dr. Beaumont: “I have given up my pulpit once, but gave way only once.
In pressing him on me the people showed sound judgment and good taste.
Bless God that I gave up my pulpit. I never felt more unction than under
his sermon.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I wish to know if what Mr. Osborn has said is correct.”

Mr. A. E. Farrar: ‘ All that Mr. Caughey has done has been justified by
the results. Mr. Caughey’s conduct was calculated to rouse me and others.”

Mr. Atherton : “I have given 220 more tickets in June than in March, but
many had been under serious impressions previously. Ladies have collected
£70 for Mr. Caughey when I could not keep up our funds.”

Mr. Waugh: ‘‘I have heard more disagreeable noise in this Conference
than in Mr. Caughey’s meetings.”

Mr. A. E. Farrar: ‘In my Circuit the funds have been considerably
increased.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ What does Mr. Farrar mean by following Mr. Caughey’s
example? Are we all to go to America for a year or two to straighten up?”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I do not know how the Americans can give these dispensa-
tions. One of the worst kinds of Popery is this Methodist Popery.”

To one who has studied Mr. Caughey, it is not hard to
understand this difference of judgment with regard to him.
There were two sides to his character and work. That he had a
grace-gift rich and rare is not to be denied—the gift of bringing the
undecided to decision. This was indicated by his favourite text :
‘How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God,
follow Him,” etc. The fact that many of his converts were under
good impressions already was in evidence of the genuineness and
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 345

greatness of his gift. There are hundreds in our congregations
who just want bringing to the point; who are, as the old phrase
was, ‘living at uncertainties in respect to their eternal interests.”
There are hundreds more who want rousing, who come to chapel
for a treat rather than a testimony. Caughey aroused and
enchained attention by his interrogatory and appellant tone of
voice, and the air of a man who was pleading in a case of life and
death. At times the forensic would intensify into the dramatic.
In prayer and in sermon alike he seemed to be in a white heat of
spiritual solicitude. Undoubtedly he was the means of con-
verting hundreds. But there was another side to Mr. Caughey,
that which was very mildly indicated by Mr. Osborn’s word
‘““mechanical.” That which Mr. McLean repudiated as the
“machinery of a revival” Mr. Caughey carried to a great excess.
The “sympathy” of which Mr. Atherton spoke slightingly is
quite legitimate, “if a man use it lawfully” ; but Mr. Caughey did
not scruple to resort to deliberate and systematic deception
in order to produce it. So far as I know, he was the first to
introduce the urrworthy trickery of decoy penitents. Certainly,
not one of our great English revivalists had stooped to such
manceuvres. He would call together a number of people from
surrounding Circuits, who had been converted for a length of
time, and obtain a promise that so soon as they heard his
invitation to penitents they would crowd up to the communion
rail in order to allure others to the same place. And this was
only one of the illusions which he was wont to practise. More-
over, the peril of a partisanship tending strongly to division was
very great, and in Hull, at least, was only staved off by the
judiciousness and pastoral influence of the two Superintendents,
and by the unswerving loyalty of the leading lay-revivalists in
both the Circuits.

There was, however, strong cause for encouragement. Both
ministers and people had laid to heart the decrease of the pre-
ceding year, and by ‘doing the first works” had stirred up “ the
first love,’ and the Pastoral address, written by Mr. Barrett, had
proved most timely and effective. An increase was reported in
Great Britain of 4,297. No practical resolution was adopted with
regard to Mr. Caughey. Mr. Fowler took the opportunity of
addressing the Conference, but, unhappily, he does not report his
own deliverances.

Mr. Dixon: ‘‘I will not notice the Watchman. I have been in manu-
facturing Districts. The state of things is not satisfactory to me. The
4
346 History or Méruopism.

Established Church has become vastly more active, zealous, pastoral. I do
not complain of this; I have aright to complain of Dr. Hook, and proselytism.
We must emulate the zeal of the Established Church. We must think only of
promoting the work of God. I wish we had not the word revivalist, but xo
uniformity can be in the order of God. Great variety is His order. We
occupy a most important position in the country; let us maintain and work
our own distinctive system. But we must not let ourselves down to the level
of political Dissent. I believe that God has raised up the Methodist body to
conserve purity of doctrine and experimental piety in these times of unbelief
and Popery. We have a glorious platform of doctrine and experience. Let
us keep upon it, and then the past history of Methodism will reprove
despondency.”

Mr. Marsden: ‘‘What we want is more frequent society meetings and
such preaching as that of Mr. Benson.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘ Mr. Fowler has stated six diseases, assigned eight causes
and six remedies. I do not agree with him as to the reason of the declining
attendance of poor people at our services. More chapels are of great im-
portance; but the main cause of their estrangement from us is Radicalism,
infidelity, and Socialism. Methodism must not lose its character for loyalty.
We have not meddled with politics in London, as some have done in the
North. We must be left to ourselves about voting. I disapprove of the
alteration in the Sheffield school. It is not a feather in Mr. Keeling’s cap,
The Watchman should not be spoken of slightly. It helped us in the Warrenite
troubles. Its mistakes are incidental. They may embarrass us sometimes.
You are not content to live in houses; you must have mansions. You cannot
walk; you must ride. This abridges your means of usefulness. There must
not, then, be this nibbling at our collections. Do not give way to the common
pretence: ‘ We never see your face but when you come for money.’ We must
remember that the pulpit is the principal throne of dominion.”

Dr. Bunting closed rather precipitately, as it was the hour for adjourning.

The six diseases of Mr. Fowler’s diagnosis were: (1)
Oppressive chapel debts, which consume so much care and
thought and money that would have been available for
aggressive enterprise. (2) The building of enormous chapels in
too close proximity to each other, instead of multiplying
moderately sized sanctuaries at due distances from each other,
as centres of spiritual life and influence within reach of masses
of population now comparatively neglected. (3) The conse-
quent lessening of the number of ministers upon the ground,
since one man is made to do instead of two. (4) The burden-
ing of an insufficient staff of ministers with pastoral obligations
which they can in no wise overtake. (5) The consequent
decline of pastoral visitation; men not doing as much as they
could because they are exhausted by the exertions of the
Sunday and disheartened by excessive demands upon their
time and strength. (6) The passion for what he called
Tue CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 347

‘‘popularising ’—z.e. the measuring one’s Connexional im-
portance by the frequency of his absence from his own Circuit,
from which results overburdening of his colleagues, neglect of
leaders’ meeting, and a general remissness in administration.

Of course, the remedies were obvious when the six diseases
were detected: (1) Kill your chapel debts before they kill you,
and build no more chapels with unmanageable debts upon
them. (2) Build more chapels rather than monster chapels.
(3) That will necessitate the having a stronger force of ministers
upon the ground, who may be so much better able to cope
with the demands and duties of pastoral oversight and sym-
pathy. (4) The consequent increase of systematic pastoral
oversight, which is absolutely necessary even to the holding
of our own against the aroused activity and the immense
numerical superiority of the clergy. (5) and (6) Close and con-
tinuous attention to all departments of our Circuit work, even
at the cost of Connexional notability.

Mr. Fowler’s admonition was not “like water spilt upon the
ground.”’ The Conference set itself at once to appoint com-
mittees to investigate all cases of exorbitant expense in chapel
building, one of these consisting of Joseph Fowler, Robert
Wood, and William Barton.

It was also proposed that discipline be administered to all
Superintendents who allow chapels to be built in violation of
the terms on which permission to build was given.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Let it be known that a big chapel builder is suspected of
not being a good pastor. He is like a great Church disbuilder.”

On the reading of the address to the Irish Conference, Mr. Waugh said :
‘I have seen Ireland deluged with blood, but not a hair of any Methodist
preacher’s head touched. We are not cowards; our country respects us.
Ireland is in danger of being surrendered to Popery. But we have no wish
for a repeal of the union, either with the British crown or the British Con-
ference. But we do not spend much time about these things; we have enough
to do in minding our own proper work. We need your sympathy and prayers ;
we are grateful for your support. You need not fear the issue. Protestant
Ireland will be faithful to England. Yet many in the other Churches are
unfriendly to us. We occupy a position of great importance.”

The Pastoral Address by Mr. G. Osborn was a long but well-written
document.

Mr. S. D. Waddy: ‘ The only point on which there will be a difference of
opinion is the reference to the Scotch disruption.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I could not vote for the Address unless that passage be
omitted. We gain nothing by departing from moderation. Both sides of the
House of Commons give us credit for moderation. I would avoid anything
348 History or Meruovism.

like vituperation in the hour of victory. I once hoped that such a thing was
possible as an Established Church without State interference. But now I see
it to be impossible. I wish two thousand clergymen would leave the English
Church in the same way. I don't like so much in the address about Puseyism ;
Oxford has suspended Pusey. Mr. Fowler might have found a ninth cause of
declension in too much writing against Puseyism.”’

Mr. Dixon: ‘I hope the passage about the Scotch Church will be left out.
I take the unpopular view of the question.” Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘I wish
this conversation could be adjourned till to-morrow.”

Dr, Bunting: '‘ Had we not better adjourn this subject till to-morrow, and
take up now our own Scotch question?"’ Mr. Dixon: ‘The committee
recommend that Mr. McLean be stationed at Dundee.”’

Dr. Bunting: “If Mr. McLean be taken from Lambeth, he is under pledge
to the Missionary Committee; but to remove him would greatly agitate
Lambeth.” The President: ‘‘ The change proposed will not do for Lambeth,
and it is too late to make it now.” Mr. McLean: ‘I am quite willing to go
back to my native country in its troubles, and I don’t think Lambeth would
lose anything by the change. And I have no wish to go back from anything
I have said to the Missionary Committee. The Conference must send me
where it thinks I may do most good.”

This discussion has been most disorderly, and it was followed by a noisy
talk on an unimportant matter.

An attempt was made on some pretext or other to evade the
law of the itinerancy by some manceuvring in favour of two
exceptional cases.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ With great submission, I must say that is the duty of the
President not to allow such a proposition to be made.”

The President forthwith dd his “‘ duty.”

Mr. E. Walker reopened the conversation on the Pastoral address by
sharply objecting to the introduction into it of a pronouncement on the
merits of a dispute in’ another Church, about which many of our ministers
and people had been led to form a different judgment from that of the writer
of the address. He thought it uncalled for and unwise, in our Pastoral
address, to set our people thinking and talking about debateable and complex
questions of Church politics, with what, as a Connexion, we had no more to
do than had the other Churches in our own contests with Dr. Warren and
with Mr. Stevens. ‘I venerate the leaders in the movement, but their
position is both questionable and novel. It is not that of the Scotch
Reformers. There never was a body of ministers who could persuade the
State to supply emoluments and defray expenses, and yet have no voice in
the disposal of the money.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Patronage is a curse to any Church; it gives the power
to the democracy, not to the members of the Church and the presbytery. The
Bill says: If you object toaminister, you must define your objection. The only
concession is, you shall judge of his suitableness. If the man is known by the
presbytery to be unsuitable, all is open to be judged by the civil courts.
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 349

This should be resisted unto death. The question has changed during
the last three years. I doubt whether Mr. Jackson, in his pamphlet,
has committed himself to the Establishment principle in all circumstances.
I trust not. I know his sobriety; he has come out on the Puseyite
question. Mr. Jackson’s pamphlet has gone no farther than we did in our
petition.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I have no difficulty in sympathising with the seceders
without admiring all that they have said and done. They have applied
to their tailor—the State—to widen their coat, which they felt to be too
straight ; but the State refused to widen it; said that as big men as they had
worn it heretofore, and there were plenty quite disposed to wear it as it is.
They grew to a girth until they burst it, and walked forth from the tailors
to make for themselves a better fit. In doing this they have adventurously
taken strides where Wesley, with such grand results, was content to take but
steps, and left us to follow with the like candour and the like courage and, if
we continue faithful to our doctrine, our spirit, and our principles, yet nobler
results. To me, personally, it seems that they would have done better to have
gone out sooner than they did, and then they might have gone more quietly,
as we have done. But, in the main, I am with them. They are now what
we are—Nonconformists who do not quarrel with the Establishment principle,
unless it comes in the way of the Church's work. I hope that they will keep
to the spiritual principles of Chalmers and his coadjutors, and that we shall
keep to the principles and the doctrines of John Wesley and his helpers; and
then we shall march shoulder to shoulder, and triumph over sin and the devil
and his angels.”

Mr. Atherton: ‘‘ Let me have freedom of speech. Whilst I admire their
self-denial, I think the great mission of these noble Scotchmen was, and
should be still, to witness against and counteract the fatal effects of
moderatism in the land. A little while ago there were but a few evangelists
in that country, now they are a host. I object to patronage, but on higher
grounds than those on which the Free Church leaders have objected. Why
do they now object to patronage? Patronage and State interference have
been in the Kirk for centuries. There are two sides to this question—a State
side as well as a Church side, and in such a question the State has its rights
as well as the Church.”

Mr. Dixon: ‘‘I much lament that this question has been mooted in the
Pastoral address; our Connexion has no call to judge on the Scotch question.
We are here to judge about our own duty. I am willing to go as far as the last
Conference document. We must sympathise with good men who have made
such sacrifices, and who preach repentance and justification by faith and
regeneration. But I think their present movements are not in harmony with
their past acts. I greatly doubt their wisdom. The Evangelicals, with their
majority in the General Assembly, were in a stronger position than they
are asaseparate body. In their going out I see a most sublime spectacle ;
there has been nothing like it since St. Bartholomew's Day. But I wish us to
be spared from any further endorsement of their action than we have already
given. It is unwise for us to officially set our people discussing the nice
points raised by this dispute. I fear lest our people should want to abolish the
itinerancy by keeping a minister they take to without regard to the rights
and interests of the rest of the Connexion, I almost tremble to differ in
350 . History oF Meruopism.

judgment from my friend Dr. Bunting, but I have read that the Scotch law
lords cannot coerce the presbytery into ordaining arlyone whom they object
to. This first principle of spiritual independence I approve of. Our Pastoral
address makes a distinction between ‘spiritual’ and ‘ecclesiastical’ inde-
pendence. Who is to decide what is spiritual and what is ecclesiastical ?
The honest Free Churchmen can maintain their present position, but they
cannot reconcile it with their past and not pronounce a judgment on the
question. This is all I wish; I hope nothing will be said to injure any soul.
Do let us be cautious; these Scotchmen are very headstrong in public
meetings; positions have been taken up by them in which we cannot agree.
It is a great event, and I hope it may prove a great blessing ; but if it turn
into a democracy it will not prove a blessing.”

Mr. J. W. Thomas: ‘Are we ready to abandon the Establishment
principle? Is not the Church of England as much under the State as is the
Kirk of Scotland. We have seen and heard much to shake our confidence in
the English Establishment, but let us be cautious in our public utterances.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I move the retention of the passage under discussion.”

Dr. Bunting then rose and made admissions on the side of
Mr. Atherton, Dr. Dixon, and Mr. Walker which one wonders
did not awake himself and the Conference to a perception of
the shakiness of the ground over which they were leading
the Connexion. He finished by saying:

“TI approve of the sentence, but if I had written it it would have been
a little differently worded. We approve of their Christian principles, and if
our friends think right to give them practical proof of this we-shall applaud
them.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting made a long speech beginning thus: ‘‘I must tender
my protest against any essential alteration in the Pastoral address.”

His position did not substantially differ from his father’s, and
it carried its line over the same Chat Moss without sinking any
concrete for the support of his train of argument.

The disputed paragraph was retained. It runs thus: ‘‘ We do unhesi-
tatingly declare our adherence to what we consider to be by far the most
important principle involved in the recent discussions—the one great principle,
namely, that it is the right of every church to claim, in matters which are
plainly and in their very nature spiritual and ecclesiastical, and especially in
relation to the sacred functions belonging to the admission, ordination,
appointment, suspension, and deposition of ministers, an unfettered freedom
of action,” etc.

There are in this sentence some very notable points. (1) It
goes far beyond the admiration of a truly heroic act on the part
of certain Christian ministers; it lays down a broad Church
principle. (2) The affirmation of this principle clearly involves
the condemnation of every Protestant National Church. (3) It
Tue CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 351

condemns all lay presentations to Church livings, whether by
private individuals or by State officials ; all ‘‘advowsons" in every
form. It condemns, especially and emphatically, the appointment
of bishops by the State, and all and every intermeddling with
Church matters either by Parliament or the Government of the
realm. (4) This was quite a new position for the Conference to
take, and proves that within the last three years Dr. Bunting,
and the majority of the Conference with him, had, like the
Scotch Evangelists, made a great change of front, if not as to
“the Establishment principle,’ yet—which is more to the
practical point—as to the actual Established Churches in the
land. It is also not unworthy of notice that this sentence was
drawn up by Dr. Osborn, the stoutest defender of the Establish-
ment in the Conference. That an error in the statement of the
one great principle involved, though clearly pointed out by Dr.
Dixon, was still left uncorrected—namely, that the question in
dispute turned on the admission and ordination of ministers,
whereas the pinch was with whom should rest the focal appoznt-
ment of men already both admitted and ordained, and who
should finally determine what minister should go to whzch place.

Dr. Bunting expressed a wish to be left off some of the committees, saying :
“‘I cannot go on; I am conscious of failure." The Conference would not
listen to this.

Dr. Bunting explained that Mr. Farmer's retirement from the treasurership
of the Theological Institution was not caused by any abatement of interest, as
was manifest from his having secured to it for ever the interest of £500.

The President wished the word supernumerary to be omitted after Mr.
W. M. Bunting’s name. The Conference agreed.

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘(I wish my case to be deferred till the word is
dropped altogether.” This was not entertained.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ We are always in a hurry at the close of the Conference,
and are getting into the Scotch way of appointing committees to do part of
our proper work.”

The President: ‘‘If we were to sit half a year, we should be in a hurry
at the close.”

One of the most important matters decided by this Conference
was that of education. During the year Sir James Graham's
intolerable Bill had been withdrawn. It proceeded on the
assumption that the clergy of the Established Church were the
only body whom the State could recognise as entrusted with the
religious education of the English people, and that all State-aided
schools must be under their control and management. This was,
of course, resisted by the whole body of Nonconformists in
352 Alsrory oF MeEruopism.

the country and, for various reasons, by a considerable number of
influential Churchmen. The Nonconformist Churches, in success-
fully resisting this offensive measure, had taken up a distinctly
denominational position ; each of them had claimed the right to
take tts fatr, full part in the religious education of the people. In
the day of their triumph the two principal Nonconformist
Churches—the Wesleyans and the Congregationalists—felt that
they had thus committed themselves to do what they had claimed
the right todo. They had also sense enough to see that if they
abandoned to the clergy of the Establishment the whole field of
denominational day schools, they would put themselves to a
desperate disadvantage, and most fatuously further the encroach-
ments and aggressions of the Established Church.

Hence, in 1843 the Congregational Board of Education was
established, and the Wesleyan Methodist Conference and
Connexion set itself most earnestly to work to make the day
school an effective part of our compact Church organisation.
Hence the conversation on the subject at this Conference.

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘ We must array ourselves not only against Puseyism but
also against covetousness, negligence, and worldliness in our own Church.
The luxuriousness of Methodist Establishments among our people is on the
increase, and among our Preachers also. How can our young men talk
against covetousness when they stipulate about houses? You preach in print
that our people do enough. Let us make no farce about day school
education; we must have more money if it is to be done. In the estimation
of public men Sunday schools are not national education. I am of that
opinion. Why not admit this to ourselves? It is well worth our while to
push day schools. Let us establish day schools. Let us go to it at once.
It may do our cause much good. Let us go body, soul, and spirit into it.”

Mr. Marsden gave us an instance of the zeal of the clergy in this matter,
a clergyman who had 750 day school children under his own eye and hand,
in his parish day school.

There can be little doubt that this was his own energetic
nephew.

Dr. Bunting moved that a large mixed committee be called as soon as
practicable. The following resolution was adopted : “The Wesleyan
Connexion is imperatively called upon not only to efficiently maintain its
educational operations, but also greatly to enlarge them by the formation of
weekday schools in every Circuit wherever it is practicable.’ The selection
of the committee was left to the President.

The last thing done before the reading of the Journal was
an endeavour to procure an amendment of the objectionable
THE CeEnrENARY CELEBRATION. 353

sentences in the Pastoral address. A long, warm, and animated
discussion was carried on; many in the body of the Conference
being in opposition to some upon the platform. Dr. Osborn ably
defended his document.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I complain of the pertinacity with which Dr. Osborn
wishes to press upon the Conference the adoption of his own views. The
address is ably and beautifully written. But the Pastoral address is that
of the Conference to the Methodist Societies ; not that of the minister
appointed to write it. I move that it be committed to the President for

revision.” This was carried. Dr. Osborn: ‘‘I am sure that what I have
written is true.”

It is well worth while to notice this comparatively early
instance of Dr. Osborn’s “ pertinacity.” Neither Conference
nor even Dr. Bunting were able to overcome it; nor, as it
would seem, the gentle and persuasive force of President John
Scott. The objectionable sentence in the address is to be read
in the published Minutes of Conference ; and although there is
nothing in it which is literally untrue, yet it is calculated to
give a wrong and therefore, as Dr. Dixon hinted, an injurious
impression as to the extent of the dispute between the seceding
Evangelicals and such a fair-minded statesman as Lord Aberdeen.
In reading the discussion, one is struck by the fact that the two
speakers who most nearly hit both the facts and the merits of the
case were Dr. Bunting and Dr. Beaumont.

Thus closed the one hundredth Conference of the people
called Methodists.

THE BIRMINGHAM CONFERENCE OF 1844.

The One Hundred and First Conference was held in Birming-
ham, under the Presidency of Dr. Bunting ; and a goodly sight
it was to see, with the two foremost men in Methodism as
President and Secretary : Jabez Bunting and Robert Newton.

Dr. Newton proposed thanks to the letter-writers.

The President : ‘I am glad to have been instrumental in
transplanting Mr. Fowler to his proper place on the platform ;
such a tall, strong cedar should stand on Lebanon,”

The President’s opening speech was touching in its simplicity :

“ Honoured fathers and brethren, I enter on this office with strong
emotion. First of all I do reverently and humbly acknowledge the goodness
of God in my conversion and connection with Methodism and its ministry.
What am I, and what my father’s house, that thou hast brought me hitherto ?
I never aspired to this honour ; never thought of it. If I had, I should have

xX
354 History or Mernopism.,

declined it—not from utter incompetency but from comparative incom-
petency. But that would be to reflect upon your vote. If I could I would
have made this statement before the election. But that is not our plan. I
am afraid you will occasionally detect bewilderment of thought. I must
request, almost demand, that you will correct my mistakes. Above all,
pray for me.”

This was the first Conference at which that most fitting
symbol—John Wesley’s field-Bible—was presented by the retiring
President to his successor. John Scott was the first to hand it
on ; Jabez Bunting was the first to receive it.

The list of candidates for probation included such names as
E. J. Robinson, J.D. Geden, W. M. Punshon, W. Hurst, B. Hellier,
S. Coley, T. McCullagh, J. Walton, G. Mather, G. Alton, J. W.
Greaves, J. Chapman. Of the candidates for ordination four
were future Presidents, and of the candidates for probation
three.

The President said of a candidate: ‘I have heard him preach. He
prayed like a Methodist preacher. The man who can pray like one will
soon preach like one.’’

Mr. W. M. Bunting objected to the phrase ‘' Wesleyan Church.”

Dr. Beaumont objected to the obituary statement that Josiah Hill was of
an inoffensive temper.

The President: ‘I think Mr. Hill’s later life was the holier and nobler.
His associates were of the Liberal school. He got rid of Liberal views about
doctrine, and had a second baptism of the Spirit.”

A brother had resigned the ministry on account of ecclesiastical exactions ;
instancing the levying on each minister a contribution to the new chapel at
Kingswood. He had asked leave to withdraw his resignation. Dr. Beaumont
intimated that he had in the meantime been expevimentalising elsewhere, but
unsuccessfully. He was not allowed to recall his resignation. It was com-
plained that circulars had been circulated through the Connexion applying for
a shilling subscription to chapels in Portsmouth, Canterbury, and London,
bearing the names of the ministers on the Circuits.

The President : ‘‘ Mr. Wood should undertake to bring these cases before
the Conference, by notice of motion, as to the best method of preventing
these irregularities.”

A popular brother was charged with having attended a political meeting
on the day of an election. The feeling of the Conference was against this.
An aged minister had not only attended a great political meeting and preached
sermons but had written a very flaming political letter to a newspaper, signed
A Wesleyan Ministery. He would not express regret for his conduct, nor
promise to abstain from such acts in future, but made a political speech.

The President: ‘‘It is my duty to tell you that you are acting wrongly.
If you had written in your own name, it would not have involved us so much.
‘We must request you to act more properly in future. If not, the time will
come when you will not be allowed to say that you are a Wesleyan minister.
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 355

If you will act independently of us, we must leave you to your independence
and take care of our own.”

Mr. W. Griffith: ‘‘My political opinion is the same as that of Brother
But after having heard the conversation and decision of the Con-
ference I cannot act in opposition to the judgment of the Conference.”
These sentiments were cheered.

The President: ‘‘ This does you credit.”’

A brother was charged with ‘‘ maladministration of discipline in refusing
to admit persons into the society who had not previously received a note on
trial." He was acquitted by the District Meeting on the ground that it was
unconstitutional to act otherwise. A counter-appeal was made to the
Conference.

Dr. Beaumont took the view of the appellants. Hence arose the question,
Whether a ‘‘note”’ of admission on trial was necessary in the case of a person
who had practically been on trial for the greater part of a quarter?

The President: ‘‘We must not have our discretion fettered. Certainly,
however, receiving on trial is a ministerial act. I think the manner in which
the class was met was not quite right. It appears that Brother has
acted with some impropriety; but I see no reason for rehearing.the case.”
The decision of the District Meeting was received.

 

 

A very juvenile Superintendent, who had been put in
charge of a large Circuit very difficult to manage, with three
world-famous towns within its borders, had signalised his
earliest Superintendency by what he thought to be a master
stroke of Methodist administration. He had thought it right
to forbid the class meeting and the Supper of the Lord, and
all other privileged Church meetings, to the principal member
of his principal church. But a bright thought struck him,
that he would give all senior Superintendents a wrizkle, by
showing how quietly this might be done without the pestering
paraphernalia of trial by a leaders’ meeting, by a brilliantly
simplifying change in terminology, by just calling that ‘“ szs-
pension” which carried with it all the penalties and disabilities
and the degradation and discredit of that which was known to
the constitution as “ Axpu/ston.” For this suspension was not
that of which the constitution knew anything—pending the
earliest practicable trial. It was a dateless and indefinite
exclusion from the privileges of membership, on the bare
authority of its Superintendent and at his sole discretion. This
was Superintendency wrt large. The grey-haired office bearer
who was thus summarily and protractedly shut out from Church
membership had, it came out in Conference, been a Methodist
for fifty years and a generous supporter of Methodism.

The aggrieved member, of course, applied to the chairman

x 2
356 flistory or METHODISM.

of the District, who forthwith called a Minor District Meeting
to investigate the charge of illegal deprivation of membership.
Each of the parties chose two members of the District Meeting,
who accordingly converged to the place appointed. But the
brave young Superintendent rose to the occasion, and, after
solemn devotional exercise, the chairman squared his portly
person to conduct with dignity an important ecclesiastical
investigation. But he was at once confronted by the Super-
intendent, “ Grindrod” in hand, with a calm denial of the juris-
diction of the court. It had been summoned to consider a
case of expulsion. ‘‘No such case had occurred; it was just
a case of suspension” from membership during the discretion
of the Superintendent. The experienced chairman and his four
elderly co-assessors were nonplussed, and every man went to
his own house.

But when the matter came before the Conference it took a
much more serious aspect. The brief report of the Minor
District Meeting being read,

Mr. Rigg inquired: ‘‘Can any Superintendent suspend a member before
his crime be proved at a leaders’ meeting ?”’

The Superintendent : ‘I thought it was only when the offence would be
visited with expulsion that such trial was required.”

The President: ‘‘How could you tell, without the verdict, what the
sentence was to be?”

The Superintendent was interrogated by the President as to the mode in
which he had come to the finding on. which the sentence of his ‘‘ suspension"
rested. The Superintendent answered in a manner which created some
distrustful feeling.

The President : ‘‘ The District Meeting ought to have gone into the case
as between the offending member and the minister. No doubt it was pleasanter
to take the first coach and go comfortably home. If there were a rule which
would prevent your doing what you were called together to do—namely, to
decide a grievance between an aged member and a young minister—you
might have been excused. The District Meeting did not consider the case
from a truly ministerial point of view. You were there to administer sub-
stantial justice, and not to be baffled by what was, atthe very best, a mere
flaw in the indictment. It would be unworthy of this body to make a dis-
tinction between suspension and expulsion. Suspension for an indefinite period
is, to all intents, expulsion. I think the District Meeting ought to have treated
it as such. I think the Superintendent has been influenced by a desire of
approbation and commendation.”

A member of the Minor District Meeting defended its inaction vociferously,
but did not make much impression.

Dr Beaumoni: ‘I think the Minor District Meeting ought at least to
have advised the young Superintendent to allow the member a legal trial.”

Mr. S. D. Waddy: “I cannot understand why the Superintendent did
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 357

not prevent the calling of the District Meeting, if that were the ground he
meant to take.”

The chairman of the District: ‘I felt that five elderly ministers being
called together to settle a dispute between a minister and a member who
thought himself illegally dealt with, we ought to have done something; but
I was overruled.”

Dr. Newton and three other ministers were requested to converse with the
irregular Superintendent and ascertain what reasons or what circumstances
. had induced him to treat the case in an unauthorised and unconstitutional
way. On returning, they acquitted the young Superintendent of any harsh
or hostile feeling towards the aged member and office bearer, but recom-
mended that the latter should be restored to membership.

Dr. Newton: ‘I wish the whole matter had been brought out in the
regular way. Something had occurred on which a bad construction might
be put, but with no real wrong in it whatever. I believe the matter has
been sadly mismanaged.”

Of course, the brother had to leave the troubled Circuit ;
and he was allowed some years longer to study Wesleyan
Methodist law before he was again entrusted with its
administration.

Dr. Osborn: ‘‘ Has not some Preacher addressed the Stockport Sunday
school.”

The President: ‘‘Mr. Benson was prevented from preaching at that
school. The brother should be informed that he had done wrong, but
there should be no public demonstration about it.”

Mr. Bowers: ‘Rumours have been circulated that one of our Preachers is
about to preach in it.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘Is there any law that we should not preach for this
school?”

The President: ‘No. That would be offensive; but the Conference
cannot give it any countenance.”

Dr. Beaumont : ‘I will tell the truth of the case; I thought we were too
sectarian: not going with those with whom we do not altogether agree,
I have accepted an invitation ; not being informed that I have done wrong,
I should bow to the Chair.”

Mr. Marsden: ‘It will be a blow to Methodism.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘Then I will decline the invitation. No brother has
a right to disturb his own people in order to please other people.’’

The President: ‘I think we are a little too sectarian. With an
indomitable, uncompromising regard to Methodism, we might fraternise
a little more with other evangelical denominations. But our objection to
the Stockport school is that it is not sectarian enough.”

It was stated that a remarkable migration was taking
place of Nonconformist ministers into the Established Church.
The Bishop of Chester alone had received nineteen applications
for Episcopal ordination. Two of these cases came before the
358 History oF MeruHopism.

Conference. Two young ministers, both of them ‘ Institution
men," had obtained livings, and resigned their connection with
the Conference, after their negotiations with the bishop were
complete. One of them had been very popular and had been
much praised and patronised, and had been profuse in his
professions of devotion to Methodism. This intriguing with
another Church, as Dr. Newton justly termed such negotiations,
whilst professing attachment to our own was_ honestly
denounced by Conference.

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I think we are to blame in petting men as this young
brother was. It makes them think themselves too good for Methodism.”

Mr. J. Fowler spoke earnestly on the question, but, as usual,
does not report his own deliverance. All I can gather, with
the help of recollection, is that he took occasion to insist upon
the paramount necessity of so prepossessing the young students
at our Institution with Wesleyan Methodist doctrine, and ideas
and sentiments, and aims and holy ambitions, that they would
have no heart to look elsewhere.

Mr. Bowers: ‘I think that Mr. Fowler has wandered from the question ;
I will return to it.” He then reprobated the conduct of these men as most
disingenuous, adding: ‘‘ They learnt no indifference to Methodist doctrine
and ordinances at the Institution.”

Dr. Hannah: “ In the main I agree with Mr. Bowers.”

Mr. Vevers: ‘I am glad to hear Mr. Bowers speak as he does. This
making the Methodist ministry a stepping-stone to something else is very
mean.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘The points which Mr. Fowler raised should be the
subject of consideration at some later session. They require much further
consideration.”

The President : ‘I have no objection to our recording on the Journal our
sense of the dishonourable conduct of these men.”’

Mr. H. Davis moved and Mr. W. M. Bunting seconded a resolution to
that effect. §

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘‘ Though I do not agree with Dr, Beaumont’'s low
appraisement of the ability of one of them, yet I would set an emphatic
brand upon him for his dishonourable conduct, and send him with it to
whatever Church he has been bargaining with.”

Mr. Thomas Powell said he “DeHewed in baptismal regeneration, and
that Mr. Wesley did too.”

The President: ‘Mr, Powell must attach some peculiar meaning to the
word regeneration. Mr. Wesley in his Sermons on the subject did not mean
that any change took place in infant baptism which could supersede the
necessity of the regeneration which attends justification by faith. That
would be against the tenor of his teaching. Wesley’s Standard Sermons and
Notes do not teach baptismal regeneration. Whatever grace may be
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 359

bestowed in infant baptism, it is not regeneration. If Mr. Powell has written
a pamphlet, I advise him not to publish it.”

Mr. W.M. Bunting: ‘I could not remain a member of this Body if I did
not abjure the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. I think that Mr. Powell
should not be allowed to propagate these notions.” It was determined that
Mr. Powell should converse with Mr. Jackson and some others on the
subject.

Thus the memorable discussion on this subject at the Leeds
Conference of 1882 had a prelusive anticipation at the Bir-
mingham Conference of 1844.

A complaint was lodged by a clergyman against a very
sedate and sober-minded brother for his having stood sponsor
at a private baptism for a child who had been previously
christened by a clergyman.

The President thought. this highly improper; yet we must speak re-
spectfully of sponsors, however much we may personally disapprove of
the usage.

Dr. Newton approved of it, if the sponsors were godly persons. A copy
of the rule on the subject was sent to the brother.

The most solemn and impressive and edifying sessions of the
Conference were those which were devoted to the question,
Who have died this year? and the theological examination of
the candidates for ordination. The two seemed vitally related ;
the testimony to the noble Christian soldiership of those who
had fallen on the field, and the good confession witnessed before
many witnesses by the young soldiers who now pledged them-
selves to war a good warfare. The giving out of the hymn
by Dr. Bunting: “I the good fight have fought, oh, when
shall I declare?” and its singing by so many manly voices,
tremulous with sensibility, had the combined effect of burial-
hymn and battle-song, in a brief pause in some stern, glorious
field-day, to give the rites of sepulture to the heroic dead.
And then the massive tones and measured cadences of Dr.
Dixon’s tender yet uplifting supplication produced a most
salutary, strengthening impression on a young Preacher’s heart.

Mr. Fowler truly notes as to the theological examination :

“The questions were put with solemnity and emphasis, and a distinct
answer was required from each candidate to each question.”

The President on asking: ‘‘ Will you not preach too loud or too long?”
added, ‘‘ Will you preach long enough and loud enough, but in moderation,
and in due regard to other services?" ‘‘ Don’t have three heads and a tail; but
be sure you take time to make appeals to the conscience."
360 fltstorY OF METHODISM.

The theological examination was conducted chiefly by the
President and Dr. Hannah, but several distinguished brethren
took an earnest part in it. It was the very reverse of
perfunctory or superficial. As the frst Conference, like wise
master-builders, laid a firm, clear, massive concrete of Christian
doctrine for the living temple they began to build; so now
the utmost care was taken that the goodly structure of a.
hundred years’ so solid and symmetric growth should not be
thrown off the perpendicular in an unsightly and unsafe sub-
sidence of that strong substructure which had proved to be a
phenomenon of solidity, stability, and symmetry, and of steady,
wide expansion. The gravity and heartiness of the theological
examination, and the keen interest taken in it as one main
object of that noble gathering, had a fine and a permanent
effect upon those fifty-seven candidates for ordination. It was
like an inspection of enthusiastic young cadets by the never-
beaten officers of the stout Old Guard. The President put
the candidates at their ease by deprecating our turning the
tables on himself by “ proving him with hard questions.” He
gave an instance of this having been tried on Wesley himself
by an irrepressible young brother.

The President: ‘‘It was an open Conference, and young Samuel
Bradburn tried to puzzle Mr. Wesley by asking him: ‘Cana man fall from
sanctification without losing his justification!’ Mr. Wesley took up the
hymnbook and gave out :

“*Oh! may the least omission pain
My well-instructed soul,
And drive me to the blood again
That makes the wounded whole.’ "

The greater part of the time was taken up with the theology
of experience: the great verities of our natural depravity,
repentance, justification, adoption, the witness of the Spirit,
entire sanctification, and the mutual relation of all these, both
as revealed truths and as experienced facts.

Mr. W. M. Bunting made some very pertinent remarks: ‘A man cannot
know his own justification and adoption but by the witness of the Spirit.
He knows his own regeneration by the witness of his own spirit, his own
consciousness of the movements of the Spirit on his affections and his
dispositions.”

A candidate referred to Tillotson’s sentiment with regard to eternal
punishment
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 361

The President: ‘Tillotson is no authority here." The candidate was
required to state his own view on the doctrine, that the Conference might
judge of its accordance with our standards and the Scriptures. A very explicit
statement was also required as to the Divine obligation of the Christian
Sabbath. Each candidate was required to pledge himself not to continue in
our ministry if he should change his doctrinal tenets and convictions, so as to
cease to believe and preach the doctrines to which he had given in his
allegiance.

Dr. Hannah urged the young brethren to a sedulous and indefatigable
study of the Scriptures, as the one effective safeguard against the want of
freshness and reality in preaching,

Dr. Beaumont advised us not to be afraid or ashamed of the Methodist
phraseology in preaching. He should be sorry to miss any of the endeared
and hallowed terms, or to hear them less frequently. ‘‘I like the evangelical
vocabulary.”

The President : ‘I agree with Dr. Beaumont.” He said: ‘‘ We must beware
of diluting the truth by a feebler phraseology. The only way to ‘ guard the
Gospel ' is to preach the whole Gospel, promises and threatenings alike.”
He again quoted Rowland Hill’s retort to the minister who would “ guard the
Gospel ’—* Guard a fool's head of your own.”

Mr. Marsden moved and Mr. T. Jackson seconded “ the reception of the
fifty-seven candidates into full Connexion.” Both expressed most heartily
their deep satisfaction with what they had seen and heard of the young
men.

The President took the sense of the Conference on the question by asking
the whole body of ministers to stand up. He then addressed the young men
most solemnly and pertinently. ‘‘I hope and believe that you will be faithful
to the doctrines you have professed and the pledges you have given-—faithful
to Methodism. I do not feel unkindly towards nor think disparagingly of any
other evangelical Church, but I believe that there is none which holds such
an advantageous position in the country. And there is the same spiritual and
moral and social necessity for the same doctrines, and the same way of
preaching them, and the same means of edification at the hundred and
first Conference that there was at the very first Conference. The self-same
truths are as necessary now as they were then; and are the best calculated
to correct the errors and to save the people from the sins of our own times.”’
We Wesleyans have suffered much in our forbearance ; never so much as now,
from the Established Church. We owe it too much for the training of Mr.
Wesley, and to our own consistency, to join, as a body of ministers, in an
attack upon it because it 7s the Established Church. But the time has come
when young Wesleyan ministers should be put upon their guard in this
direction. When I was young I had the opportunity of entering the ministry
of the Established Church. But I could not conscientiously subscribe all
its Articles, nor even read all its offices; and on the other side (with the
permission of my friend, Mr. Fowler, and the Dissenters) I think the Rules
of a Helper, which are henceforth to regulate your conduct, are twelve axioms
against independency. We have found the good of both systems; the over-

sight of a true, primitive episcopacy, and the freedom from State interference
of asober independency. I don’t think that conscientiousness will dissolve our

Connexion.”
362 FAirsrory or Meruopism.

The effect of these most timely and affectionate advices upon
the candidates was also most salutary. It made us regard our
admission into the full ministry and enrolment in the grand
brotherhood of Methodist pastors in the strong and solemn light
in which they themselves regarded it ; not as the taking up of a
profession, but the receiving of a mission and a commission.

A representative said: ‘‘I only represent the wishes of the Circuit.”

The President: ‘I would not be the representative of a foolish wish.
Your being a representative does not oblige you to wear a fool’s cap. Give
your own independent judgment.”

Mr. Beecham maintained the ‘impossibility ” of sparing Dr. Cook from
Lausanne to be Chairman of the Guernsey District.

The President: ‘‘ I think those islands are of more importance.”

Another instance of Dr. Bunting’s regard for the interests of
the home work as much as of the Foreign Missions.

Great thankfulness and encouragement came with the report
of an increase during the year of 6,574 in Great Britain.

The President : ‘‘I would not break up the itinerancy even to break up
new ground. I have a strong objection to clandestine arrangements amongst
the Preachers of a Circuit for a division of the places amongst them, | I feel
quite sure that the Islington Circuit, where I have the happiness to live, is
injured by the ministers living so far apart. It is better for consultation that
they should live nearer to each other. We are getting idle.”

Mr. Reece felt great force in this view. Mr. Taylor took the opposite
view.

A most estimable minister had become entangled in a business
partnership by lending money to a relative, and was thus involved
in questionable complications. The case was trying and perplex-
ing, and occupied the Conference a goodtime. It had come before
a Court of Justice to determine the extent of his liability.

The President questioned the propriety of appointing the
invaluable brother to a Circuit, as the case was still undecided
and there might be much distracting litigation. Mr. Scott
thought not, until there was evidence of a dissolution of partner-
ship.

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘ The secularity which has begun to spring up amongst
us is a bad omen, especially the disregard of the sanctity of the Christian
Sabbath. Legislation has done much to promote this. This is no matter
of party politics, for unhappily in this matter both parties are alike.”

Mr. Osborn: ‘‘Can nothing be done to recover the Wesley papers left
unpublished by Mr. Moore? Could not the Court of Chancery interfere?”

This question was not answered, but it turned the President's attention to
some hitherto unnoticed points in Mr. Moore's obituary,
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. . 363

The President: ‘It will hardly do to say ‘he is happy now with his
brethren,’ since neither one nor all could ever persuade him either to burn or
publish Mr. Wesley's papers according to the express terms of his literary
trusteeship. And the word tenacious, as applied to his memory, is not accurate,
unless tenacious is used in the sense of obstinate.”

The President strongly objected to Mr. Reece’s request to be allowed an
assistant for a second year. The Conference decidedly approved of it, but
Mr. Reece, unwilling to put the President and the Conference into opposition,
announced that he would take upon himself the entire expense. ‘i

A Methodist battle of Dunbar took place, through the recom-
mendation of the District Meeting to give up the Preacher in
that historic town and to sell the chapel, but Dr. Beaumont
played the Cromwell in the fight and turned it into a “ crowning
mercy.”

He said: “I object to the destroying of a Circuit formed by Wesley
himself, and to the sale of its chapel without debt, which was built by Wesley,
so long as we have a living Church in the place. The Circuit is the
product of two generations of laborious Methodist Preachers. I should be
sorry to leave not a sign of Methodism in Edinburgh and Berwick, no
memorial of once glorious times. Why all this lavish sympathy for another
Church in Scotland if our own children are to be left to perish with hunger ?
I do protest, from the middle of my heart all round to the walls of it, against
the surrender of Dunbar for the want of £25. Of the whole sum at your
disposal for the relief of struggling Circuits you barely give one-twentieth
to Scotland.”

Mr. McLean: ‘‘ From 1817 to 1824, when you appointed to Dunbar such
men as Duncan McAllum, David McAllum, and Joseph Beaumont, and even
in 1825, when poor John McLean was there, our chapel in Dunbar was
crowded.”

The President interposed : ‘‘I would have Mr. McLean direct his attention
to the present state of Dunbar.”

Mr. McLean: ‘Well then, don’t leave the Methodist brose on the
board to be lapped up by some neighbour's dog. Let us give as much money
to the Free Church as we can spare from our own people—but don’t let us
hand them over too.”’

Ex-President Scott: ‘‘ All that is wanted is {25 anda suitable man. We
have trifled with our work in Scotland. It was found at the District Meeting
that, although the Circuit stands on the Minutes as Dunbar and Haddington,
yet the Preachers had only visited Haddington once during the year 1842-3.”

Dr. Newton: ‘Men have gone to Scotland of late years as if it were
a penal settlement, yet Methodism never was so much respected there as it
is now. I will gladly go to Scotland if you will let me.”

Mr. Haswell: “ Our fault in Scotland has been the not looking after and
cultivating the rural population, and the not carrying out the true Methodism
of oversight, experience, and discipline. Look to this, and there will be no
need to withdraw ministers or weaken Methodism in Scotland.”

Mr. Alexander Bell pleaded hard for the continuance of the minister at
Dunbar.
364 FAlistory or Merxovism.

This time, at any rate, the Conference took to the case kindly
and in good earnest. From amongst the young men to be ordained
they singled out a braw young Scotchman, fervid, practical,
shrewd, enterprising, gallant, who had taken a course of the
London Methodism of sixty years ago. So Alexander Macaulay
for the space of three years devoted his redundant energies to
the raising of the decayed Dunbar Circuit, founded by the
Founder himself in the year of grace 1766, but now a gaunt,
storm-swept relic, like its own old castle-keep upon the
battered coast. And Alexander’s successors did not dissipate his
little empire. To him succeeded the studious and sensitive
William Mearns, and after him came Benjamin Frankland, B.A.,
commanding public respect and winning private confidence by
his solid education, his conscientious assiduity, and his humble-
ness and gentleness.

There were serious difficulties in the stations. The stiffest
was the appointment of Mr. Duncan to Glasgow. The minister
who was then leaving Glasgow stated that Mr. Duncan would
introduce gown and bands and tokens.

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘I believe that the introduction of gown and bands has
done anything but good to Methodism.”

The President: ‘‘There should be no dispute about these things. To
thrust them on an unwilling people is the Puseyism of Methodism. We
might wear a gown if our people generally wished it, but not otherwise.”

The President: ‘‘I wish to be relieved from the duties of Chairman of the
London District.”’

Mr. Scott: ‘‘ I think that we shall never be as we ought till the President
is relieved from all other work, and be episcopal in the thing though not in
the name.”

The President: ‘‘I wish a note to be appended in the Minutes that the
President has requested to be relieved from the office of Chairman.”

The President : ‘‘ Now that things are amicably settled, both amongst the
Preachers and the Stewards, it is desirable that a kind letter should be sent to
the disturbed Circuit, not a business letter, but an apostolic letter; and that
Mr. Fowler should write a careful and amplified letter to the friends in one of
his old Circuits, who had made the unreasonable demand to have in their
Circuit, at the same time, three such powerful and popular men as F, A.
West, G. B. Macdonald, and F. J. Jobson. Tell them that we have taken
it with the kindest consideration, but that we regard the power of appoint-
ment not as a prerogative but as a trust, and that we have exercised it to
the best of our judgment.”

A Superintendent of long standing was sentenced to be
admonished from the Chair. The censure was most solemn
and affecting.
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 365

A complicated case took up a very unusual portion of the
time of Conference. A very able but extremely sensitive
brother had made a personal grievance the subject of a discourse
at a society meeting. This misuse of a purely spiritual service for
troubling the Church with a purely personal affair had greatly
displeased some of the best and oldest members. Being remon-
strated with by the Superintendent at the ministers’ meeting,
he had applied to the Chairman of the District for a considera-
tion of the case. The matter had accordingly been submitted
to adjudication, and five distinguished ministers in one of the
strongholds of Methodism had been thrown into collision, a
prosperous society divided into parties, and one of the finest
laymen in the Connexion had resigned his office, as he and the
Quarterly Meeting had been held up in a very unfavourable light
to the society and the ministers of the District. The District
Meeting recorded its regret that the matter had been introduced
into either the society meeting or the District Meeting, and
thus caused a contention that might have been easily avoided.
Against this decision the offended minister appealed.

The President: ‘It is right that any complainant minister should have
the opportunity of relieving his mind to his brethren in the District Meeting.
But in this case conflicting statements have been made and brethren seemed
to impeach each other, If the matter could terminate here it would be better.
But conflicting statements to the Conference were thought to render a com-
mittee inevitable.”’ /

Mr. W. M. Bunting wished to be placed on the committee, but as he
was a connection of one of the parties the President ruled: ‘‘ That would
be decidedly improper!"’ The President himself named a very strong
committee. The committee blamed ‘‘the making a personal matter” the
subject of an address to the society meeting, though he had been irritated
by anonymous attack. ‘‘Early and judicious interference on the part of
the Superintendent and the Chairman would have prevented further
mischief.”

Mr. Scott: ‘‘ The Superintendent has charge of Methodism in his Circuit.”

The President: ‘‘And the Chairman has charge of the Methodism of the
District, and should have dealt with the Superintendent for not dealing with
his indiscreet colleague. Is it the wish of the Conference that everyone who
has a complaint should have a hearing?”

Mr. Scott: ‘The Superintendent delayed his interference with his
colleague.”

Moved: ‘ That the Superintendent should have taken more prompt and
decisive action.” (Carried.)

The President: “Mr. —— should not have brought a personal matter
before a society meeting, esjecially without consultation with his colleagues.
I hope this will do him good. A Methodist Preacher must act in conjunction
with his colleagues.’’
366 FAlistory or Meruopism.

There ensued an unfortunate discussion on the question whether the
over-sensitive brother should be reappointed to or removed from his present
Circuit. In this nearly all the Preachers implicated took part. It seems to
me that the feeling of the Conference was with the Superintendent; and the
Chairman explains how recriminations, etc. etc., took place, at some length.
The Secretary took the advantage of a lull to read on.

_ The President proposed that a deputation should be appointed to wait
on the aggrieved Circuit Steward and remove from his mind any unpleasant
feeling in reference to the affair.

Thomas Powell, having conversed with some of the senior brethren,
agrees: ‘That he will not talk with our people on the controverted points,
and will not publish anything on the subject, as it may do harm and cannot
do good.”

The President: ‘If the time of my departure were at hand, and I were
requested to say what is best to be done, I would say, Strengthen your executive.
Whether we feel the want of it or not, our people do.”

Dr. Dixon: ‘‘I am glad that the Conference is in a temper to make some
progress in the right direction. You make the Chairmen responsible for the
care of Districts without giving them power to execute. We must have an
executive power corresponding with our position. I wish the term Chairman
was dropped.”

The President: ‘‘ I dislike the term Chairman; it is not ecclesiastical. But
there are difficulties in the way of changing it.”

It was at length decided that a Chairman shall, if he thinks it necessary,
have power to visit a Circuit, having first consulted the Superintendent. The
wording of the rule was “left to be considered’; by whom was not expressed,
but understood.

A generally well-conducted, worthy brother expressed himself so im-
pertinently that he was reproved by the President. He replied: ‘I have
travelled twenty years, and have not spoken before in Conference, and I think
it hard to be treated in this way.” He was again called to order, and told
that he was speaking improperly.

A letter was read from York thanking the Conference for withdrawing
a fifth (tentative) minister from the Circuit, and intimating that an increase
of ministers does not always secure more Pastoral attention.

The President: ‘I would have the Auxiliary Fund money put down at
the September quarter.”

This was carried with but one dissentient (J. Fowler) but many neutrals.

Mr. Fowler thought Christmas quarter the most likely to be productive.
A committee of inquiry into the mode of administering the Auxiliary Fund
was appointed.

Dr. Hannah called attention to the handing over of the Navigators Islands
to the London Missionary Society, against the earnest and pathetic wishes of
the natives themselves.

Dr. Beecham: :* An agreement has been entered into with the London
Missionary Society which cannot now be violated.”

The President: ‘This has been very fully considered by both parties.
We appealed to the Dissenting principle that the wish of the people them-
selves should determine the question as to whether of two Churches they
should belong to, and they ought not to be given up to another Church
Tue CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 367

against their own wish; but political feeling had much to do with it. One-
sided views have prevailed.”

Dr. Beaumont expressed his deep regret that the arrangement had been
made, but there the conversation dropped.

No one who has read Miss Farmer’s book, giving the
heartrending details of the working of a missionary field between
two societies in utter disregard of the wishes and affinities of
the people themselves, can fail to sympathise with Dr. Beaumont’s
deep regret and the still deeper regret of the people concerned.
It is a monitory lesson against allowing the most commendable
wish of two religious organisations not to come into each
other’s way to override the sacred rights of conscience and
affection in the parties disposed of against their will. The
affair, though well meant entirely, was not creditable on the
whole either to the good sense or good feeling of either of the’
two great missionary committees.

Mr. Beecham proposed the Committee of Review should
consist of “the first row of ex-Presidents.”

An arrangement this which gives Connexional importance
to the configuration and dimensions of the Wesleyan Methodist
platform.

The President remarked: “There is a great deal of in-
dependency among us where there ought to be Presbyterianism.”

The President : ‘‘I have received a letter from Nottingham stating that
a probationer among us was, when a Local preacher, a believer in an
unmethodistic doctrine, reprobation. I believe that he is now right, but he
deserves admonition if he came into our Connexion whilst holding any
doctrine contrary to our standards. His Chairman, the Superintendent of
, recommended him, and his present Superintendent must investigate
the matter, and I think the inquiry should not be private.”

Dr. Hannah: ‘'I think if the writer of the letter is to be called a gentleman,
the word will be used in a very loose sense. He should have spoken at
the time.” é

Mr. Scott: ‘‘ If we could have a Metropolitan Chapel Fund, it would be
a great advantage. Small chapels are injurious. There is « memorial from
Chelsea in reference to such a fund; but as education matters are so pressing,
it must wait a year.”

This was the first suggestion of a Metropolitan Chapel Fund.

The President: ‘I think the matter should be laid before the Chapel
Fund Committee. We must look after the whole question, and not release
our people from their Connexional relations.”

After ros. 6d. has been paid by each Preacher there is still a considerable
deficiency in the sum required for the new Kingswood chapel. The question
arose whether a, further contribution should be imposed upon the brethren at

 
368 ffisrory oF Meruopism.

home, or the missionaries be required to take their share in the subscription. ,
J. Fowler moved : ‘ That as the missionary brethren have the same privileges
with regard to the schools as their brethren at home, they are under the
same obligation to contribute to the building of a school chapel.” The
Missionary Secretaries met this with a peremptory, No. Mr. Mason: “I
complain that the Secretaries should throw their shield over the missionaries
against a fair claim upon them.” Mr. Scott: ‘‘ They ought to pay. We at
home, who have no sons to send to either school, have all paid.”

The President : ‘If you can vote money out of the pockets of the absent,
then those who think hat we can impose burthens on others that we have
imposed npon ourselves, show it." J. Fowler's motion was carried.

A long debate took place this year also on the case of Mr. Caughey. Mr,
Vevers noticed the great impropriety of his conduct and his sayings in Hull.
He had said, for example: ‘God Almighty is puzzled to determine whether
Popery or Protestantism is damning more souls.’’ Mr. Osborn: ‘‘I think as
he occupies our pulpits for so long a time the doctrines which he preaches
should be inquired into. It is plain, from what we have just heard, that

“report has not been altogether wrong.” Mr. J. Stephenson regretted that
the inquiry had been neglected, and urged its being instituted speedily.
Mr. R. Waddy stated what odium he had incurred in refusing to invite
him to York. He thought it high time that Conference should pronounce
judgment on the subject.

Mr. Haswell: ‘‘I had seen Mr. Caughey’s work at Leeds going on well.
I only—not the Quarterly Meeting—invited him to Sheffield, where he
preached for a month in the same chapel. I heard no extravagances from
him. There was, I believe, great fruit of his ministry night after night. I
and my colleague, Mr. B. Waddy, strictly inquired into the state of the
converts." s

The President: ‘‘How were the Preachers employed whose appoint-
ments he took?” Answer: ‘' The Preachers were hearers.”

Mr. Bell paid a very high tribute to Mr. Caughey’s preaching and
success, and had never hheard or seen anything to equal it. The work
was not confined to the lower orders.

Dr. Beaumont : ‘I know him well. I never knew a revival without irregu-
larities, and never saw less than in this case. You say he is under no discipline;
he is under the discipline of the minister of the Circuit in which he labours.
He accumulates evangelistic pressure on a given spot. Our want of success is
due to a want of continuity of effort. No engine driver has more power to stop
his locomotive than the Superintendent has to stop his work. The man is well
read; he is a philosopher. I should hold it to be a misfortune to say
anything to his disparagement here. I should deprecate anything which
would lead our people to doubt the genuineness of his work. Do allow this
sort of thing which cannot be measured by rule and line. What is meant
by ‘testimonials?’ Who is to give them? Bishop Hedding? No; the
Superintendents of the Circuits in which the good man has laboured.”

Mr. Reece: ‘‘I am glad to have heard explanations from the Sheffield
Superintendents; I wish to hear the Superintendent of Hull West.”

Mr. Martin: ‘‘I had nothing to do with his coming to Hull: all had
been arranged before I arrived. He had 2,000 names on the list of persons
who had found good.”
THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 369

Dr. Newton explained his own relation with Mr. Caughey, which had been
the reverse of satisfactory. Many others followed.

Mr. Dixon: ‘’I should deprecate any action of this Body condemnatory of
Mr. Caughey, He is a philosopher; has an affinity to great things. I
think him a clever man, and should hesitate to touch him. If we legislate
on the matter, we must look into Mr. Jackson's ‘ Life of Charles Wesley.’ We
should not interfere with the work of God.”

Mr, Jackson : ‘* We must deny Methodism if we lay our restraining
hands upon this man.”

The President : ‘‘I have no objection to state my opinion. The brethren
who have given up their pulpits to Mr. Caughey have been guilty of a great
violation of godly discipline. It gives me, however, unfeigned pleasure that the
brethren are all philosophers, and to hear continuity of services so strongly
advocated. Of course, all will now stick to their Circuits, with the bright
examples of Dr. Beaumont and Dr. Dixon before their eyes !"

Thus no practical decision was arrived at, but every Superin-
tendent left to his own discretion in the matter, as before.

When the Address to the Queen was read, Mr. S. D. Waddy said: "I
wish that we might be designated in our memorial as the ‘ Wesleyan
Church.”

The President: ‘I think it would be better not to use this term. It will
injure your object by using it on all occasions.”

On the reading of the. Address to the Irish Conference, Dr. Beaumont
said: ‘‘I think the commendation of ourselves and the condemnation of
others much too strong.”

Mr. Walton: ‘‘ I think we represent the purest form of Christianity.”

The President: ‘‘I think partly with Dr. Beaumont, I do not approve of
political allusions in our documents, nor the apparent condemnation of other
Christian Bodies, nor the eulogium on our theological students. And what is
said about myself I wish sent back to the committee.”

The report on the Hducation Scheme showed that the large
committee specially summoned on the question had taken up
the matter with a will. It had been resolved to raise at once
£20,000 for fresh schools. Of this sum £1 2,700 had been already
raised, £1,778 of which had been contributed by ministers.
Wesleyan Methodism had evidently made up its mind to
have its full share in the education of the people, and not
abandon so great a power to the clergy and the Romish
priesthood. The shareholders of the Taunton school re-
ceived the thanks of Conference for a handsome contribution
to the fund.

Next came the great debate on the Sheffield and Taunton’
Proprietary Schools. Mr. Keeling had found himself in the
alternative awkwardness of governing the directors or being
directed by them. He therefore handed in his resignation.

Y
370 Flisrory or Merruopism.

Mr. ex-President Scott read a letter from the proprietary, submitting the
names of J. P. Haswell and S. D. Waddy.

Mr, Haswell : ‘I move that Mr. S. D. Waddy be appointed. He is the
proper man. But I think Mr. Keeling should speak.”

Mr. Keeling : “‘I have no wish to occupy the time of Conference. But, as
Journal Secretary, I will read the minute of the Conference with regard to
my appointment.” (He read it.) ‘'The conditions on which I was appointed
the directors have entirely disregarded in the letter and resisted in the spirit.
In respect to the religious instruction or training, I have had no direct
interference, but the minds of the youths have been prejudiced against my
religious teaching by their being told by the directors that, but for the
interference of the Governor, they would fare much better at their meals.
Between me and the head master there has been nothing but friendly
co-operation. But obstruction has arisen from the construction put by the
directors upon the word Governor, attached to my name in the Minutes of
the Conference. According to their view, the Governor is little more than
an authorised spy upon the youths, the masters, and the domestics residing
in the establishment. According to their regulations, the Governor may
dismiss an underservant; he may send a boy on errands, he must carry
on the correspondence with the parents of the youth, and it is his
privilege to do the whipping of the institution. But the internal govern-
ment of the house is incessantly interfered with from without. I am told
by the directors that the point is as plain as the way to market. The name
of Governor gives no power to govern, beyond the points just named. I
concur in the opinion that Mr. Waddy is the most suitable man for the place
in many respects.” :

Mr. McLean: ‘I hope that Mr. Waddy will be appointed Governor,
because J think that then the school will be governed. I disapprove of govern-
ment and religious and moral training by a joint stock company. It must be
under the government of some one person. If the directors had any genuine
Yorkshire gumption, they would see this. The directors could never have
brought things to such a pass unless they had been countenanced from
outside. From first to last the Governor has been counteracted by petty-
fogging, petty-meddling men in Sheffield and in London, in opposition to
the Conference.”

Mr. Fowler, at this stage, made a very characteristic deliver-
ance, in which he took the present bearings of the question and
ascertained its latitude and longitude. His practical deduction
was : vee must come nearer to the Sheffield school or go
farther@from it.” He held that the present position was
altogether untenable. It was unfair to the Conference, placing it
in a most awkward and undignified dilemma, and taking up its
precious time, year after year, with the discussion of matters
which ought to have been settled before we had anything to do
with the affair. The yearly settlement of these irritating dis-
agreements between the directors and the Governor were a very
serious drain upon the time and temper of the Conference. It
THe CeNnrenary CELEBRATION. 37t

was unfair to the work of God—taking from one of your choicest
Circuits one of your best, most earnestly desired, and sorely
needed men to’ be lectured and worried by the directors of a
company, and made their scapegoat to the shareholders when
they lack a dividend, and to the parents when the boys do not
like their victuals. The constitution of the establishment should
be first made such as we can approve of and work along with
before we condemn an inestimable brother to the task of serving
two masters, the Conference or the directors of a company, who
do not see things in the light in which Conference is bound
to look at them.

Dr. Dixon: ‘‘ There are two parts in the constitution—one is immutable,
the other can be rendered alterable. By the constitution, nothing but
Methodism can be taught there. You have a chapel there settled in our way,
but, what is most important, here you have 150 boys who will influence
Methodism in future. Ought they to be under the spiritual guard of a local
preacher? I.should not like this. The spiritual state and principles of our
youth should not be sacrificed to anything else. We may maintain this in
the midst of perplexity, and wait for better days. I am sure that pure,
unsophisticated wisdom is not sufficient to manage these economic enter-
prises. Let us try Mr. Waddy.” (Asmile.) ‘‘He has a great deal of tact,
and has had the management of the whole thing from the beginning. He
knows these men, and has a great influence. Many think him absolutely
essential. He will exercise an impalpable wisdom. Let us have no more
quarrelling. The brethren stationed in Sheffield must all support the
Governor. At the monthly ministers’ meeting we used to talk about the
school, and follow the judgment and take the part of the Governor. Send Mr.
Waddy. We cannot afford to let Sheffield school be swamped. For this
position you want an educated man, a strong man, a devout man, a man of
dignity, and, above all, a very grave man.” (Hear, hear, hear!) ‘ Then
send Mr. Waddy.” (Cheers and laughter.)

Dr. Beaumont remarked that, whatever might be said of the sophistication
or the impalpability of Mr. Waddy’s wisdom, Mr. Keeling could compete
with him in gravity.

Mr. Scott: ‘I think we should not appoint another Governor until a
change be made in the arrangements. I would have Mr. Waddy appointed,
but with instructions from the Conference—written, if necessary—as to the
work and duties which, in our view, are attached to the office of Governor, and
for the performance of which he is responsible to us, and to no other body
whatsoever.”’

The President then made a speech of great power and
pungency, and of considerable length, as a speech from the Chair.

His chief points were: ‘‘ That the Conference ought not—by the appoint-
ment of one of its members to the nominal Governorship—to lend the prestige
of its public patronage to any private undertaking whatsoever, over the

¥ 2
372 flisrory or Meruopism,

internal management of which it had not the real and effective authority of
which the appointment was intended to afford a guarantee to the parents
and the public. Without this the appointment was a delusion and injustice.
There were in Yorkshire, in the adjoining counties, and the Midlands, many
Methodist schools which had won and kept a deserved reputation. Why
should the Wesleyan Methodist Conference go out of its way to draw the
youths from these schools to that of a joint stock company who have refused
to adapt their deed to the requirements which that appointment obliges us to
make? And in the eastern and western counties there are several schools of
the like class— for instance, Mr. Shaw's school in Somersetshire. Why draw
pupils away from such establishments to a school the constitution of which
has never been submitted to us, and, when disapproved, persisted in in spite
of us? We have now ‘before us an appeal for a similar proprietary school in
Somersetshire. Grant a Conference sanction and appointment to a school
in Yorkshire, and to another in the West of England, and what is to prevent
Cornwall, and Northumberland, and Birmingham, and London from making
the self-same request ? And how can you give the one any other answer than
you give the other? True, Mr. Waddy was a great friend of education, and
so he was of cheap and honest physic. How could we appoint a man like
Dr. Beaumont to be Governor and Chaplain of a wholesale establishment for
the manufacturing of Wesleyan Methodist pills or Conference ointment, if
the deed of partnership precluded his ascertaining the wholesomeness and
effectiveness of the medicine labelled with the honourable name of Wesley?”

This speech was delivered with all the gravity and the
judicial dignity and authority of a charge to the jury from
the Bench. On at least one listener in the gallery it fell
with great force and weight, although the piquancy of the
illustration about physic did seem rather daring and sarcastic.

The President added: ‘‘The question is twofold. I will ask (1) Will you
appoint a Governor to Sheffield school for this year, notwithstanding the
constitution which you have condemned?” Answer, '‘ Yes.”

This was carried with acclamation.

The President: “Is it your wish that the Rev. S. D. Waddy be the
Governor, with instructions to the clerical. members of the governing body
to see if there be anything which interferes with the exercise of that discipline
which the Connexion should require from all that have the influence of its
name.” .

This: was carried unanimously.

Mr. Cooke then read a memorial applying for the appointment of the
Rev. R. Ray as Governor of the Taunton school.

Mr. G. Osborn moved, and Dr. Beaumont seconded, ‘‘ That the request
be granted.”

The President: ‘‘In what respect does the Taunton school differ from
other respectable schools kept by private Methodist gentlemen ? ”’

Dr. Beaumont: ‘This school is Methodist in its foundation, and is to
be thoroughly Methodist. Its object is to keep the children of our people
to us.”
- THe CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 373

Mr. Cooke: ‘‘ You may mould the school as you please.”

Mr. Walker: ‘‘Let us deal with Taunton as we did with Sheffield. Begin
by appointing a supernumerary.”

Mr. Ray then gave an account of the school: ‘All the Superintendent
ministers in the District have the same right to vote as the proprietary. The
Conference must perceive that it will require vigilance on the part of the
Governor. I have taken some care of the school.”

The President: '‘By what authority has Mr. Ray done this? It is a
direct violation of the Methodist rule. I cannot sit here and see one after
another appointed to schools. Let me go home; it will be a relief to my
conscience. I will sign your Minutes."’ (Cries of ‘‘No, no.”)

The President left the Chair, but was at length persuaded to resume it.

Mr. Scott: ‘‘ ¥ propose that the Taunton friends be permitted to correspond
with a supernumerary.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘ Why cannot the Taunton case be put with no other
qualification than that which was put by the President in the Sheffield
case?"’ (Cries of ‘Attacking the President.'’)

The President: ‘‘I did not say that Dr. Beaumont was out of order. He
has often thrown light on subjects. I beg that he may go on.”

Dr. Beaumont then declared that, unless the President undertook the

c esponsibility of pronouncing the motion to be unconstitutional, he could not
feel at liberty to withdraw his seconding.

Mr. Ray: ‘‘I beg to answer the question put to me by the President a
little while ago: ‘By whose authority has Mr. Ray taken some care of the
school?’ I answer, By the decision of the committee of last year."

The President then apologised to Mr. Ray for having asked a question
and refused to hear an answer.

Mr. Walker: ‘'I wish to know what is to become of the profits.”

Dr. Newton: ‘‘I think it wrong to take men out of the regular work.
I for one cannot consent to it.”

Dr. Dixon: ‘‘I would request the mover and seconder of the motion to
withdraw it. The Conference will be divided.”

The mover did not answer, and the seconder had already made his with-
drawal conditional on the pronouncement of its unconstitutionality by the
President himself.

Mr. W. M. Bunting; ‘‘I would recommend the mover and seconder of
the motion to throw it into the form of Mr. Scott's motion with regard to
Sheffield,so as to countenance the school as far as possible on Connexional
principles.”

The President: ‘‘Mr. Ray must not be the Governor nor the manager of
that school. Iam sorry to find myself in this position ; but I do hold that I am
not a mere Chairman but your President, under the Deed of Declaration. As
to Dr. Beaumont’s argumentum ad hominem, it is not true that I approved
of Sheffield. My deceased friend, Mr. Grindrod, did wrong; Mr. Waddy
did wrong; and Mr. McLean did wrong in proposing to drop the word
supernumerary after his name. To him it was personal. The Sheffield
case is peculiar. I doubt the wisdom of Mr. Waddy’s going. And when
I hear ‘The more the better,’ I cannot be silent. I do not approve of
this West of England isolation. Perhaps I am wrong; if so, I beg pardon
of God and of you.”
374 : History or Meruopism.

Mr. Cooke: ‘I believe it would have been better to appoint Mr. Ray,
and that the Conference is with me; but out of respect to the President
I will undertake the responsibility of withdrawing the request of the
committee.”

So the motion of Mr. G. Osborn and Dr. Beaumont fell to the ground.

The next morning Mr. Cooke proposed: ‘‘That Brother Tucker should
have his name on the Minutes as Governor of Taunton school, with the
word supernumerary after his name.”

The President: ‘‘We want a different school, superior to Sheffield.
Sheffield has been spoiled. If it can be brought back to its original purpose,
all well and good. But as it is now, we may as well have a Methodist shoe
shop, a Methodist quack doctor, or even a Methodist newspaper. Supposing
the Sheffield premises should have to be sold, and each shareholder lose
£50 or £70, by a scheme to which the Conference is committed? Why set
ourselves against private schools?”

The Conference did not sanction the insertion of the name of any
Governor of Taunton in the Minutes.

A complaint was lodged against Dr. Beaumont for not having
taken the whole of his missionary deputation work.

Dr. Beaumont: “ For six days I had not preached a sermon; and I will
not go about making and hearing miserable speeches for four or five hours
a day. I will not spend my time in such a manner, unless compelled by the
inexorable power of Conference. I beg to be left off the deputation list. It
will be an accommodation to me. All the Preachers in the Liverpool North
Circuit were appointed on missionary deputations at the same time.”

A letter was received from Sir A. Agnew on the Sabbath question.

The President promised to co-operate with him in the good work.

Twelve thousand seven hundred pounds have been received in subscriptions
to the Education Fund. A collection to be made on the last Sunday in
November to raise it to £20,000. A series of resolutions was passed.

The President: ‘‘ To object to Government aid to denominational schools
would be Methodist sectarianism.” ;

Mr. W. M. Bunting: “I wish that a copy of our Standard Works could
be presented to the library of the Free Church College.” / Carried
unanimously.

A letter was read from a brother retracting his doctrinal errors.

The President : ‘‘ Satisfactory as to its spirit, but not satisfactory as to its
statements." Dr. Hannah, Dr. Newton, Mr. Lomas, and Mr. Osborn are to
converse with him and advise him not to publish a speculation with regard
to hereditary depravity.

The President at the opening of the last session said: ‘‘ No Preacher is
allowed to leave the Conference till its close. It is miserable to be reduced
to the legal number. We must have the appearance of a Conference.”
A minute was read from the York District demurring strongly to the powers
exercised by the July Committee in London.

The President proposed that five brethren from the country should be
added to it.

\
Tue CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 375

The stations were not confirmed till 10.30 on the last morning. The
Pastoral Address was to be reduced by the Editor.

The President: ‘I think, as I have to sign it, I ought to see it before it
goes to press." (Agreed.)

The President, after signing the Journal, expressed his belief that the
Body was never in a more peaceful or united state, and asked the forgive-
ness of any brother to whom he might have given pain.

It will be seen that the One Hundred and First Conference
was not without its special significance. It not only began
chronologically a new century of the Conferences but it marked
a turning point in what may be called the ecclesiastical politics
of Wesleyan Methodism. For about thirty years the polity of
Methodism had been shaped, and its policy determined, almost
wholly by one master-mind, who had taken alike the initiative,
the elaboration, and the completion of its most important
measures—had béen its oracle, and the director of its movements.
He was now in the Chair of Conference for the fourth and last
time, and was, at the age of sixty-six, in the ripe and rich maturity
of his intellectual powers. He betrayed not the faintest sign of
that “ bewilderment of thought” of which he spoke in his open-
ing address, any more than of wavering in will, or hesitancy in
ruling. On the contrary, one could not but feel how grand
a thing it is to see a great office greatly filled by the greatest man
of all, for it was plain that here the causing man was king, and
he might still have said of his present self: ‘‘ My glory was fresh
in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand.” One could not
but feel ‘‘How forcible are right words!” as he said the very
thing that wanted saying in the very way in which it was fittest
to be said.

But a change was coming over the Conference : it would seem
unwittingly or, in any wise, without concert or confederacy.
For many years there had been a finality in the pronounce-
ments of Dr. Bunting against which it was vain to rebel.

But now the tide perceptibly began to turn. Although the
perpetual President was now for the fourth time the occupant of
the Chair, yet successive resolutions were carried against his
warmly and strongly argued, and emphatically enunciated judg-
ment, till at last, when it became plain that another motion to
which he had earnestly objected would almost certainly be
carried, he abruptly left the Chair, and declared that he would
sign the Journal, thus dissolving the Conference before the
stations were confirmed and much of the most important business
376 History of Meruopism.

yet unfinished. Happily, he was persuaded to resume his seat,
and made graceful, gentlemanly apology to the brother to whose
answer to his question from the Chair he had refused to listen
—but not to the Conference. On the contrary, he held himself
to be the aggrieved party, and vindicated the position he had
taken up and, as it seemed, intended to maintain, by laying down
a doctrine of Presidential prerogative, alike unknown to the
Constitution and to the usages of Conference. He took upon
himself to determine peremptorily and definitely a question
which he had allowed Conference to discuss but not to decide.
He declared Mr. Ray must not be the Governor or. manager of
that school. This was, of course, a prohibition of the carrying of
the resolution which had been allowed to be moved and seconded,
and a nullification and stultification of the foregoing discussion
on the subject, the motion being, ‘“ That the request of the com-
mittee of Taunton School for the appointment of the Rev.
Richard Ray as Governor be granted.”

Of course every President has the right, inasmuch as he has
the responsibility, of ruling out of order, and inadmissible, any
motion which is unconstitutional in its terms or substance. The
President who, in such a case, cannot set his foot down firmly
and say : “That is an unconstitutional proposal, and cannot be
entertained,” is not fit for his position. But the time for doing
this is clearly as soon as the resolution is moved. A resolution
which “ must not be ” voted for in the affirmative ought not to
be discussed at all. Nay, every reasonable effort should be made
to prevent its introduction. It very seldom happens that such a
motion is contemplated without the President becoming cognisant
in some way of the fact that it is intended. In that case the
peaceable and prudent course is plain. Having satisfied himself
of the firmness of his ground, he secures an interview with the
intending mover, and points out to him the unconstitutionality
of his motion. Should it be still brought forward, either
directly or in a quasi-incidental, parenthetic manner, the Presi-
dential course is clear—to say with quiet firmness : ‘ That point
is settled and must not be mooted or disturbed.” If, again, a
speaker should spring upon the Conference an irrelevant con-
tentious matter—political or other—it is the duty of the
President to recall the aberrant orator to the question now
before the house. :

But all this stops widely short of the power assumed by Dr.
Bunting. After an orderly discussion on a matter which was
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 377

admitted to be neither unconstitutional nor irrelevant, brought
forward in the most regular manner at the point in the proceed-
ings fixed on by the President, he claimed the right to decide that
the motion must not be carried. In this position he resolutely
entrenched himself, and fortified it by an appeal to the constitu-
tive Deed of Declaration: “I hold that I am not the mere
chairman under the Deed of Declaration.”

But the Deed of Declaration gives not the faintest intimation
of any such Presidential power as the deciding which way the
Conference should vote, if allowed to vote at all, on any question
brought before it in the regular and proper way. All that the
Poll Deed says upon the subject is simply this: ‘The said
President shall have the privélege and power of two members iz
all acts of the Conference during his Presidency, and such other
powers, privileges, and authorities as the Conference shall from
time to time see fit to entrust into his hands.” Now the
Conference had never entrusted into the hands of the President
any such power as to determine which way the majority should
vote on any given question. All the power and authority which the
Poll Deed gives the President beyond the power of two members
and that which the name itself implies—namely, to presed@e—comes
from Conference itself. No doubt the word President carries with
it conventionally a degree of stateliness and dignity beyond that of
Chairman, and was selected with that intent, but it carries with
it in a deliberative assembly no such prerogative as was assumed
by Dr. Bunting. Hence Dr. Osborn and Dr. Beaumont were justi-
fied in the nonwithdrawal of the motion. The entreaty that they
should do so was clearly prompted by the dread of another lively
scene, which, considering the temperament of the two ‘parties
immediately at issue, might have ended in a deplorable dead-lock.

This catastrophe was cleared by stout old Corbett Cooke, who,
by withdrawing the request of the committee of which he was
the chairman, relieved the strained relations of the President of
the Conference.

The brethren drew their breath, but Dr. Bunting’s point was
gained. Taunton School had no recognition whatsoever on the
stations.

The effect this new doctrine of the Presidency, affirmed
and acted on by the greatest of the Presidents since Wesley
himself, had upon the Conference was very marked. Every
minister with whom I conversed upon the subject, or whom I
heard conversing, regarded it as an innovating encroachment
378 Flrstorv oF .erHovism.

of power upon privilege, of office upon order, which was in no
wise to be allowed.

But how was it to be resisted in the most peaceable and quiet
way ? The brethren saw that the case would best be met by not
putting into the Chair anyone who would be at all likely to stand
on it, rather than sit in it. Hence a powerful impetus was given
to the turning tide of the ecclesiastical politics of Methodism, for
although in 1844 there was nothing in the Conference which bore
the slightest semblance to faction or to party, yet there were
perceptibly two sides to the house, not separated indeed by a
hard and fast line, not hindering at all the treating of every
question on its merits. So healthful and harmonious were the
internal relations of the Conference during the earlier part of its
proceedings, that the strongest indication of there being two sides
was the specially marked and sensitive courtesy and deference
paid by each side to the other. Thus Dr. Bunting’s style and
manner towards Mr. Fowler and Dr. Beaumont was notably
respectful and considerate, as to men whose judgment carried with
it more than ordinary weight. But so accustomed had Dr.
Bunting been, by the space of thirty years, to carry Conference
with him, whether in the Chair or not, that now, when he found
himself for the fourth time President, and yet for the first time
worsted in the measures upon which his heart was set and his
pleading power exerted, he could not conceal his sense of
humiliation and of mortification at what appeared to be a loss
of prestige and prescriptive right. This, at least, was the
impression made, so far as I could gather, by his unprecedented
leaving of the Chair when a debate seemed to be tending in a
direction opposite to that which he had indicated. .

On the other side was the honest, hearty recognition of the
legitimate and salutary frestzge of the greatest man in the
Connexion, who filled its highest office with a competence and
an efficiency which no other man could reach. Witness Dr.
Beaumont cancelling his engagement to follow Dr. Chalmers in
preaching for the Stockport Sunday schools and his inestimable
maxim, indispensable to the coherence and the continuity of a
Connexional Church : “No brother has a right to gratify another
Church by the disturbance of his own.” William Griffith’s
voluntary pledge to abstain from politics was still more striking.

The eftect upon the voting for the President at the next
Conference was signal. Eleven years before, Mr. Stanley had
been within fourteen votes of the Chair, but his unwillingness
THE CENTENARY CELEBRATION. 379

to put his name to the officious London Declaration with
regard to the non-existence of any undue personal or party
influence in Conference had blocked his way to the Chair for
a whole decade, during which he had been dangling in mid-air
before his brethren. But now the times had changed. Mr.
Stanley was borne into the Chair at the top of the wave, with
a higher vote than Mr. Bunting had received the year before.
The two next names upon the list, Atherton and Samuel
Jackson, were from the.same side. Only fourteen votes were
given to men who were regarded as belonging to the party of
centralisation and government from London: Dr. Alder, nine ;
Dr. Beecham, five. Atherton was in the Chair in 1846; S
Jackson in 1847; and if the turn had not come round for the
most beloved and best known of his brethren, Dr. Newton,
. Mr. Fowler would unquestionably have been the President
in 1848.

The significance of this was obvious. At the last long ¢éze-
a-téte I had with Dr. Osborn, we talked this over thoroughly.
We quite agreed as to the cause of Dr. Bunting’s sudden
demonstration and its effect upon the subsequent elections. It
is to be noted that up to this time, and later, in the seven-
teenth' year of his ministry, Dr. Osborn belonged, if to any
party at all, to that of frank outspokenness and of unfettered
voting. Hence in 1844 he joined Dr. Beaumont against Dr.
Bunting in the case of Taunton school, and in 1845 he sup-
ported George Macdonald against the same redoubted champion
in the matter of State-aided education, and F. A. West in the
attempt to cheapen Wesleyan Methodist literature.

On the whole, the impression by this One Hundred and First
Conference on an eager and enthusiastic neophyte was in a high
degree arousing, heartening, bracing, and upbuilding. One felt that
he was being enrolled amongst a goodly fellowship of apostolic
men, devout and simple-minded, happy-hearted, honest, genial,
and kindly, and withal capable and shrewd. "The devotional
exercises gave a cogent illustration of the President's description
of the ex-Roman priest, ‘‘ He prays like a Methodist Preacher.”
It was noteworthy that the mightiest prayers arose from the
platform, from such veterans as Marsden and Taylor. Another
very notable fact was the fewness of the speakers. Not more
than twenty-seven persons took part in the debates. Of these
few, if any, on the floor of the house were on their feet so often
as Mr. Samuel Dunn. But his utterances were so ejaculatory
380 History or Meruopism.

and so hard and sharp in tone as to leave next to no impres-
sion on the mind of what was “ piped,” and there was nothing
‘“‘harped.” Hence Mr. Fowler’s record takes no notice of his
speeches, yet his appearance was remarkably interesting.

Another notable thing was the lengthiness of evening
sittings. Although Conference began daily at half-past eight
a.m., yet it sometimes sat till ten p.m., quarter-past ten, or
half-past ten, and often till nine, quarter-past, or half-past nine
o'clock p.m.
CHAPTER VII.

THE GATHERING STORM.

THE Conference of 1845 was held in Leeds, under the Presidency
of Jacob Stanley. He went for an old man by this time, being
in his seventieth year—two years older both naturally and
ministerially than the great man who now resigned the seal of
office for the fourth time. There was but one election into
the One Hundred by nomination.

The President (Dr. Bunting) remarked: Mr. Lomas is down for City
Road, and at present no one on that station is in the Hundred. It is
important that the man whose name stands first in the stations should
be in the deed. To the disgrace of the City Road trustees, they refuse

a Preacher to preside at their meetings.”
Mr. Lomas: ‘‘I am sensible of the distinction which this vote has

conferred upon me. It becomes me to be humble even more than grateful.
This is a truly evangelical election. It is ‘according to the election of
grace, not of works, lest any man should boast.’ I feel that this election
confers as much responsibility as honour. I hope to have grace to employ

my increased influence for the glory of God.”
Dr. Beaumont supported the vote of thanks to the retiring President,

strongly emphasising his having moderated the feeling of the Body on
semi-political matters; but he did not go with him in petitioning the

Queen to dissolve the Parliament.
Here Dr. Alder rose to order, and the President observed: ‘ Many

approved what-Dr. Beaumont disapproves.”

This statement was loudly cheered and clapped. The
speech of Mr. Reece in seconding the vote of thanks bore the
stamp of his own nature, especially in view of the determined
opposition which Dr. Bunting had persisted in to the allowing
Mr. Reece a young man excepting at -his own expense.

Mr. Reece: ‘I have reasons for wishing to second this resolution, This
may be the last time I shall have such an opportunity. I have known Jabez
Bunting from the very first, but I have never known his like in devotion’to
the interests of Methodism, night and day. The gales he has outridden are
382 Hisrory or Merxopism.

past, never to return. I hope his course will be closed pleasantly. Others
can talk better than I can, but no one can think more highly of him than
I do.”

Dr. Dixon: ‘I rise to propose an addition to the vote—especial thanks for
his faithful defence of Protestant principles in opposition to the Maynooth
grant.” (Carried unanimously.)

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I have often found myself in circumstances of great
embarrassment, but never more so than at present. I have first to thank
Almighty God for my early connection with Methodism, and especially with
the Methodist ministry. I am deeply humbled and unaffectedly conscious
that I am not worthy of the goodness and mercy He has shown to me.
During forty-six years I have been connected with the Conference. With
respect to the last Conference and the past year, I beg pardon of any brother
to whom I may have spoken and acted improperly. I apologise to my friends
in Scotland, and thank Mr. Scott for supplying my lack of service. I feel
thankful to Dr. Beaumont for having spoken out in a manly way, but I do
believe that I acted in harmony with the majority in petitioning her
Majesty. I did not expect such cordial thanks. I am more than ever
attached to Methodism—its doctrine and its discipline. Whilst it adapts
itself to altered circumstances, it is opposed to revolutionary movements
even as to organisation ; not abandonment, but adaptation.”

Dr. Beaumont: “I think there should be times appointed for the trans-
action of financial business during Conference; the disturbance of our
consultations by the buzz and clink of personal and private monetary matters
is insufferable.” ;

Mr. G. Osborn gave notice of motion in relation to “the training of our
children.”

A student had been dismissed from the Institution.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Many thought he might go into a Circuit; I thought
differently. It ought to be a principle that no one thrust out of the Institution
should be employed in a Circuit. But as he has conducted himself properly
in the interval, I think it would be well to admit him on trial.”

Mr. Bowers: ‘‘ When the officers of the Institution have judged a man
unfit for the Institution their power over him terminates.’

The case of Mr. Punshon was named, who had been labouring in the
Maidstone Circuit, whom Mr. Reece stated to have been very acceptable.
Dr. Bunting and Mr. J. Farrar also spoke in his favour. Through some
indulgence on the part of Dr. Hannah, a young man at Didsbury had lost
his claim to have his second year at the Institution counted as the first of his
probation.

Dr. Hannah: ‘TI wish to take all the blame; it springs from my own
foolish heart.” ?

Dr. Bunting: “I am sorry I cannot contradict Dr. Hannah. It was
foolish. We must show no favour, but keep to our rule.”

The Conference gave up its second evening in favour of a meeting of the
Education Committee. Mr. Fowler notes “the zeal of our lay friends" on
the matter of Wesleyan day schools, and exulted in the decision “that the
school buildings should be free from debt."

Mr. Prest gave notice of motion for appointing Chairmen by some other
means than election by ballot.
THE GATHERING SrToRM. 383

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I give notice of an amendment to that motion.” (Loud
cheers.) The notice was withdrawn.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I have appointed a brother to write the Pastoral Address,
and will suggest matters, as is the privilege and duty of the President.”

A brother who had written a book containing doctrine contrary to our
standards, on being interrogated, confessed that he now saw that he was in the
wrong. A young brother who had been reprehended from the Chair at the
District Meeting was heard in his own defence. He said: ‘‘ I am substantially
innocent. I charge the brethren with a technical want of love. Unfavourable
appearances may sometimes cover intentional excellences. I cannot make an
apology for not having done wrong; that would be to filiate a fault upon
myself, I am not given to much self-estimation.” Mr. Stephenson rose to
order.

Dr. Bunting: “I agree that the brother is wandering, but the Conference
is so charmed by his simplicity and rhetoric that it is a pity we should not be
entertained a little longer.”

The President: ‘‘ Does the brother appeal from the decision ? "’

The brother: ‘I appeal to the bar of Heaven.”

Dr. Bunting: “I think our brother cannot have any very serious com-
plaint against his District Meeting.”

The brother : “ It lowers my influence in my family.”

A Superintendent proved guilty of an illegal expulsion was required to
rectify the wrong.

Dr. Bunting: ‘Is there no protest from the York District against Mr.
Everett’s continuing on the supernumerary list when he shows himself able
to preach over such a wide extent of country?”

Mr. D. Walton (Chairman): ‘He is not able to preach on winter
evenings."’ This was shown to apply only to places in his own Circuit,
as he preached winter and summer in different parts of the land.

On the reading of the Book Committee’s report, Mr. Osborn and Mr.
West reasoned very ably and clearly on the importance of cheapening our
literature, after the example of the Church of Rome and the Church of
Scotland, and other Churches. Benson's Life of Fletcher could be bought
more cheaply than at the Book Room. The idea of a Quarterly Review was
also started.

Dr. Bunting defended the caution of the Steward and committee. He
argued that as so many departments of the work of God were to such a large
extent dependent on the profits of the Book Room, it could not afford an
adventurous policy like that of private publishing houses. About a Review,
Dr. Beaumont and many others agreed with Dr. Bunting as to the unwisdom
of any such undertaking, unless the ground were quite secure, and he showed
the unfairness of diverting moneys otherwise available for worn-out ministers
and ministers’ widows, home missions, etc., to an ambitious and unpaying
literary undertaking. Dr. Bunting took the opportunity of insisting on the
obligation of keeping constantly in view the chief object of our periodicals :
the defence and exposition of revealed truth, and the record of spiritual
experience.

This was supposed to refer to a change which had been
introduced into the Magazine by the junior Editor, who had
384 History or Meruovism.

brought in secular articles treated in a secular tone and spirit,
such as a Life of Lord Eldon, treated in a very mundane
fashion.

The proposal to sell old Kingswood and look out for another
site drew forth from Dr. Beaumont a touching testimony to the
soundness, alike of the scholastic and the Methodist teaching of
the school. He said: “ For five successive years of my boyhood
I never slept a night away from Kingswood.”

The increase of members during the year, though Dr. Bunting
thought it small, was cheering—3,108. But it was derived from
four Districts: London, 1,110; Sheffield, 1,425; Hull, 1,561;
Manchester, 1,076.

J. Fowler asked: ‘What is meant by Mr. Arthur's being under the
direction of the Missionary Committee? ”’

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘Mr. Arthur, being an Irishman, cannot have an English
Circuit. He is anxious to go back to the missions, and his eyes only prevent
it." The Conference said nothing, and the Secretary read on.

Mr. Samuel Dunn complained that the Stationing Committee had not
appointed him to the Circuit he had selected. ‘I have not been properly
treated for many years.”

(Yet Halifax, where he had last been, was felt good enough
for and by such men as Jabez Bunting, Theophilus Lessey,
Thomas Galland, William Bunting, Joseph Fowler, and F. A.
West.)

Dr. Bunting strongly condemned the assumption of such a claim and
attitude by any member of the Conference.

On a financial question Mr. Osborn differed in opinion from the President.
Many spoke noisily, and great confusion ensued. Our opposition to Maynooth
had cost £400.

Dr. Bunting: ‘'I fear that, in spite of ourselves, we must sometimes have
‘to do with public measures.”

J. Fowler suggested that the London Superintendents should be on the
Sub-Committee of Privileges.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Better have no committee rather than that. We must
have a confidential committee.”

Dr. Dixon: ‘The action of Methodism against Maynooth has told on
England and the world.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘Mr. Prest has done us great honour.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I am glad I am not the representative of a District.
We require some men unconnected with local interests to look after the
general good. Men are miserably one-eyed, and look only at local in-
terests. I could publish a book, and say what a representative does and
what he ought to do. We are now exercising our high trust for the
general good.”
THE GATHERING .STORM. 385

The report of the Chapel Fund Committee gave Mr. Fowler
the opportunity of delivering, in the form of a resolution, his
most effective protest against chapel debts. Some of our best
chapels were declared to be in a state of most serious financial
embarrassment. Cherry Street chapel, Birmingham, was, in
the serious judgment of the Chapel Committee, in an appalling
condition. Mr. Fowler incessantly holds up the “strangeness”
of a Christian Church, as well as private Christians, involving
themselves in responsibilities which they have no reasonable
prospect of being able to discharge. He was powerfully
supported by Mr. Vevers and others. .

Dr. Beaumont : ‘Our chapel debts are overwhelming. But a plan of
action which would do well for Melton would not work at Liverpool. We
must devise some plan which will not injure our other funds. Great
caution must be used, but we must set about the matter promptly and
powerfully. These debts are a scotching of our wheels. We are so
bothered with making both ends meet that we are weakened morally and
damaged evangelically.”

But the most striking speech in opposition was the maiden
speech of Samuel Romily Hall. He had put an effective ques-
tion at the foregoing Conference ; but it was this Leeds speech
that started him on his Conferential career.

He said: ‘‘ There is danger of misunderstanding and wrong feeling on.
the matter. In the Trust Deed there is a commission to inquire into the
appropriation of trust money; but in the District Meeting this is passed
hastily over. Trustees may lose their Methodism, and yet continue in
office for life. Such men will do nothing for us unless they get the
ministers they like.”

Dr. Dixon: “I hail Mr. Hall's maiden speech, and think his will be a
happy Conferential course. There was fine sense in his speech. But our
young friend put some cases hypothetically. I understand that the surplus
funds of a chapel are given into the hands of the Stewards. Do not let
us raise a bugbear about Trustees. Who were our best friends in the
Warren affair? A little aristocratic leaven thrown into Leaders’ and
Quarterly Meetings may do good. I should not like Trustees to be ar-
raigned by the Conference, I cannot see how our funds can be injured by
the relieving our chapel debts. Some of our best men have been alienated
from us by chapel debts.”

The President suggested a strong mixed committee on the subject.

Dr. Bunting was loudly called for, and said: ‘‘I shall speak in the
committee when I have heard both sides. I would have a large committee
—almost a convention, though that is too pompous a name. I would have
authority to call together twenty-five ministers and twenty-five laymen,
Mr. Hall's speech was very able. As to what to do with the Trustees, I
have some doubt about the Model Deed. The movement cannot injure the

Zz
386 Hisrory or Merwopism.

missionary collections. Any of you, or all of you put together, cannot do
that.” ;

The committee was agreed on.

The Sheffield school came again before the Conference,
this time in a still more startling form.

Mr. S. D. Waddy presented to Conference a petition for permission to
grant degrees to the students of Wesley College.

Dr. Bunting: ‘What have we to do with it? Mr. Waddy has been
Yankyish, go-aheadish. We went into this as a school. We first appointed
a supernumerary without a name on the Minutes. The representation to
Sir James Graham, that the school, now called ‘college,’ is for divinity
students is a perfect fraud."’

Mr. Waddy: ‘I protest against such an imputation.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I make no separate personal imputation upon Mr,
Waddy. I charge the thirty-two men who signed the application to the
Home Secretary, in which the Sheffield proprietary school was described
as ‘a college for divinity students’—my own son among the rest—with
having put their otherwise honourable names to a fraud. I move the order
of the day.”

This was carried by a considerable majority, a Beaumont seconding
Dr. Bunting's motion.

It is easy to understand the position of both parties in this
debate. Mr. Waddy’s, as I learnt from his own lips, was this:
“A degree adds dignity to a man in the public eye, especially
to a minister. We hope that a good few of our Sheffield
youths will become ministers. Few Methodists who go to
either university come away Methodists.” Dr. Bunting’s point
was this: “Where will this at first very modest undertaking
land us, under the pilotage of such an adventurous genius as
that of Mr. Waddy? We are asked permission for the school
to become in effect a university, conferring degrees, in divinity
amongst the rest, on divinity students. In this case we must
regard this proprietary school, now suddenly become a uni-
versity, as either a third branch of ‘our Theological Institution
or as,a rival of both branches, and we must add to the title
in the Minutes of Governor and Chaplain that of Theological
Tutor.” Dr. Beaumont’s point was: ‘‘ Whatever you do for
Shefheld you will have to do for Taunton. You must not
make flesh of the Yorkshire school and fish of the school in
the South-West. He had no objection to the name of Wesley
being crystallised in the titles of the schools; but the curri-
culum of theology taught in Sheffield was altogether too scanty
to entitle it to represent itself, and to claim recognition from
THE GATHERING SrormM. 387

us and the British Government, on the ground that it is a
college for divinity students. The Conference must be no
party to such misrepresentation. It would involve us also in
a grave practical difficulty. There is too little even of Wesley's
Works taught at Sheffield for any such pretensions. The
scheme needs much closer and longer looking into.”

The Taunton memorial for the appointment of the Rev.
R. Ray as Governor was again presented by Mr. Corbett Cooke,
and seconded by Dr. Beaumont. The arguments were the same
as the year before : The identity both of need and claim in the one
place as in the other, the fact that travelling all the way from
Cornwall to Sheffield and back two or three times a year involved
a serious increase in the expense, and that, Taunton being
situated in a more pastoral and less densely peopled district
than was Sheffield, living was appreciably cheaper. It was
carried without opposition that a minister be appointed, but
to the latter clause of the petition an amendment was proposed
that a supernumerary be appointed.

Against this Dr. Beaumont contended that every argument against the
appointment of Mr. Ray was equally valid for the return of Mr. Waddy to
a Circuit, and that the best available man was quite as much needed in the
first as in the later years of all such institutions.

Mr. W. M. Bunting deprecated the distinction between supernumeraries
and ministers.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ What safeguards are there in the Taunton deed against
the evils which so much troubled us at Sheffield? If Mr. Ray have particular
gifts for this work, that may be a reason for his appointment.”

Mr. Ray: “I am sure that it is the will of the Trustees that the deed
should be in accordance with the pleasure of the Conference.”

Mr. Scott: ‘‘ Remeinbering our experience with the Sheffield school, I
should very much wish to look gravely at this case. I see difficulties on both
sides, but am inclined to think that the Conference might take the oversight
of this school. I think it is not going out of our way to pay our best attention
to Methodist schools." Mr. Ray was appointed.

Dr. Bunting : ‘Do the Sheffield scholars attend the college chapel only,
and not statedly Carver Street as well?”

Mr. Waddy : ‘That has been discontinued. Carver Street is too distant,
and many, sometimes thirty, were in the habit of staying away from the
service. The chief reason for going to Carver Street was that there was no
congregation at the school chapel—sometimes only two besides the scholars.
There was no sacramental service at theschool chapel. We have thirty boys
in Society. We have now a good congregation in the school chapel.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I think it is a great misfortune that the head master does
not attend the same place of worship with the scholars ; and the wearing of
the gown in the school chapel pulpit makes the boys think less of the Circuit

Z2
388 Hisrory or Merxopism.

chapels and Preachers at home. I think Mr. Waddy has acted precipitately
in again putting on a gown.”

Dr. Newton: ‘I know boys who on returning home from Sheffield, having
not found the gown and prayers, have found fault with the service as not
being what it ought to be.”’

Dr. Bunting: ‘If there is now a good congregation from which the boys
can hear a good hearty Methodist amen, I am more nearly satisfied, but the
Circuit Preachers should take their turn in the school chapel, and thus link
the school on to Sheffield Methodism.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘You see what difficulties these schools will bring you
into.”

Dr. Dixon proposed a series of resolutions against Popery as patronised by
Parliament.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Better leave them to a sub-committee.”

The Committee of the Auxiliary Fund recommended that
those supernumerary ministers whose domestic establishments
and style of living were in accordance with their reputation for
having possession of ample means, should be asked whether, in
the distressed condition of the Fund, they could not forego their
claim upon it. ;

This resolution Dr. Bunting strenuously opposed on the
ground that it was “ inquisitorial.”

Mr. Scott, the Treasurer, replied: '‘ Then tell us where to find the money.
The Cornish people will never raise their sixpence a head so long as mén are
living among them in such style as Mr. —— and others, and drawing from
this fund.”

Dr. Newton spoke to the same effect.

Dr. Bunting: “If Mr. Scott cannot face the storm, something must be
done. The inquiry must be made in the most delicate and private way. I
move: ‘That the Conference adopts the report of the committee as its own
report; that the Treasurers shall have such correspondence as they deem
necessary with those who, as they think, ought to give up; and that the
thanks of the Conference be given to those who do give up.’ This will give
almost unlimited powers of appeal to our well-conditioned supernumeraries
on the part of the Auxiliary Fund Committee, as a confidential committee
in whom we trust.” This was carried with but three Noes.

I am in a position to state that the will of the Conference
was carried out both in letter and in spirit. The Treasurers of
the Fund, the Rev. J. Scott and James Wood, Esq., of Man-
chester, selected as the most suitable man for carrying on this
correspondence the Rev. W. Barton, my own beloved colleague.
But just at this juncture his health suddenly and completely
broke down under the continued pressure of his Connexional and
Circuit labours. <A too faithful, vivid reminiscence of his early
THE GATHERING Srorm. 389

life on the Huntingdonshire levels, an importunate Fen ague,
always fastened on him when his strength ran down. He was
ordered at once to drop all work, and betake himself to the
South Coast without delay. In his extremity he entreated his
young colleague to undertake the task, handing to me a list of
some thirteen supernumerary ministers who were thought to
come within the category designated by the Conference. This
was the first little bit of Connexional work that ever fell into
my hands.

Mr. Scott moved ‘the thanks of the Conference to the friends for
raising the sum they have raised.”

Dr. Bunting moved the thanks to the Treasurers of the Fund: ‘Let Dr.
Beaumont put what epithets you please ; he has a stock of them. No language
can reach their claims.”

Mr. Osborn read his Irish Address; an admirable document just seven
minutes long.

Dr. Bunting: “Instead of saying ‘men in ee are giving aid to
Popery,’ write ' statesmen of all parties.’ "’

The resolutions against Popery, as penied by the Committee, were
adopted.

Dr. Bunting read a letter from Dr. Buchanan, of Glasgow, requesting the
Conference’ to take the initiative against Popery, and to send delegates to
a great evangelical anti-Popery meeting to be held in Liverpool.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I am not prepared to give any definite opinion. We all
approve the object of the meeting. The essential genius of Methodism is
Catholic. I wish that all the other Nonconformists were likeminded and
therefore opposed to Popery. I think you should send your President, and
one or two others might go with him.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting explained that the object of the meeting was to pro-
mote union amongst evangelical Christians. A long conversation took place
as to who should form the deputation. Mr. Bunting pressed the importance
of his father’s being at the meeting, which would combine energetic action.
with pleasant recreation.

Mr. McLean: ‘ Without Dr. Bunting Methodism will not be represented.”

The President: ‘‘I cannot allow it to be said that Methodism cannot be
represented in the absence of Dr, Bunting.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I would rather go anywhere than be talked about in this
way.”

The President, Secretary, Dr. Bunting, Mr. W. M. Bunting, and Mr.
Osborn were appointed.

The Pastoral Address occupied an hour and a quarter. Dr. Beaumont
spoke in the highest terms of the Address to the Irish Conference, but feared
the ministers would have great difficulty in obtaining the attention of con-
gregations for an hour and a quarter to the Pastoral Address. He wished
that the Pastoral Address could be made like to the Irish, ‘intelligible and
rememberable.”'

Mr. Osborn said that his own former Address had come under the same
condemnation. He thought, however, that the Book Room should publish it
390 FAlisrory oF Marruopism.

as a pamphlet, it was so excellent ; leaving out the advice to Methodist share-
holders in joint stock banks to sell out forthwith.

Dr. Bunting reintroduced the question of the Marriage Act. He said:
“I disapprove of marriages being celebrated ina registrar's office. It appears
to me that, in a cautious way, we might do that which some have done
without permission. But we ought to have some regulations. Any Trustee
may license a chapel. Next Conference we may have some laws. I propose
‘That a committee be appointed in London, including several legal men,
to draw up a code of regulations in reference to marriage.’ ”

Dr Hannah: ‘Is it imperative on a minister to celebrate marriage in our
chapels?" Answer: '‘ No.”

A minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church applied for transference to
the British Conference.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘Does he belong to the seceding pro-slavery party?”
Answer: ‘He does.” He was declined.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I understand Mr. Caughey is still living in this country,
and occupying our pulpits year after year, and yet attending no Meeting
where he can be questioned as to his teaching and his conduct. This is
a new thing, and a bad thing; if I retain my common sense, I some-
times doubt whether I have any when I see what is, allowed to go on
amongst us.”

' Mr. Walton: ‘‘I am sure he would gladly come here, if invited.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘He would make application if he could gain access.
I believe he applied at Manchester unsuccessfully.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ My feelings have always been of the revival order. When
young I.took part in revival services. But I speak upon a point of ecclesias-
tical order. Mr. Caughey ought to be accredited to the Conference.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘‘ Have we not leaned too much toward Caughey ?
I think the Conference must take some notice of him.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ We cannot station Mr. Caughey; so as to make him
responsible to a District Meeting. Is it true that Mr. Young was refused the
pulpit at York by Mr. Caughey ?”’

Mr. Young explained that his exclusion from the pulpit in the evening,
after having preached in the morning, was not so much Mr. Caughey’s doing
as that of the Superintendent.

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘‘Does this giving up of one of our chapels by a

" Superintendent to Mr. Caughey for a length of time accord with the
understanding and direction of the Conference?" Answer: ‘ No.”

Dr. Newton: ‘I would ask Mr. Abraham Farrar; Did not Mr. Caughey
profess to come for a temporary visit?”

Mr. Farrar: ‘‘He came to see his mother, and thought he ought to put
himself into communication with the Conference.”

Mr. Walton: ‘‘Mr. Caughey's mother, when he left America, had been
dead four years, and was buried in America.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘Many think they cannot be converted except in
these visitations.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ There was a decision on the case last Conference. It was
declared that no man should give up his pulpit for a month together. I have
always been afraid to interfere between a preacher and his revival movements.
I cannot bring my mind to interpose between what God appears to overrule
THe GaArHerine Storm. 391

for good. But I have declared (and thought that the Conference approved)
that no man should occupy a Methodist pulpit for a month to the exclusion of
the preachers appointed by the Conference. Every honest man should say
that Mr. Caughey ought now to go back and give his fellow-countrymen the
benefit of his rare gifts. Let us catch his zeal and fervour; and let the
Americans have a chance. He does say very improper things, and then
pauses, and looks as if he had delivered some supernatural communication,
such as, ‘A young man who now sits before me will die within twelve months. He
passes off as revelation things that are either fancy or fraud.”

Mr. Scott: ‘‘J have seen such a development of this system as, if not
checked, must lead to a divisive stage.”

Mr. Burdsall: “It is high time to inquire into the various bearings of
this matter. Some of them, I fear, are very painful.”

I have sad cause to remember Mr. Caughey’s baneful
mannerism of delivering an anonymous quasi-supernatural death
warrant to whatever youthful member of his congregation
might “feel like” appropriating it. A dear schoolfellow of my
own, and lifelong friend—a youth endowed with a fine and
noble genius, who has become well known in the realm of art
and letters—had the mishap to hear Mr. Caughey preach at
the beginning of the year from one of his favourite texts:
“This year thou shalt die.” As usual, he made the announce-
ment which formed an essential part of the performance:
“There sits before me now,” etc. This was delivered with the
air of a prophetic messenger, who seemed to the susceptible
young man to fix upon him his solemn and authoritative gaze.
The result was that he felt himself doomed; went home and
shut himself up in his room, and never left it till the church
chimes rang on next New Year’s Day, and proved the illusive-
ness of the vaticination. But, to his dying day, his nervous
system never quite recovered from the shock it then received.
This “hit or miss’ prediction is shockingly unscrupulous.

The Conference of 1845 was, on the whole, very healthy
and harmonious. There was hard hitting, but the blows were
“honest blows.” On the education question the unanimity
was all but absolute. The great committees in London and in
Leeds had pretty nearly talked each other into the same mind.
At the London committee, which I had the privilege of attend-
ing, there were but two dissentients from the policy of multi-
plying Wesleyan Methodist day schools; but they were
redoubtable opponents: the two Georges—George Osborn and
George B. Macdonald.

Mr. Everett came over from York to Leeds to be present
392 Alistory or MerxHopism.

at the Conference ; but he took no part in the discussions, and
apparently no interest in the proceedings—not even in the
conversation on his own indefatigably itinerant supernumerary-
ship. This is conspicuous in his own account of the matter.
It consists almost wholly of a description of a profile likeness
of “ myself” which the Rev. J. W. Thomas took by stealth. His
further notice of the Conference is as follows: ‘I had not been
present at one for eleven years, and should not have attended
this but for the purpose of giving a vote for the Rev. J.
Stanley as President. He was carried by a triumphant
majority.”

The reason why Mr. Everett could not defend his remain-
ing a supernumerary on the ground of inability to preach or
travel in the winter, is shown by the very next paragraph in
his “Life” (December 17th, 1845): “In this journey I preached
four times, delivered one address, slept a night in a railway
carriage, and travelled forty-eight hours; but praise God for
journeying mercies!” He adds: “During this year (1845),
apart from ordinary work (in and near York), 9,182 miles.”

Yes; a very fair amount of work, it must be owned, for a
man who claimed to be pensioned as a worn-out minister,
physically disabled for the work of a Circuit.

Two future Presidents were this year received on trial—
E. E. Jenkins and J. H. Rigg.

BRISTOL CONFERENCE, 1846.

The Hundred and Third Conference was held at Bristol,
under the Presidency of William Atherton. There was but
one election into the Hundred by nomination. Mr. Fowler
proposed Dr. Beaumont. Seven other men of mark were also
nominated, but Dr. Béaumont received 157 votes, the next
below him, a future President, having only fifty-nine.

Dr. Beaumont, in acknowledging his election, remarked that he should
not be able, like so many of his junior predecessors in this honour, to
promise any increase in his services to the Body. In the thiriy-second year
of his ministry, and having passed the meridian of life, ‘I feel even
physically that ‘I must decrease,’ but I trust that I shall be humbly and
zealously devoted to the service of the Body.”

Dr. Bunting now took what, I think, was a unique step. He
addressed the Conference on the choice of their President. He
said :
THE GATHERING STORM. 393

“T feel afraid of taking a liberty, but will venture on a few words. Iam
sorry to have anything like the collision which occurs in popular elections.
Some men will uphold the good principle of independency by differing from
others. But we are no longer the quite unobserved people we once were.
Formerly, no person cared who was our President. Itisnotsonow. Inferences
are drawn from elections, which we should not wish to have drawn, with regard
to the principle of union among ourselves. We ex-Presidents, whatever
may have been our opinion, will act in submission to the Body.”

Mr. Vevers: '‘I enter my protest against canvassing in any form, or any
attempt to influence the voting for the President. Better have an outspoken
nomination at once.”

Most of us, I think, will agree with Mr. Vevers. All
attempts to influence the voting for the President should be
resisted and. resented. The value of the vote is in its
spontaneity, as representing the aggregate individual judgment
of the brethren. It would be very unsafe to conjecture the
precise drift of Dr. Bunting’s speech. Whatever that might
be, the President was again chosen from the other side of
the house. William Atherton was raised to the chair by
208 votes out of the 251 given in all, the next below him
being Thomas Jackson, twenty.

Mr. Fowler had given Mr. A. a gentle hint not to allow his
satiric genius so much license in the Chair as he was wont
to do elsewhere. He was now well stricken in years, for it
was his ministerial jubilee. ’

He said: “If I had anticipated this honour, I would have prepared a
suitable sermon, but I shall have to treat the Conference not as sons of Levi
but as sinners of the Gentiles. When I look at the amazing intellects
before me, I think this office requires more gravity and dignity than I
possess. My nature is rather sarcastic, but I will guard against it. I ask
pardon beforehand of Mr. Fowler and others.”

Dr. Bunting seconded the vote of thanks to the retiring President, ‘ for
the manner in which he discharged his duties at the last Conference. Not that
he and I always thought alike; but his urbanity and uniform kindness
secured my approbation and admiration.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I do think that Mr. Stanley’s election gave general
satisfaction to our people.”

Mr. Stanley: ‘‘I regret the collision between myself and Dr. Bunting
which has led to his limiting the vote of thanks to conduct in the Chair.
But I found it impossible to supply the vacancies in Circuits from the list of
reserve, and was told the work of God was suffering grievously by want of
such supply. I was therefore obliged to call out from the Institution some
of the third year men; but I promise that I will not do so any more.”

A conversation followed on the question whether the
exigencies of the work should be allowed to outweigh the
394 History or Merxopism.

desirability of a complete curriculum at the Institution.
The most telling speech was that of Dr. Beaumont. “No doubt
the high-bred young creatures would be better for a perfect
breaking in, but ‘the Lord hath need of them; loose them
and let them go.’”

The two first numbers of the Fly Sheets had been issued
in the spring, and it was natural that some allusion should
be made to them; but the situation and the character of the
man whose authorship of the productions no one—who knew
him and had read them—for a moment doubted, craved very
wary walking. Unhappily, at the Conference of 1846 the subject
was snatched up and tossed about in a way the most promiscuous,
precipitated, and infelicitous. The first allusion to it was
in this wise. Another of our fine young ministers had left
our ministry, and obtained episcopal ordination and a living,
but this ex-Methodist minister had also won a Church-wife.
The question rose whether this case was to be classified along
with that of the popular young man whose conduct had
been so honestly condemned by Conference two years before.
The notice of resignation was not forthcoming, so the facts
of the case could only be arrived at by questioning those
members of the Conference who were best acquainted with
them. Now, as Mr. Fowler was for the second term stationed
in the Circuit from which the young man originally came,~
and well knew his kith and kin, he not unnaturally took deep
interest in the matter. Mr. Fowler therefore put some
apposite inquiries on the subject. Thereupon Dr. Bunting
‘fell on” Mr, Fowler, connecting him directly with the
production of the Fly Sheets. This was the first mention of
them in the Conference. ‘“ This,” says Fowler, “I repudiated.”
On asking what ground Dr. Bunting had for casting such
an odious imputation on an honourable member of the
Conference, the only answer he could get was :—

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I do not like questions to be asked which disturb our
people in some mysterious way.”

Notwithstanding this indignant repudiation of the slightest
complicity in, or connection with, or connivance at the dastardly
fly Sheets, Dr. Bunting returned to the charge with redoubled
vehemence on a subsequent discussion. An official vacancy had
taken place in a most important Connexional Department. The
circumstances which had caused the vacancy were so unfortunate
THE GATHERING STORM. 395

as to render necessary the extremest caution in the next appoint-
ment. The committee had fixed upon a minister who seemed
made to order for the post, and could scarcely be improved
upon. But, unfortunately, there was a bar in his inextricable
environment which rendered the appointment unadvisable and
injudicious. The committee were clearly not aware of this.

Dr. Bunting moved the appointment of the nominee of the committee.
J. Fowler moved as an amendment for a committee to reconsider the question,
with additional data, and to see whether someone could not: be appointed
who was not so invaluable as a Superintendent. This Dr. Beaumont
seconded, and Mr. Vevers supported. Dr. Bunting immediately replied:
‘Mr. Fowler has been fruitful in motions; but of this motion no notice
has been given. We must not have the Fly Sheets echoed here.”

He was too mixed up with the rest of the discussion to take
full notes. |

Dr. Bunting relapsed into his former offensive personalities and dark
insinuations. He was heard with an ominous silence, without a cheer,
except from Dr. Alder and one or two others. Mr. Reece seconded and Mr.
Newton supported this resolution ; but were not listened to at all, a general
conversation going on all the time. Dr. Bunting’s motion was carried, but
not one-third of the Conference voted either way.

Dr. Bunting again alluded to the Fly Sheets, when his name occurred on the
first reading of the stations. He said: ‘I wish to retire from the Presidency
of the Institution. Iam not up to the work. I have not read the Fly Sheets.
I may do so, and, when I have read them, may speak about them. I tell
those who, either directly or indirectly, encourage them, that it is producing
a contrary effect to that which is intended. I will give place to you; but
I will not give place to the devil. It stirs up in me the old man. I am
in your hands."

Mr. Stanley : ‘I would not have Dr. Bunting to give up now because of
anonymous papers which he has not thought it worth his while to read.”

Dr. Bunting did not press his resignation; but he gave his judgment
as to the past Governorshif of the Institution. He said: ‘‘ Mr. has much
adroitness; but if not at —— he would be a supernumerary, or have an
easy Circuit. Mr. Entwisle and Mr. Treffry did not answer as Governors.
I am sorry that these disgussions are now forced upon us.”

Mr. T. Jackson: ‘‘Many motions have been made; is.there to be no
motion about the Fly Sheets?”

 

No answer was given to this inquiry. One cannot but
regret that the “ly Sheets were taken up in this unprofitable
and undignified manner, which proved little but the irritation
and annoyance which their subtle and unshrinking author had
succeeded in producing. The attempt to fastén a suspicion of
396 Alistory or Meruovism.

complicity in such a crime—as aiding and abetting in such a
shameful, hateful way of carrying Church measures—upon a
minister in high position, a member of the Legal Conference,
whose name had been for a generation a synonym for honour
and outspokenness, was, to use the term employed by all who
spoke to Mr. Fowler on the subject, “indefensible.” There was
no ground whatever for the dark insinuations cast upon him.
The very fact which was put forth as such—Mr. Fowler’s fearless
frankness in committee and in Conference—rendered all resort
to anonymous carping and cavilling altogether needless, and
the mere suspicion of it wanton and ridiculous. Mr. Fowler
was every whit as innocent and as incapable of anonymous
vituperation as was Dr. Bunting himself. To anyone who
knew him well it was simply unimaginable, being alien from
and antipodal to his habits and his nature. As to the reso-
lution which drew down upon him Dr. Bunting’s fulminations,
facts only too soon and too signally verified his forecasts.
Within two years, the admirable minister appointed to the
vacant office had, by no fault of his own, been obliged to resign
an appointment which had proved unfortunate to everyone
concerned, and most of all to the minister himself.

‘Mr. Fowler’s insight and sagacity had been shown by his
opposition to the appointment of the foregoing occupant of
that position, whose lamentable breakdown had _ rendered
necessary this new election.

It seems impossible not to doubt the policy of this unreason-
able effort to represent as a factious “echo of the Fly Sheets”
an honest, open, and above-board exercise of the Conterential
right of free inquiry and of frank discussion. One would have
thought that at this moment everything would have been avoided
which could give the slightest countenance or confirmation to
the statements of the /7y Sfeezs in this respect.

Mr. Scott objected to a very promising candidate, that in his District
sermon there was a want of evangelical sentiment. =

A candidate who could not be admitted to the Institution by reason of a
matrimonial engagement, was declined on that account.

Dr. Bunting, however, came to the rescue. ‘ The lady is a daughter of a
Methodist minister. I think we could take him. Weshould at least have an
excellent Preacher’s wife.”

The Connexion got an excellent Preacher too. He still survives, after a
long, honoured, useful course. ;

Dr. Bunting remarked, on the reading of the obituary of Mr. John
Greaves: ‘ When President for the first time, I received into full Connexion
THE GATHERING STORM. 397

a graduate of Cambridge, Mr. Galland, a student of an Independent College,
Mr. Greaves, and a chimney-sweep.”

' Dr. Bunting objected to the ‘apologetic part” of the obituary of Joseph
Taylor. ‘‘ His abruptness was so very occasional as to form no feature of his
character. He was not ‘rude’; he made a good impression upon those that
are without.”

Mr. Dixon testified to his ‘‘ Pastoral laboriousness, his sympathy with the
poor, and his ministerial dignity in the management of meetings.”

Dr. Beaumont objected to the phrase ‘itinerant Preacher” in a Con-
ference document instead of ‘ minister.”

Dr. Bunting agreed with him.

Mr. Fowler objected to such phrases in a ministerial obituary as “ his
gestures were studied” and ‘the structure of his mind was bitingly
sarcastic.”

On the request of Mr. Reece to be allowed to become a supernumerary
after fifty-nine years of continuous itinerancy, Dr. Bunting dwelt upon the
usefulness of supernumeraries, and said how honourable it was in him not to
wish to complete his sixty years of active ministry.

Mr. Fowler had the misfortune to find himself once more
opposed to Dr. Bunting’s views. A prominent and popular
minister had been found guilty by a Minor District Meeting
of grievous immorality. They recommended his expulsion.
Against this he had appealed. A committee was appointed to
consider his appeal, and Dr. Bunting proposed that the President
of the Conference should take the Chair of the committee. Mr.
Fowler demurred to this on the ground of the delay and
hindrance to the business of the Conference which resulted
from the absence of the President even when on the Stationing
Committee. He thought it inconvenient to transfer the
President from the Chair of the Conference to that of an
extemporised committee. With this feeling the Conference
sympathised, although Dr. Bunting said: “I have been on
such committees scores of times when President.” Dr. Newton
said the same. The President ‘oof the Chair of the committee.

The committee unanimously confirmed the finding and
recommendation of the Minor District Meeting.

The ex-President: ‘‘ I feel bound to move the adoption of the report.”

J. Fowler: “1 feel bound to second it. A most calamitous case.’

Dr. Bunting : ‘I feel bound to express, deferentially and humbly, my own
opinion, although it is almost presumptuous to express an opinion differing
from such men. The business was most unfortunately introduced. All the
men in London, young and: old, were present. After this a Minor District
Meeting came unfortunately into the business. I think no judge in the land
would think the evidence sufficient. I think the sentence is of extreme
398 fAlistory or Meruopism.

severity. There is certainly no mercy in it, and judges are bound to show
mercy—and so you are morally. I cannot vote for the expulsion.”

Dr. Alder moved ‘‘ That he be suspended for a year, and, ifa favourable
report were given, readmitted.”

Dr. Bunting seconded it, and Mr. ‘W. M. Bunting supported it. Mr.
Vevers, Mr. Lomas, and Dr. Newton supported the expulsion, holding that
the charge was ‘ proven.” He was expelled.

The President: ‘The complaints are long and loud from Glasgow with
regard to the Preachers persisting in wearing the gown. If so many great
theologians and Preachers did without the gown, why should our societies
and congregations be disturbed for the sake of having it on?”

Mr. Duncan informed the Conference that Mrs. Sutherland, a devoted
Scotch lady, would settle {go per annum on a minister stationed in Doune
so long as the Conference would appoint one.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I am against locking up a man and locking up the
Conference.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘Mrs. S. is an elect lady. I trust that no technical
difficulty will deprive poor Scotch Methodism of such a serviceable sum.”

Mr. Haswell took the same view.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ We should not be bound to find a man for any place
for ever. Dr. Beaumont's oratory is fanciful. If she finds the means, and
the minister for Doune may be stationed at Stirling, that is another matter.
I move for a committee to consider the case.”

Mr. Scott wished the Conference would allow application to be made
to our wealthy friends throughout the Connexion on behalf of a new
chapel in the London District.

J. Fowler and Mr. West opposed this, on the ground that there were
so many equally necessitous cases; that our liberal people were being
harried with such applications, and the ministers diverted from their work
by introducing the itinerant applicant to friends whom they were already
pressing to their power for local and Connexional objects; that there
ought to be some little breathing time after last year’s application on
behalf of Kingswood chapel, which had turned out to be a Circuit chapel
not upon the ground; and that the conjoint enterprise for paying off
existing chapel debts and building day schools free from debt would tax
the resources of the Connexion to the utmost.

Dr. Bunting strongly advocated the measure. ‘‘Have we not deviated
in other cases from our rule? Witness the Kingswood juggle."

Dr. Beaumont thought with Dr. Bunting.

Dr. Bunting moved: ‘‘That permission be given to the President to
issue circulars applying to 200 persons, and raising £600. Of course, it
is the duty of the Chapel Committee to look after the expenditure.”

The motion was carried.

Dr. Bunting moved: ‘‘That the rule be rescinded which makes the
President ex-oficio the chairman of his District.” He asked: ‘Is the Speaker
of the House of Commons ever made chairman of a committee?”

J. Fowler: «A day or two ago Dr. Bunting proposed that the President
should leave the Chair of Conference to take that of a committee.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I hope that the resolutions of the Education Committee
will pass without much discussion. They have undergone investigation in
THE GATHERING STORM. 399

a large committee, and men of various politics are talking about education.
We must have day schools. I thankfully admit that the practice of the British
and Foreign schools is far better than their principles ; but the Unitarians are
making an attack on them. I would recommend an immediate application to
Government before any emergency arise.”

Mr. T. Jackson: ‘‘I second the resolution. I hope we shall make a
practical application of our principles.”

Dr. Bunting advocated the withdrawal of a minister for educational work.
“‘ After what is done at Sheffield and Taunton for the sake of our people who
are able to take care of themselves, we cannot with decency refuse to do the
same for our poor people, who have fifty times as many sons as those in
Sheffield and Taunton.” .

Mr. Scott: ‘‘ There is a limit to human strength. Unless the Conference

‘relieve me from some of my responsibility, the tax upon my powers will be
too great.”

Dr. Beaumont : ‘‘ Where is the necessity for the accumulation of so many
offices on one individual? Mr. Scott has enough to do with the Third London
Circuit on his hands and the treasurership of the Missions and the Auxiliary
Funds. Let Mr. Lomas take the chairmanship of the Education Committee.
Which of us knows more about education than he does? I move that
Mr. Lomas take it.”

Mr. Lomas: ‘‘I cannot consent to supersede Mr, Scott.”

The motion was carried.

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘This appointment is but for a year; we hope in twelve
months to find a suitable lay agent.’

Mr. S. Jackson then proposed his great scheme for the training of our
baptised children, with the object of making them sound and thorough and
devoted Methodists. He concluded by saying : ‘‘ This, the removal of our
chapel debts, and systematic Pastoral visitation, will ensure us an increase
of from ten to fifteen thousand a year.”

Mr. Dixon : ‘‘ We do not do our duty asa Church to our baptised children.
We should attach them to genuine Methodism at an early period, so as not to
incorporate persons with Methodism who are not really Methodists." Minutes

‘in favour of the plan were read from the Newcastle, Hull, and other
Districts.

Mr. Osborn proposed resolutions embodying the principles brought out
in the discussion. They were unanimously passed.

The report of the Committee on Marriage Regulations was called for.
It had never met.

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘ Such service is imposed on the brethren \in London as
they can never discharge.”

J. Fowler: ‘‘ Dr. Bunting himself nominated the committee.”

Mr. Osborn : ‘‘ Some of these marriages are void ab initio.” He was
called to order.

The request of the Hull Methodists was presented that the Conference of
1847 should be held in that town. Under a gush of feeling excited by Dr.
Bunting, the show of hands determined that the next Conference should not

be held in Hull.
‘The President : ‘‘I regret that the Conference should be shut out

from Hull.”
4co History oF Meruopism.

Dr. Bunting : '' We do not wish to be shut in anywhere."

The President called for Minutes of the Manchester and the Sheffield
Districts on the case of Mr. Caughey. That from Sheffield ‘‘ condemned
unauthorised Preachers, preaching for hire.”

Dr. Newton, as Chairman of the Manchester District: ‘‘ For years
Mr. Caughey has been preaching among us without having his name on
the Minutes, and without authorised inquiry as to his character, belief, and
teaching anywhere on the face of the earth. He is in a false position. I
have heard attentive men say that he does not preach the Gospel.
Acquainting himself beforehand with facts with regard to individuals in
his congregation, he declares them from the pulpit as if they were learnt
by supernatural intuition ; he says he has been on his knees for hours, and
the Lord will not give him another text, when people in the congregation
have been talking with him nearly all the time between the two services.
He has many imitators. The Circuit ministers give way to pressure from
without. He says that he has committed all crimes except murder. The
amount of Sabbath travelling he occasions is very great. One inn has had
as many as twenty conveyances bringing people to hear him. An extra
Sunday train has been run for the purpose. The increase ; where is it?
The two Districts where he had his first success soon dwindled down.
Ministers in the same Circuit are. differing about him. The conclusion
arrived at by many is that they must have some other agency than the
regular ministry, something extraneous to Wesleyan Methodism.”

Mr. West : ‘‘ We must be careful not to injure the spirit of religion, or
let down ministerial dignity.”

Mr. Vevers: ‘‘I speak to a constitutional question. If any Superintendent
may admit an unaccredited man into a Methodist pulpit for an indefinite
length of time, every Superintendent may have Socinianism preached to our
people. Our intelligent friends deny the legality of Mr. Caughey’s preaching
in a Methodist chapel.”

Mr. Naylor: ‘‘ The brethren who have invited Mr. Caughey during the
last year have violated the understanding if not the rule of Conference.
Mr. Caughey’s letter to the Conference is most insulting.”

Mr. Bell: ‘In introducing Mr. Caughey into Birmingham I did not act
on my own authority ; and his visit has been a blessing. A more heavenly-
minded man I never heard. Such an influence from above I have scarcely
ever felt. Ido not justify all his doing. We all aim right. I am glad that
we have Vevers and Fowler among us, but we must all be one or the
other.”

The President : ‘Mr. Bell says he acted in concert with his brethren in
Birmingham. We should like to hear them.”

Mr. J. Burton : “‘ My excellent friend Mr. Bell stretched a point in giving
that impression. Fidelity compels me to say that his statement is overwrought.
Ido not question Mr. Caughey’s motives ; but I believe his conduct to be
fraught with peril to our Connexion, if not even ruinous. The time has
come when Conference must legislate on this question. I do not know what
Dr. Bunting means to do.”

Mr. G. Turner : ‘I found a great feeling in Birmingham in favour of Mr.
Caughey. I thought that, of two evils, it was better that he should come. I
cannot deny many instances of conversion. But if the same confidence had
THE GATHERING STORM. 401

been placed in the regular ministers, and could have been secured, the good
would have been as great, and the evil less. My opinion lies between that of
Mr. Bell and that of Mr. Burton.” ;

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘I wish to avoid a painful discussion. I am afraid lest any
impression should get abroad that we are against revivals of religion. We
need one. Much may be said on both sides. I would go to higher grounds.
One thing is clear: Mr. Caughey's visits do occasion differences. God does
go out of His.ordinary way, but never out of His own way—the ministry of
the Word. One reason of our present small increase may be that little good is
effected because nothing is expected till Mr. Caughey comes. I would propose
that a letter be sent to the American Bishops requesting that they would recall
Mr. Caughey, whose visit has been so unusually protracted in this country,
where he is under no authority. This will be the most delicate way of
interfering.”

Mr. S. D. Waddy: ‘I think we owe something to the many who have
been brought in by his instrumentality. They have been too short a time in
connection with us not to be injured by the peremptory request of the
Conference. I wish he could be fixed somewhere under regulation.”

Mr. Scott: ‘I think it time to step in and put a stop to these irregu-
larities.”

Mr. E. Walker: ‘I think a direct communication with Mr. Caughey
preferable.”

Mr. A. E. Farrar: ‘'I think if Conference were to state to him the danger,
he would leave."

Amidst much clamour, many objecting to the résolution, the President
put it; it was carried.

Next morning, on the reading of the record, Dr. Beaumont strove to
reopen the discussion, but Mr. S. D. Waddy said: ‘‘ Though I did not concur
in the vote, I think matters must not be reopened.”

Mr. A. E. Farrar: ‘I wish to know what is understood by the decision
so long as Mr. Caughey is in England ?”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I hope that all the brethren now understand the matter.”
No answer was forthcoming. ;

It must be seen that Mr. Caughey was a rather puzzling
phenomenon so long as he flared comet-like in the firmament of
Methodism, “with fear of change perplexing” Circuits. Yet the
mystery is not incapable of a simple and a safe solution, and the
lessons to be learnt from his career lie very near the surface.
He proved a moving focus of contention, the centre of a Church
cyclone, because he was himself made up of incompatibilities
and contrarieties. He united in the same person the revivalist
and the pretender. He brought to decision hundreds of hesi-
tating, halting hearers by an urgency and fervour well befitting
to his message ; he shocked and repelled others by preternatural
pretensions to which he had no claim, and by an elaborate
unreality in seeming and in scheming which, though calculated

AA
402 History or Meruopism.

to act upon the sympathies and sensibilities of massed humanity,
were sure to bring the work of an evangelist into grievous
disrepute.

Hence some natures were just as much repelled by his
ministrations as others were attracted by them. I heard a dis-
tinguished man state to a large gathering of ministers of all
denominations and theologic schools, that although he was
brought up a Methodist, yet he traced his first estrangement
ftom evangelic Christianity to the revulsion of his intelligence and
sensibilities from the sermons and the services of Mr. Caughey.
The abiding lesson of Mr. Caughey’s work in England is that,
like many other good and powerful agents, such as fire and water,
revivalistic specialism 1s a good servant but a bad-master. The
bitter partisanship which his visits caused in some of our societiés
was terrible. Dr. Newton told me that even in the Warrenite
dissensions he had not experienced such unpopularity, such
odium, and such vituperation as he had to face from Mr.
Caughey’s partisans.

A letter was read from the Temperance Convention.

Dr. Beaumont said: ‘I should be sorry if the impression were produced
that we are hostile to this movement. The public must be made to see that,
whatever we may think of teetotalism, we are the friends of Temperance. We
must guard and not endamage our own reputation in this. I move that
a respectful answer be returned."

Dr. Bunting: ‘I would not have so mixed an assembly as the Temperance
Convention meddle with the Churches. © Let us agree to avoid all intemperate
language, and let them do so too.”

It was agreed that a respectful answer should be given. A letter to the
New Connexion reciprocating the fraternal sentiments expressed by them was
read by Dr. Hannah and adopted by the Conference.

Mr. Vevers asked for the Minute of the Missionary Committee defining
the duties of the lay agent recently appointed. No such Minute could be
found. A discussion then ensued as to the power of the Secretaries to send
him into Circuits whether the Superintendent might think fit or not.

Dr. Beaumont complained that the answer to the Irish Address was
made unreasonably long by meddling with matters in the uncertain future.

Dr. Bunting: ‘The Address must be a letter in answer toa letter. We
must protest against error as well as declare truth. Some parts of the
Address want a little careful consideration." Referred to a small committee.

Dr. Hannah read the report on Scotch affairs. It recommended that
bands should be used, but that in some chapels in Glasgow the gown should
be laid aside.

Mr. Duncan: ‘‘Gown and bands are a badge of ministerial authority.
I never saw bands without gown.”

Dr. Beaumont and Mr. Haswell opposed both.

Dr. Bunting: ‘Dr. Chalmers said, ‘If a Scotchman has two thoughts
Tue GATHERING STORM. 403

in his head, they won’t lie quietly together, but will quarrel.’ In Scotland
they differ about little things.”

Dr. Bunting and Mr. Osborn moved and seconded the order of the day as
an amendment on the motion for receiving the report. The amendment was
carried.

Mr. Thornton read the Pastoral Address.

Dr. Bunting greatly eulogised it, saying: ‘' This is the happiest half-hour
I have passed this Conference.”

Mr. S. D. Waddy: ‘‘ Each Pastoral Address should be presented to every
member, and then all collected ina volume. It would attach our people to us.”

Mr. Vevers complained that in the list of missionary deputations there
was a great deal of monopoly and exclusion. ‘I would suggest that some
others be associated with the secretaries in drawing it up."

Dr. Alder: ‘‘ We shall be glad to have assistance.”

J. Fowler called attention to the importance of systematic Pastoral
visitation, there being such a small increase, after last year’s decrease, and in
Ireland a decrease.

Mr. Rigg: ‘I at first practised this as a duty; it has now become a
pleasure.”

Mr. A. E. Farrar: ‘'I am sorry at the vote about Mr. Caughey, but we
must supersede intrusive services by special revival services of our own.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think it disorderly to refer to Mr. Caughey’s services in
this connection.” He then read Wesley’s directions to Adam Clarke in 1790,
in Dublin, written from the city where they were now assembled, These are
most wise. ‘ You will have need of all the courage and prudence which
God has given you. Very gently and very steadily you should proceed
between the rocks on either hand. In the great revival at London my first
difficulty was to bring in temper those who opposed the work,” etc. (Works,
vol. xiii., p. 104.)

“I think it impossible in our extended Connexion to see one by one, but
we might get into families. In the present state of things I would not
publish any details of our defects. In some things I think it better than in
Wesley's days. We have better soil to work upon. We must not give
advantage to our enemies, but do something that will turn to some advantage.
We must not use our weapons slashingly. Loss of numbers, or smallness of
increase, is not to be cured by making revivals. I am no anti-revivalist.

- I belonged to a school of revivalists in Manchester; not a good one, but good
in its design. But we want old-fashioned prayer-meetings. I think we have
too much of elaborate preaching, though I honour the men who are capable
of it. I have only heard two sermons for many years by which I have not
been pleased and profited. We should not aim at being great preachers.
I hope young men will be careful against ambitious preaching.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘ What we ought to pray for is a baptism of the Spirit.
I concur with Dr. Bunting as to plain preaching. The country needs it.
We must have preaching which acts upon the heart and wakes up the
conscience. Our public services are not what they ought to be. After the
reading of the Word of God, a parcel of singers get up and sing all sorts of
things. As a minister of Christianity, I denounce this practice.’ (Here
someone interrupted.) ‘I declare it ismy intention to speak my mind. The
announcement of the numbers this year and last is a startling thing. I have

AA 2
as

404 History or Meruooisi.

no wish to force my sentiments against the current feeling of this body; but
I felt it my duty to enumerate these facts, and to move a resolution to the
effect: ‘That the Conference expresses its humiliation before God, and its
desire to amend.’” :

J. Fowler: ''A very good resolution.”

Mr. Osborn: ‘I concur in much that has been said; but we must guard
against exciting expectations which will not be realised. It is impossible that
we can spend an hour a day on each of our members. I would have
something done at District Meetings. There is great laxity in the
administration of the Lord’s Supper.”

Dr. Bunting moved for a committee and the brethren who had spoken
communicating their views.

It was stated that £12,000 would be immediately required for the trans-
ference of Kingswood school to Bath.

J. Fowler: ‘‘ How is this sum to be raised?”

Mr. Prest: ‘A fair question. If we would settle it, we must consult our
laymen.” ;

Mr. Scott: ‘‘The laymen on the committee should be more numerous
than ourselves.” ;

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I would not have done this for old Kingswood, but a new
situation is different. Who is to raise the‘money? On what principle of
righteousness can we ask our people to raise this money and to have no voice
as to how it shall be raised? We must guard against claiming too much.
When our ecclesiastical privileges are not involved, why contend? It is
not a Christian principle fo stand upon our rights and be negligent about our
duties. Our duties ave above our rights. This will be seen at a later day as
« matter of policy and necessity, as well as of righteousness, brethren, man
and man,” ,

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘Many men who have been educated at Kingswood are
now exercising a beneficent influence in the country. But the hand of time
has touched it." The motion for change of site was carried unanimously.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘1t must be distinctly understood that the selection of a site
is an after question.” (Agreed.)

Some resolutions were read about chapel affairs, and a general proposition
adopted for architects of five different plans and scales of building—to seat
250, 500, 1,000, 1,500, 2,000.

Mr. West: ‘' We are building on an average eighty chapels a year.”

A letter was read from an architect offering his gratuitous services as
adviser on chapel-building business.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ We will not have a Conference tailor, nor a Conference
pill-maker, nor even a Conference architect." A committee was appointed.
The question of Insurance was brought up, and Sir W. Atherton's opinion
read. Mr. West explained the proposal and suggested Circuit Committees
for local oversight.

Dr. Bunting moved a resolution expressive of sympathy with the object of
the Evangelical Alliance, and wishing it success, adding: ‘‘ My friend, Dr.
Beaumont, has seen the resolution and approves of it.”

Dr. Beaumont seconded the resolution, and hoped that next Sabbath
would be observed as a day of special prayer for its success,

Dr. Bunting advised that more particular attention be paid to the
LHE GATHERING STORM. 405

conversions which take place in our chapels, and that a column in the
Circuit schedule be provided for that purpose, filled up, and examined at
the District Meeting.

Mr. Scott: ‘‘ From twenty to thirty day schools are waiting to be settled
on the model deed.”’

Mr. Newstead moved and Dr. Newton seconded a motion to be inserted in
the Minutes, inculcating a more strict observance of the Sabbath.

Dr. Cook: ‘‘ Methodism on the Continent is making a stand which no
other Church is making, and in this respect, and defence of the supreme
authority of the Scriptures, is the vanguard of the Lord's host.”

J. Fowler noticed the importance of some record of ‘‘ dropped-out resolu-
tions,” and particularly of preserving the Minutes of District Meetings.

The first question as to watering-places now appears. The
Leeds chairman and the Knaresborough Superintendent were
directed to make a plan for the supply of Harrogate, during the
season, by ministers in search of health. The Edinburgh
ministers were required to resume the afternoon service in our
chapel.

After signing the Journal the President made a short speech: ‘'I feel
dissatisfied with myself, but delighted with the Conference. One good thing,
I think, we have enjoyed this Conference—the right of grumbling freely

more than formerly. I regard our present peace and unity as an earnest
of good days.”

The Conference of 1846 was in some respects a disappointing
one. The stalwart President, after forty-nine years of arduous
itinerancy, was past the stage of energetic equability, and had
become spasmodic, snatchy, and at times snaggy in his strength.
‘Hence he surprised his brethren by a rasping repressiveness.
Yet the right of grumbling freely had been greater than
before. But Dr. Beaumont complained—I think justly—that
there was too great restriction on freedom of speech. The
President put Atm down very unceremoniously, and something
more.

LIVERPOOL CONFERENCE, 1847.

The One Hundred and Fourth Conference was held in
Liverpool, under the Presidency of the Rev. Samuel Jackson.
Like his two nearest predecessors, he belonged to “the other
side” of the house, as he said in his opening speech: ‘I have
one qualification for this office: I am an independent, unpledged
man; I fear no man’s frown, and I count no man’s favour.”

Dr. Bunting once more made a deliverance with regard to
the right of voting.
,

406 HIistorY OF METHODISM.

He said: ‘ This right of voting is a trust. We are not at liberty to vote as
we please; we are not to look at absolute right.. A man may wear a fool's
cap, but not in the Conference. I do not know how men can be canvassing ;
look at the New Testament : ‘In honour, preferring one another.’ ”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘ Dr. Bunting’s remark assails the Deed. Those who can
vote have an ‘ absolute right to vote as they themselves think best.’ "

Mr. Vevers: ‘I shall vote without party feeling, but I will not be
dictated to.” Mr. West supported the remarks of Mr. Vevers.

. Dr, Bunting: “I shall vote for Mr. Crowther, the’ man who appears
likely to have the majority.”' Nevertheless Mr. R. Young, nominated by
Dr. Newton, had the first vote, Mr. Crowther the second. Dr. Bunting
objected to the election by seniority being taken from only one year. ''I give
notice of motion for a declaration, not an enactment, that we should have
more than one or two years to select from.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I object to that departure from our rule and practice.”
Dr. Beaumont nominated Samuel Dunn, who received eighteen votes.

The vote for Mr. S. Jackson as President was 174 out of
252 votes cast.

The President said: ‘I hope that as my fathers and brethren have placed
me here I may have your prayers and help. I see a large element of kindness
in this vote. I agree with those who think that I am not the fittest man for
the place. I have been told that if I had anything to do with the Fly Sheets
Iam not fit for the Chair. I have had nothing to do with them; this is not
the first time that treachery has found a place within the Christian ministry.
Judas was ‘one of the Twelve.’ I know nothing about the Fly Sheets. 1
cannot sympathise with such a state of mind; it would exclude me from
the favour of God. I shall secure freedom of speech to all impartially ; none
shall say he has not had an opportunity of speaking. But even this must
have limits. Our Methodist doctrines and principles we are sworn to main-
tain at any expense, even at the cost of being taunted with infringing liberties.
Liberty of speech must also be limited by the limit of our time of sitting;
the more important matters must not be injured by the time consumed on
smallerones. There is another most important limit. We must not say here
what we should not like to see or hear elsewhere; whether we will or not,
what is said here does get abroad. I admire Dr. Bunting'’s oratory—if he
stands by his brethren, his brethren will stand by him. If he forsakes us,
we must take care of ourselves. Iam impressed by the importance of my
position. I may, possibly be asked a question which I cannot promptly
answer; my mind is slow in operation. If a question be critical, I must
take time before I answer.”

This speech was as characteristic of the man as is his
admirable portrait in “ Wesley and his Successors.” Sturdy,
self-contained, straight-sighted, keen-sighted and far-sighted,
gruff and reticent; with unbrushed hair, massive head, and
strong-featured countenance. He was ong of our strongest,
clearest thinkers; during his Presidential year he published
THE GATHERING STORM. 407

a very able and most timely treatise, entitled ‘The Methodist
People ; their great: Power and their true Policy.” It is not
included in Dr. Osborn’s list of his publications.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ The President is mistaken in supposing that those who
have not voted for him had not confidence in him. I did think it right
not to vote for any member of the faction.” (Signs of disapproval.) “I
will take up my sword under Mr. Jackson's captaincy.”

Dr. Beaumont warmly supported the vote of thanks to the ex-President,
but said: ‘There are two points about which I feel dissatisfied.” Dr.
Beaumont was repeatedly interrupted, but not by the Chair. He complained
of the interruptions, but just repeated his objection——

‘‘T have quite as high an opinion of Mr. Atherton as those young brethren
who interrupted’ me." He expressed his disappointment at Mr. Atherton’s
restrictions on freedom of speech and his mode of treating Mr.

The ex-President: ‘I have known Dr. Beaumont for fifty years. Heisa
perfect gentleman in private life, but he shows to disadvantage in public.
The lamb becomes the lion, and shakes his mane.”

Mr. Fowler gave notice of a motion respecting the law as to proportioning
the number of ministers to the number of members.

Mr. Vevers moved for a regular report of the proceedings of Conference.
He repudiated the Fly Sheets, and complained that he should ever have been
imagined to have anything to do with them.

Mr. Stanley: ‘‘I think myself very much maligned in being commended by
the Fly Sheets.”

Mr. Fowler complained of certain insinuations that had been repeated this
Conference, although refuted last Conference, and of members of the Legal
Conference being branded as ‘' the faction.”

Dr. Bunting, in a very sensitive manner, complained of this speech as
a“ personal attack.”

Mr. Osborn: ‘‘ We should have men excluded from the Body who have
acted thus basely. I have never shaken hands with the reputed author of
the Takings, and I never will until he has cleared himself. I would have
declarations sent to every preacher, to be signed by him.”

Some other speakers followed, and much disorder prevailed.

Messrs. Osborn, Vevers, and W. B. Stephenson were appointed to draw
up a Declaration.

On the next day Mr. Vevers moved, and Mr. Osborn seconded, a resolu-
tion of condemnation of the Fly Sheets and of sympathy with the leading
brethren, especially Drs. Bunting and Newton, and that the resolution be
introduced into the Journal.

Dr. Osborn: ‘I am sorry that Dr. Beaumont was so much interrupted.
My object is a religious one. The question is: First, Are not these anony-
mous publications? Second, Is not their spirit bad, and such as the Lord
hates? The law of Christ commands me to judge in charity, and says that
the younger are to be subject to the elder, and that they that rule well are
worthy of double honour. No man appreciates certain qualities in Dr
Beaumont more than I do. I read in the Fly Sheets that Dr. Bunting acts
as if he wished to be put in the first place. Does Dr. Beaumont believe this?
I say it isalie. Slander is as great a crime as drunkenness.”

 
408 History oF Meruopism.

Mr. S. Dunn: “I had hoped for a peaceful Conference. I fear now it
will be otherwise. Those who know me will not suspect me of having
contributed anything to those naughty papers, the Fly Sheets. But some do
not know me. I have been addressed as Mr. Radical; I have suffered for
Methodism. The battle of Methodism is not fought in the Conference,
but at Quarterly Meetings. I have been exposed to the criticisms of the
aristocracy. I stood up against Caugheyism in Nottingham. I have seen
but one of the papers in question, and have shown it to no one. I am
not prepared to say that I disagree with all that is in the papers. I think
that a wider distribution of offices would be good for the Connexion; that
we should not be at a loss for Presidents. I think it beneath our dignity
to take such notice of these anonymous publications. , I admire the British
constitution and law. I know what this statement may cost me. Whether
anyone will give me his hand after this I do not know; if he refuse, he
is not fit to be a member, much less an officer, in the Evangelical Alliance.”

Mr. A. E. Farrar: It has been said that we do not understand one
another. We must both understand and submit to one another. I do not
think myself fit to stand in the place of the men maligned, yet I think myself
as fitas any of those around me. I would have the lion bearded in his den,
the adder scotched in his nest. We have circumstantial evidence of the
authorship. When we come to the name, accuse him; and if he be not here,
send for him.” (Strong signs of general approval of this course.)

Mr. Rowland: I have had nothing to do with any anonymous pub-
lications. I introduced a paper into the Manchester District Meeting which
I should wish to be noticed here. A voluntary declaration is a very different
thing from the signature of an imposed test drawn up by someone else.”

Mr. Hargreaves: ‘‘ We should have an opportunity of relieving ourselves
from the imputation of suspicion. I am sure we younger men look up to
our fathers.”

Dr. Beaumont: “I object to this matter coming’ up bit by bit. The
resolution contains the words ‘wickedly and slanderously,’ and yet
condemns the use of such language by others.’ ‘

Mr. Cubitt: ‘I rise to a point of order"; and then proceeded to speak
on the general question.

Dr. Dixon: ‘‘Mr. Cubitt has no right to launch a speech under colour
of a point of order.”

Dr. Beaumont resumed: ‘‘It is quackery to deal with symptoms without
looking for the cause. Have we determined to deal with symptoms alone?
For three years I have done my best to remedy the cause. These papers came
to me by mail. I read but one of them, and locked it up in my drawer, and
there it lies."

A voice: ‘It ies wherever it is.”

Dr. Beaumont went on: “ You, Mr. President, counselled ‘moderation’ of
language. Does the word to /ie come under that head? Mr. Osborn’s
refusal to shake hands with a brother is a vain and impotent threat. One
must endure that calamity."

Dr. Beaumont quoted some of the statements made in the Fly Sheets, and
asked: ‘‘Am I called upon to declare publicly that these are wicked and
slanderous lies? I think it a capital mistake for the Conference, time after
time, to single out Dr. Bunting for exceptional votes of Conference.”
THE GATHERING SroRmM. 409

Dr. Bunting : ‘‘ I beg to speak to order.”

Dr. Beaumont : '' lamspeaking to the resolution. Dr. Bunting’s name is in
the resolution; the time for his point of order was when that was read at
first. Why was it put into the resolution if no allusion is to be made to it?”

The President: ‘It is not necessary for us to know what Dr. Beaumont’s
opinion is of Dr. Bunting.”

Dr. Beaumont resumed: ‘‘Nor what Mr. Osborn’s opinion of him is.
The brethren who put Dr. Bunting’s name into the resolution put that name
before the Conference. I am speaking strictly to the resolution now before
the Conference. It is my duty to speak to it, but as the Chair interdicts
it, I submit." Amidst cries of '‘ Chair, Chair," Dr. Beaumont sat down.

The President: ‘‘ I have ruled nothing; I respectfully advised gentlemanly
discussion.”

Dr. Beaumont : ‘‘I have discharged my duty.”

Here Mr. Waugh interrupted: ‘‘I complain of Dr. Beaumont; I do not
worship Dr. Bunting.”

Dr. Bunting : ‘I wish the Conference would put an end to this discussion
and pass on to other business; it is but a pretext for attacking me. It is only
a stalking horse. My state of health tells me that I have no business here.”

Dr. Beaumont attempted to proceed, but the President interposed: ‘I
think these personal altercations should not be allowed; I hope the Conference
will support me.” The resolution was put and carried with two dissentients,
Dr. Beaumont and Mr. Dunn.

Mr. Osborn : ‘' We issued a test in 1797, and again in 1835. Why not do
so in 1847? If men refuse to sign, we shall know how to deal with them ; we
shall know whom to trust. If we will not be partakers of other men’s sins,
we must purge ourselves.”

Mr. Dunn: ‘Is the alternative of signing resignation or expulsion?”
No answer.

J. Fowler: ‘I wish we could leave the matter where it now is: A
practically unanimous vote of Conference condemning the Fly Sheets in very
strong terms, and expressing the warmest support of, and the strongest
confidence in, the brethren attacked, especially the most eminent amongst
them.”

4

Mr. Fowler's point was purely practical and prudential. He
thought the plan proposed far more likely to promote than
check the disturbing object of the /ly Sheets. A “test,” as Mr.
Osborn had rightly designated his proposed document, was a very
hazardous innovation.. The declarations of 1797 and 1835 had
disclaimed that character and purpose altogether.

Mr. Alexander Bell, who repudiated any connection with them, and Mr,
Hinson took high ground. They maintained that it was not befitting a sedate
and dignified body of ministers to disquiet themselves and their people about
anonymous fly sheets.

Mr. J. W. Thomas: “ We can neither clear ourselves nor discover the
offender by issuing a ‘test.’ I should find it difficult to determine whether
I should sign it or not.”
410 History oF MErnHopism.

Mr. Keeling : ‘' The secrecy of the attacks ought not to be shielded. It
appears to me a crochet to decline signing. The liberty of making anonymous
attacks ought not to be permitted.”

Mr. Osborn : ‘“ The man who has written this ought to be expelled, and if
I knew him I would impeach him and move his expulsion. I put it upon
scriptural grounds, I agree with some points in the Fly Sheets. I think it would
have been well if the Chair had only been occupied by the same individual
once. But this is a matter of opinion ; it does not disturb my confidence in the
men. I have had to do with public work, and what have I obtained for it?
Not much, at the expense of domestic quiet. If a man has told a lie, why
not say so? A minister’s character is in the hands of his brethren. The Fly
Sheets have a wide circulation ; let us make our declaration as wide. I press
this for peace.”

Mr A. E. Farrar moved and Mr. Fowler seconded the order of the day.

Mr. Mason took the view of Mr. Farrar, that the guilty party should
be dealt with individually, and without more ado. He said: ‘I believe I
know who it is, though many may have contributed material.”

The motion for signature was carried, but against a large minority who
voted for the order of the day. The record was: Mr. Osborn has permission
to obtain signatures.

The President: ‘I have another memorial from Glasgow against the
gown and bands.”

Dr. Bunting, just before the inquiry into character began, remarked : ‘ If
every impropriety were handed down to posterity, some on my right would
appear in no enviable position.”

Dr. Beaumont and Mr. Dunn were wont to choose seats in
pews to the right of the ex-Presidents.

When the question came : ‘‘ Any objection to Jabez Bunting ?”
the great man stood up and said :—

“If any person has anything against me, such as is said in the Fly Sheets,
or was hinted at yesterday if language has any meaning, I will relieve him
from any previous notice. I now give a challenge; let him speak now, or for
ever hereafter hold his peace. Some persons in the Body say that they believe
something of what is in the Fly Sheets. Let them come forward. I do not
wish to disturb the good feeling which is in some measure restored, but not
complete. I think I have more popularity than I desire, but it is to me
disagreeable to be represented as a pope-dictator. But you know how to take
off the discount from such talk, yet we cannot go on as we have been doing;
not that I care about it, but I wish to be quiet. I disclaim all wish to be a
firebrand, but I cannot come to the Conference and hear all these things said
for and against me. I wish to attend to my soul’s concerns. My heart is full
of affection towards you. I wish to stand well with you. I think I ought to
stand well with you; if I do not, tell me so and I shall decline all office. I do
not mean to leave you—not that !—but to retire into quietness.”

A touching and effective unbosoming of a mighty spirit
irresistible in reading, but what to hear and see from a veteran
leader and commander !
THE GATHERING STORM. 4il

Mr. Dunn: ‘I have great respect for Dr. Bunting. J, too, am prepared to
answer any question, but must stand by the sentiments yesterday expressed.”’

Dr. Beaumont complained that Dr. Bunting had neither quoted nor fairly
represented the speeches made yesterday, to which he had referred in the
beginning of his speech,

The next case of interest was that of another young minister
who, after some years at the Institution and appointment to
prominent Circuits, had ‘entered into correspondence with
members of the Church of England,” with a view to episcopal
ordination and resigning his ministry amongst us, on the ground
that he “ could not remain any longer among the Methodists, as
he thought the episcopal form the right one.” He had been
in the habit for some time of signing children with the cross at
baptism, but had learnt this from an ex-President.

Dr. Bunting: “I would have great tenderness shown to him.”

Mr. Atherton: ‘‘He is under a moral obligation to refund the expense
of his training at our Institution. Such a conscience as will allow him not
to do this is a vascally one.”

The ex-President’s personal connection with the delinquent
added force to this pronouncement.

Mr. Osborn: ‘'I think a man may change his mind, and not return his
money.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I do not concur with Mr. Osborn.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘It is not honest that he should have taken such steps
without having conferred with his brethren. Mr. Farrar” (the House
Governor) ‘‘must look after him; he signed a vound robin that he would
refund if ever he should leave.”

J. Fowler: ‘Was this young man at the Institution when the students
were encouraged to go to hear Dr. Chalmer’s lectures in favour of Church
establishments, but not allowed to attend Dr. Wardlaw's lectures in reply?"
A great hubbub followed, in which the matter dropped.

Mr. Atherton, being requested to publish his charge, said: ‘I wish it
could be done cheaply, that Brothers West and Osborn may have the
gratification of a little cheap literature.”

Mr. Young proposed to merge two Cornish Circuits into neighbouring
ones, and to give up a Preacher. Grimsby requested an additional married
minister, with only an unmarried man’s allowance from the Circuit, the rest
to come from the Contingent Fund.

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I think that here is an anomaly to be inquired into.
Here is a Cornish Circuit giving up a minister and yet keeping up its
missionary contributions, and Grimsby Circuit contributing to foreign
missions {700 a year, and yet applying to the Contingent Fund for the
support of its own minister.” It appeared that they were also supporting
a hired local Preacher.
412 History op Meruopism.

This was Brother G. Nicholson, the finest man of his class,
and an immense benefit to the place.

Mr. Thornton: ‘‘Those who support the foreign missions generally
support best the work at home.” (Cries of ‘‘ No, no."’)

Dr. Newton stated cases just the opposite to Mr. Thornton’s view.

Dr. Bunting complained of ‘‘ this attack on the missions." He proposed
that a young married man with {24 from the Contingent Fund should be
appointed ; or, if this could not be, voted through the District Meeting as an
extraordinary.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I am unwilling to give up hope of success in Scotland.”
He proposed an additional minister for Paisley. (Agreed.)

The ex-President: ‘ Did not the Conference understand that Mr. Caughey
was not to be allowed to preach in our chapels?’’ Answer, ‘' Yes."’

Mr. Keeling read the Minute from the Journal to that effect.

The ex-President: ‘‘Then did I not do right in reminding the Super-
intendents who violated that decision that they were putting themselves in
opposition to the Conference?'’ Answer, ‘‘ Yes.” ‘

It came out that many Superintendents in leading Circuits
had set at naught the decision of the Conference and the
inhibition of the President. Two of these were chairmen of
Districts, and all of them heretofore law-abiding brethren.
Mr. Caughey had been allowed to carry on a campaign in
Huddersfield, Nottingham, York, and several other Circuit
towns. ‘This feeble administration of the Superintendents”
had caused much mischief, and in Huddersfield an anti-
Connexional demonstration. They had sent to Conference a
memorial of a revolutionary kind. The Huddersfield
Superintendents defended themselves on the ground that they
thought the decision had been that no Superintendent should
znvite Mr. Caughey, not that he should not allow him to preach
in his Circuit. Many strongly condemned the Superintendents.

Mr. G. Osborn: ‘‘I doubt whether the Stationing Committee has not
exceeded its powers in visiting these brethren penally by removing them. I
do not object to some initial proceedings in the Stationing Committee founded
on the decisions of a District Meeting, but I do think this act objectionable.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I concur with Mr. Osborn. I doubt whether the
Stationing Committee have a right on ex parte evidence to act as they have
done.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Mr. Osborn’s doctrine is bad doctrine."

The ex-President complained that the letter of remonstrance which he
had sent to a Superintendent had been printed in the Wesleyan, and he had
been attacked in a Yorkshire paper for his private communication by a person
signing himself ‘An old Methodist.” He then read a letter which he had
received from a brother in reply to his remonstrance, which he said was
a sample of the rest.
THE GATHERING STORM. 413

A very able and well-expressed letter in another tone was
read from another Superintendent. The Superintendent and
Chairman said : ‘I did not know that Conference had interdicted
Mr. Caughey’s preaching.”” He made a defence of both his
administration and his discreditable letter'to the President. The
Superintendent and Chairman of York took shelter behind
a Minute of his District Meeting, exculpating him for having
acted contrary to the emphatic and recorded judgment of the

. Conference. When asked to read also the names of the mover
and seconder of the resolution he hesitated, but on being asked
the ground of his reluctance to inform his brethren he replied
the mover was the Rev. James Everett ; the name of the seconder
was not entered, and the Chairman could not tak his memory
with it, but there was disclosed a very unassuring fact. No
minister in the York District meeting the Conference, who
knew Mr. Everett as a writer, preacher, and converser, had the
slightest doubt of his authorship of the F7y Sheets. Yet, instead
of “ bearding the lion in his den,” etc., ‘“ the lion” was bearding
the Conference in its sanctuary once again. He had taken an
active, leading, and effective part in the District Committee, not
only moving but carrying a resolution in defence of a signal
disregard of Conference authority, and sending that refractory
resolution up to Conference from a District Meeting which com-
prised a man like Robert Wood. Mr. Wood, indeed, complained
to Conference that the lawless conduct of the Chairman had
thrown great difficulties in the way of law-respecting Super-
intendents, and that the peace of York had been purchased by
the disturbance of the rest of the District. It came out that
Mr. Caughey had gone to Scarborough, and that it had required
almost heroic firmness on the part of Mr. Wood to keep possession
of his own pulpit.

Dr. Bunting: ‘This discussion has taken a very singular turn. Did
Mr. B. leave his own chapels in Liverpool to go to hear Mr. Caughey ?”

Mr. B.: ‘‘I am under great obligations to Mr. Caughey. I did go to hear
him, but am sorry if I did wrong.” The York Superintendent's defence was:
‘Tam sure that the law was not passed in the usual way, and I remember
that in the case of the Marriage Act the President’s request was not observed
by all the brethren.”

A letter was read from the Circuit Stewards of Sheffield East complaining
of the discourteous treatment which their Superintendent (Mr. Rigg) ‘‘ had
suffered through refusing to give up the pulpit to Mr. Caughey." Mr. Rigg
described the facts alluded to. Mr. A. E.. Farrar defended his own action
in the matter.
414 Asrory oF Meruopism.

Mr. A. Bell had told Mr. Caughey that he was to blame in
staying. “It is time the affair was quietly settled.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I move that there is nothing in the case which should
affect the stations.” (Agreed.)

Dr. Bunting: ‘I feel that I was almost too lenient in my proposition about
the recall of Mr. Caughey, but the sentence recorded in the Journal ought
not to have been departed from. Are we not to be bound by an agreement
to each other, without being taunted from York, Huddersfield, and elsewhere,
that it has not the force of law? For instance, as to gown and bands, I
would not make a law which might seem to condemn the usages of other
Churches. I think the brethren who have committed themselves, and said
strong things on either side, will see ground to change. As to Mr. Caughey,
some explanations are very palliatory but not justificatory ; I believe they
have acted from the best motives, but I would have things done by
agreement.” :

Mr. Reece: 't What Dr. Bunting has proposed is the safe middle course.”

Dr. Dixon: **As a Superintendent I should have felt myself bound by
the resolution. I sympathise with Mr. Rigg. I think it would be best to
pass an Act of Oblivion, with an understanding for the future but no formal
resolution. I think some brethren have acted weakly. There are degrees of
blame. I cannot agree with a resolution which goes beyond a very slight
degree of disapproval.”

Mr. Scott: ‘‘ Great evils have arisen from departing from our agreement.
I hope we shall consent to be governed by one another. I object to putting
everything in the Minutes. I cannot but think that Chairmen should have
acted more manfully. Blame is due to those who have violated the
brotherly agreement.” :

Mr. S. D. Waddy: ‘It is admitted that there was a declaration from the
Chair, and that this was understood. Those who have disregarded this have
done wrong, from whatever motive. I think it will be necessary to publish
more than we have done hitherto.”

Mr. G. Osborn: ‘‘I think we have not a competent mode of making
public what has been decided. I myself have been in some difficulty
from want of this.” :

The President put the principle: ‘‘That an agreement, pronounced from
the Chair and recorded in the Journal, is binding upon all brethren.” Passed
unanimously.

Dr. Bunting then noticed the memorials, beginning with Sheffield. ‘I think
some of these memorials are disloyal and fanatical, and are made so by
Dr. Caughey. The Huddersfield memorial is full of all that is antagonistic,
to Methodism, and opposed to right views. I should oppose it, but cautiously
and kindly ; but tell them their views are not consistent with the safety of
Methodism. I move that a committee be appointed to tell them, in a firm
and decided manner, that we will not give up to them what we refused
to Kilham and Warren.”

Mr. Bowers: ‘I would suggest whether a deputation should not visit
Huddersfield. I know the society is in a critical state." The committee was
appointed.
THE GATHERING STORM. 415

Dr. Bunting then called attention to the evils arising from the continuance
of Mr. Caughey. ‘‘ Mr. Marsden has assured the Conference that Mr. Caughey
had received {£400 for the copyright of his Letters, yet a sillier book it has
never been my misfortune to read. I had been for Mr. Caughey before, but
this changed my mind. I think we must request his Methodist bishops to
keep him at home. If they have no control over him, we shall know how
to deal with him. I would suggest that the committee first appointed should
draw up a resolution for our governance in future." (Agreed.)

J. Fowler strongly opposed the adjournment of the Conference during
the sitting of the Stationing Committee; the idea that no business could be
effectively transacted in the absence of certain individuals. He moved:
“That we proceed with business, Mr. T. Jackson taking his brother's place in
the Chair," (Carried.)

’ It was moved that the boy who had made the greatest general pro-
ficiency at either of the schools should have an additional year without
expense to his father.

Mr. McDonald: “This is not without precedent, except in the matter
of expense to the father. I had the honour to be the first boy who received
this advantage, and a great one it was to me.” It was explained that the
abandoned practice had been revived; but it was now proposed to relieve
the father of expense. (Agreed.)

Eighty-two chapels had been built during the year, at a cost of £39,000.

Mr. Cusworth wanted Mr. Crowther appointed examiner at Kingswood
in perpetuity.

Mr. John Farrar opposed this innovation.

The President objected to this ‘tying the hands of a committee," so the
case ended.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I wish that business may be suspended, and that Mr.
Heald, Raving been elected Member of Parliament, be admitted to the
Conference.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘'I object to this.”

Mr. G. Osborn: ‘‘I should hesitate; it may embarrass us heneatien"

Mr. F. A. West: ‘I think with Mr. Osborn.”

The majority said ‘ Yes," and the brethren clapped as the M.P. entered.
He said: ‘‘Iam glad of such a welcome from a body of ministers whom I
have been taught to respect. When I come to the ministrations of the truth,
I feel that I come home. I shall never cease to feel my obligations to
the Methodist preaching and Class visitation while I breathe. I feel my
responsibility greatly. I shall be more a servant of the Church than ever,
and Cobden and the West Riding are not more united than I shall be with
my friend Westhead. I should have a lower estimate of myself than ever, if
I had now for the first time to hoist my flag. I am glad to enter Parliament
as a Christian man, but more particularly as a Wesleyan Methodist. I have
heard slander poured out on my native place, which I now represent in
Parliament, but I believe that we are sound-hearted ; there is not a Methodist
in the place but has been hand and heart with me. The battle has been
between the Church and Methodism on the one side, and political Dissent on
the other. The Church has done honour to Methodism. The Church could
not carry a man, but they said if the Methodists could find a man they would
support him. The victory was attained on great ecclesiastical principles.”

‘
416 History or MezHovism.

It is necessary to explain that Cobden had for years been
a member for the town which the Methodist member now
represented, but had been returned unopposed for the West
Riding. Mr. Westhead, another prominent Methodist, had
been elected to Parliament on the Liberal side.

Mr. G. Osborn: ‘'I would suggest that a letter be sent to our other friend,
Mr. Westhead, embodying our good wishes.”

Mr. S. D. Waddy: “I most heartily concur in the propriety of Mr.
Osborn’s motion.”

Dr. Beaumont maintained auae the mischief was the meddling with party
politics at all.

Long pauses and various contrivances in the stations, perhaps a little less
than the usual bustle attended the election of Chairmen, and the brethren did
not disperse, as heretofore, to chat. J. Fowler elected to Hull by 150 votes.
I do, however, unfeignedly regret the onerous duties now imposed upon me,
and should have been thankful to remain out of the chairmanship. __

Dr, Beaumont: ‘‘I wish there could be a little more variety in the repre-
sentatives sent and received from Ireland.” This remark was strongly
condemned, and much time was lost over it.

Dr. Newton: ‘I feel humbled at this speech.”

The President: ‘‘If we are to be humbled at indiscreet speeches, we may
be humbled all the year round.”

A vote was forthwith taken and passed unanimously of esteem for the Irish
representatives.

A deputation is to be sent to Huddersfield to converse with
them on the extreme demands of their memorial. Mr. McDonald
proposed the President and Secretary, Drs. Hannah and: Dixon,
and Mr. Scott.

A very spirited debate followed the reading of a letter from Mr. B.,
complaining of the manner in which he had been treated by the Book
Committee. Mr. J. W. Thomas made an eloquent speech.

Dr. Bunting: ‘ This is a review of the reviewing.”

Mr. G. Osborn: ‘' No; it is a review of the Book Committee. I am sorry
that so much prejudice exists against the Book Committee and other com-
mittees in London; there is an undercurrent of feeling against them. I am
sorry that Dr. Bunting and Mr. Jackson have taken the ground they have
done. I think it untenable.’

Mr. S. D. Waddy: "More care should be taken in regard to books
published by us than by others. I think this book unworthy of the time
consumed in this debate.”

Mr. Cubitt: Mr. ee has no taste for poetry, though he can write
prose in a masterly way.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I entreat the Conference not to set a bad precedent.” He
referred to the difficulties and responsibility of the Book Committee. He
moved the order of the day. An amendment was moved: ‘ That the case
THE GATHERING STORM. 417

be reconsidered by the Book Committee.” The motion was carried by a
large majority.

I was a member of the Book Committee at the time, and
can well remember the debate. I could not but agree with the
Editors, and Dr. Bunting and Mr. Jackson, that the book was
neither worthy of the Book Room nor useful to our people,
being to a large extent made up of petty, nibbling, pedantic,
verbal criticism. Yet I was vastly struck with Mr. Arthur’s
modest, manly, easy advocacy of the book, without the slightest
air of heroic opposition to the seniors.

Mr. Osborn again introduced the subject of cheap literature. He pro-
duced specimens of cheap books, and moved that the committee take into
their early consideration the importance of republishing a cheap edition of
Wesley’s Works and Benson’s ‘‘Commentary.”’

Dr. Bunting: ‘I propose referring the matter to a special committee.”

The motion was withdrawn in favour of the amendment.

Mr. West spoke strongly on Mr. Osborn’s side. He wished we could
sell dozens of Butler’s Analogy.

On the report of the Pastoral Committee, Mr. G. Osborn spoke in mitigation
of the obligation to perform Pastoral visitation. Contrasting ourselves with
other ministers, he observed : ‘' Richard Baxter said, ‘I can only visit fourteen
families a day along with my curate.’”

Mr. O. denied the practicability of the systematic Pastoral visitation
recommended by the committee. ‘‘My heart is very sad about it.”

How many Methodist Preachers visit on an average fourteen
families a day ?

Dr. Bunting again spoke against ministers straying from their Circuits
to chapel openings and missionary services, which were ‘‘so protracted and
multiplied as to become a great evil. A man's Circuit should be to him
his own wedded wife.”

Mr. S. D. Waddy moved: ‘‘ That the resolution be printed in a circular
and sent to each minister.” er

Dr. Bunting: ‘Our people expect something of this kind. If the resolu-
tions be not printed in the Minutes, they will know why, and will get to see
them in a half-clandestine way.”

‘The report of the Catechumen Committee was read by Mr. G. Osborn.

Mr. S. Dunn was called upon to make a statement of the manner in which
he had worked the plan in Nottingham. He said: ‘‘ The catechist meets the
classes two weeks in succession, and I meet them the third week." :

The President: ‘‘I am not an innovator. I agree with Dr. Bunting that
‘repentance, faith, and holiness’ are the very core of Methodism. But how
many hundreds of thopsands pass through our Sunday schools without these
blessings !"’

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘ We shall not get our young people converted unless our
sermons are made up of Scriptural truth.”

BB
418 flitstory or MerrTuHopIsm.

The recommendations of the Committee were adopted.

In reply to the vote of thanks to him as Missionary Secretary, Dr. Bunting
said: ‘‘Mr. President, I am encouraged by this vote, especially after having
received such a lecture from yourself. The Canada business is very per-
plexing. Strange that the men who were against the union seven years
ago are now for it. If a man would go to Montreal he would have the
best Circuit in the Connexion. More than ordinary attention must be
paid to this mission. I move that Dr, Dixon and Dr. Stinson be our
representatives to Canada and the United States.”

Dr. Dixon: ‘I have not the power of resisting.”

Dr. Beaumont recommended that some generally worded resolution should
be passed expressive of approval of reunion with Canada, and the steps taken
towards it at Toronto.

Dr. Bunting drew up the resolution, which was adopted by the
Conference.

Dr. Bunting: ‘ Missionaries should stay abroad twenty years.”

Dr. Hannah proposed that a young man should be appointed as Assistant
Classical Tutor at Didsbury.” .

Dr. Beaumont: ‘Cannot a layman be found?”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I have always thought that a man not a tiinister would
be best ; but there is not time to discuss it now.’

A few hands were held up, and Dr. Hannah’s proposal passed.

A brother called me to account in Conference for expressing my honest
judgment in committee. I strongly objected to this attempt of one member
of a committee to put another member on his defence in Conference for
having done his duty.

The Southwark Circuit had selected Mr. Bromley as one of their ministers.
This was said to be ‘‘ because of his sympathising with certain anti-Methodistic
views expressed in that Circuit.”

Mr. Dunn urged his appointment, as he had heard there was some
combination to keep Mr. Bromley out of London.

Dr. Bunting: “If Mr. Dunn urge this, I shall move that the minute on
Mr. Bromley's case be read. In my judgment, he ought not to go to London,
especially not to Southwark. He must set himself right with the Conference.
I love Mr. Bromley, but I think him crotchety and much misled.”

Dr. Beaumont: “I seldom meddle with stations, but I think Mr. Bromley
ought to go to London. He is not a common man, and you ought not
to alienate him.” “The Conference said: ‘‘ Go on,” and adjourned at ro p.m.

My own knowledge of the leading men in Southwark and
of Mr. Bromley strongly inclines me to think that his
appointment to Southwark would have been the safer course,
Important points were overlooked. Firstly, the best corrective
of the mischief of Mr. Bromley’s crotchetyness was ifs own
aggressive universality , even as the self-assertiveness of Samuel
Dunn was its own sufficient refutation. Secondly, the refusal
to send Mr. Bromley to the Circuit which selected him gave
a most untimely countenance to one of the charges brought by
THE GATHERING Storm. 419

the Fly Sheets. Thirdly, as Dr. Beaumont hinted, James
Bromley alienated by a grievance was more dangerous than
James Bromley left to labour among those who liked him.’

On the report of the Education Committee, Mr. Osborn objected to the
Government measure. It was called out: ‘‘ We are not to argue on the
principle.”

The President : ‘‘I think no practical result can come out of a discussion.”

Mr. Osborn: ‘‘I defer to the President, and will not make a speech; but
so far defer to my own conscience as to propose a resolution, ‘ That we do not
now sanction the Government measure by receiving money, but pause a year
and then report our position.’"”” This amendment was not sanctioned. The
motion in favour of the scheme passed with three dissentients—G. Osborn,
W. Griffith, and A. Learoyd.

This planetary conjunction of George Osborn and William
Griffith in the open firmament of Conference, and just “two
years before the earthquake,” is very notable.

Mr. S. R. Hall gave notice of applying next year for a man to be set apart
wholly to education work. ‘Unless this be done, we Secretaries shall utterly
fail. Mr. Vasey is able but not willing. His conscience is in his Circuit
work. Mr. J. G. Wilson has told us he is under no obligation to do any of
this work” (he was Mr. Scott's assistant in Third London). A long, stirring
discussion about secretaries ended in Mr. M. C. Taylor being added.

Dr. Bunting read the resolution of the Caughey Committee. ‘The
Conference is and always has been glad of revivals; but regrets that feelings
of discord have been created, and diminution of respect for the regular
ministers, leading many to undervalue their stated services. We respect the
rule of 1797 prohibiting our pulpits to Preachers from America who are not
duly authorised.” This temperately worded resolution passed nem. con.

Mr. West read the excellent Pastoral Address, which was heartily approved
by Conference. A note was read from Mr. Farmer praying for a special
committee to be appointed to look into the present state of Methodism, and
enclosing £200 for Home Missions.

The resolution against Sabbath desecration is to be repeated.

Mr. West regretted ‘‘that the conversation on the state of the work of
God had been postponed by much less important matters, till we had reached
the close of the third Friday evening.” ©

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Since we cannot leave before to-morrow, let us have the
conversation now.’’ Many complained of the detention.

On Saturday morning the conversation on the work of God took place.

Dr. Dixon took up his almost invariable point. “The state of the
Connexion depends mainly on the character of our own preaching. Power in the
pulpit is the great necessity. We Preachers must make the best of ourselves.
There is a proper Wesleyan vevivalism, and we only object to what is really
wrong in imported revivalistic methods. In reading the ‘Life of Charles
Wesley "’ I was very much surprised about the prayer-meetings which he and
those who laboured with him attended to. We must act on the aggressive
principle; we must not be afraid of going a little out of our way.”

BB 2
420 Alistorv oF METHODISM.

Mr. Bowers: ‘‘1 wish we had a day set apart for humiliation and prayer.
Our own souls need to be quickened. We should read Mr. Angell James’ book on
‘Earnest Ministry. That is the want of the times. We want more pointed
preaching and more oversight of the flock. I fear that our dear friend
Mr. Osborn’s mode of putting forth his sentiments will appear something
like an apology for inattention to Pastoral visitation."

Mr. Fowler spoke, but unfortunately swo more does not make
a note of his own speech.

Dr. Bunting, called for, said: ‘Though we regret the lateness of this
conversation, we are glad to have had this opportunity. I hope next
Conference there will be an order of business sketched out which will give us
more time for the more important matters. I think with Mr. Fowler; we
have the power to make a desirable change where it can be done peaceably.
Let no leader put a man out, let no one be left without a ticket who has not
first been seen by a pastor. A careful shepherd looks after each of his flock.
I approve of a day of fasting and prayer. There is an absolute necessity for
areal fresh baptism of the spirit. I recommend a protracted meeting at the
September District Meeting; we must occupy more time in these special
services. I would have the widest practicable circulation given amongst our
people to this year’s Pastoral Address.” Dr. Bunting was requested to
embody in a resolution the substance of his speech.

Dr. Alder arrived in Conference during the conversation. He said:
“There is a total change in the Canadian Conference since 1839. The
Articles of Union were agreed to by eighty-eight ministers against six, and
their objection was rather local than anti-British. The public authorities in
Canada rejoice in the reunion. They have agreed to give to our missions
£750 for every {1,000 we raise. In respect of our last two years’ outlay they
have given us £3,800. On my return voyage I was allowed a passage on the
Admiralty Packet, which was denied to others.”

Six hundred and fifty ministers in all have signed the protest against the
Fly Sheets.

As the brethren betook themselves to their various Circuits
the outlook seemed but dubious and overcast. Notwithstanding
local flushes of a somewhat artificial revivalism, there had been
a decrease in Great Britain of 2,089 and in Ireland of 2,913.
Some of our oldest and most staid societies were in an unsettled
state. .

The wisdom or mistakenness of Mr. Fowler’s counsel with
regard to the Fly Sheets will be best judged of in the light of
the fast following catastrophe.

The only future President amongst the candidates at
the Liverpool Conference was the now Venerable Charles
Garrett, who has so long been a sort of Methodist Bishop of
Liverpool.
THE GATHERING STORM. 42t

HULL CONFERENCE OF 1848.

The One Hundred and Fifth Conference was the first of
those solemn convocations held in Hull. It was well known
that the election to the Chair would fall on one of two dis-
tinguished ministers—Dr. Newton or Mr. Fowler. No one
doubted that Mr. Fowler would have “Aroceeded” President,
almost in the natural course of things, but for the fact
that this year the re-electability of the best known Wesleyan
Methodist minister, and the most popular amongst his
brethren, came round this very year. I threw Dr. Newton
into one of his hearty fits of laughter—no very arduous
achievement—by an audacious pleasantry which was perpe-
trated in an after-breakfast colloquy. Dr. Newton had preached
the night before his annual sermon in Waltham Street
Chapel, Hull, and I was invited to meet him and Mr. Fowler at
Captain Dale Brown's. After breakfast we were left to a little
Pastoral Conference in the cosy breakfast-room. Dr. Newton
turned suddenly to Mr. Fowler and remarked smilingly: ‘So
they say that you are to be President.” To relieve Mr. Fowler
J at once assumed the responsibility of reply, and pronounced in
a tone of oracular decisiveness: ‘It will be one of us three.”
The effrontery of this quiet self-nomination to the triumvirate
was too much for the Doctor’s gravity, but it relieved the
situation.

There was another reason why Dr. Newton’s re-election should
not be postponed a year. It would have been felt by himself,
and misinterpreted by the Caughey party, as a rebuff for his
resolute resistance of the claims of that revivalist. Mr. Fowler
strongly objected to be put in nomination as against Dr. Newton,
and, as he said, he had for the first time canvassed in a Presidential
election by asking his friends to vote for Dr. Newton. So this
noble native of the East Coast of Yorkshire was called to handsel
the Presidential chair in the great East Yorkshire port. I do
not recall another case in which the voting was so nearly confined
to two names. Dr. Newton had 197, Mr. Fowler 83, Dr. Beecham 3,
and just half a dozen others, including Thomas Jackson and
Dr. Beaumont, one apiece. Mr. Fowler was elected Secretary by
a large majority. Two fine men, F. A. West and W. Barton,
were elected to the Hundred. Mr. West polled 132 votes, Mr.
Barton 116. Dr. Beaumont nominated Samuel Dunn, who
received 68 votes, being next to Mr. Barton.
422 FAltsrory or Meruopism.

Mr. West said: ‘I accept this not as an honour but as a érust. I have
ever sought the welfare of Methodism. I will endeavour to maintain an
independent course, and trust to have grace to be faithful.”

Mr. Barton: ‘I hope this kindness will prove an additional stimulus to
devoted service.”

Mr. Fowler records his regret that his Secretaryship to the
Conference will seriously abridge his own Journal. But his
adeptness enabled him to report a wonderful amount of the more
important speeches. And although as the youngest of the six
Hull ministers, and the one in special charge of Great Thornton
Street, the Conference Chapel; and as Mr. Fowler was tied to
the Secretary’s chair, and Mr. Steward and his elder colleagues
in the other Circuit could not be “fashed” with any such
diaconal duties, the whole brunt of the subministration to the
Conference devolved of course on my colleague, Mr. B. Waddy,
and myself, and as he resided in another part of the town it fell
chiefly upon me. However,I was able to attend to all discussions
of great interest, as the brethren were too engrossed in them to
miss me.

An eminent minister, Mr. Beal, was the only survivor of the
year 1808. Dr. Beaumont pleaded that it would be a slight on
such a man not to elect him first.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘We must have an election. We have heretofore added
other names. I have no objection to vote for Mr. Beal, if Dr. Beaumont had
not blundered about the plan of pacification, but I must insist on the right
of election. Mr. Beal is entitled to the honour, and it will put a slight
upon him to pass him by.”

Nevertheless, a younger and far inferior man was elected over his head.
Mr. Beal came in, however, on the next voting.

In the character of a candidate, the phrase, ‘‘ Wesleyan Church’ occurred.
To this Mr. G. Osborn decidedly objected. ‘'I would have us adhere to Wesleyan
phraseology.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think Wesleyan Methodist Churches is the more correct.
We are members of the Church of Christ.”

The objection was not entertained by Conference. A long
time was taken up in discussing the case of a fine, well-educated
candidate, who had managed to mystify himself about the
witness of the Spirit. A rather obscurely worded letter was
read from him. A_ senior minister testified to his “ sincere
and devout piety.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘Mr. Wesley was all that before his conversion. We must
have more than this, and must guard against frittering away our Methodist
doctrines.”
THE GATHERING StoRM. 423

Mr. Reece: ‘I ask myself, ‘How can a man whose views are so obscure
guide our people right?’”’

Mr. West: ‘‘It is a point of great importance that no man should be
allowed to preach, even as a local Preacher, who is not clear both in doctrine
and experience as to the witness of the Spirit. I should hesitate about
receiving a candidate in this state of mind.”

Dr. Bunting: “It is said to be owing to his ‘ mathematical turn of mind.
I do not believe this.”’

The candidate was postponed a year. I knew him intimately
and loved him much. I was a member of the ‘July Com-
mittee” which examined him next year. It was clear to me
that the real mischief was an over-indulged mental idiosyncrasy.
Alas! he never shook himself clear of it. I cannot recall a
single case in which a Methodist ministerial course began in
doctrinal cloudiness and confusedness that did not continue
and end in weariness and painfulness to the minister and
his brethren.

Mr. Osborn: ‘‘ Why is the list of candidates from the Mission Field not
read in Conference?"

On the question being asked: ‘‘Who are becoming supernumeraries?”
Dr. Bunting said: ‘I think this is ‘the time for me to speak. I have a deep
feeling in intimating my intention to become a supernumerary. The
Missionary Committee think me sincere. I do not know why no record
of my request is recorded in the District Minutes. Perhaps it was kindness.
I am sure I am not grieving God in deciding to do this. I think myself
justified in asking to retire. I cannot take a Circuit. I will not say more
at present.”

When mission affairs came before the Conference Dr. Bunting
repeated his request, but left himself wholly in the hands of
Conference. The President essayed to put the question, but
Conference replied with a decisive and overwhelming ‘No,
no!” It was felt that the case of Dr. Bunting was unique.

Dr. Bunting then brought forward the recommendation of
the committee: “That a young unmarried minister, William
Arthur, should be appointed as a fifth Secretary, to speak at
the chief public meetings through the land, and to stir up the
collectors everywhere.” The Secretary of the Conference, Dr.
Beaumont, and others opposed this on the ground that the
missionary income would not warrant such an additional outlay,
and that there was already a travelling lay agent with identical
duties; that it did not touch the case of Dr. Bunting, who
for some years had not been able to address public meetings,
424 ffistory or METuHopISM.

even in his own district, and that Mr. Arthur was wanted where
he was (at Paris). I confess I did not on this point agree with my
two admirable Superintendents. It seemed to me to be “ penny
wise and pound foolish.” It had been my happy lot to hear
Mr. Arthur on the platform many times and in many places,
and I could not but regard him as one of the greatest of our
Anglo-Irish orators, with all the glow and lofty passion of a
Grattan, and all his dignified and compressed argumentativeness.

Dr. Beaumont moved: ‘ That a letter of condolence should be sent to the
family and church of the recently departed Dr. Hamilton of Leeds.” He
said that Mr. Ely, who knew him best, had declared that ‘his devotion
exceeded his intellectual power.”

This proposal struck me as very graceful, considering the
blood relationship of Dr. Hamilton to Methodism, his unbounded
readiness to help its cause on occasions small or great, and his
unstinted admiration of its ministers. The suggestion was,
however, but partially entertained.

On the third day of the Conference business was interrupted
to announce that rebellion had broken out in Ireland, and to
request that the Irish representatives be allowed to return
immediately to their families and flocks. After prayer by the
President and ex-President, commending them to the pro-
tection of God, they took their leave.

Mr. Bowers expressed his regret that so many Circuits were giving up
ministers, and a discussion took place which was adjourned.

Mr. G. Osborn presented £10, to be given in the name of the President
and Secretary, to the Working Men’s Lord's Day Rest Association.

A London Superintendent was deposed for maladministration
which had caused disturbance. Dr. Bunting, objecting. to the
sentence, was in a minority of one. A brother was charged with
having “spoken against certain members and acts of the
Conference.” His defence was: “I thought I had a right to
take which side I pleased.” Another brother was reported to be
afflicted with “a strange idiosyncrasy—he declines to use a
razor.” It was decided that he should be sent for and conversed
with by selected ministers. This committee recommended that
he should either shave or sit down. This reads very strangely
after the lapse of seven times seven years.

A request was made by the Trustees that the Conference would waive the
enforcement of the use of liturgical services in the Conference chapel.
THE GATHERING Storm. 425

This was stoutly opposed by Mr. Osborn, who carried “the order of the
day" after a lengthened and exciting discussion.

Mr. Scott suggested that trustees of chapels should be applied to for
subscriptions in aid of worn-out ministers.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I feel an objection to anything new being introduced.
Two sources of income are already sanctioned. The subscriptions might be
increased. If the fund go down, something else must be done.”

The Richmond Governorship having again become vacant, Dr. Bunting
proposed Mr. S. Jackson as governor at Richmond, ‘‘ as an example of gravity
and manly thought, spirit, and character, and of great assiduity.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I second that motion. I think it will be satisfactory
to the Connexion.”’

Mr. S. Jackson: ‘I will submit to the decision of Conference. I shall
endeavour to imbue the young men with a love for catechumen classes. I
am a crotchety old man, but if you are ready to go with me on these points,

I will submit.”

Dr. Beaumont: ‘If Mr. Jackson goes to Richmond to make it a riding-
school for his own hobby, I should hesitate.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘1 think that is a qualification.”

Mr. William Griffith gave notice of two motions: 1. ‘‘ That we ought not
to receive grants of money from the public purse which are also given in
support of any form of error.” 2. ‘‘ That as State establishments are claiming
attention, every minister shall be allowed to take what course he pleases,
without being subject to ecclesiastical censure.”

But when the time came for submitting these proposals he
begged leave to withdraw them both for want of time for their
discussion.

The most painful part of the proceedings, to myself especially,
was that relating to the mutual misunderstandings and recrimina-
tions of my two late colleagues in the Second London Circuit.
The case had been sent to a committee, but the data were
so impalpable and made up of such minutiz, and looked at by
the parties from such opposite points of view, that the report of
the committee consisted of but little more than a confession of
inability to get at the essential merits of the case, and a recom-
mendation that the Conference should hear the statements of
both parties and form its judgment upon that. Appealed to by
both parties and by Mr. Reece, who resided in the Circuit, I
found myself in a very queer position, but escaped absorption
into the dispute by strictly confining my replies to questions of
fact of which I had been personally cognisant. Yet it would
have been easy to solve in a sentence the whole mystery of the
matter, but that would have thrown the chief blame upon the
Conference itself. The affair occupied great part of two sessions.
Beaumont, being put upon his mettle, was extremely eloquent,
426 History or Merxovism.

but the Conference was as pitifully at a loss as was the choice
committee. The whole mischief lay in two words, zujudiczousness
of stationing and zncompatibility of colleagueship. From first to
last it was a rueful business.

A resolution from the Manchester ministers recommending
that the numbers should be taken from the June quarter
occasioned a lively discussion, till the President suggested, that
it should lie over till next Conference.

There was a decrease in Great Britain of 518, in Ireland of
1,491, in the Missions of 65 ; net decrease 2,768.

A searching inquiry followed as to the local causes ot
declension. London had lost 442; cause, ‘“Want of more
efficiency in the ministry, and squabbles among ministers.”
Bedford 120: ‘Financial embarrassments, and disputes about
the Marriage Bill.” Norwich 400: ‘Chiefly in the city, owing
to disputes about the education movement.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Do the people read the Wesleyan ?”

The President (Dr. Newton, who had seen more of the Connexion than any
other man): ‘I openly avow my conviction that reading the Methodist
newspapers has damaged our societies.’’

Oxford, “Want of energy in working Methodism.” xeter,
“Neglect of country places, and of Liverpool Minutes.” Bristol
had an increase of 186, owing to the influence of special
religious services held in connection with the September District
meeting. Birmingham had an increase of 63, attributed to
‘“Mr. Caughey’s labours; his converts stand so far.”

Mr. Haydon complained that the Bradford (Eastbrook)
leaders had turned their Class meeting into something else.

Leeds attributed its increase, notwithstanding ‘the depres-
sion of trade,” to the prevalence of peace in the societies.
Sheffield \aid the blame of its decrease on ‘‘the want of a due
degree of Pastoral attention.” The state of Shetland was so
serious that a committee was appointed to take it into close
consideration. They declared a diminution in the number of
ministers to be necessitated by the numerical decline. The
statement of the Chairman that the chief cause of declension
was an unwillingness to meet in Class on the part of the
people in these northern latitudes called forth the first
suggestion ever made in Conference—at least, so far as I can
find—to assimilate the terms of membership in Great Britain
to those in North Britain, and not adjust the latter to -the
THe GarHerine Srorm. 424

former. The proposal came, however, in such a vague and
shapeless form as to derive its main importance from its author
—one of the most influential of the younger ministers. It pro-
posed that “some provision should be made for and an eccle-
siastical status given to the large class who attend our ministry

but do not meet in Class.’ This brought Dr. Beaumont to
his feet.

He had spent several years of his ministry in the great Scotch cities, and
had seen and felt the working of the system of alternative membership. He
warned the Conference against the introduction of such ‘a large question ” in
such an incidental and promiscuous fashion, without even notice of motion—a
question which involved the vital interests as well as the whole machinery of
Methodism.

Mr. Reece thought that what we wanted was not some substitute for the |
class meeting but an improvement in it, through an improved, or rather a
revived, method of training leaders for their duty. Our best leaders had been
raised in band meetings. Revive the band meetings. Have a closer rather than
a looser fellowship.

Mr. F. A. West: ‘‘I do not despond as to the revival of the class meeting,
and by this means a steady increase of our numbers in the genuine and original
Methodist way. Some causes of decline are removable or mitigable. Villages
have been given up on the plea of attending to the towns. I doubt whether
the towns have been more attended to where this is done. I think we have
looked too much to respectability and intellectuality and surface culture. Don’t
disparage the class meeting in favour of this sort of thing. The prejudices
against the class meeting arise from externalism. We are in danger of cul-
tivating a Methodist Puseyism, which is the worst of all. I find that the persons
least well affected towards class meetings are the very persons who are in the
greatest need of it. We want to raise up a spiritually minded community, and
this will not be done by ‘respectable leaders, who would not cross a street to
save a sinner.’ We must look fairly at Methodism, and deal fairly with it,
not swerving on the right hand or the left. The mission of Methodism is not
fulfilled by giving to our seat-holders an ecclesiastical status. Our mission is,
and our effort must be, to save their souls. It is very easy to attach too much
to the change in circumstances. The rivalry of other Churches we have had
to contend with from the beginning. But our great antagonist is the ungodliness
in the land; and we shall make no real impression upon this without singleness
of heart. What we want is more thoughtful and more earnest preaching. This only
will unite our people—not to find fault with Methodism and with us, but to
save sinners. In order to do this, we must ourselves be holier and happier
and more spiritually minded. ‘Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and
uphold me with Thy free Spirit ; then will I teach transgressors Thy way, and
sinners shall be converted unto Thee.’ ”’

This speech, as might be well supposed, produced a powerful
effect upon the Conference. Mr. West was requested to throw
the substance of it into the form of a series of resolutions.
428 History oF METHODISM.

The sentences of this speech were sparks struck out in a white
heat of conviction. It was more than a reply to a speech ; it
was an appeal or after-clap to a sermon preached by him in
the Conference chapel on the Sunday morning before the Con-
ference, from “His heart trembled for the Ark of God.” In
this memorable discourse he lifted up a solemn voice of warning,
with all the gravity of a prophetic messenger, yet all the simple
modesty of a truth-reporting child. He showed that ‘the Ark
of God,” which was the source and secret of our strength and
the shrine of present Deity, was the revealed truth of God in
His Holy Word, verified in the hearts and witnessed. to by the
lives and voices of His people; and the two great perils to
which our Church was even now exposed were: (1) The
filing up our Church and weakening our strength with ad-
herents far less bound to us by spiritual affinities than by
natural relationship. He showed to what an extent the des-
tinies of Methodism were in the hands of ministers’ children
and the children of our leading people. (2) The temptation to
“hurry off the Ark of God with boastful shoutings into the
battlefield of politics. The sermon itself was, in great -part,
an amplification of the Pastoral Address which he had prepared
the- year before, which had won the admiration of such men
as Jabez Bunting and Joseph Fowler. It has as clear and
strong a voice, and full as timely, for the Methodists of 1897
as for those of 1847.

It is to be noted that the able minister who was the first to
broach in Conference the idea of an alternative or a bifurcated
membership in English Methodism was, twenty years later, the
most determined antagonist and denouncer of them when set
forth by the misty metaphysic of the late Rev. Thomas Hughes.

On the report of the Hducation Committee, a discussion took
place about receiving Government money in common with
Roman Catholics.

Dr. Beaumont contended that the money was received for teaching Popery.

Mr. Scott denied this.

Mr. G. Osborn reaffirmed it.

Mr. W. Bunting spoke, by way of rejoinder, as to the unsound though
ingenious and argumentatively evasive position that we took.

Dr, Bunting :‘‘ The state of the case is this : Ultra Dissenters say that all
State-aided education should be secular; the country says: ‘ We cannot
recognise any system as education of which the Christian religion does not
form an essential part; we have not an absolute right to say that Roman
Catholics shall use our authorised version, or to say that Roman Catholic
Tue GATHERING STORM. 429

schools are too bad to be dealt with like others. We have gained a national
recognition of the principle that the Scriptures and the doctrines of our religion
shall be an essential part of British education, and that no Popish priest can
be a master in these schools !'”

Mr. G. Osborn argued against the expenditure of £30,000 in the erection
of a Normal School. The debate was adjourned.

At the adjourned debate next day it was announced that the
annual expenditure of the Normal School would be £5,015.
Mr. Osborn’s amendment for delay was lost, and the motion for
proceeding with the building carried by a large majority.

The Pastoral Address was read by Mr. Barrett, and warmly eulogised by
Dr. Hannah, and justly. But ‘‘some allusions to Church and State are to
be changed.”

Mr. Dunn complained that the Book Steward had refused to sell a book of
his which had the Steward’s own name upon its title-page, on account of an
exceptionable paragraph. A long discussion followed, and some angry feeling
was excited. Conference adjourned at 2 p.m. under great excitement. The
debate was resumed at the evening session, but terminated quietly in an
affectionate vote of thanks to the Book Steward.

A memorial from Lambeth was declined, having been printed in a
newspaper.

Dr. Dixon being called on to give his report of his representativeship
to Canada and the United States, he was found to have gone home in
indignation that such an important matter had not been attended to at an
earlier stage—a grievous disappointment to the Conference.

The most excited scene took place on the recurrence of a
motion for a sfeczal vote of thanks to Dr. Bunting.

Dr. Beaumont objected : ‘‘That’s your error ; that’s your misfortune ;
that’s the misfortune of Methodism, that you are always moving special
votes of thanks to Dr. Bunting.”

zit this our former colleague, Mr. Barton, threw down his
pen as Sub-Secretary and rose up in his place on the plat-
form, in impassioned protest against ‘this unbearable attack
on Dr. Bunting.”

Dr. Beaumont, who never interrupted his own interrupters,
paused, winking with phenomenal rapidity, as he always did on
such occasions, and abode his se¢t#ing down in perfect silence. But
when our friend had delivered his charge, Beaumont turned
round upon his pursuer and “with the hinder end of the spear
smote him under the fifth rib.” He then repeated, with still more
impetuous head-shake and hair-toss : ‘ That’s your error, etc.”
Thereon another stalwart combatant swung back the door of his
pew and rushed into the aisle, and vociferously denounced again
430 Flistory of MeEruopism.

this insufferable insult to the majesty of Conference. He was
‘a proper man,” some inches taller than the fighter he
encountered, but Beaumont raised himself upon his tiptoes, and
poised himself upon his finger-tips, and peered across the chapel
as if to verify the identity of his opponent, and gave him such a
douse of satire as sent him to his seat in ignominious silence.
Then for the third time, and with threefold emphasis, did the
irrepressible debater pronounce his declaration. I never heard
anything to approach it for immediateness and irresistibility,
except a reply by Dr. Bunting himself to Dr. Beaumont at a
London District Meeting, and certainly never anything to surpass
it but Professor Huxley’s terrible retort to Bishop Wilberforce
of Oxford at the British Association of 1860. Nothing could
justify it but the rudeness, the disorderliness, and the frequency
of these blustering interruptions.

Mr. G. Osborn and Mr. W. Griffith once more stood shoulder
to shoulder in opposition to the Education Committee in London,
-but Mr. Griffith withdrew his motion, whilst Mr. Osborn pushed
his to a division, after a strong speech.

Mr. Fowler notes: ‘‘A more than ordinary ransacking about
missions ; and other questions to be asked when the Mission
House Report is givén.’’ This ransacking began in the
Missionary Committee of Review by a question from Mr. John
Sharpley, of Louth, as to the meaning of a paradoxical item in
the accounts. For some time the Secretaries themselves were
strangely at a loss, and an uncomfortable silence pervaded the
assembly, which was too large to meet anywhere but in the
chapel. At last it turned out to be but a peculiar mode of
grouping diverse items of expenditure under one inclusive
heading. Mr. Sharpley expressed himself as perfectly satisfied
and glad to have been the humble instrument in eliciting the
explanation of what had puzzled other business men as much as
it had himself. But this wholesome exercise of the right of
search and scrutiny in a Commuttee of Review was warmly
resented by certain of the brethren. I happened to be sitting
next to David Hay when a London minister came fuming up to
him and said stormily: ‘‘Why can’t you keep that relative
of yours in something like order?”

One of the shrewdest questioners in the Conference itself
was Mr. G. Osborn, who was evidently on the alert to let
nothing slip. Mr. P. Duncan gave some “wise suggestions,”
derived from his own experience on the mission field. Mr.
THE GATHERING STORM. 431

W. M. Bunting relieved the tension of debate by sudden
spurts of daring humour—e.g. ‘‘I believe Methodism will subsist
till the Millennium, despite all its agitations and revivals; and
we are not at the Millennium just yet.” Dr. Bunting was
throughout the Conference the venerable type of quiet dignity
and of patriarchal wisdom and authority. He was evidently in a
subdued and gentle mood. He was entering on his ministerial
jubilee, and breathed a meek and gracious spirit... Yet as he
sat in the front of the platform one could not but discern in that
calm, commanding countenance the lines of strenuous and
determined warfare. Again and again I said to myself while
gazing on him: “ An old lion ; who shall stir him up?”” Under
Dr. Beaumont’s strictures the working of his facial muscles
told plainly of severe and steadfast self-suppression. His staying
power was wonderful. I noticed that during the long and
sometimes weary hours of Conference Mr. Fowler only left the
platform once in the sixteen days of session; Dr. Bunting not
even once.

Samuel Dunn seemed so propitiated by the large vote for
his election into the Hundred that he scarcely spoke at all,
except about his own grievance with the Book Room.

The Conference closed on Friday, August 9th, to all
appearance in the most peaceful, loving, hopeful state. Dr.
Newton, as he took up the hymn-book at the close of the
fourth Conference over which he had presided—he too having
entered now his ministerial jubilee—was strongly moved, as by
some heavenly afflatus. I never heard that noblest of all human
voices roll out such tones of majesty as he gave out the parting
hymn :—

“Blest be the dear, uniting love
That will not let us part!

Our bodies may far off remove,
We still ave one in heart.

“ Joined in one spirit to our Head,
Where He appoints we go,
And still in Jesu’s footsteps tread,
And spread His praise below.

“ Partakers of the Saviour’s grace,

The same in mind and heart,
Nor joy, nor grief, nor time, nor place,

Nor life, nor death, can part.”

After prayer, led by Samuel Jackson and Dr. Bunting in
the true old Methodist style and spirit, and the gracious
432 flistoRY oF METHODISM.

benediction from the President, the Conference broke up, to
all seeming in perfect brotherly heartiness and harmony. No
one thought that the next Conference would bring the crash.
My own feeling was ‘‘ Lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and
gone, the flowers appear on the earth ; the fig tree ripeneth her
green figs and the vines are in blossom, and give forth their
fragrance.” But the eager, restless spirits on both sides had
determined otherwise. Alas! that a few turbulent and turbid
natures should have it in their power to desolate the heritage
of God!
CHAPTER VIII.

THE FLY SHEETS AND THE PAPER WAR OF 1848-49.

As is well known, the deplorable disruption of 1849 began
with the expulsion of three ministers suspected of connection
with certain publications called /Vvy Sheets. The first of these
appeared in 1845, the fourth and last in 1848. For fear that
the impression of them left upon my mind and heart some
half-century ago might not be altogether just, I have carefully
perused them with reference to this writing.

In the first place, then, they are, as self-described, Fly
Sheets, not even pamphlets or tracts, or papers in, or letters
to, a newspaper, but just sheets—loose, off-hand scribblements,
more like electioneering squibs than any other kind of writing.
They were, moreover, Fly Sheets with no more real solidity
or substance than a paper kite. Their author in his private
journal calls them ‘circulars.’ They were not sold but
sent by post to Wesleyan Methodist ministers only. They
were veritable /7y Sheets, silently depositing their eggs in
the scanty larder of every Preacher's house throughout the
land. Though they bore topical headings, such as Location,
they were made up mainly of the most bitter personalities.
They might almost be regarded as one protracted personality—
the subject being Dr. Bunting. They are avowedly aimed at
“men in office,’ all of whom are represented as the creatures
of the gigantic Jabez Bunting.

The first thing to strike a reader who is in a position to
know the facts of the case is their recklessness of statement,
inevitably resulting in untruthfulness and misrepresentation,
most mischief-making and unfair. For example, the preaching
of the ministers who were located as departmental officers
is branded as “insipid” and “vapid’’ (p. 9); the fact being
that the discourses of such men as Dr. Bunting, T. Jackson,
and J. Farrar, not to mention others, were models of Methodist

cc
434 Hisrory o& METHODISM.

preaching, and, as compared with those of their detractor,
were full of sap and substance, and were delivered with a
spiritual fervour, energy, and directness in most striking contrast
with his own controversial, hard, dogmatic tone. His calculations
as to the salaries of the Missionary Secretaries, again, though
manipulated with adroit audacity, present no approximation
to the dubiousness of his own financial position, when driving
a remunerative business in the heart of one of our great trade
centres, and yet drawing money from our charitable funds
as a worn-out minister; or, from his snug retreat in York,
receiving allowances from the same funds, on the same plea
of wornoutness, and yet, dy kis own account, undergoing as a
popular orator far more exposure and exertion than would be
required by Circuit work.

He is obliged to admit that the location of departmental
officers in Methodism is very ancient, the founder himself
having set the first'example of this evil—and that with regard
to the Book Room it is an absolute necessity; but he most
unjustly charges the benevolent, genial, and kind-hearted Book
Steward of the time with “tyranny.’’ His administration was
the reverse of this description.

The next point of attack is Centralisation. This he admits
to be the natural result of the location of departments in
London, the centre of national activity and force. But the
creation of all these departments since the date of the Book
Room he attributes to the ‘‘ scheming ambition of the insatiable
Dr. Bunting.” He would have us all believe that they were
made to be berths for himself and his adherents, and that
their precipitation or delay was his contrivance. As if their
initiation were determined by the chronology of his convenience !

But it were as bootless as painful to commit oneself any
further to the characterisation of these irritating sheets.
Enough to say, every “flying roll” carried with it a malign
influence into every house to which the ppstman brought it.
The qualities which should be most carefully excluded from
all Christian controversy were here in an intensified degree,
while those which should preside over all Church discussions
were most jealously excluded. The worst construction was
put upon the acts of godly, noble men. The most natural
sequences were ascribed to the “ scheming cunning” of a
Satanic statesmanship ; the most harmless and even honourable
acts were attributed to the meanest motives.
Tue Fry Seeets and tHe Paper War or 1848-49. 435

Of course, as Mr. Osborn said, there were points in the
Fly Sheets with which a loyal Methodist might blamelessly
agree. The one he named—the re-election of the same man
to the Chair of Conference after an interval of eight years—was
a far less serious thing than the evils which are apt to cluster
around any system of centralisation, which was one of Mr.
Everett’s primal objects of attack. Congestion in a great
religious body is as dangerous and as easily brought about as
in the natural body, even when in high-toned health. The
pinch of the great practical problem is, How to secure the
highest efficiency of administration along with the freest'
distribution and the widest diffusion of official function and
responsibility. But here, as everywhere, the Fly Sheets spoilt
by rancorous exaggeration what might otherwise have been
a wholesome caveat.

Take such a paragraph as that headed Insincerity, and
beginning : “ A system of trickery and low cunning is preached
to keep men in office.”

The later Fly Sheets are made up of miscellaneous gossip
and low, ill-natured grumbling.

On reading these productions after the lapse of half a
century, I am brought completely round to the conviction of
my two Superintendents of the time, Mr. Fowler and Dr,
Beaumont, that the one dignified, judicious course for Conference
would have been to leave them utterly unnoticed.

We have seen that at the close of the Conference of 1848
the Connexional horizon was brightening and clearing. The
atmospheric balance seemed about to be restored. But the extreme
men on either side resolved it should be otherwise. What they
wanted was not settlement and stable equilibrium, but the
triumph of the one side and the, if possible, extinction of the
other. The one party was resolved at any cost to break up,
and not merely keep within its safe and wholesome limits, the
predominance of Dr. Bunting and the Metropolitan committees,
while the other was as desperately determined to check the
tendency to freedom of speech and frankness of inquiry and
distribution of influence which was so strikingly made manifest
by the election to the Chair of the Conference of such men as
Stanley, Atherton, and Samuel Jackson, of Mr. Fowler to the
Secretaryship, and of Dr. Beaumont to the Hundred, and by the
election to the chairmanship of the London District of Mr.
Fowler, though there were four ex-Presidents on the spot, and by

cc 2
436 History oF Meruopism.

his quasi-designation to the Presidency as the recipient of nearly
all the votes for the Chair, after the immensely popular Robert
Newton. By all means, and at all hazards, this must be
prevented.

It is to be noted, further, that on both sides the leaders in the
conflict were mostly laymen, and the contest was to be carried on
through the medium of the Press.

It might have been said :

““’'Twas morn, but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war-clouds rolling dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun,

Shout in their sulph'rous canopy.”

The Wesleyan Record and the Wesleyan Chronicle soon
collapsed, but the Wesleyan Times took up the ill-omened parable.
A due sedateness was maintained in the Wastchman’s leading
articles, but contributions and correspondence were admitted to
its columns which too successfully endeavoured to out-Everett
Everett in vituperation and abuse. This greatly shocked the
refined and self-respecting homes of Methodism. I may give one
instance. I was visiting at Gunnersbury, and at breakfast Mr.
Farmer handed me the Watchman, which had just come in. My
eye fell upon one of these evil communications which corrupt
good manners, and I instinctively dropped the paper with an
involuntary exclamation of disgust, which was so marked as to
demand explanation and apology. I therefore handed the paper
to Mr. Farmer, asking him what he thought of this, he being a
member of the Watchman Board. It exceeded far in coarseness
and vulgarity anything which had discoloured the fly Sheets.
This certainly deserved the epithets applied to the vy Sheets—
“slimy and disreputable.” It was such as only an essentially
coarse-grained nature was capable of producing, and may not be
quoted by any writer who respects his readers. Mrs. Farmer
said: “ That’s right, sir, give it him well; we have protested till
we are tired.” Mr. Farmer answered: “ Well, I regret these
things as much as you can, and at our meetings I oppose them
to the uttermost. I protested against the admission of this very
thing, but I was outvoted and overborne.”’

The fatal 1849 of Methodism opened with a renewal of
hostilities on either side. Scarcely had the New Year’s chimes
rung out :—

“ Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace ;
Peace and goodwill to all mankind ";
Tue Fiy SHEETS awp THE Paper War oF 1848-49. 437

scarcely had the echoes of the New Year’s hymn died away—

“His adorable will let us gladly fulfil,
And our talents improve,
By the patience of hope and the labour of love”;

when the war-whoop of both parties startled the Connexion in
the midst of special services and sermons to the young.

‘“‘ Loudly the pibroch did sound forth from Fleet Street,
And calm City Road to the slogan replied.”

For it had now become a bitter party contest. On January 1st
appeared the first numbers of Papers on Wesleyan Matters. On
January 8th came out the first number of the Wesleyan Times.

Of the Papers on Wesleyan Matters, Dr. George Smith says
(‘‘ Hist. of Methodism,” vol. iii, p. 462) in an apologetic
paragraph :—

“Unfortunately these generally able papers were also anonymous, a cir-
cumstance which gave their opponents an advantage which they used to the
utmost. Another and more serious defect was the intemperate language
occasionally employed. Irritated by the unfounded aspersions of the Fly
Sheets, the writers of these papers retorted in no measured terms upon their
opponents, and, it is feared, they only aggravated the evils they were intended
to remove.”

But the worst was that they were far from being content with
retorting on opponents; they made utterly unprovoked and
most unscrupulous attacks upon honourable and highly honoured
men who were in no sense their opponents, unless to be the
opponents of repression, impudence, and confusion were to be
their natural and intolerable foes. It too soon became apparent
that one of the, if not ¢ke, most prominent objects of the papers
was to keep out of the Chair of the Conference the eminent,
exemplary, and most devoted Methodist minister who, in the
ordinary sequence of affairs, and but for the desperate manceu-
vrings of the papers party, would unquestionably have filled it
with exceptional ability, dignity, moderation, and prudence—
qualities which most urgently and obviously were needed at the
time. We have seen that, but for the octennial recurrence of
the Presidency of Dr. Newton, Mr. Fowler would, in 1848, have
followed in the Chair Jacob Stanley, William Atherton, and
Samuel Jackson. But another President from that side of the
house would in no wise suit the policy of the lay partisans of the
438 Altstory oF METHODISM.

other. Not that it was altogether and only a party irritation ;
an honest and honourable indignation blended with it. Yet the
Fly Sheets blizzard might have blown over with comparatively
little mischief but for an incident by which it was indefinitely
intensified and prolonged. A young minister stationed in the
city in which Mr. Everett resided had, while waiting for his
Superintendent (Mr. D. Walton) in his study, picked up an MS.
which was lying on the desk, in which he recognised a passage he
had read in the Fly Sheets. He kept his secret for some months,
but at last disclosed it to Mr. T. P. Bunting in a private con-
versation whilst staying at his house. Now Mr. Bunting, not
unnaturally, was grieved and wroth almost beyond endurance by
the sneaking and yet savage onslaughts which had been made
upon his venerable, noble father, and felt goaded like the classic
hero, to detect the perpetrator. Now this same Superintendent
was known to be a close, fast friend of Mr. Everett, and to have
been deeply soured and sored by the rejection of a work of his
by the Book Committee, at Dr. Bunting’s instance, after it had
been accepted and he had been, by request of the committee,
put to the trouble of writing an additional chapter. Mr. Bunting
followed the trail of the MS. by demanding an investigation
before a Minor District Meeting. As the “ Life of Dr. Bunting ”
Says : ‘The proceedings in this case helped in several ways to
bring things to a crisis”—and to a crash. Those proceedings
came out in the Conference Report. One of thése ways was the
starting of the Papers on Wesleyan Matters. It was resolved
by their promoters to try their own hand at “unfounded
aspersions,” sly insinuations, and anonymous personalities.
With a subtlety which Everett himself might envy, they
put their innuendoes into the form of questions, right and left,
so as to make their obvious object of attack the very symbol
of defectiveness in all the gifts esséntial to a President and the
embodiment of every rare disqualification for that arduous

office. Thus: “Does he encourage the societies?” etc., or
“Does he speak disparagingly of parts of the system and of
the more public men in Methodism?” “Does he employ the

office with which he is entrusted by the Conference to the ends
of a selfish and masterful disposition, and by force rather than by
reason and by New Testament principles carry his measures
in the meetings where he may preside?” ‘As a member of
committee, does he attend chiefly when there is some party
object to be gained, or for the purpose of presenting obstructive
.

THe Fry SHEETS AND THE PareER War oF 1848-49. 439

and crotchety objections?” ‘Does he set himself to trouble
and annoy them by raising endless objections to whatever may
be proposed?” ‘‘ Does he seek to make the Conference the arena
of debate after the manner of a political association, rather than
an opportunity of conferring together?” etc.

Such was the light in which Mr. Fowler's faithful, frank,
and fearless execution of his duty as a member of committee
and of Conference was attempted to be placed by men who
stood forth as the anonymous denouncers of misconstruction
and anonymous attacks on character. The ill-favoured features
of the /ly Sheets were here reflected ; ‘evil surmisings” and
the deep mark of unsound membership in the Church of Christ ;
“they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.’” The writers
themselves confessed that in resorting to this style of writing,
and even in “taking it on themselves to lay down for the
guidance of Conference oracular suggestions as to the
qualifications of the individual to be elected as its President,”
they were infringing the patent of the Fly Sheets and the
Wesleyan Chronicle, which had been followed by the Watchman.
They admit until within the last few years “parties have had
the decency to abstain from any public agitation in the matter ;
have at all events avoided premature and impertinent dictation.”
The example of this innovation on propriety was first set by
the editors of the Fly Sheets and the Wesleyan Chronicle, and
how did the editor of the Papers justify this following
a couple of editors to do evil? To show that it was a game
at which two parties might play. Surely not the party which
had condemned the game as utterly un-Christian and dishonest !

This flattering and too successful mimicry of the Fly Sheets,
of course, both saddened and shocked all Methodists who were
not committed partisans. Hence at the first Book Committee,
after the appearance of this article, attention was called to
it by two distinguished members of the meeting. Dr. Bunting,
having doubtless received intimation that the matter would
come up, did not attend the meeting. Mr. ex-President
Atherton moved and Mr. W. M. Bunting seconded a resolu-
tion to the following effect: ‘That this meeting is sur-
prised and pained to find that certain publications, entitled
Papers on Wesleyan Matters, containing most injurious and
unfounded reflections on the character of an honoured minister,
a member of this meeting, and other highly objectionable
matters, are exposed for sale upon the Book Room premises,
440 Hisrory or Merxovism.

and is decidedly of opinion that the Book Steward ought not-
to facilitate in any way the circulation of that serial.” This
was carried. I dined with Mr. W. M. Bunting at the close
of the discussion, and he was evidently much relieved by this
decision.

But the promoters of the Papers looked at the matter from
a very different point of view. So they bent their care during
the interval between the two monthly meetings to secure
the rescinding of the resolution. In this they were successful.
At the next meeting (at which, too, I was present) a member
rose with great solemnity and made the startling announcement,
for a meeting composed entirely of Christian ministers, that
he was actually about to propose a resolution “zz the fear of
God /” When a devout man, whom no one thinks of supposing
capable of performing any deliberate ‘action otherwise than in
the fear of God, feels it necessary to preface a proposal by
any such asseveration, one may be sure that he feels no slight
misgiving, no gentle ‘gird of conscience,” as to what he is
about to move. The motion was: “The rescinding of the
resolution of the last committee with regard to the Pagers
on Wesleyan Matters.’ This was seconded. In _ neither
speech was there the slightest effort to deny the untruthfulness
of the anonymous charges brought against the Secretary of
the Conference and Chairman of the District, with the avowed
purpose of blocking his way to the Chair of Conference. All
that was pleaded was that, however wrong it was in itself, it
was done by “‘loyal Methodists” in the interests of ‘‘ Methodism
as it is.’ The key-question in the string of criminating
interrogations put with regard to Mr. Fowler was this: “In
his behaviour in the Conference and in General Committee,
is it quite clear that he loves Methodism as zt is?" for this
was meant to designate a certain party in ‘‘the politics of
Methodism’? The mover and seconder both argued that it
would be a great pity, and would indeed ‘do harm,” to blame °
strongly anything that was done by “ our friends.”

These speeches roused to an almost savage indignation
the sarcastic honesty of William Atherton. He rose to his
full height and said: ‘“ Brother proposes this in the fear of
God, and I oppose it in the dread of the devil. Brother has
made a very elegant and shining Wellington boot for the cloven
foot.’ He then with a gigantic grip stripped off the boot
and laid bare the foot. He showed that by rescinding

 

 
THe Foy SHeers Awp THE Paper War oF 1848-49. 441

last month's resolution we should turn the laugh against
ourselves by convicting ourselves before both sides and the
public generally of a grotesque hypocrisy. He showed that,
by adopting the method of anonymous attacks on character
and motives, we were, in reality, making to the enemy
a gratuitous donation of our heaviest artillery.

Mr. W. M. Bunting followed in a tone of sober sadness.
All the piquancy which lent such a charm to his ordinary
speeches was completely laid aside. He pronounced the attack
on Mr. Fowler ‘to be worse than anything in the Fly Sheets.”
In all their slanders they did pick up some semblance or
some fragment of a fact on which to fasten their morbid
incrustations. But these insinuations against Mr. Fowler he
declared to be the sheerest fabrications, not only without basis,
but, in fact, the very reverse of the features of the actual Joseph
Fowler whom they pretended to portray. He alluded to the
public unseemliness of presenting for sale in the windows of
our Book Establishment a distortéd and discoloured picture of
the senior minister of City Road Chapel, the Chairman of the
London District and Secretary of the Conference, and most
distinguished member of the Book Committee, and that within
a few yards of his own residence—Wesley’s House—and of
the venerable sanctuary of which he was by appointment of
the Conference in special charge. Mr. W. Bunting was
sure that every member of the meeting who had, like him-
self, enjoyed the privilege of serving under Mr. Fowler’s
Superintendency “as a son in the Gospel” would bear hearty
witness to the fact that he was the very opposite of the imaginary
sketch presented in these‘Papers. He hoped that the committee
would not allow itself to be induced to throw away the honour
it had done itself at its last meeting, and to brand itself with
the dishonour of patronising and propagating the very vices
it condemned in others.

Yet, despite the powerful speeches of these mighty men, the
members, who had been beaten up for the occasion, voted
according to their previous purpose and, as it would seem,
their pledge, and the rescinding was carried by a majority
of two.

Thereupon stout old William Atherton, “likea man in wrath,
rose up and answered”’: “ Well, have I then lived to learn that
slander and detraction and unprovoked, ill-natured untruth are
only wrong when resorted to by the opposite side ?”’
442 History oF JLETHODISM.

No speaker ventured to expose himself to ridicule by the
flimsy pretext hastily thrown up in the April number of the
Papers—namely, that their attack upon a worthy and distinguished
minister had been made without the mention of the name.
This double anonymity was recognised as an aggravation of the
cunning and unscrupulousness of the masked assault. This was
one of its characteristics which moved Mr. W. M. Bunting to
describe it as worse than the Fly Sheets, inasmuch as it found a
lower depth of trickery than the Ply Sheets themselves. It was
well known that Mr. Fowler had at the foregoing Conference
received more than sixteen times as many votes as any other
man but Dr. Newton. This shambling subterfuge was started
in an article entitled, Zhe Preszdent of the Conference and
Anonymous Writing, and it was followed by still further imputa-
tions on “the badgered worthy,” such as that he was ‘‘one of
those who abuse inferior offices to the annoyance and injury of
their colleagues” ; of having actually gone so far as to say what
the Conference itself has said repeatedly ; with other eager and
factitious criminations. This is followed by a defence of anony-
mous incriminations, “if only what you say is true.”

It was characteristic of Mr. Fowler that he invited the
seconder of the resolution to dine with him at the close of the
meeting. I had the honour of being invited to join them, and
could not but admire the equanimity and magnanimity of Mr.
Fowler in ignoring altogether the whole unpleasant business.

These discussions in the Book Committee were, however,
not without effect. The promoters of the Papers found that
they had placed themselves in a very false position. They had
taken the wind out of their own sails, and they had turned into
farcical grimace their uplifted eyes and hands of holy horror at
anonymous assaults upon ministerial character and reputation.
In a comparatively subdued paper they announced the dis-
continuance of their agitating serial “ for the present,” apologising
only for anything that had been written too severely, yet
maintaining that “our object appeared to us to justify and even
call for what we have done.” This was the self-same ground
assumed by the author of the /7Zy Shee¢s in vindication of the
like ignoble practices.

Dr. George Smith's “fear” with regard to these ill-judged,
these irritating Papers was too surely verified ; they only aggra-
vated the evils they were intended to remove. They gave
a strong party colour to the contest. The attack on Mr. Fowler
THe Fry SHEETS AND THE PAPER War oF 1848-49. 443

was recognised, and by thousands resented, as an attack on frank
inquiry and open animadversion in committee and in Conference,
in the person of the man who, since the death of Mr. Galland,
had been looked upon as the standard-bearer of a constitutional
and law-abiding independence.

But the parable dropped so suddenly by the Papers was all
the more vigorously taken up by the Watchman. Its very able,
fresh young Editor, of course, took his brief and his instructions
from the proprietary from whom he drew his stipend: his
business was to supply the style and special pleading. And he
did this in aright scholarly and knightly way. He advocated
the nominee of his proprietary against the inestimable minister
who had been blackballed by the Papers on Wesleyan
Matters. It was pleaded that the next President must have
been in the Chair before ; these were times when ex-Presidents
must have a prior claim, and re-election must be taken as
the order of the day. The type necessary for a whole
leading article was employed in putting forth the simple
name of Thomas Jackson, which was writ as large as if printed
in the type of the title.

Another way in which these Papers aggravated the evil was
by calling forth the publication of the Fly Sheets as a bound
volume, with the publisher’s name on the title-page, under the
name of “ The Fly Sheets Vindicated,” so that, as Dr. Bunting said
in Conference : “‘ They were not now Fly Sheets Grauiated privately;
they were published in a ‘vindicator.’”” The charges were now
in the hands of the people. This was a monster mischief. Up
to this time the Fly Skeets had been all but unknown to the
Methodist people. I had never seen a copy outside a minister’s
house in any one of my three large circuits, the Second London,
the Third London, and Hull; but now they came forth into open
daylight expressly in answer to Pagers on Wesleyan Matters and
other anonymous publications.

Another great disservice done by the adoption of the Fly
Sheets’ bush-fighting policy was to afford the Wesleyan Times the
very thing it wanted—a good spurt at starting.
CHAPTER IX.
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849.

Happity for us, the conversations in the Conference of 1849
and its preliminary committees do not come within our scope.
They were amply published at the time in various journals, and
were compiled, printed, and published immediately afterwards in
a shilling pamphlet, under the title “ Companion to the Minutes.”
Moreover, Mr. Fowler was not able to attend the Conference at
all. Some two years before, he had come up from Hull to London
to attend a very important Connexional Committee which had
been appointed at his instance. In his characteristic anxiety to
be present at the meeting to the last, and yet to take the earliest
possible train back to his Circuit and his home, he had hazardously
travelled by night. The result was that by the time he had got
halfway homeward he was seriously ill, and reached his destination
in a critical condition. Through the blessing of God upon the
skill of Drs. Sandwith and Hardy, and on an exceptional vitality
preserved by unbroken regularity of habit, he had thoroughly
recovered, and resumed and maintained his exemplary habits of
pastoral assiduity and energy. But he had been appointed to
accompany the President to the Irish Conference at Cork, and
the lateness of the Irish services were very trying to his con-
scientious regularity. Irish Methodism, through the famine and
the consequent exodus and the disloyal agitation, was in a
deplorable plight; moreover, it had on hand a heavy educational
undertaking. Cholera had come close upon the heels of famine.
The country was likened by one of the ministers to a battlefield
after the carnage.

Mr. Fowler had calculated on a brief interval between the
Irish Conference and the pre-Conferential committees in England
to collect his thoughts and papers, and to see that the First
London Circuit was in a state to be left. So he had left behind
him, locked up carefully, memoranda which were indispensable to
Tu& CONFERENCE OF 1849. 445

him as Chairman of the London District. But he was kept so
long in Cork that, not being able to make straight for Man-
chester, he was obliged to go round by London for his papers
and yet not spend a night at home; he lost two nights’
rest, and this, with the continuous and unaccustomed
shaking, brought on a recurrence of the former mischief. He
was able to take part in only one committee. He con-
tented himself with supporting the opinion of Mr. P. McOwan
and Mr. W. Stamp that the union of the Chapel Fund with the
Education Fund was detrimental to both. This union he had
opposed from the beginning in foresight of its injurious
working, and the fact that there was now a less sum to divide
between the two funds than was aforetime raised for the Chapel
Fund alone. He was then completely prostrated by a dan-
gerous attack of the gravest character. As he was thus totally
disabled from attending the Conference, his friend Mr. West
undertook to do what he could towards filling the hiatus which
would thus be made in Mr. Fowler’s Journal. But, in Conference,
matters took at once so serious a turn that Mr. West was only
able to record part of the proceedings.

The speech of Mr. Osborn on his election into the Hundred
now lies before me in what may most truthfully be termed the
caligraphy of Mr. West ; for if ever a man’s handwriting was a
manifestation of his character, it was the penmanship of Francis
West, clear, firm, round, and incapable of being misread. Surely
never was so militant a manifesto put forth in acknowledg-
ment of an election into the Legal Conference as was that of
Mr. Osborn. This tone was taken up by a reference in Dr.
Beaumont’s renomination of Mr. Dunn for the same honour.

Mr. Osborn spoke of men who circulated slanders against their brethren
which they dared not put their names to. ‘‘If these men are indeed brethren,
let the Conference take care to rebuke them. If we allow without rebuke a
practical Antinomianism to prevail amongst us which slanders the men whom
we delight to honour, that is a course which I regard as opposed to the law
of God. If the usefulness of Methodism is to be continued, we must have a
sound morality. For that I am determined to struggle till I get a satis-
factory solution of the great question that is now before us. We must ‘cast
out the scorner and strife will cease.’ A Test Act is no new thing.”

Of course the absence of Mr. Fowler settled the question of
the Presidency. Mr. Jackson’s speech from the Chair was in the
same belligerent tone as that of Mr. Osborn. It was plain that
the suggestion of the Watchman as to what should be the chief
446 AlrsTory oF METHODISM.

part of the Agenda—as Mr. Osborn put it, “the question now
before the Conference"'—was “ how .to cast out the scorner.” The
recommendation sent up by the Watchman—the application of
the “brotherly question''—was evidently the course resolved
upon. The opening Presidential speech, as reported in the
Watchman, sent forth the like sharp bugle blast.

‘It had been sought to bring the characters of ministers of the Gospel
into disrespect and contempt. This evil must be dealt with, done away with.
We must not tolerate this evil. We ought to put an end to it in the spirit of
pity to the offender. I never witnessed so kind a feeling. It must be
cheering to everyone. May the Lord gird us afresh, each with “his hands to
war and his fingers to fight.”

The thanks to the retiring Secretary, Mr. Fowler, were
accompanied by a letter of fraternal sympathy with the affliction
which precluded his attendance.

Mr. I. Keeling said : ‘‘We all know Mr. Fowler’s characteristic vigour,
which had been thrown into his official duties.” He suggested that Mr.
Fowler's ‘anxious attentions to the business of the Irish Conference and to
the earlier committees might be connected with his present affliction.

Mr. W. M. Bunting : ‘‘I have known Mr. Fowler during twenty-five years
as aman who has singularly deserved well of the Conference. I think the
resolution, doubtless through inadvertence, deficient in this respect.”

The ex-President, in acknowledging his vote of thanks, said : ‘‘The time
has come when we must take a final stand for the harmony of Methodism. I
expect great things from this Conference, by which the spirit of disunion will
be quashed.”

Mr. G. Osborn rose and said that after the names were gone through he
should make a friendly complaint against Mr. Fielden and several other
brethren who were in the same case.

Dr. Beaumont : ‘‘ loppose this procedure as a dangerous innovation.”

The President ruled that Mr. Osborn was right.

Dr. Beaumont : ‘It is unworthy to begin with an aged man pressed down
by infirmities. How came Mr. Osborn to pass by the first name on the
stations—Joseph Fowler, Secretary of the Conference? Mr. Fowler has not
signed Mr. Osborn’s Declaration. Why did not Mr. Osborn wait till he came
to the next non-signer’s name, and not swoop down on an infirm old man?”

Mr. Osborn: ''I consider Mr. Fowler by his letter to the Watchman to
have given me brotherly satisfaction.”

Mr. Dunn and Mr. George protested against the injustice of the course
taken by Mr. Osborn. Several spoke briefly and interruptedly amidst much
excitement.

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘I fear that Mr. Osborn has overstepped the
mark. The Conference ought seriously to deliberate whether it will allow
Mr. Osborn to put the questions he proposes.”

Dr. Bunting and Mr. W. Smith feared the course proposed would be

prejudicial.
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. 447

Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘ The plan proposed by Mr. Osborn is a deviation from
all order.”

In the midst of much confusion and excitement, Mr. Fielden lifted up his
right hand, trembling with emotion and paralysis, and said: ‘This hand
for years has not been able to write.”

Mr. Osborn: ‘Mr. Fielden has given me perfect satisfaction.” It was
Jate and the President closed the sitting.

The next morning the President prefaced the proceedings by
saying :—

‘The proceedings of last evening have made me very anxious as to
the best course to be pursued. Two years ago Conference gave permission
to circulate a declaration expressive of unabated confidence in each other.
A few have not signed this. The non-signers are not in the first instance
to be thought disloyal, as they might have sufficient reason for not signing.
I know one instance of a senior minister who has not signed. The whole
subject of the Fly Sheets and the Declaration must come before the Conference.
It will be better to waive the cases of the non-signers till the whole case
comes up. The Sabbath is at hand, and also the solemn services connected
with the ordination. This makes it very desirable to avoid all irritating
topics. I have spent an anxious night.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ We were last night from good motives betrayed into an
inadvertence. Members of Conference should not be in haste to make
motions. In difficult cases, before making motions it would be proper to
consult the President. It is not pleasant to grieve a man who endeavours to
do good to the Body by resisting any motion he brought forward.”

When Dr. Bunting’s name was reached, he said: ‘‘It may be a painful
thing at my time of life to be put upon my trial, but I will submit to the
humiliation if my accusers will show themselves, Are there any Wesleyan
Times men in the house? Let them come forth. Here I am to meet them.”

The President: ‘‘In the name of the Conference, if there be any in the
house, I command them to stand forth.” He repeated this with great
energy and emphasis, after allowing a pause for Dr. Bunting’s accusers to
stand forth.

Mr. Scott then rose and began to defend Dr. Bunting against ‘ the absurd,
most unbelievable, and unbelieved insinuations cast upon him.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘‘I object to this course of remark. My father
is not accused, and therefore needs not to be defended.”

When the Secretary, Dr. Hannah, read his own name, it
was Dr. Beaumont’s turn to rise.

He said: ‘‘I have been slandered in the Watchman and in an anonymous
pamphlet written under the fictitious signature of ‘ Vates.’ I did not consider
it consistent with self-respect to take any notice of the slander till Dr.
Hannah, by giving it a recommendation, made the pamphlet no longer
anonymous. But for Dr. Hannah’s name, thus attached, it would have
received no notice from me. I am indifferent about the pamphlet and the
pamphleteer. I have to do with Dr. Hannah's name attached to it, as
advertised on the wrapper of the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine. I have always
448 ffisrory oF MErHoDISM.

respected Dr. Hannah’s- high intellect and his higher moral and official
rectitude, but when I find myself damaged in my sphere of usefulness by the
authority of Dr. Hannah's name, the Secretary must “forgive me for saying
that he has done me wrong, as he has put, no caveat whatever to his
recommendation, but writes as if he approved of the whole pamphlet.
Dr. Hannah has endorsed the slanderous publication signed ‘ Vates.’”’

The Secretary explained that he only intended to express his commendation
of the argument of the pamphlet. He cast himself on the judgment of the
Conference. He had a grave sense of the evil of slander.

Dr. Beaumont: ‘I give Dr. Hannah full credit for not intending to injure
me; but in his eagerness to serve some he has gravely injured others. It is
murderous, to my thinking, to have such slanders issued. I, however, accept
the explanation so far—that the Secretary had no intention to injure me.”

Mr. G. Osborn spoke in extenuation of the anonymous pamphlet recom-
mended by the Secretary, contrasting it with the Fly Sheets, which he dis-
tinctly attributed to ‘‘ Dv. Beaumont's party and friends.” Here a scene of great
confusion ensued. Dr. Beaumont, Mr. George, and Mr. Scott appealed to the
Chair whether Mr. Osborn wasin order. The President ruled that Mr. Osborn
was in order, adding : ‘'Is it disorderly to speak of Dr. Beaumont’s party? Do
not the writers of the Fly Sheets and in the Wesleyan Times constantly put him
forward as the leader of the Opposition in the Conference?” Cries of
“No, no!” ‘Yes, yes!” ‘‘ Order, order!” ‘‘ Chair, Chair!"’ ‘‘ Question!"’ and
great confusion. At length the President obtained silence and ruled: ‘ Mr.
Osborn’s words are capable of a sense not injurious to Dr. Beaumont. Mr.
Osborn must be allowed to proceed.’’

Mr. Osborn : ‘‘I do not wish to use the words offensively, but I must say
that there are some among us whose intention it is to subvert Methodism.”

Mr. Dunn rose to order and asked what right Mr. Osborn had to give his
own unbrotherly version to the intentions of Dr. Beaumont and the other
non-signers. The confusion increasing, the President observed: ‘‘ Hitherto,
amidst much that is exciting, the Conference has shown its good sense by the
order maintained. The effect produced upon our own minds by this loud
clamour is not good.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ The Conference has by this confusion virtually deposed
the President.”

Mr. G. Osborn resumed and persisted in reaffirming his allegation against
Dr. Beaumont.

Dr. Beaumont : ‘‘I protest against this line of conduct as most unfair. If
Mr. Osborn had anything against me, it should have been stated when my
name was called.”

Mr. George: ‘I also protest against the insinuations of Mr. Osborn, that
brethren—because they did not sign this declaration—are to be considered as
desirous of subverting Methodism.”

The President : ‘I rule that the matter shall now drop.”

Mr. Stephen Kay requested a hearing for the clearing of his own character,
but for some time in vain. At last, owing mainly to the entreaties of Mr.
W.M. Bunting, he obtained it. He said that a correspondence had taken
place between himself and Dr. Hannah respecting an insinuation in the
pamphlet recommended by Dr. Hannah, that the chapter in the Fly Sheet on
missionary expenditure quoted Stephen Kay. He, too, would not have
Tue CONFERENCE OF 1849. 449

noticed the masked “ Vates”' but for the name of Dr. Hannah attached to it.
He added : ‘No returned missionary is capable of writing that paper in the
name of a returned missionary. I call upon the man in the mask—Vates. Is
he in the house? Dr. Hannah refuses to give his name; let’ him throw off
his mask.”

The President : ‘I think it would bea relief both to mind and body to sing
a few verses.’ He then gave out:

“O, let us take a softer mould, ‘
Blended and gathered into Thee.”

Thus closed the Saturday session of this first week of
Conference. With the exception of that concluding stave,
how did it justify the premonitions of the gentle William
Bunting of its unfitness as a preparation for the Conference
Sunday! No wonder that after that week of stormy days and
anxious nights, and after struggling through his Presidential
sermon, the strong man’s strength gave way. What a contrast
he cannot but have felt it to his triumphal service in the same
chapel, just ten years before, at the close of his first Presidency in
the exultant Centenary year. No wonder that for the next two
days he was unable to appear at the Conference, or to take his
place at the public examinations of the candidates for ordination
on Monday or Tuesday evening.

On resuming the question of “ character,” the case of Charles
Rawlings was brought up, who, in the Macclesfield District
Meeting, when inquired of by the chairman : ‘‘ Do you approve
of the Fly Sheets ?” had answered : ‘Some things in them are
true.’ The question was deferred till the cases of the non-
signers should be dealt with altogether. Next came up the case
of Mr. D. Walton, which occupied the rest of the session and
the whole of Thursday morning—a full day of Conference.

This meeting had found the charges of Mr. T. Percival
Bunting to be fully sustained. It recommended that Mr. Walton
should be censured from the Chair of the District Meeting and
disqualified for the office of Superintendent. He positively refused
to answer the questions put to him. When the case came up in
Conference Mr. Walton objected to a Missionary Committee, half
composed of laymen, being made the occasion of the charge.

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘The character of Mr. Walton, as a Wesleyan
Methodist minister, is dearer to me than that of my own beloved and
generous - hearted brother. I think my brother acted improperly in
bringing forward the matter when and where he did. I believe that Mr.
Walton cherishes a chivalrous sentiment of honour. But such a sentiment
towards a private friend ought to give way before a similar sentiment
towards his calumniated brother.”

DD
450 History or Meruopism.

Mr. Walton solemnly declared that he did not lend the MS. to his
friend with any knowledge that it would be employed in the Fly Sheets ;
and he condemned the Fly Sheets. :

The report of the District Meeting was then adopted, with three dis-
sentients: S. Dunn, W. Griffith, and R. Harrison.

The next case was that of Samuel Dunn. On the 8th of
January, 1849, Mr. Dunn followed in the wake of Papers on
Wesleyan Matters by starting a Wesleyan monthly, with this
important difference, that it bore in large letters on its title-
page the local habitation and the name of its indefatigable
editor—the Rev. Samuel Dunn, Nottingham—and that non-
editorial articles bore no pseudonymous signatures, but the
honest names or clear initials of the writers. The successive
numbers lie before me. The title was Zhe Wesley Banner and
Revival Record. It opens with a profession of firm attachment
and devotion to Wesleyan Methodism. It was avowedly the
organ of a minority in the Conference, but purely a “defensive”
organ. Its first paragraph declared its mo#f to be: “The
Preachers in the minority have had attributed to them the
basest motives. Individuals connected with Wesleyan Method-
ism are putting forth their energies to silence those ministers.
They have been denounced in newspapers; and in a
periodical—the object of which appears to be to attack all
those who dare to speak and act otherwise than the pro-
jectors approve—on Wesleyan affairs.’’ Revivals of religion,
catechism classes, Sunday schools, Temperance, etc., were
also to be promoted. The first article was a sermon by
Dr. Beaumont on “Let brotherly love continue.” A most
wholesome homily.

The earliest literary production of Adam Clarke, “ Zhe
Renewal of the Covenant,” is followed by the one polemic
fragment of a column, ‘Reasons for not signing Mr. Osborn’s
Declaration.” Then comes an account of the revival at Wed-
nesbury, catechumen classes and Sabbath schools, some
spiritual tit-bits, and half a page of small reviews. As the
organ of a Conference minority, the Wesley Banner certainly
does not go beyond the licence of expression with which our
present Methodist public is familiarised. Its strongest passages
are those which resent the effort to turn a merely permitted
Declaration into a compulsory Test, and its protests against the
anonymous detractions in the Papers on Wesleyan Matters and
their attempts to connect Revivalism with Radicalism and to mix
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. 451

ithe Banner up with the Fly Sheets and the Wesleyan Times.
He asks indignantly : ‘Where do they find in our Papers, as
they insinuated, the advocacy of lay delegates?” He says:

‘One half of the Papers is taken’ up with anathematising the Fly Sheets,
and the other half with imitating them. The imitation, however, leaves the
original far behind. We defy anyone to find in the Fly Sheets, in a similar
compass, the same amount of slander as, in discussing the Presidential
question, is poured out on one of the most honoured ministers in the
Connexion.”

The Nottingham and Derby District Meeting preferred
charges against the Rev. S. Dunn as Editor of the Wesley
Banner. The gist of the matter was: “The tendency of this
publication is to promote strifes and divisions, and to endanger
the peace of our Societies ; that he be required immediately to
suspend its publication, and that if he refuses, the whole matter
be referred to the Conference.”

The Revs. W. Griffith and J. C. George opposed these
resolutions on the ground that no evidence has been adduced to
show that the effect of the Wesley Banner has been to disturb
the peace of the Society.

The Nottingham and Derby District Meeting showed great
candour and, in the circumstances, calm courage by accompanying
these resolutions with a “judgment” with regard to the Pagers
on Wesleyan Matters : ,

“That these anonymous publications are mischievous in their tendency,
divisive in their influence, and tend greatly to promote, both among ministers
and people, strifes and divisions, and in the present excited state of our
Connexion we feel bound, in justice to all parties, and for the interests of the
Connexion generally, to say the time is fully come when the Conference should
put an end to all such publications, and we call the special attention of the
Conference to the periodical called Papers on Wesleyan Matters, which we
regret to find has been sold and circulated through the Book Room ; papers
which, loud in their condemnation of ‘anonymous slanders,’ are themselves
anonymous and contain serious and unjust insinuations and expressions
upon the character of several of our ministers, and are calculated not to
allay but to gender strifes and divisions in our Connexion. This committee
recommends our rule passed in 1793: ‘That no pamphlet or printed letter be
circulated without the author's name.’”’

Mr. Dunn requested as a favour that, like Mr. Walton, he should have
a hearing in the Conference, but the President nominated a committee
“before whom Mr. Dunn would be heard.”

The Declaratory Laws of 1835 being again read, a long discussion
followed; after which the Secretary said that Mr. Everett was strongly
suspected of being the author of the Fly Sheets.

DD2
452 History oF Meruopvism.

Mr. Everett was called forward, and the Secretary read from a paper in
his hand the question: ** Are you the writer or author of the Fly Sheets?”

Mr. Everett: '‘ Am I the first on the list of those who have not signed the
declaration? When the brethren whose names occur in the Minutes before
mine have answered the question, then will I. Why am I singled out from
the rest?”

The Secretary, without answering, persistently pressed the question, till
Mr. Everett said: ‘I demand the name of my accuser, the charge agains
me in writing, and an opportunity to defend myself in a constitutional way."

After further interlocutions with the Secretary, he positively
refused to answer under any other conditions than those already
mentioned, saying: “If I am the most suspected, then there
must be the most evidence against me ; produce it.”

Mr. Everett was desired to retire to his seat. The like course
was adopted with regard to Mr. Burdsall, with the like result.
Messrs. Everett and Burdsall were requested to withdraw.
A long discussion followed, in which, when Dr. Beaumont
questioned the course which was being pursued, he was met
with such persistent interruption intermingled with hissing
that he said: “Since the Conference will not hear me, I will
sit down.”

Mr. Marsden: ‘‘I propose that we postpone coming to aconclusion; it
will be more dignified, and will give us all time for reflection."

Two brethren were deputed to inform the two suspects
that another opportunity would be afforded them to reply to
the question already put, and others which were yet to come.
An hour later the brethren reported that Messrs. E. and B.
had received them in a very kind, gentlemanly, and ministerial
way, but still declined answering the question already put, or
any similar inquiry, except on the conditions they had stated.

The President proposed to defer decision on Messrs. Everett
and Burdsall till Monday. ‘‘‘ Many eyes are upon the Conference,
and the appearance of acting with precipitancy or undue excite-
ment must be avoided.” He nominated a strong committee of
ex-Presidents and Chairmen to meet in the meantime and
consider the case, but added to it three members of the Man-
chester District Meeting, “because they had been mixed up
with the affair from the beginning—the Brethren Naylor,
Crowther, and Osborn.”

Mr. Dunn: ‘These men are too much ‘mixed up with the affair’ to be
fairly members of a judicial committee on the subject.”
‘
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. 453

Mr. W. M. Bunting : ‘ I consider the President’s reason for putting these
brethren on the committee the strongest possible reason for keeping them
out of it. These three men, ‘mixed up with the Fly Sheet affair from the
beginning,’ must have a bias of mind in the matter. It will be thought by
impartial men a partial deed. I beg that they be not on it.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘And I beg to oppose that. There must be but one
President here.” '

Mr. W.M. Bunting: ‘‘ The President ‘ proposed’ these names, and thus
invited the Conference to support or object.” This remark caused great
confusion and many outcries, till Dr. Bunting exclaimed : ‘Hear me, and
then cry what you please.” It was determined that these three Manchester
men should be added to the ex-Presidents and Chairmen.

The President then called on Mr. G. Osborn to address the
Conference.

This culminating speech is of no slight historical importance,
inasmuch as it in effect decided the course of events, and was
an exposition of the underlying ideas of the policy put forth by
the party of which Mr. Osborn was, at ¢ha¢ time, the ministerial
representative.

After repeating and expanding his defence of the applying or
his “ Declaration” as ‘a test,’ he asked: ‘“‘ What is the point at
issue? It is: Whether Methodism can exist 7f the Conference
be divided into two parties—a Government and an Opposition party.
The question is vital. If Methodism be divided into two parties,
it must come to anend. Agreement of opinion in public matters
is, with a political party, the one thing needful, but ours is a
confederation based necessarily on personal and private, not upon
public considerations. This principle obtains throughout our
system. Every Class leader, every local Preacher, is subject to the
same examination as to his religious experiences. The union as
believers lies at the foundation of our Conferential union, and of
all our acts and proceedings. The Church of England has two
considerable partes, but nezther of them has the ruling power ; they
are governed by the Bishops. We are a Presbyterian body. The
different parties in the Establishment are equally secure of provision.
Methodism depends upon voluntary hberality, and if the party
denouncing the executive should obtain extensive influence, and
confidence should be destroyed, all support must fail.”

He contended for freedom of speech in Conference, but
maintained that the right of the minority ended there; that it
had no right to agitate a question once voted on and passed.
“Mr. Osborn sat down amidst volleys of applause.”

This speech contained some very sound and salutary principles.
454 History oF METHODISM.

Whether it took due note of all the data necessary to a just
judgment on the matter, or warranted the immediate practical
deduction drawn by the speaker himself, will best be considered
in our general estimate of the whole procedure. Mr. Osborn’s
_ peroration was on this wise : “I therefore trust that the Con-
ference will discharge its duty by making inquiry into the views
and feeling of those brethren who have neither signed the declara-
tion nor in any other way afforded to their brethren a pledge of
confidence.”

The next’non-signing case which came before the Conference
was that of Mr. George, a bright, dapper, intelligent, and
cultivated brother whom I had been wont to designate as
Gentleman George. The position he took up was, at any rate,
frank, clear, and well-defined.

‘‘I did not refuse to sign from want of confidence in the fathers of the Con-
nexion. I can vie with Mr. Osborn in my attachment to Methodism. For
twenty-five years I have devoted myself to its service, and am willing to devote
my whole life.” (Cries of ‘‘ Sign the Declaration ; we don’t want to hear of your
attachment.”) ‘‘ The Declaration came to me, so far as I knew, without any
authority. Hadit been issued with the names of the President and Secretary
of the Conference, I should have treated it differently. I think it ex-
ceedingly officious in Mr. Osborn to issue the Declaration a second time.
I wish him to exemplify as well as enforce the charity which ‘thinketh no
evil.” ;

The President : ‘Are you going to set yourself right with the
Conference?” 3

Mr. George: “If I have unwittingly used any improper expression, I
retract it. I did not sign the Declaration because I thought the issuing it
would not secure peace.”

The President : ‘‘ Anothér reflection upon the Conference. Had you any
participation in the Fly Sheets ?"'

Mr. George: ‘‘I have reasons for declining to answer that question, which,
with permission, I will state.” (Cries of ‘Yes or No." ‘‘ We don’t want your
reasons.”

The President : ‘If you are not guilty, it is easy to say so.”

Mr. George was proceeding, but was interrupted by loud cries.

Mr. Reece : ‘I wish the Conference would leave the putting of questions
in the hands of the President alone.”

Mr. George: ‘‘An attempt is made to coerce me.”

The President: ‘‘If you affect an independence, become an Independent
altogether.” Amid loud cries of * Question,” Dr. Bunting: “The Confer-
ence had better leave the matter in the hands of the President. Everyone
should give up his claim to be heard when the President desires to address
the Conference.” Mr. George declined to give a direct answer, and was
classified with Mr. Everett. Three non-signers, T. H. Walker, T. Rowland,
and A. Learoyd, declared their abhorrence of the Fly Sheets.

Mr. Duncan proposed a resolution, with regard to reporting, not to restrict
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. 455

it, but to impress the brethren with their responsibility in regard to it.
‘Little transpires in the Conference which it is desirable to conceal.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘The question of reporting is beset with difficulties.- It
would be hazardous to pass a resolution on so important a subject from an
incidental debate. It would be better to receive the report of an adequate
committee on the subject. There is a material difference between the
reporting for the Watchman and the Wesleyan Times. The general tone of
the former is conservative of Methodism, the latter hostile.”

Mr. J. W. Thomas: ‘‘I am ashamed that so much time and attention
has been devoted to these miserable productions. I suppose the writers
are vain of the sensation they have created.”

He then went off into a jaunty and facetious speech, gro-
tesquely and yet grimly out of keeping with the sadness and
solemnity of such a moment. He announced himself as the
pseudonymous “ Vates’’ who had cast such unfounded impu-
tations upon Dr. Beaumont and Mr. Kay. Dr. Beaumont
treated his gibes with a dignified, consistent silence; but Mr.
Kay demanded: What authority had he for stating fly Sheet
No. 1 was written by a retired missionary, and insinuating
that he (Mr. Kay) was the man? ‘I denounce this slander. I
emphatically deny all connection with the F7y Sheets.”

Mr. J. W. Thomas: ‘‘I am glad that Mr. Kay has tried on
the cap and found it not to fit him.” (A laugh.) And with
this amende the maligned minister had to be content.

The committee recommended the expulsion of Mr. Everett
for refusing to answer the question put to him; but that. Mr.
Burdsall, in consideration of his age and infirmities, be only
admonished from the Chair.

The President called Mr. Griffith from his place and asked: ‘‘ Are you
taking notes of the proceedings of the Conference?”

Mr. Griffith: “I am, and I presume that many members of the Con-
ference are doing the same.” ‘

The President: *-Are you taking notes for the purpose of reporting
to the Wesleyan Times?”

Mr. Griffith: ‘No; I am taking notes for the purpose of aiding my
recollection of the proceedings of this momentous Conference.”’

The President: '‘ Have you this year, or in former years, reported the
proceedings of Conference in the Wesleyan or Wesleyan Times ?”'

Mr. Griffith: ‘Mr. President, there must be some limit, of time to these
inquiries.” (Cries of “Answer the question,” ‘‘No evasion.”) ‘I appeal
to the Chair, and put myself under its protection. JI will reply to questions
put to me by you, and hope to have no more of these interruptions, which to
any man are most confusing, especially to one cited before the Conference.
I assure you, sir, that whatever replies I give shall not be evasive. They
shall be open, honest, and straightforward. I am not going to evade a
single question.”
456 flistoRY oF METHODISM,

The President: ‘‘ Have you, during this Conference, reported any of its
proceedings to the Wesleyan Times ?"’

Mr. Griffith: ‘If the Conference will allow me, I should like to take time
to consider my answer to this question.”

The President : ‘‘ The request is reasonable, and the Conference grants it."

At the next sitting Mr. Griffith answered: ‘Every member of the
Conference must know that there are ministers who have reported for the
Watchman the proceedings of this Conference.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘Mr. Griffith must see that the cases are not parallel.
The Watchman is altogether conservative of Methodism; the Wesleyan Times
is thoroughly hostile to it.”

Mr. Griffith: “That is a matter of opinion. In my opinion the Wesleyan
Times is as strongly attached to Wesleyan Methodism as the Watchman, and
is much better serving its interests.” .

Dr. Bunting: ‘The Wesleyan Tumes has made very calumnious attacks
upon members of the Conference, including even the President.”

Mr. Griffith: ‘The Watchman has made very calumnious attacks upon
members of the Conference, including even the then Secretary, Mr. Fowler.”

The President: ‘Mr. Griffith can bring forward the subject of reporting
for the Watchman at a subsequent period.”

A debate ensued, in which Drs. Bunting and Newton, and Messrs.
Macdonald, Barton, Rule, E. Walker, Rigg, S. D. Waddy, and Scott,

took part.
Dr. Beaumont: ‘‘ The Watchman has endorsed and made its own all the
anonymous calumnies of the Papers on Wesleyan Matters.” A resolution

condemnatory of the, Wesleyan Times, and of the Preachers who countenance
it, was then carried with but two dissentients.

The President: ‘‘ Will you engage not to report for the Wesleyan Times,
Mr. Griffith?”

Mr. Griffith : ‘I will pledge myself not to communicate with the Wesleyan
Times when the other members of the Conference pledge themselves not
to communicate with the Watchman.”

The President : “ Are you, or are you not, the author of the Fly Sheets ?"’

Mr. Griffith : ‘‘ I will give my reasons for not giving a bare answer of ‘ Yes’
or ‘No.’"’ This was not allowed, and Mr. Griffith proceeded: ‘I must
decline to answer, if the Conference will not hear my reasons.” Here he
was interrupted by Mr. J. W. Thomas, to whom he made a short reply ; but
promptly added: ‘‘Mr. President, I most sincerely regret that I have done
you the disrespect to condescend to notice the unseemly interruptions of
Mr. Thomas.”

Next came the motion for Mr. Everett’s expulsion, in support
of which Mr. J. W. Thomas made a scholastic speech, taking his
stand not on Methodism law but on “ universal law, those of Rome,
Moses, and King Alfred ; although he had great respect for and
much admired the character of Mr. Everett.” The expulsion
was carried with but two dissentients. Dr. Beaumont renewed
his disclaimer of all connection with the Fly Sheets, and Mr.
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. 457

Duncan reminded the Conference that Mr. Fowler had, two
years before, strongly avowed his disapproval of them.

The President : ‘‘ It is very desirable that this discussion should be brought
to a speedy end. I, therefore, will at once call up those who have to be
questioned. Mr. Dunn, are you the author or the writer of the Fly Sheets ?"’

Mr. Dunn began his reply by referring to the Conference two years before,
at which he had expressed his sentiments with reference to those publications.
The President insisted on a direct and immediate answer to the question.
Mr. Dunn made repeated attempts to preface his reply by a statement,
entreating to be allowed to answer ‘in his own way.’ But the President
insisted on a simple ‘' Yes” or ‘' No.”

Mr. Dunn said he could not answer without ‘‘ explanatory observations.”
He then resumed his seat, the President observing: ‘‘ You have had an
opportunity of putting yourself right with your brethren.”

A brother reminded the Conference that, two years before, Mr. Dunn had
disclaimed connection with the Fly Sheets.

The President asked whether Mr. Dunn had deputed the brother to answer
for him.

Mr. Dunn: ‘ No.”

The President: ‘‘ Mr. Dunn has had full liberty to reply to the question.”

Mr. Dunn: ‘I deny it.”

Mr. Dunn attempted an explanation, but the President exclaimed: ‘I
must have the confidence of the Conference,” The Conference refused to
hear him further, and he withdrew.

Mr. Harris stated that Mr. Bromley had declared to him and Mr. West
that he had no knowledge of the authors of the Fly Sheets, and he disliked
their matter and spirit.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Why, then, cannot Mr. Bromley say as much before the
Conference? He ought to do so.”

The President: ‘‘Has Mr. Bromley any communication to make on the
subject?”

Mr. Bromley: ‘‘I have no communication to make on the subject.” Mr.
Rigg, his Superintendent, entreated him to answer.

The President : ‘‘ Are you the author or writer of the Fly Sheets ?”'

Mr. Bromley: ‘I have no answer to give, Mr. President, to any question
put under the sanction of the law of 1835.”

The President: ‘‘ You have rejected our system of discipline. From the
beginning the Conference has asserted its right to put any question to any of
its members.”

* Mr. Bromley: ‘‘ From the beginning it has been the right of every member
to withhold an answer. I have no answer to give.”

The President: ‘‘About the middle of the last century Preachers arose
charging the Conference with oppression. Mr. Wesley said: ‘I will not
interfere with your conscience, and you shall not interfere with mine.’ This
part of our discipline must be maintained, not rashly, but in an emergency.”
The President then referred to a pledge given by Mr. Bromley of submission
to the Conference.

Mr. Bromley: ‘That pledge was given before the Declaratory Law was
passed—posteriorly to the pledge I gave to the Conference.”
458 Aiistory or Meruonism.

The cases of Messrs. George, Griffith, Dunn, and Bromley were referred
to the same cqmmittee which had reported upon Mr. Everett.

Four days later Messrs. Dunn and Griffith once more appeared
before the Conference to hear the report of the committee.
They had been heard and questioned separately by the committee.
The report approved of the action of the Conference in availing
itself of its original and constantly exercised right of proposing
such brotherly inquiries as it may deem necessary for its satis-
faction in reference to any of the brethren. Secondly, it
condemned Messrs. Dunn and Griffith for their communications
to the Wesleyan Times and the publication of the Wesley Banner.
Thirdly, it condemned their declining to answer the questions
proposed to them in the Conference. Fourthly, it recommended
that their continuance in the Body should be made conditional
on their pledging themselves : (1) Not to send any further com-
munications to the Wesleyan Times. (2) To discontinue the
publication of the Wesley Banner.

With these conditions they refused to comply, and for this
refusal were expelled.

Dr. Dixon, with much emotion, informed the Conference
that he and Mr. William Bunting had conversed with Mr.
Bromley and obtained from him the promise to discontinue
his resistance of the law of 1835, on condition that he might
state his reasons; and if these reasons did not satisfy the
brethren, he should conclude that he must be mistaken, and
at once submit. But he declared to the Conference his deter-
mination to share the fate of Messrs. Dunn and Griffith. He
was spared; but so conducted himself during the next year as
to secure his excision by the Conference of 1850.

It must be noted that the express ground of the expulsion
of Messrs. Dunn and Griffith was their refusal to pledge them-
selves to (1) desist from sending communications to the Wes-
leyan Times, (2) discontinue the publication of the Wesley
Banner.

Messrs. Walton and George were severally admonished
from the Chair. The former received his rebuke in silence ;
the latter declared: “I am not conscious of having merited
such a reproof.”’

A resolution was adopted in which Conference recorded its
grateful sense of the services rendered to the Connexion by
the Watchman newspaper.

Mr. Rule proposed Mr. Bromley’s zmmedtate expulsion ; but
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. 459

Mr. Rigg wisely counselled the Conference to consider first the
effect which such a decision, so precipitately taken, would have
upon the people.

Next morning, on the reading of the Journal, a brother
complained that the audacity of Mr. Everett had not been
duly represented.

Dr. Bunting: ‘The original design of taking these Minutes was to
put down the vesolutions of the Conference in order that they might be
printed; but now they are merely intended to aid our recollection and keep
up in the mind an idea of the proceedings of the Conference. I am
very jealous of a certain newspaper. Reports which appear in party
newspapers are not authentic. JI have great confidence in one individual,
who has been accustomed to take from year to year reports of the
proceedings of Conference’’ (Mr. Fowler).

A long and warm discussion then took place upon the fact
that Mr. Everett’s name was passed over without objection in
the York District Meeting.

The Chairman, Mr. A. Bell: ‘‘ There was no ground for objection.
I waited till the last day for some instructions or charges from the
President or others.”’

The Secretary of the District asked the ex-President whether any
communication respecting Mr. Everett had been sent to the Chairman.
No answer.

Dr. Bunting: ‘It was a mistake of Dr. Newton not to send information
to the Chairman.”

Mr. Eastwood: ‘The Fly Sheets did not come before the District
Meeting.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘' The more shame for you. It ought to have done.”

I have found it necessary to note the most salient and
significant proceedings of this Conference, in order to account
for the effect produced by its expulsions on so many thousand
Methodists and on the outside public. If the thermometer of
feeling rise to fever heat in the cool, deliberative shade of a
sedate Pastoral conclave, it is not likely to stand at temperate
in the outside “blaze of day.” Immediately after describing
the heating, agitating, aggravating results of the Papers on
Wesleyan Matters, and the general tone of feeling manifested
by the Wesleyan ministry, clearly showing that the ensuing
Conference would take some decisive action, Dr. George Smith
adds: “ Under such excitement the Methodist people awaited
the proceedings of the Conference of 1849—that memorable
epoch in Wesleyan history.” The articles in the Watchman
designating as the next President a former President, who at
460 Hitstory or Meruonisau.

the foregoing Conference had received but a single vote, on the
ground that some ¢ritical and extraordinary measures must be
taken, and ‘its daring and untruthful disparagement of the
Secretary of the Conference, and its adoption of the anonymous
slanders published with regard to him in the aforesaid Papers,
had prepared the Methodist mind for very stringent measures
in the event of the Watchman's nominee being accepted by
Conference. The expulsion of Everett in a somewhat summary
fashion would not have startled anyone, nor, I have reason to
believe, very greatly troubled any considerable number of the
Methodist people. Anonymous slander was not appreciated by
the Connexional conscience in the main; and had anonymous
slander, by whomsoever propagated, been dealt with zmpartially,
very little, if any, harm would have resulted.

But the expulsion of two other ministers for the cause
announced—namely, the refusal to pledge themselves not to
send communications to the Wesleyan Times, and to discontinue
a comparatively harmless and honest periodical, the Wesley
Banner—for this the Connexion generally was unprepared.

As to Metropolitan Methodism, with which I was at that
time well acquainted, it came upon our people less like a
thunder-clap than like an earthquake shock and reel, threat-
ening displacement, cleavage, overthrow to a terrible extent.
The expulsion of Messrs. Dunn and Griffith took place on
Saturday morning, August 11th, and on Monday morning, the
13th, the President announced to the Conference that he
had received several memorials strongly remonstrating against
the expulsions. One of these came from a large body of
Leaders, Local-preachers, and Stewards in the Third London
Circuit. This had been done so quietly and so promptly that
neither Mr. Hardcastle nor myself had the slightest knowledge
or suspicion of any such proceeding. Our colleagues, Mr.
Duncan and Mr. Gilchrist Wilson, were at Conference.

I can never forget my first intelligence of these expulsions.
One of our foremost laymen, Dr. Luke Farrar, brother of the
Revs. Abraham and John Farrar, both of them in the
front rank of platform-men, called upon me. His countenance
wore an aspect of such grave significance that I feared
some other principal members of my flock had fallen victims
to the cholera, which was raging all around us. He fixed
his eyes on me and said, with bated breath: “So they’ve
expelled the three men.” “ Which tree men?” I answered.
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. 461

He rejoined, with slow and weighty emphasis : “ Zhe Conference
have expelled Everett, Dunn, and Griffith.” ‘No! I exclaimed
protestingly, ‘‘ Averett only.” He answered: “If you can’t
believe me, here are letters from my brothers Abraham and
John.’’ He seemed bewildered as to his own course, but quite
certain as to the effect upon the Circuit and the Connexion.

Wherever I went the impression seemed the same.
Methodism seemed to have gone into mourning. “All faces
gathered blackness.” It was like ‘ Black Friday” in the
City. When the Superintendent had returned from the
Conference he found notices scattered broadcast amongst
our people of a meeting to be held in the large school-
room of St. George’s chapel, for the purpose of raising a
subscription on behalf of the expelled ministers. He at once
called a ministers’ meeting at my house to consult as to the
course to be pursued. Each was asked to give his view in the
order of our juniority. Mr. Quick, the Thames missionary,
discreetly suggested that as his sea-going flock knew nothing of
the matter, he, too, had better keep as far from it as possible.
Mr. Gilchrist Wilson came next, my junior in the ministry
though my senior in the natural life. He was a very able and
very amiable brother, but cherished very high Scotch notions
of ministerial prerogative. He was for the sternest and the
promptest surgical treatment of the case: “ Cut off a limb to save
a body.” This was said with such rigidity that I could not but
exclaim :

“Have by some surgeon, Shylock, at your charge,
To stop his wounds, lest he do bleed to death.”

It was my turn next. My counsel came to this: “If you mean
to carry out Circuit measures on the same lines as these
Conference measures, I see nothing for it but Brother Wilson’s
policy of the knife. But mind, if you turn out one in this
Circuit you turn out a thousand at the very least.”

“’ Nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. ‘Wilson and the Superintendent
in one breath.

I proceeded thus: “Is it possible that you can have lived
and laboured amongst these people and not see that! These
people love their ministers above all men, and that is what is
moving them, in the main.”

“ Nonsense!” cried my dear friend and brother, Wilson. But
I mentioned proofs of the love of East-end Methodists for their
462 Astory or Merxopism.

ministers, which compelled a full admission of the fact first named,
and of a resolve to succour the expelled, which clearly proved
the latter. “But,” I added, “they also love their Leaders and
have confidence in them and each other.”

Brother Hardcastle took Mr. Wilson’s view; so I was left
alone as the advocate for what Burke calls ‘‘ healing measures ”
—the poultice first and the lancet only when that failed.

The Superintendent, indeed, admitted freely and fully that
the chief motive of the malcontents was sympathy with ministers
whom they thought to be aggrieved and hardly dealt with. He
said the main promoter of the sympathy movement had called on
him and asked in what circumstances the three expelled were
supposed to be, and that he had answered: “Everett lives as if
he were well off with the profits of his books and whatnot, and
Griffith’s wife is wealthy; but as for Sammy Dunn, he is not
worth a stver, but had to sell his books to keep up his subscrip-
tion to the missions.” In vain I counselled the giving as much
tether as was possible to an excited but kind-hearted people,
to turn Nelson’s blind eye to brave men’s breach of discipline,
and shift Sir Joshua Reynolds’s ear trumpet when leal-hearted
Methodists spoke rashly.

It was resolved to take the most stringent measures without
more delay. The first step was to prevent, if possible, and if
not, to declare Methodistically actionable, the announced meeting
in St. George’s schoolroom, to raise a sympathetic contribution
for the three expelled.

Brother Wilson had been trained as a Scotch lawyer or
writer to the Signet. He counselled the calling a meeting of
the Trustees of St. George's, and inducing them to take out
an injunction against the meeting. It was resolved, however,
to consult Dr. Bunting on the question. So we betook ourselves
to the Mission House, and were asked into his room. He had
himself but just arrived. We found him seated in the middle
of the room, and instinctively ranged ourselves two on either
side his chair. The scene was unforgettable. The really grand
old minister and administrator ; ecclesiastically speaking, “a
man of wars and woes,” with his commanding contour, his
venerable, senatorial, statesmanly, impressive mien and brow ;
on either side of him two oddly assorted but markedly
individualised individualities, leaning towards him with a
reverence most unfeigned.

Mr. Wilson’s counsel as to the Trustees’ meeting was sub-
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. 463

mitted to him, and after deep deliberation he approved it. The
Trustees’ meeting was accordingly convened. In the meantime
being invited to dine at Mr. Scott's, I entreated him to revisit
his old Circuit and exert his matchless influence upon the
malcontents; for the reverence and affection for him in the
Third London Circuit was universal and profound; the most
effective leader of the movement, Mr. Chipchase, regarding him
as the ideal Methodist administrator. But I could not convince
Mr. Scott of the utility of his intervention, and when I called
on Mr. Chipchase I saw that Mr. Scott was right.

The Trustees met, the four ministers being present, but
the Trustees definitely refused to inhibit the announced meeting
on the premises. Mr. Chipchase was their mouthpiece. He
showed himself throughout the four years’ contest the ablest
argumentative advocate on that side of the question. Martin,
of Altrincham, was their most fluent, graceful, and persuasive
speaker, reminding one of his father-in-law, Mr. Allen, of all
the New Connexion preachers the most eloquent. The Cheshire
Martin was to the one side what the Cornish Garland was
to the other. Chipchase was the coolest debater I ever heard.
But his was the coolness of concentration. He always had
himself and his resources well in hand. I, like everybody else,
himself, I believe, included, had no previous suspicion of his
powers ; though but for an irrepressible egotism he would have
been the most popular Local-preacher in the Circuit. J had
never exchanged a syllable with him on ‘“ Methodist politics”
till I went to try to induce him not to do anything that might
tend to destroy the work of God in one of the most fruitful fields
of Methodism. But the most portentous aspect of the
dissatisfaction in the Third London Circuit was its deadly
calmness. Mr. Chipchase’s points, which carried the Trustees’
meeting, were these: The expelled ministers seem to us to be
objects rather of pity than of condemnation. The mode and
the express ground of their excision are to a high degree
objectionable. Mr. Everett is stated to have been expelled for
refusing to answer an incriminating question without knowing
his accuser or the crime of which he was accused. But that
same ground had been taken in the Conference by other
ministers, who had nevertheless been very differently treated.
Besides, the law and constitution of Methodism had prescribed
a very different course in the case of any Minister coming
under suspicion. It is said in justification of this confessedly
464 History oF Meruopism.

irregular procedure that it was rendered necessary by the resort
to anonymous attacks on character by some person or persons
unknown, who could not otherwise have been detected. But,
it was replied, attacks on ministerial character had been publicly
sold at the Book Room ; and although this fact had come
before the Conference in its ordinary course of business by the
resolution of the Nottingham District Meeting, far more strongly
condemnatory than the resolution on the Wesley Banner, which
it had accompanied, yet not the slightest notice had been taken by
the Conference of the anonymous detractions and disingenuous
imputations in the Papers on Wesleyan Matters, nor the least
attempt to detect and expose their authors. Mr. Dunn and
Mr. Griffith were stated to have been expelled for refusing to
pledge themselves not to send communications to the Wesleyan
Times unless their brethren would, on their part, pledge
themselves not to send communications to the Watchman,
another paper which was agitating the Connexion by its
interference with the affairs of Conference; and _ because
they would not bind themselves to suppress an edifying
periodical which contained no other than defensive controversy,
and that far less disturbing to the people’s minds than was
the newspaper to which the Conference had passed a laudatory
vote of thanks. ‘All this,” said Chipchase, “bore to himself
and many others the appearance of an arbitrary and high-handed
mode of getting rid of a troublesome minority; and as
expulsion implied the infliction of a severe pecuniary penalty
as well as the loss of status and sphere, he did not think that
the holding ori Methodist premises of a meeting to form a relief
fund on their behalf was a misappropriation of those premises.”
In the course of this speech he adopted Mr. Bromley’s epithet
‘‘un-English,” and Mr. Duncan interjected laughingly: “ But
{am ot English.” Chipchase paused and fixed his eyes upon
his interrupter, and answered with a significant, incisive
emphasis : ‘ Vo, Sir, you are ot.”

Mr Chipchase was followed by others in the same strain ;
and the Trustees resolved not to take out the prohibitive in-
junction. Thus opened the campaign. The reasons given by
the Trustees for not prohibiting the meeting were substantially
identical with those subsequently put forth at the meeting in
St. George’s schoolroom. It was agreed that the Superin-
tendent, supported by his colleagues, should appear at the
beginning of the meeting and protest. My earnest counsel
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. 465

was that, having done this, if the meeting should not forthwith
disperse, we should quietly leave the room. I approached my
two Scotch colleagues on their most accessible side, that of
Presbyterial propriety and dignity. I held that to continue
in the meeting after such a declaration would be to let down
our persons and our office, and to place ourselves in a ludicrously
false position. We should lower ourselves in the sight of our
own people by the inversion of the true and customary order
of affairs. Accustomed to the pulpit and the platform, and
to be looked up to from below, we should now see how
a shepherd looked and felt when, from a lower room, he
looked up to members of his flock, seated in their chairs
of state, and “begged leave to ask,” or “sat beneath the
sound” of their strictures, criticisms, and possibly their “ calls
to order.” If we maintained the gravity of mutes whilst
actionable language was employed, we should be set down as
having no strong reasons to bring forth. If we were incessantly
starting to our feet with objections and corrections, we should
be drawn into a most unseemly altercation.

But my colleagues looked upon the matter from quite
another point of view. My own mind, however, was relieved
by the Superintendent’s telling me that, to keep Mr. Gandy
from the meeting, he had appointed his Class to meet for
tickets, and wished me to take the duty.

This was a task much more to my taste than attending a
possibly contentious meeting. But I received full accounts of
the proceedings from ministers and people and a carefully-
taken report.

The large schoolroom was crowded. The three ministers,
Messrs. Duncan, Hardcastle, and Gilchrist Wilson, mingled
with the crowd. Mr. Hildreth Kay was voted into the Chair.
He was certainly the best selection they could have made.
By temperament reserved, sedate, and taciturn, he was by
habit studious, cautious, and reflective. He was deeply devout,
and his experience, as given at the Quarterly Visitation of
his Class, was living, thoughtful, humble, and all the more
manly for being so childlike and so simple.

He stated the object of the meeting to be deciding on the
best means of giving practical expression of their sympathy
for thé ‘three ministers who had been deprived of their
ministerial position and maintenance. He would not charac-
terise the manner in which this had been effected, but would

EE
466 Altstory oF MeErHoDISM.

simply read the statements put forth on both sides, that of
the expelled, and that which had been issued by the authority
of Conference, and should leave the meeting to judge whether
they were fit objects of sympathy on the part of the Methodist
people. :

Here the Superintendent interposed the question whether
all who crowded the schoolroom were office-bearers in the
Circuit.

The Chairman : ‘ With all deference, I think the Superintendent himself
is better able to answer that question than I am.”

Mr. Duncan: ‘‘ The premises in which we are assembled are for Wesleyan
purposes, and I must forbid any observations being made which would reflect
upon the action of the Conference in this case." Some signs of disapproval
of this statement being audible, the Chairman ‘immediately rebuked them:
‘‘We shall gain nothing by such expressions of feeling. We must keep our
minds in a proper state for weighing the facts on either side.” Mr. Duncan
also solemnly warned the meeting about excitement, as that might betray
them into expressions which would expose them to unwished-for con-
sequences. When the Chairman began to read the statements of the case
by both sides, another protest against the proceedings was read by one of
the two objecting Trustees. Some impatience being manifested, the Chair-
man said: ‘‘ The meeting will not prevent discussion unless it be carried
so far as to destroy the very object of the meeting.”

The Rev. P. Hardcastle having interrupted twice, the Chairman blandly
remarked: ‘‘I beg to remind Mr. Hardcastle that his Superintendent has
distinctly pronounced this to be an illegal meeting. Mr. Hardcastle can
scarcely persist in taking part in such a meeting before his Super-
intendent’s eyes."’-

Mr. Chipchase then thanked the Superintendent for warning them against
excitement. He confessed his own need of such a warning, lest he should
say anything he might afterwards regret. Excitement should be chastened
by prudence and regard to the principles of our holy religion. ‘The great
majority of us are office-bearers. I move: That this meeting expresses its
firm and unabated attachment to Methodism as taught in the works of the
Rev. John Wesley. Whatever of spiritual good we may possess, we owe
it, under God, to Methodism. We are holding upon Wesleyan premises,
with the permission of almost the entire body of Trustees, a meeting for
a purely Wesleyan object."

‘

His speech was a variation on that in the Trustees’ meeting.

He finished it by saying :

“If I have said anything that reflects upon our ministers, I apologise
for it and retract it; I love our ministers. We are told that this meeting
is irregular. I will not dispute this. But we are assured by a high authority
(the President) that, ‘in such extraordinary circumstances, we must not stick
at technicalities.’ I am sorry at the tone of threat in the Superintendent's
speech.” He besought them all not to let this matter interfere any further
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. 467

with their Church work. For his own part, he should meet his Class, attend to
his appointments on the plan, his weekly Leaders’ Meeting, and all his other
duties, just as steadily as ever, and he hoped they would all do the same.
Contribute to a fund for the relief of the three expelled ministers, memorialise
the Conference, and stick to Methodism and its blessed means of grace,
if possible, more closely than before. ‘ Keep to Methodism. What would you
gain if you left it?”

Mr. Biddle, Local-preacher, Leader, and Trustee, supported the resolution.
He was the patriarch of our cause at Stratford, and a most patriarchal
personage he was. His keynote was: ‘‘I love our Preachers,” which evoked
a burst from the rest of the meeting: ‘‘ Andso do we.”’ It seemed to him that
some of them had been hardly and unfairly treated, and therefore claimed the
sympathy of the people. Mr. Volckman, another Local-preacher, of the well-
known firm of wholesale confectioners, followed in the same tone and on the
same line. His house was the ministers’ home at Stratford, so they were
mutually well acquainted, respected, and beloved.

Mr. Hunt moved a resolution “to raise a fund for the support
of the expelled ministers.” He was an able and popular Local-
preacher, and Secretary of the Quarterly Meeting. He was an
enthusiastic Preacher’s man, a shrewd, successful man of business,
gentlemanly by habit and association, as well as by nature and by
grace, with a redundant cheerfulness and kindliness, which over-
flowed in a rich, delightsome humour of which he held the patent.
But, unlike the other speakers, he was impulsive and impetuous,
and there was an acid in his speech which caused an effervescence.
He said: “I know from Mr. Duncan’s own lips that
his own sympathies will not allow him to interfere with
the raising a subscription for the unfortunate men.” His point
was that the ordinary rules of equal justice and fair play had
been disregarded in the present case; that it was clearly unfair
and unequal that what was announced as a law essential and
inviolable should be brought to bear upon three men, whilst
others who had broken it were left scot-free. He pointed to the
disregard of Mr. W. M. Bunting’s protest against the manifest
unfairness of appointing on the judicial committee on the case
three men who were already committed to an adverse judgment,
one of them being, in fact, the prosecutor in chief! This puint
seemed to tell upon the meeting more than any other.

He then called attention to the strange unfairness of making
the continuance of Messrs. Dunn and Griffith in the Wesleyan
Methodist ministry dependent on different conditions from those
on which they had originally received and hitherto retained that
ministry ; yet they were quite willing to accept those conditions,
if the like conditions were laid upon the other members of the

EE 2
468 flistory or Meruonism.

Conference. They were forced to choose between promising not
to send communications to the Wesleyan Times or being expelled
from the Wesleyan Methodist ministry ; whilst the rest were
left at liberty to contribute to another paper, which took
equal liberties in intermeddling with Conference matters and
with Conference officials. He pointed out instances in which the
Watchman had shown itself to be the one-sided organ of a party.
He contended that the whole affair had too much of the appearance
of a party triumph.

A resolution to appoint a committee of management for
a relief fund was moved by Mr. Wells, a venerable Leader, and
seconded by Mr. Holman, a Trustee, and Leader of the largest Class
in the St. George’s Society. He was an old Cornish Methodist,
and a more enthusiastic admirer of Methodist Preachers I never
met with. His reminiscences of the sayings and doings of the
“bright succession”’ of first-class Methodist Preachers who had
laboured in the Third London Circuit for a stretch of years were
seemingly exhaustless. To meet his Sunday afternoon Class was
a heavy toil but a richer luxury. One always found between
forty and fifty actually present, and each with a living personal
experience. He was our finest singer; his rich mellow notes
could be easily distinguished when the large chapel was crowded
with exultant worshippers.

A subscription of nearly £80 was made upon the spot.

Mr. Duncan was rightly most reluctant to commence hostilities.
His expository and yet most animated preaching was greatly
valued by the people who had been trained to solid, thoughtful
ministrations. He soon saw that the expulsion of one of their
beloved and trusted Leaders would involve the devastation of the
Circuit, and we had 2,665 members, the largest number in any
Circuit excepting York and City Road. Our eleven well-attended
chapels, some of them amongst the finest in the Body, would
be almost emptied. There was no probability of obtaining
a verdict at either the Spitalfields or the St. George’s Leaders’
Meetings of any capital infringement of Methodist law in a public
expression of opinion adverse to the expulsion of the three
ministers.

Mr. Duncan’s three new colleagues—Dr. Stinson, W. O.
Booth, and Theophilus Woolmer—were of ‘the finest spirit, pre-
eminently men of peace. Two of them were closely connected
with one or other of the expelled. Mr. Booth had been con-
verted under the early ministry of Mr. Everett, and Mr. Woolmer
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. 469

was brother-in-law to William Griffith. The sympathisers, on
their part, shrank from doing anything which might necessitate
decisive action on the part of Mr. Duncan. Their eye spared the
splendid congregations and societies which they had seen grow
up and had helped to build up. So Mr. Duncan took no action
for four anxious months. During that interval I revisited my
old Circuit more than once. I preached at Spitalfields on the
Sunday evening. The fine old chapel was positively packed ;
even the pulpit steps had to be utilised as seats. It was an
inspiring and at the time an affecting spectacle. I preached on
Christian unity, of course without the slightest allusion to the
disturbed state of the Circuit and Connexion. I chose our most
subduing hymns on unity, and how mightily they sang! I called
upon my ,dear old Superintendent and conversed with all his
colleagues and with the leading friends, entreating them not
to sacrifice one of the grandest Circuits in Methodism to the one
side or the other of a Conference dispute.

The first and fatal prosecution—that of the, on the whole,
most notable and influential man of all, Mr. Gandy—took
place on the 14th of January, 1850. The indictment, brought
by the Superintendent, was his “having taken the Chair at a
meeting in which the action of the Conference in relation to the
three expelled ministers had been freely questioned.” The Leaders’
Meeting did not see in this act anything worthy of Connexional
death.

Mr. Hunt was subsequently, on the charge of having spoken
at a meeting of the kind in terms of disapproval of the same
Conference act, brought to trial before the Leaders’ Meeting at
St. George’s. They viewed the matter in the same light as
their brethren at the mother chapel, and could not give a
verdict fatal to his membership. So the last extreme resort of
a Special District Meeting was fallen back upon. It was seen
to be .bootless to arraign before a Leaders’ Meeting the two
others whom it was thought expedient to expel—Messrs.
Chipchase and Hildreth Kay. This ultimate appliance, the
precedent, for which was the Leeds organ discord of 1827,
more than two-and-twenty years before, was again brought
forth. It was noted as a remarkable coincidence that the
examiner-in-chief was the same in both cases, Dr. Bunting,
who was in neither case the Chairman.

There were some conspicuous awkwardnesses about the
composition of the tribunal on which hung the Methodistic
47° History oF Meruopism.

fate of these four devoted Methodists. I remember talking
over the matter shortly afterwards with Dr. Rigg, and
he fully admitted that to English eyes it could not but
present a questionable aspect. In the first place, the
authoritative summoner and the President of the court was
the very individual who had so energetically conducted the
proceedings of the Conference, for criticising which the four
accused were put in peril of their Methodistic lives. Again,
the four laymen had to confront as arbiters of their Con-
nexional existence a hundred and sixteen ministers, of whom
the odd sixteen were especially committed beforehand to a
verdict against them.

The Leaders of Spitalfields and of St. George’s were sum-
moned before the District Meeting, and informed that the one
in acquitting Mr. Gandy, and the other in acquitting Mr.
Hunt, had given a verdict contrary to the evidence, and had
thus demonstrated their unfitness for trying other cases of the kind.

The Leaders protested that they had returned a con-
scientious finding according to their own best judgment, and
withdrew.

The District Meeting then adjourned for a week; and
Messrs. Gandy and Hunt and two others, Messrs. Chipchase
and Hildreth Kay, who had not been tried at all, were
informed by letter from the President that, though they had
forfeited the privilege of membership, the District Meeting
would hear what they had to say in arrest of judgment. They
accordingly appeared at the appointed hour. They then
delivered in a written protest, signed by eighty-two office-
bearers of the Circuit, against a reversal by the District
Meeting of the verdict of the Leaders’ Meetings in the case
of Messrs. Gandy and Hunt, and against the unconstitutional
denial of a trial by their peers to their worthy and beloved
brethren, Messrs. Chipchase and Hildreth Kay. The four
accused delivered in also on their own account a written
declaration to the effect that, being already informed by the
President himself that their membership was “ forfeited,’ all
further altercation would be a waste of temper and of time,
although they were also informed that they were not yet
expelled. They then made their bow and silently withdrew.
The District Meeting, after some discussion, authorised the
Superintendent to withhold the tickets of the four brethren.

Thus closed this scene of the lamentable tragedy. The
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. 471

catastrophe soon followed. This magnificent Circuit was almost
destroyed. The noble picture of the seventy-second Psalm was
all but reversed. The glorious harvest field which, in the
Spirit’s mighty breath, was wont to ‘shake like Lebanon,”
with all its green and spreading branches, became once more
‘a handful of corn upon the top of the mountains.’ When
the storm had spent its fury, and kind Charles Westlake came,
with a diminished staff, to take the Superintendency of the
devastated Circuit, his welcome to it might have been: ‘ Let
this ruin be under thy hand.’ No one who never saw the
ruin can duly estimate the mighty work of restoration which
God accomplished through the zeal and liberality and perse-
verance of Alexander Macaulay, who to such a wonderful
extent succeeded in resuscitating and rehabilitating the Circuit
that had sent him out, building four large new chapels, exactly
suited to Methodist preaching, worship, and fellowship, and in
prominent positions.

But too many Superintendents in 1849 did not trouble
. themselves at all with such ‘trivial technicalities as trial by
Leaders’ Meeting or Special District Meeting. They simply
drew their pen across a “ sympathiser’s”’ name in a Class book, or it
a Leader had contributed to the fund for the expelled ministers, his
Class book was just pocketed and his members left ticketless and
thunderstruck. Most of these exploiters of expulsion, whose
names it would be easy to produce, as well as those of their
desolated fields of battle, were already ‘ famous in the congrega-
tion” for what Richard Watson had described as “ an intemperate
use of authority,” and what Dr. Bunting had described, in his
stronger style, as ‘‘a Bashaw policy,” which the remedial
portion of the laws of 1835 had striven hard to guard against as
“trash and unwarranted expulsion.”’ But it is fair to say that they
had only retrograded to the policy of 1828, when breaches of the
law, in favour of authority, were proclaimed “constitutional in
the extraordinary circumstances” (Minutes of Conference). Thus
a probationer, now a venerable supernumerary, then on the
President’s list of reserve, who was sent soon after Conference
as a supply to Bradford (Eastbrooke) received on this wise his
first lesson in the administration of a Circuit. The first time
his Superintendent, the new ‘“‘ Angel of the Church,” winged his
way to one of the most fruitful outlying “ Hills” of Zion, where
we had a lively society of between 100 and 200 members, and
a large, commodious, crowded chapel, he could not wait for overt
472 fAlrstory or Meruopism.

acts of sympathy towards the expelled, but felt bound to make
that the leading question as to the spiritual condition of the
Church. Finding that the Leaders had subscribed to the Relief
Fund of the three expelled, he took their Class books and be-
stowed them in his pocket ; and thus departed all the recognised
Methodism of the place. Thus vanished, “‘ like the baseless fabric
of a vision,” a goodly Christian Church which it had required a
century to build: the first course of which was laid by the
preaching mason of the neighbour village, Birstall, John Nelson,
the fellow-labourer and friend of both the Wesleys.

How the town society might have fared, but for three
timely facts, one cannot say. But, just at this nick of
time, an incident occurred which checked, to a notable extent,
these summary evictions. The Superintendent of the sister
Circuit, Bradford, Kirkgate, on returning from the Conference,
had found that a young Local-preacher had taken part in a
public meeting in, I think, the Temperance Hall, the purpose
of which was the raising an annuity for the three expelled. The
Superintendent was about to leave the Circuit, had chivalrously
resolved not to leave the household of faith in an insanitary state
for his successor to set right. So, having inquired into the
report, and found that ‘behold! it was true!” he met the
sympathiser’s Class for tickets, and withheld his token of member-
ship in the Methodist Society.

Now it so happened that this young man was the son of
a successful minister, a but half-flogged though full-fledged
Grove lad, and had himself served in the ranks of the ministry
in South Shields and at Settle. Being a great outdoor Preacher
and, like his father, a resolute revivalist, he had vociferated
himself to the grave’s mouth. He was the brother detailed
to evangelise the overflow of Billy Dawson’s congregation,
which crowded the capacious sanctuary, Brunswick, Leeds, the
last time he stood in its stately pulpit. He was the last man ever
arrested in England for preaching out of doors without a licence.
This was at Kirkby Malham, in the west of Yorkshire.

Now when he found himself on the wrong side of the
Methodist door, he rubbed his solemn, penetrating eyes, and
asked himself whether this sudden, expeditious dismemberment was
quite according to Grindrod. That refractory Judge Blackstone
of Methodism not only assured him it was not, but went so far
as to point out to him the process of redress. So he reported
himself to the Chairman of the District as illegally expelled, and
THE CONFERENCE OF 1849. _ 473

wished to know his remedy. The result was a Minor District
Meeting, which reinstated the complainant. This decision had a
very salutary influence, saving hundreds of well-worth-keeping
members to the dear ‘ Old Body.” It showed that members
could not be dismembered in the cavalier fashion which had
been set by some respected ministers. This case came up, of
course, at Conference, and, of course, I watched its progress with
intensest interest. Happily for Methodism, the Chairman
of the District was no less able, steadfast, cool, and tried a
champion of liberty and law than Francis A. West. A determined
struggle was kept up, under the leadership of Dr. Bunting, to
rescue the over-zealous Superintendent from the humiliation
involved in the restoration of the excised member. The question
was debated foot by foot, like a battle in a mountain pass. But
the veteran commander found himself confronted by a redoubt-
able antagonist in Mr. West. At last the question turned upon
the sweep and stringency of the law of 1835 as applied to private
members, and if Dr. Bunting could have made his point, the
Minor District Meeting would have been nonsuited. But West
then waxed bold, and, quietly confronting his interrogators,
brought ¢hem up by this strong exclamation: ‘You will scarcely -
make your ‘ Declaratory Law’ directly contradict the law of
which it claims to be declaratory.”

Dr. Bunting saw that the case was lost, and lost no time
in giving up his sword with grace and dignity. He moved
the adoption of the Report of the committee, which Dr.
Newton seconded.

By this decision a most valuable man was saved to
Methodism, besides the hundreds kept within the fold. This
was the redoubtable William Savage, Robert Fowler’s school-
fellow, who became his fellow-minister in Canada.

The Superintendent of the Bradford (Kirkgate) Circuit
was not the only worthy minister who, under the irritation
and exacerbation of the fly Sheets controversy, seemed
for the moment to lose head and heart, and act in strangest
contrariety to his habits and his antecedents, and the
whole context of his ministerial history. Some Circuits
bore Methodistically the aspect of a country under martial
law. Judgment was given at the drumhead by not yet com-
missioned youngsters against veteran Class Leaders, who had
been in the service twice as long as their condemnators had
been in the world. Among the most famous of these aspirants
474 History or MeErxHopism.

to be heroes of excision was an intellectualist probationer. His
chief signs of an apostle were Class books, coolly pocketed and
walked away with without more ado than, “You are no
longer a Leader.”

The preservation or dispersion of the societies in. various
Circuits was, for the most part, a matter of administration.
In the same town one society would lose a thousand and another
hardly ten, simply because in one the case was treated surgically
and in the other pharmaceutically. Another powerful factor
in the case, however, was the temper of the leading laymen.
Thus the two Bradford Circuits were incalculably indebted to
the sober-mindedness, sound-heartedness, and practical sagacity
of the men of the greatest influence. But for them there could
have been no Bradford Conference in 1853. But, alas! at that
disjointed time we had men whose predestination seemed to be
“to lay fenced cities in ruinous heaps.”

But the great Barnet Battles, or Towton Fields, of Method-

ism were not fought till after the central Conference of the
century—that in Wesley’s chapel, in the year of grace 1850.
Up to that time fond hopes of some concessive or conciliatory
measure had been entertained by thousands. Hence a strong
check had been made upon secession. The resolute exci-
sionists had said: ‘We are prepared to part with 30,000
members.” To which I had always answered: “We may
think ourselves well off if we lose but 50,000,”
' «As Conference approached, the Phztons who at that time
were entrusted with the horses of the sun naturally asked
themselves : ‘But what if Mr. Fowler be elected President ?”
The question cannot but arise: Can anything be done to
Stop the effusion of Connexional blood? If Mr. Fowler hold
the Chair, a spirit of moderation and pacification is certain to
prevail. By some means or other ¢ha¢ must be precluded.

At first it was resolved to try diplomacy. Anonymous
defamation and detraction had gone as far as it dare go. A '
genial and persuasive brother was selected to wait on Mr.
Fowler and advise him to ‘retire from his candidature for
the Presidency” this year, on “condition that everybody should
vote for him next” year. But, “ surely, in vain the net is spread
in the sight of” eyes like those of Joseph Fowler! ‘ The
integrity of the upright shall guide him.” Nehemiah-wise,
he “perceived that the Lord had not sent him.” So he
replied to his kind counsellor (who was himself an altogether
THE CONFERENCE OF 1850 AWD ITS RESULTS. 475

innocent implement in the hand of others) that he should be
most happy to oblige his flattering friends if they would ask
something which it were possible to accomplish. He did
not see how he could retire from that which he had never
attempted to approach. He had never thought of putting
up for the Presidency, and had never moved a lip or
finger to obtain it. He would not make himself look unutter-
ably foolish by any such assumption. His state of health soon
became such as quite unfitted him for the labour of the Presidency.

THE CONFERENCE OF 1850 AND ITS RESULTS.

One of the liveliest discussions at this Conference was that
which referred to Dr. Beaumont's mild administration of the
Sixth London Circuit in those wild, tempestuous times. The
leading malcontents were Mr. Grosjean, a thriving West-end
tradesman with Gallic blood careering in his veins ; Mr. Jones,
a sturdy, strong-built Welshman, whose proper sphere was
a revival prayer-meeting ; and, less prominently but not less
practically, an astute solicitor, the son of the saintly commentator,
Sutcliffe, and another wealthy man. Dr. Beaumont took the oppo-
site course to that of the most approved administrators. He hated
putting away, and did as little of it as he might. The case took
up some three sittings, Beaumont’s speech in vindication of his
action occupying several hours of an evening and a morning
sitting, as he dealt distinctly with the convoluted charges brought
against him. He was sentenced to be censured from the Chair.
He received the Presidential reprimand in perfect silence.

The most abandoned uproar I ever witnessed in my life
took place in Wesley’s chapel during this same crucial
Conference. We were absorbed in an interesting discussion,
of which I was taking careful notes (mot for a newspaper),
when, lifting my eyes to take a dip of ink, close beside the
door of my pew, I suddenly became aware that there stood
beside me in the aisle no other personage than Samuel Dunn.
The apparition of the first Samuel at Endor was not so un-
expected. Immediately the sonorous voice of Isaac Denison
broke in on the discussion. ‘Mr. President, Samuel Dunn is
in the Conference.” Instantly almost the entire Conference
started to its feet and shouted and gesticulated wildly. The
sedatest and the calmest men, even on the platform, whom
I had thought incapable of perturbation, conspired to turn that
venerable sanctuary into the likeness of the theatre at Ephesus.
476 firsrory oF Meruovism.

The President was as utterly ignored as if there were no order-
keeping officer within the Council. All this time the Wesley
Banner-bearer stood stretching forth his hand, which grasped
a little packet tightly folded. The priests who hurried out
the leprous King Uzziah from the Temple could not have
shown a fiercer indignation and disgust than was then exhibited.
Dr. Dixon said to me: “No council of New Zealand Chiefs
could have misbehaved themselves as we have done to-day.”
Dunn threw upon the floor his subscription to the Annuitant
Society.

Another painful part of the proceedings was the condemna-
tion of Brother Thomas Rowlands. I have described him as he
was just after the stress of weather in 1835. But fifteen years
had aged him notably ; he was now as grave and reserved as
he had been sprightly and mercurial. His sentence was like that
of Shimei, a circumscribing of his local habitation. But his
doom was the reverse of that of the vituperative owner of
“‘Shimei’s hand and Shimei’s tongue.” By a sort of Five Mile
Act he was forbidden to reside in London, which then was
covered by the phrase, “Within the Bills of Mortality,” or to
inhale the sweet, strong air of Norfolk, which at that date was
Methodistically miasmatic.

It pitied one to see his tall,spare figure and to listen to his
solemn and sermonic cadences as he stood upon a pew-seat to
speak for himself and to hear his judgment. But he was one of
the few men whom I ever heard repay to Dr. Bunting “a Roland
for an Oliver.” As he pleaded that his loyalties should be set
over against his lapses, Dr. Bunting interjected: ‘‘ As Mr. Reece
once said, ‘ Brother Rowland is always good in good company.’”
(A laugh.) Brother Rowland answered, in the most measured
‘and didactic tones: “If it were lawful to quote the dead in
disparagement of the living, I might entertain the Conference
with words of Richard Reece respecting Jabez Bunting not more
complimentary.than those just quoted as to Thomas Rowland.”
This evidently hit the mighty hitter on a tender part, for he
replied with bated breath, ‘I daresay.” For Richard Reece
was well known to be not quite always entirely satisfied with
Dr. Bunting’s measures or his mannerisms.

Notwithstanding all these drastic measures, there was in many
breasts a mighty yearning for the sending forth of the “ mild,
pacific dove” which had borne the olive branch across the
assuaged, subsiding waters of 1795 to 1797. Knowing this, a few
THE CONFERENCE OF 1850 AND ITs RESULTS. 477

of the partisans of pacification met as friends in council. As the
youngest, I was selected to take notes. Our object was to rally
the disheartened wellwishers of conciliated law and liberty.
I have still the notes of our proceedings and the outline of our
resolutions. Dr. Dixon, although sadly out of heart and obliged
to lie upon the sofa all the time, engaged to take the part of
Abner, and, standing on the platform, to cry: “ Shall the sword
devour for ever? Knowest thou not that it will be bitter-
ness in the latter end?”

George Steward was to follow with his holy incantation of
gentleness and concord, and then was to come John Burton, with
his quiet, low-voiced earnestness and his practical lucidity. I
cannot forget his prayer at our lowly, still conventicle, which
Christ’s presence consecrated. It was on the key of “ Lift up thy
prayer for the remnant that is left,” and, like the ointment of a
man’s right hand, bewrayed the secret of his popularity. The
rest of us were to follow as the occasion served, so as at least
to reassure the party of peace they were “no their lane.”
Beaumont was to strike in if any pause occurred or any powerful
speaker needed a reply. It had been expected that Dr. Dixon
would himself be called in question, for he was as deep in the
mud of moderation as Beaumont in its mire; but his mighty
sermon on the evening of the Conference—Sunday, in John
Wesley’s pulpit, and in John Wesley’s spirit and power, had over-
awed assailants. As he reasoned on, “I am ready to be offered
up, and the time of my departure is at hand ; I have fought a good
fight, I have finished my course, J have kept the faith,” such men
as William Bunting and William Arthur “sat rapt.” His grand
horse-head seemed: to sniff the battle-storm. He might have
been addressing the assembly represented in the picture which
once formed part of the adornment of many thousands of the
dwellings of Jacob, and which I still rejoice to gaze upon and
single out my grandfather from among the listening throng. Of
that earnest gathering not one beside myself survives; John
Burton, almost coeval with the century, has lately ‘“ overtaken
his mates.”’

Of course, the most fitting time for making our appeal to the
sentiment and relations of the Brethren was felt to be when the
memorials from the Circuits should be considered. But these
were not brought forward until the very last sitting of the
Conference, which, like the preceding, was drawn out to its last

legal limit.
478 flrstory or Meruopism.

Dr. Beaumont, when these important documents were introduced, stood up
and said: ‘I grieve to find the consideration of so vital a matter postponed
till Conference is at its very last gasp, and it is actually impossible to give
either the individual memorials or the report of the committee the considera-
tion which they imperatively demand, and when it is utterly useless to attempt
to do justice to them. By this misarrangement of the order of business we
are shut up to the course prearranged for'us. Conference should strive to be
at one with the people. The people are as essential to the idea of a ministry
as the ministry is essential to the idea of a Church. We cannot exist
alone, and we must not act alone.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting: “At this late period of the Conference we are not
prepared to come to a unanimous declaration of our conviction with regard to
the memorials. I am not a friend to some of the regulations of 1835, but will
conscientiously carry them out as long as they exist. At this time especially
we ought to show disfavour to all attempts at setting at naught, or not paying
respectful attention to, memorials legally prepared and expressed. Regretting
the possibility of a divided vote, Iam of opinion that it would be wise, and
would better meet the views of some sound-minded Superintendents, to remit
the memorials to a large committee, and to direct that committee to consider
whether the resolutions should not go forth accompanied by a consideration of
admissible points which the Conference might take up, and to invite any
proper parties to contribute towards the conclusions of that committee.”

Mr. G. B. Macdonald: ‘‘I entertain a strong opinion that the appoint-
ment of a large and fairly constituted committee to consider such proposed
alterations as are compatible with maintaining our principles intact would do
great good. Many of our best friends wish us to do so. There is much
uneasiness in many Circuits from which no memorials have been sent. The
subjects of the memorials are numerous and important. It would be regarded
as an evidence of a spirit of conciliation and of willingness to give due
attention to memorials which come through a legal channel, and yet had not
been considered until the very last sitting of an exhausted Conference.”’

Mr. Arthur: “I feel that we have reached a critical point, and that on our
present course, perhaps more than in any single act of the Conference, or even
on all its acts, depends the future of that Methodism to which 1 am committed
for life. The question before us is simply whether a committee shall be
appointed or not. It is best not to look on this question in the light of making
a concession, but in the simple light of propriety and wisdom. I would
suggest whether it might not be desirable to consider the propriety of taking
steps to provide the people with an authentic record of the Conference
debates, and also the desirableness of giving our people greater facility of
expressing their wishes to the Conference by providing some wider door of
legitimate access. On these points it is with me a grave question whether we
might not adopt practical improvements, and therefore I earnestly desire to
see acommittee named. I would solemnly remind the Conference that all
eyes are looking forward to a crisis in Methodism. I implore the Conference
to appoint a committee.”

Mr. Naylor: ‘In my opinion a committee is unnecessary. As for easy
access to the Conference by the people, what more can be required than is
now possessed? As to reporters, any method would be better than the
present.”
THE CONFERENCE OF 1850 AND ITS RESULTS. 479.

The ex-President, Mr. T. Jackson: ‘I earnestly deprecate the appoint-
ment of a committee. I think such an arrangement unnecessary; and it
would be positively injurious, and would give an impulse to agitation and
shake the confidence of the best friends of Methodism. The minds of
several of our people have been unsettled, and a call for indefinite changes
has been raised; but the great body of our societies are satisfied, and desire
nothing but «a more efficient and zealous working of the system as it at
present exists. A committee will not meet the expectation of those who
desire change, and it will grieve those who desire it not. Will the Con-
ference encourage those men in their idle and sinful course by appointing
a committee? "’

Dr. Newton: ‘‘I am of opinion that the disadvantages of a committee
would be greater than the advantages.”’

Mr. Scott: ‘‘I have thought that, if cause could be shown to our true
people, not to the agitators—I wish them to go, and a blessing go with
them. But many sound friends have been led to raise questions, and what I
think is, that if they are prepared to show cause against minor points or
make any practical improvement, it may be well. I am not prepared to say
that everything in Methodism, as it is, is the best that could be. I have there-.
fore advised the appointment of a committee for such objects; but I
would prescribe all essential points as settled already. I am, however,
quite willing to waive my own view.”

Other speakers took the view of Mr. T. Jackson and Mr.
Naylor. Mr. S. Jackson said :

“JT am greatly distressed by what I have heard. I have regarded you
as «a body of men who have seriously and thoroughly considered your
principles and positions; who, after careful inquiry, had fully satisfied
yourselves that the system of Methodism is in accordance with the New
Testament. Now, however, it seems you are beginning to doubt, and talk
of appointing a committee to inquire whether these things are so. Such
a measure is useless. A committee will procure for you no credit or
respect. Some will say that agitation has done good by frightening you.
The committee might inquire whether or not we should hold another
Conference. The committee will feel bound to do something, whether
needed or not, and our friends would calculate on some considerable
change. The result must be either general disappointment or a betrayal
of trust.’’

Meanwhile the finger of the clock that faced the President
was inexorably nearing the point which limited the legal
duration of the Conference. There was now scant time for
the reading of the Journal and the customary hymn and
prayer. There was no time for Dr. Dixon, Steward, Burton,
and the rest to deliver their sentiments and deliver their souls.
Dixon, indeed, was, as he confessed, downhearted altogether.
The intrepid war-horse seemed for the time to be “afraid as a
480 Alistory oF METHopISM.

grasshopper.” Mr. Scott shrank from breaking with the men
with whom he generally acted. Nevertheless, his speech was
strikingly characteristic ; for he was the veritable Nestor of the
camp—shrewd, kindly, reasonable, and abhorrent of extremes.
He was distressed to see that gallant craft, the Third London
Circuit, which he had so capably commanded for three such
prosperous and God-favoured years, and had left in such splendid
and auspicious trim, now bumping itself into a wreck upon the
reef on which it had drifted in the fog, and to hear it grinding
piteously against the jagged serpentine. He knew also that
this disregard of memorials so legally presented and so loyally
expressed would seriously embarrass the administration of his
present Circuit, making ‘‘ Merry Islington’’ put on a gruesome
and portentous aspect.

Some noteworthy facts are very prominent in this dis-
cussion. First, two vozces are distinctly audible—the voice of
the turtle from the lips of Scott, William Bunting, George B.
Macdonald, William Arthur, Dr. Beaumont; and the defiant
crow of their opponents. Second, both sides rested upon extra-
Conferential lay opinion. Both sides claimed “the people”
and “our best friends” with equal confidence. For myself, I
never met with more than one layman who would not have
hailed any hearty response on the part of Conference to the
appeals of Messrs. Scott, W. Bunting, Macdonald, Arthur, and
Beaumont. It is to be noted that Dr. Bunting took no part
in this discussion. A speech from him in the tone of his two
speeches in 1835, first to the laymen and then to the ministers,
would have been received with as much enthusiasm in 1850 as
it was in 1835 by such loyal, law-abiding men as Mr. James
Wood of Manchester, James Heald, Scarth of Leeds, Crook of
Liverpool, Agar of York, Farmer of London, and so many
others.- Ten minutes’ timely talk in the same key would have
saved us thousands of members and at least a year of wasting
agitation. That “the king’s heart was towards” reconciliation
I was assured at that very time by his noble eldest son. He
said to me in sad and solemn tone: “I can assure you that
my father does not approve of these excessive measures. It is
his fad /”

The sequence of this definitive ignoring of legally presented
and loyally expressed memorials was the loss to Methodism of
nearly 57,000 members in one Methodist year—the centre
of the century, 1850-1. This it effected in various ways.
THE CONFERENCE OF 1850 AND iTS RESULTS. 481

It exasperated the aggressive malcontents, and it emphasised
their representations of the spirit and temper of the prepon-
derating party.

It gave all such Wesleyan ministers as were of a decidedly
hierarchic temper, and who clutched as with a death-grip a
hierarchical theory, an impetus in that direction which, as Mr.
William Bunting so sagaciously forecast, all but desperately
embarrassed “sound-minded Superintendents.” And, not un-
naturally from a polemic point of view, some of our veritably
very ‘best friends” had replied to the “Stop the Supplies”’ tactics
of the extreme extremists by forming a fund for the support of
ministers, called, in honour of its chief promoter and contributor,
the Farmer Fund.

I can think of no better way of showing the difference of effect
between two contrasted lines of action in an ecclesiastical tornado,
than by the example of a Circuit (Rochester) in which both
systems were successively resorted to. Such a double experi-
ment came under my own direct observation. From this it
may be seen how a richly cultivated Hill of Zion was at first
protected and then laid waste.

“My well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill,” and
by the hands of his most faithful, skilful, indefatigable servants,
“he gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the
choicest vine.” Founded by the Founder himself, no Circuit in
the land, excepting Conference towns and Wakefield, had been
favoured with so many Presidential men, such as Reece, Entwisle,
Walter Griffith, Gaulter, Treffry, and Scott. This speciality of
appointment it owed mainly to the admirable layman, to whom
the Circuit itself was more indebted than to any other human
agency for its exceptional attractiveness for ministers of mark.
And along with him other laymen had co-worked with the
choicest ministers to make the Circuit as the garden of the
Lord. ;

This Conference of 1849 found this Goshen of a Circuit in
the profoundest peace. There was not a murmur anywhere but
the busy hum of holy, hopeful industry. The young minister ap-
pointed to that Circuit at that date found, to his delight, a cluster
of united societies. All our chapels were well filled at all our
Sunday services; our members never thought of missing Class,
except through illness of themselves or families. Our Sunday
schools were admirably officered and worked ; our prayer-meetings
filled the schoolroom ; we had a plodding, popular City Mission,

FOF
482 History or Meruopism.

worked by a Local-preacher, to which an officer in the army, a
Churchman, gave £70 a year.

At our first ministers’ meeting the three ministers deter-
mined on a Pastoral policy. The Superintendent, who was also
Chairman of the District, was a veteran who had seen good
service, but, being now considerably past his threescore years and
ten, had begun to show symptoms of declining bodily strength,
but no decay in the revivalistic fervour which he brought with
him from his native Cornwall. The subduing sweetness of
his disposition and his gentle, quiet manners gave him
great favour with our families. Fifteen years younger he had
met Dr. Warren in his raid on Cornwall, and had driven him
out of the county. He was now replete with the mild wisdom
of senectitude.

The second minister walked in the same spirit and in the same
steps. He, too, had the advantage of large experience for many
years abroad, and since that as Superintendent of such Circuits as
Brighton, Luton, and Deptford. His physique was of elephantine
girth and stature, and he was correspondingly of elephantine
harmlessness, sagacity, and quietness.

Happily for ourselves and for our people, we were all of the
same mind. Our policy was not, indeed, a plan of campaign but
a plan of pacification. Our principles were these :—

1. Not to take the initiative in agitation nor stir up strife
by implicating our people in an intra-Conferential conflict.

2. To “keep” God’s garden as well as “dress” it. In order
to this (2) prevent a visit from any of the three expelled by
invitation either from our own people or from any other
Church. (4) To prevent the holding of any public meeting
with reference to this unhappy complication.

3. To say nothing in the pulpit, the Church meetings, or
the families of our people which might be provocative of
anything but love and good works.

4. To keep our people healthily preoccupied. (a) By
preaching our very best, both as to matter and to spirit. (8)
By indefatigable Pastoral visitation. (c) By keeping at high
pressure all the agencies and appliances of Church life, making
the most of the weekly prayer-meeting, the Quarterly Visit-
tion of the classes, and the Sunday School Address.

5. To start a spirited chapel-building scheme, beginning
with a new chapel in a populous new neighbourhood.

€. To form a Wesleyan Methodist Book Society for our
THE CONFERENCE OF 1850 AwD ITS RESULTS. 483

leading families and ourselves, so as to give our people some-
thing more savoury to think about and talk about than the
weekly “rounds” of the Watchman and Wesleyan Times.

The humanising and the harmonising efficacy of this little
culture of the “humanities” I had noted in other localities
and more peaceful times. This, too, was a truly Wesleyan
expedient ; witness the Orphan House Library at Newcastle.
Just then some works of special interest were issuing from the
Press, such as Macaulay's fascinating “History of England,”
Dr. Hanna’s “Life of Dr. Chalmers,’ ‘“ Guesses at Truth,”
by Julius and Augustus Hare; Curzon’s “Monasteries of
the Levant,’ which Ruskin justly pronounces one of the
best books of travel ever written; and Ranke’s exquisite
monograph, the ‘History of Servia.” By the good hand of
our God upon us, these conjoint essays at peacemaking
sped far beyond our sanguine expectations. Although all
our leading members but two very strenuously misdoubted
the wisdom of the course pursued with respect to Everett,
Dunn, and Griffith, yet we had no visit from any one of
them, no meeting on their behalf, no expulsion, no secession.
The streams of eager, gladsome worshippers converged each
Sabbath morn and even to the sanctuaries which knew so
well the joyful sound of saving truth ; our new chapel
was built, opened, and filled, and the Word of the Lord ran
and was glorified.

Within the boundaries of our Circuit lay an interesting
tract of country, called the AHundred of Hoo, which enjoyed
a notable immunity: never in the memory of any living man
had it been visited by an imminent thunderstorm. Many a
time and oft had its favoured population heard the portentous
rumble at a distance, and listened to the nearer crash, and
seen’ the horizon all aflame around them, but never did a
flaming bolt come down upon its oaks or elms, its towers or
spires, or plough up its fields or kill its cattle. It formed a
peaceful zxteramnia between the estuaries of the Medway
and the Thames. A gentleman, a native of the neighbour-
hood, described it as a wondrous spectacle to stand upon its
highest point and watch the threatening tempest, and to see
the black and menacing array, as it approached the district,
suddenly dispart, and one detachment roll away above the
tideway of the Thames and the other o’er the channel of
the Medway.

WF 2
484 Hisrory oF Meruopism.

A phenomenon like this the poet Shelley: must have
witnessed when he tells us the clouds—

“Chanting their thunder psalm,
Leave azure chasms of calm.”

This Circuit through that tempestuous year, 1850, was an
‘azure chasm of calm” amidst the almost universal stress
and storm.

As the second minister must leave at Conference, the
appointment of his successor was a matter of no slight solicitude.
A man every way according to our mind and need, the Rev.
T. C. Ingle, had consented to be stationed at our second place.
Of him, too, it might be said, as of the old Judean ruler, ‘‘ And
that Seraiah was a quiet prince.’ He was a very eloquent,
attractive preacher, who had commanded our best Circuits—a
thoroughbred Wesleyan Methodist, and as loving and as lovable
as his two sons, my own distinguished pupils: Matthew, now
a minister, and John, the solicitor. As his bodily strength
had shown symptoms of decline, he was allowed a young man
as his assistant, and had secured the most popular probationer
of the day, one Samuel Coley. We should thus gain a fourth
minister. These two names appeared in the first two drafts
of stations, and we were all elated and rejoicing for the
consolation. We even took it as a certificate of good be-
haviour and encouragement to its continuance. As Mr. Ingle
had not signed the Declaration, we judged it all the less likely
that he would start questions that do gender strife.

But towards the close of Conference Mr. Ingle had become
depressed and feeble, and felt constrained to request to be allowed
to become a supernumerary. As this occurred but just before
the confirmation of the stations, there was no time in the
extra pressure of business to cast about for the next best man
for the particular place at the peculiar time. So the very
simple course was taken of stationing at the place a dis-
tinguished and most able brother, for whom no suitable
appointment had as yet been found.

But, alas! the man was exquisitely unsuited to the place,
and the place exceptionally the wrong one for the man. Not
that the man came behind in any gift; in this he was well
worthy to fall into the succession of God-honoured ministers who
had laboured on the ground. Indeed, there was no Circuit in the
wide Connexion to which his talents were not equal. He was a
THE CONFERENCE OF 1850 AND ITS RESULTS. 485

powerful speaker, an erudite expositor, a scholar accurate and
widely read, and a remarkably interesting personality altogether.
But he had won the reputation of being the very apex of the
ecclesiastic pyramid, and was known to be one of the most
autocratic of mortals.

Four years before his appointment as a minister to this place
of his spiritual nativity, he had published a book which, by the
advice of Dr. Bunting, the Book Committee had declined. His
heirarchic theory had developed during his decade of Circuit life,
and had been the cause of his rapid survey of our Circuits, he
having been appointed in the course of ten years to seven several
Circuits ; and in an autobiography of 319 pages he finds five
pages sufficient for dealing with this part of his energetic life.
With a touching, winning naiveté and simplicity he accounts
for his unfitness for this kind of work.

Nevertheless, that unfitness proved most inopportune in the
critical condition of Circuit and Connexion. It was impossible
to persuade the people that the appointment was purely
incidental; they interpreted it into a punitive discipline on
those of them who had privately contributed to the fund for
the relief of the three expelled.

On his arrival, his colleagues waited on him and informed
him of the condition of the Circuit and the success of our
efforts to preserve it from disruption. He was not unknown
to either. The Superintendent had become acquainted with
him in his youth, his father having been the family doctor
for some years.

He and his future Methodist Superintendent had been rowed
out together to gaze upon the most impressive spectacle of the
captive Napoleon on board the Bellerophon.

I had previously met my new colleague in London and
enjoyed some charming talk with him on literary matters, and
had conceived for him a great admiration and regard.

He received his Superintendent and his junior colleague with
the most formal courtesy and with marked aloofness and
constraint. We told him that of course our people were dis-
appointed, and perhaps a little sore, at missing the two choice
men they had expected, but that his own great gifts would soon
put that all right if combined with frank and cordial intercourse
with the people in their homes, and especially at the family
altar—where he had knelt in former years with the four most
influential of them all, when he made his first surrender to the
486 f7tstory or Meruovism.

Saviour. We expressed an earnest hope that he would abstain
from any irritating obtrusion of his own peculiar ecclesiastic
views. In reply, he drew himself up and answered auto-
cratically, “I am not here to please the people, but to maintain
the authority of the Conference.”

We saw at once that it was throwing words away to reason
with a man in such a mood as that, and we felt we ‘‘ had our
work set” between a disappointed and excited people and a
colleague who, at the very best, seemed resolved to give us no
assistance in our arduous task.

His appointment on the Sunday was to our third chapel in
rank and in importance. It was a capital Methodist sanctuary
with a close-packed congregation, and a hearty and attached
Society of ithe true old Methodist type. We were, of course,
in the midst of our September ticket-giving, so there were three
Classes to be met in the afternoon. It was then the custom at the
weekly ministers’ meeting to give in to the Superintendent the
numbers of the Classes we had met. When asked to report his
numbers, our new colleague placed three class books on the table,
informing us -that- he had no numbers to report. Having
questioned the three Leaders as to whether they had contributed
to the fund for the relief of the three’ expelled ministers, and
being answered that they remembered to have done so twelve
months ago, he had pronounced them to have by that very act
excluded themselves from the Wesleyan Methodist Church, and
had walked home with their Class books in his pocket and left
the Classes to discuss the situation—a not very pleasant Sunday
afternoon.

Now our Superintendent, though an old man and well stricken
in years, throughout his long experience of ministerial life had
never seen the like of this. He sat silent and aghast and
trembling -like an anxious Eli, as the shaking spectacles in his
aged hands bore witness. Some of the members so ruthlessly
and lawlessly excluded were poor old people in the union
workhouse, who had never heard the names of Everett, Dunn,
and Griffith. Of course, the Superintendent lost no time in
restoring the Class books to the Leaders, but the effect of this
high-handed manner of entering in among the people was most
deplorable, both on them and on the work of God. Hitherto
they had found us like our predecessors, ‘‘ gentle among them,

.as a nurse cherisheth her children,” but this dawless action was
interpreted by all the fiery spirits as a declaration of war,
THE CONFERENCE OF 1850 AND ITS RESULTS. 487

provoking terrible reprisals. For the first time we heard a
mutter about stopping the supplies. One Leader, with his Class
book and with all his members, betook himself to one of the
minor Methodist bodies.

But this was not all. The new minister announced that he
would preach in the principal chapel a series of sermons on the
Epistles to the Seven Churches. In these sermons he put forth
his lofty notions of the Pastoral sovereignty, sometimes in a most
irritating form. Even in reading the lessons for the day. he
would suddenly interject sarcastic observations, which happily,
however, by their audacity and pungency provoked amusement
rather than exasperation. Thus after reading ‘‘ Feed the flock
of God that is among you, taking the oversight,” he paused and
exclaimed, with inimitable cynical grotesqueness, “Fancy a
democracy of sheep!" The very gentle democrats who were
sitting under the sound would have looked rather sheepish but
for the consummate drollery of the exhibition.

This was very mild compared with other utterances. These
sermons were, to a great extent, lectures on ecclesiastical polity
or, rather, on the Prerogatives of the Pastorate and the obligations
of the people. When a gentleman demurred to the highness of
his theory he turned round on him and said: “ Sir, if the people
knew the power which the Head of the Church has given to her
ministers, they would hoot at us in the streets.”

The effect of all this was the opposite of tranquillising and
uniting. Though only one member refused to give his ticket
money, many lowered their subscriptions. Hitherto the Circuit
had been far above the average of London and of the other
wealthy towns in their sustentation of the ministry ; they had
set an example which the wealthiest societies—such as those in
London, Liverpool, and, above all, Grosvenor Street, Manchester,
when it still included Oxford Road—had not found in their heart
to follow. Yet the largest part of the society were dockyard
men, their wives and children. Throughout the Circuit there
was not a single independent gentleman a member of this Society,
and but one a seatholder. Yet with less than 1,200 members
they had maintained three married ministers’ families. This
could only be accomplished by dint of thrift, a high standard
of giving, and a loving attachment to their ministers. But now
they took to reading the Wesleyan Times by the light of this
brand-new working hypothesis of Pastoral prerogative, and the
result proved matter of more sorrow than surprise.

‘
488 AlisToRY OF METHODISM.

Atthe Quarterly Meeting the Stewards reported an inauspicious
falling off in the finances, which they felt themselves at a loss to
meet. The support of three families had always proved a strain
upon the Circuit, and now the people were out of heart and
ill at ease on account of the appointment made by the last
Conference, which, with regard to the peculiarities of the case,
they could not but interpret as a penalty for their not having
taken any part in the conflict then raging in the Conference,
an interpretation which the new minister had done his utmost
to confirm. Under present conditions they had no hope of
keeping up the revenue of the Circuit, and they themselves were
neither in a position nor a state of mind to supply the inevitable
deficiency from their own very humble resources. They therefore
saw no other way out of the difficulty than to decline to advance
the allowances of the new minister and to request his withdrawal
by the President, since they could not reconcile their minds to the
injustice of lessening the maintenance of the other ministers, who
had so successfully laboured to preserve and to build up the Church.

All this was clearly quite to the mind and taste of our new
colleague. It was evidently the very thing he had been calcu-
lating upon. Notwithstanding the solemnity of the interests
involved, I could: not but look on with an amazement not
unmixed with amusement. For his physique was the symbol of
his remarkable psychology : he was square-built, thickset, sturdy,
and unbending. Throughout the discussion he sat basking in
the tempest, and reminded one of Smart’s fine picture of the
lion—

“Like a coal
His eye the bastions mole;
His breast against his foes.

There could be little doubt that, if his speech should follow next,
it would be like the defiant roar of the rampant monarch of the
forests. So when the junior Steward dropped his doleful parable
I lost no time in putting the whole matter in the light of
a faithful colleague. I showed them that it was impossible to
isolate any one of three colleagues stationed in a Circuit ; that if
they did not give my colleague his money I should forthwith
hand him over at least one-third of mine.

This move completely disconcerted both belligerents. In a
moment my colleague came to me and said: “If I share
your salary, you will share my sympathy.” To which I calmly
answered : ‘‘Of course, and your subsidy from Mr. Farmer’s Fund
THE CONFERENCE OF 1850 AND ITS RESULTS. 489

as well.” The Superintendent also announced that he should
transfer a third of his allowances to his colleague.

At last the whole proposal fell to the ground under the
irresistible appeal of the noblest of the many noble men in
that long favoured Circuit—a man whose gifts and character and
inherited influence gave him a most legitimate and powerful
purchase over every member of the meeting. His speech was
like the still small voice after the hurricane at Horeb. He
besought his brethren for the sake of the holy and beautiful
house where their fathers had praised God, and of all the men
and women now in glory who had devoted all to the cause
which was now in peril, for the sake of all they had them-
selves sunk in this blessed undertaking, for the sake of their
children in the Sunday school, not to plunge the Circuit into
disturbance and disruption on account of temporary dis-
appointment and passing irritation.

He spoke as if beneath a divine affatus. I never, either
before or since, saw anything so like one of the gracious inter-
positions under the old theocracy, when “the Spirit of the
Lord came upon” some holy man of God, and he spake with
irresistible authority and power. Yet there was no excitement
nor gesticulation nor unearthly tone. He did not strive nor
cry. The crowded meeting was completely overawed and
utterly subdued. It resolved itself into a prayer-meeting, and
division and the overt dissension were happily staved off.
Nevertheless, the strained relation between the people and
their ablest minister was sadly detrimental and obstructive to
the work of God. It was as when the first mate is out of
harmony with the captain. We did all we could to keep
things ¢au¢ and snug, but we could make no headway, as,
under bare poles, we bore up staggeringly against wind and
tide. At the March Quarterly Meeting the Stewards declared
it necessary to give up one of the three ministers.

At the District Meeting our colleague brought a charge
against his Superintendent of having betrayed the interests he
was appointed to conserve. But I found it very easy to defend
him upon every point. The Meeting passed a resolution
unanimously, excepting the accuser, to the effect “That the
Superintendent had managed the disturbed Circuit with great
judiciousness and wisdom, amidst extraordinary difficulties,
which had been seriously aggravated by the injudicious action
of the second minister.”
490 History oF Meruovism.,

The Superintendent next appointed was as great a Preacher
as was ever stationed in that favoured Circuit, and was a
beloved former colleague of my own. I took care to “insense”
him as to the condition of the Circuit, and also as to its
essential fundamental loyalty to Methodism and its manage-
ability, if not, rubbed the wrong way. I introduced him to
some of our disturbed but not impracticable people, and I
spoke of him in the truest, and therefore in the highest, terms
to all with whom I came in contact. I fondly hoped that the
fine old Circuit might yet be saved from wreck. But my
friend was, I think, the most incalculable man I ever knew.
‘The safest forecast one could make, I found, about his prob-
able procedure was: First, to ask oneself what course his
antecedents would lead one to expect; and second, to assume
that he would do the very opposite. This, at least, took
place in the present instance. He had refused to sign the
declaration ; yet he preferred, as an administrator, to take
the harsher way, when so far “love had done the deed.”
The result was the wrecking of one of- the loveliest
Circuits in the Kingdom. At this day, so near the closing of
the century, that same Circuit has some 300 fewer members
than it could report in the year 1850. As was foreseen and
foresaid, this policy of preservation was very keenly criticised
by those who advocated and applied more drastic measures ;
and as the Superintendent was known to be in failing health,
the bulk of the blame was laid upon the shouiders of. the
youngest man. But over against this must be set two pre-
ponderating tributes. When Mr. T. P. Bunting, afterwards my
fast and most forbearing friend, in the presence of his father
spoke doubtingly about my Methodistic loyalty, the old general
literally “fired up,” and declared that I had faithfully main-
tained the law and discipline of Methodism against lawlessness
on either side.

Five years later I was dining with Drs. Gervase Smith and
Punshon and another popular minister, who during the agita-
tion had as Superintendent slain his thousands, when the
conversation somehow drifted in the direction of the then
ended contest. Dr. Punshon playfully observed to me: “ You
were reckoned a little ‘tainted’ at that time.’ To which I
replied: “Yes; but the whole secret of my policy was very
simple.. We were in a state of storm, and I knew that when
the clouds had rolled away all that remained in the ship
THE CONFERENCE OF 1850 AND ITS RESULTS. 49t

would be glad they had not left; and that we should also
thank God that we had lost no more. So I tried lawfully to
keep the people together.

On which the renowned excisionist exclaimed: ‘‘ What a
mercy it would have been for Methodism if we had all looked

at the matter in that light! In what a different state Methodism
would now be!”

My next Circuit, Southampton, was a delightful instance
of the triumph of moderation and forbearance, and a
little judicious letting alone. My serene, meek-mannered col-
league of 1849-50 had been appointed to the Superintendency
of a Circuit containing three such towns as Southampton,
Winchester, and Romsey. Southampton was at the turning-
point of its history. It had just been chosen as the entrepét
of the steam navigation of the Empire, and the Methodists
of the place, with a brave and faithful wisdom, most promptly
resolved that this tide in their affairs should be taken at the
flood. So they sold their little chapel in the Ditches, and
built an exquisite new sanctuary in a leading thoroughfare ;
and now they were intent on filling it. They saw that this
was a time to plant and a time to build, and not a time to
pull down or to pluck up that which was planted. They were
blest with a nursing father of a Superintendent and like-minded
colleagues. The result was that not a dozen, all told, were
lost to the Society. I found them as, through God’s great
mercy, I left them, in perfect unity. Their spirit was that
of the verse :

“Oh! let us all join hand in hand,
Who seek redemption through His blood,

Fast in one mind and spirit stand,
And build the temple of our God.”

There was not a jarring string. The most popular of
the three expelled, Mr. Griffith, held a meeting in a public
room, but next to no one had the curiosity to hear him. His
visit scarcely caused a ripple, and much less a ruffle, on the
placid, fair expanse of our broad and bright Southampton water.

THE NEWCASTLE CONFERENCE OF 1851.

Immediately before the meeting of the Committees of
Review at the Newcastle Conference of 1851, the President

’
492 History oF MErHovism.

invited some ninety selected laymen to confer with him in
Manchester on the state and prospects of the Body. The
selection of the place of meeting was significant. Manchester
was not the most central or convenient place for the large
proportion of the invited who were members of the Con-
ference Committees, and it was clearly out of the way of most
of them, especially in the then state of the railway system.
But at that time it was the headquarters of the Methodist
Management. The result was an undue preponderance to the
Manchester side of Methodist politics: And that, unhappily,
was somewhat changed from the days of the genial James
Wood, who “hated electioneering practices.” The Manchester
District had more than three times the number of members
on the committee than any of the rest, even London
itself; reckoning in both cases those who, though residing
a few miles out of town, had their businesses in either
city. During the earlier part of the meeting the President
was in the Chair, but after delivering a long and care-
fully prepared address, asked Dr. Bunting to take his place,
as he was obliged to leave at once for a Connexional Com-
mittee in Newcastle. His speech, which now lies before me,
is a strong dissuasive from concession and, indeed, a deterrent
protest against all changes. Taken literally and logically, it
was a severe condemnation of dll the changes which had taken
place since Wesley’s death. But he closed admirably by saying :
“ Claims must not be pushed on one side so far as to endanger
our system by existing counter claims on the other. Let me
express: the honest feelings of my own heart: I do not say
whether there ought or ought not to be a change; but if
we could theorise and ‘mend our system, and make it look a
little more harmonious, what would it all amount to? Zhe
reform which I feel we all need ts one which can only be
effected by the blessed Spirit in our own souds.”

The only speaker who seemed to fully realise the gravity’
of the situation was Mr. Farmer, who pointed to the fearful
falling off of members, which he apprehended would be followed
by a still greater. The Meeting passed four resolutions deplor-
ing the agitation, and leaving to the Conference the care of its
own ministers, and cheerfully and entirely confiding in the
wisdom, integrity, and liberality of the Conference, and respect-
fully requested their early consideration of the suggestions made
by the present Meeting respecting the rules of the Body.
Tueé NEWCASTLE CONFERENCE OF 1851. 493

What those suggestions were is not recorded, but, in con-
junction with memorials to the Conference, they were referred
to a committee which met in February, 1852. One could not
but regret that a committee of the like kind had not been
appointed by the preceding Conference at the earnest entreaty
of such men as John Scott, W. M. Bunting, G. B. Macdonald,
and W. Arthur. It would have saved thousands of members,
and a vast amount of irritation and bad blood.

The Conference of 1851, also, I attended. Dr. Hannah was
the President. The delegates once more solicited the opening
of some communication with the Conference in order to effect
a healing of the breach. Dr. Beaumont pleaded in its favour
with a subdued and tender but intensé persuasiveness, in strong.
contrast with his usual and almost inevitable impetuosity, but
quite without avail. But five out of five hundred voted in its
favour. It has ever since been to me a cause of devoutest
gratitude that I was one of that five. I voted out of regard
to the seemly, venerable precedent of 1795, and to the sacred,
binding relationship which had so lately existed between the
members of the two assemblies.

The act which followed the easy counting of our little vote was,
one would hope, unexampled in any free fraternal convocation.
The President rose up and said: ‘‘ Will the brethren who have
voted for this stand up, that we may see who they are?”

At a subsequent session Mr. Steward solemnly protested
against such a violent attempt to intimidate and abash the
freedom of voting, which it was part of the President’s most
solemn duties to protect. This certainly appeared a unique
contrivance for refuting the wicked slanders about the repres-
sion of freedom of speaking and voting in the Conference. The
representative of a District, when we broke up, said to me: eer
know at least two hundred men then sitting in the Conference
who think as you do on the question.” To the very natural
question : ‘Why did not you vote as I voted?” he replied:
“J daren’t”; to which I answered, “I dared not but vote.”

It was to this, however, that I owed the beginning of my
long, close friendship with William Morley Punshon. He intro-
duced himself to me upon the strength of it, and expressed his
strong disapprobation of this attempt of the Chair itself to
interfere with the freedom and honesty of voting in the Con-
ference. By far the ablest and most popular of the young men
494 ffistory oF METHODISM.

that year ordained, he came down from the gallery into my pew
at the far back, and stamped and beat the back of his hand against
the woodwork, and declared he would not be enrolled amongst a
body of ministers where such an act was possible. It required all
my persuasive power and that of his father and uncle, who were
both present, to prevent his going away in a rage.

The fact that a perfect gentleman like the President could
allow himself so far to forget both his office and himself is of no
small thermometric and barometric value and significance. It
shows to what a tropical degree the heat of conflict had risen,
and what a portentous atmospheric pressure was weighing on
the Conference.

Throughout the next three years the contest raged, but
happily with an ever-decreasing decrease of members. The
numerical downfall reported in the Minutes for 1852 was another
20,946 ; in 1853 the concessions recommended by the Ministerial
Committee of the Conference and the mixed convention of
ministers and laymen, and adopted by the Conference, reduced
the defection to less than half that number, 10,290; in 1854 it
again fell by nearly half to 6,797; and again in 1855 to 3,310.
So in five years the Connexion was depleted by 100,469.

‘ Shall these things be,

And overpass us like a summer cloud
Which we regard not?”

To me this devastation was, perhaps, especially distressing, as
it laid waste some of the fairest and most fruitful Circuits in
Methodism, on which I or my father or grandfather had looked
with exultant thankfulness, and had laboured with success and
shouting, bringing our sheaves with us. Many a time, on re-
visiting those scenes, or brooding o’er the tidings of their
trampling down by the hoof of fierce fraternal conflict, have

I exclaimed :
“Oh, holy mountain of my God,
How do thy towers in ruin lie ?
How art thou riven and strewn abvoad
Beneath the rude and wasteful sky ?"

Yes, “ strewn abroad” as well as “riven,” for the worst of it
was that of the more than 100,000 lost, full 60,000 were missing,
and only 40,000 found their way into the new enclosure.
CHAPTER X.
DR. BUNTING'S POLICY.

Dr. Bunting: «‘ My friends overstate my case; I could state it better myself.”’

“Wat was Dr. Bunting’s Policy?” It is agreed on all
hands that throughout the period we are studying “ Methodist
politics,” as Mr. T. P. Bunting most truly and _intelligibly
calls them, revolved around one central and colossal figure :
Jabez Bunting. In his last message to the Conference,
1857, he says: “Tell the Conference I regard my policy to
have been right.’ But what was Dr. Bunting’s policy ? This
question has never been answered, so far as I know. In
the “Life of Dr. Bunting” it is not even put, much less
settled. Scattered and unconsolidated intimations and frag-
mentary, disjected materials for an answer may be picked up
on the tide-left beach of controversial chronicle ; but these
aisjecta membra have not been pieced together in a recognis-
able, a realisable, and vital unity; although he is universally
admitted to have been the greatest ecclesiastical statesman that
Methodism has produced. To answer this question is one of
the purposes, and I trust one of the utilities, of this book.

But the essential preliminary question is : ‘‘ Who is to supply
the answer?” Surely Dr. Bunting Azmself. His expostulation :
“My friends overstate my case; I could state it better myself,”
ought certainly to be regarded. But did he ever state it himself?
He did so, with his characteristic explicitness and emphasis, in
his speeches in Conference and in Connexional Committees, which
are rescued recently from the stuffed-out wallet of oblivion
by the intuitive appreciation of Mr. Fowler. Dr. Bunting
might well endorse the authenticity and value of Mr. Fowler’s
Conference Journal, for it is to that inestimable muniment
that the public and posterity must mainly be indebted for a
concrete conception of Dr. Jabez Bunting in his most
historical capacity—as statesman and debater.
496 HAlisrory or Meruopism.

It must, however, in all justice to that great and good man, be
first noted that he possessed in a very high degree what may be
called the essential presupposttions of a leader of the people
called Methodists. He could have as truly said “I ve,” as he
sent word to the Conference, “I die in the true faith of
Evangelical Arminianism. I am @ true Methodist.” He was, first
of all, that without which no man can possibly be a truthful
Wesleyan Methodist Preacher, either lay or ministerial—a firm
believer in, and a faithful preacher of, the doctrines embodied in
the standards by which we hold alike our office and our right
to occupy a Wesleyan Methodist pulpit.

As he himself tells us, in the discussion on James Caughey,
he began his ministry as a revivalist, and was such as a Local-
preacher. He was built and born to be and to do the work of
an evangelist. His physique and his psychology alike, his
commanding presence, his manly elocution, and his mighty voice
had designated him for that intensely apostolic work. Hence,
notwithstanding the vast difference between him and William
Bramwell in calibre and culture and their views of Methodist
administration, they were true yokefellows in the work of
the Lord.

The Zzverpool Minutes, his composition in 1820, is, as a
manual of stable, systematic, and successful evangelism, a docu-
ment which for the last seventy-seven years has been regarded
as almost a part of the Constitution of Wesleyan Methodism.

But the first recorded announcement of his fundamental
Church principle which I have ever met with was elicited by
the debate on the Rochdale Address with regard to the pro-
ceedings on the Leeds Organ case. His speech on that occasion
makes the supreme authority of the Pastorate the one essential
principle of ecclesiastical polity, which, being secured, all other
things were mere details and matters of expediency and easiest
working. :

‘In Dr. Bunting’s view the Superintendent of the Circuit is
“the Angel of the Church,” and as such is responsible to God
and man for the order and the purity of that portion of the house-
hold of faith, the supreme authority of the Pastorate being
thoroughly secured. Again, the Circuit Stewards are the ministers
of the Superintendents. What this precisely means is difficult to
determine. This dictum makes the Stewards the officers of the
pastors. But the Czrcuzt Steward, as is implied by his very
designation, is a Crycuz¢t official, and his mode of induction to
Dr. Buntine’s Poricy. 497

office shows that he belongs alike to pastor and to people. In
the corresponding office the Established Church splits the
difference, regarding one churchwarden as belonging to the
clergy and the other to the people. With us they both are
equally related to the one and to the other.

Dr. Bunting has the great honour of originating the mixed
committees of combined ministers and laymen. This was a
sagacious and statesmanly stroke, and showed all the greater
sagacity and statesmanship from being initiated and developed in
a very tentative and cautious manner. At first the mixed com-
mittee was—I do not say was meant to be—a strong seawall
against popular encroachment on pastoral prerogative. Unques-
tionably, Dr. Bunting was too great and good a man not to
foresee or not to purposely contemplate the countless practical
advantages of this arrangement. It is remarkable that the most
important of all the powers and functions committed to a mixed
committee of ministers and laity—that of the trial of a minister
for immorality or incompetence—was the earliest, and has been the
least used. The mixed District Meeting for this purpose, com-
prising a large lay element of stewards and others, was created in
1794 and embodied in the Plan of Pacification in 1795-97. This
was five years before Jabez Bunting walked to his first Circuit
(Oldham) as a probationer for the ministry. And by the year
1812 the presence of the Circuit Stewards at the annual District
Meeting had become the regular and established usage. On the
formation of the Missionary Society, and the appointment of
a Missionary Committee in 1815, the Lay Treasurer was made
a member of the General Committee, and soon afterwards “ nine
respectable laymen” were made members of the Committee of
Finance.

This principle was gradually, and after successive intervals,
extended to the other Funds; to the Schools Fund through
Mr. Scott. But the representative principle was by Dr. Bunting
most resolutely resisted. He contended strongly that all lay
admission, even into the fizanczal management of Connexional
Funds, must be by selectzon on the part of the ministers ; 2o¢ by
election on the part of the people. And the principle of natural
selection was naturally brought into play. As in the lay Com-
mittees of Advice called by Presidents at critical moments, so
in these statedly appointed committees, laymen were not likely
to be chosen who would probably oppose the course which their
selectors: were most solicitous to carry. As we have seen, the

GG
498 History oF MEruHopism.

first germ of the representative principle began to appear in
respect to particular parts of the Connexion at a later period.
It was not till 1851 that the Conference consented to take into
consideration the extending of this principle to the Connexional
Funds generally.

Another principle of Dr. Bunting’s policy was his doctrine
that “the wish of a Superintendent” as to who should be his
colleagues should outweigh, in the decision of the Conference, the
wish of the people expressed by the Circuit Stewards as to who
should be their minister. And with this agreed his strongly
expressed objection to the alteration of the Stationing Com-
mittee’s first draft, except when imperatively required by
circumstances, or cause was shown by members of the Con-
ference. The remonstrances of Circuit Stewards with him
had little weight as against the judgment of the Stationing
Committee.

As to Dr. Bunting’s unparalleled career in Conference, it is
very interesting and still more important to note that he began
as a reformer and as the banner-bearer of young Methodism.
At the critical meeting in Manchester, preparatory to the Con-
ference of 1851, Dr. Bunting frankly declared : “Iam a reformer
of forty years’ standing.” And there was much more truth than
playfulness in the avowal, paradoxical as, to some, it sounds from
the lips of Dr. Bunting. All depends on what is legitimately
meant by the word reformer. Its honest meaning, as applied
alike to Luther and Earl Grey, is: "An znnovator with a view to
improvement and by fair and constitutional means.” Jabez
Bunting had for forty years long (1811-51) been the greatest
innovator in the whole Connexion. He was a Z7rzbune before he
was Consul. He began as Leader of ‘the Opposition,” and may
be almost said to have created the Opposition which he led. In
my own young days the old Preachers, his coevals, took delight
in personating the young orator, as he drew himself up to his
full height, realising Goldsmith’s picture of the normal
Englishman :

“Pride in his port, defiance in his eye,
I see the ruler of the world go by.”

They in turn would straighten themselves with a dramatic
dignity and recite: ‘I know that many of my honoured fathers
will oppose me, but my younger brethren will support me.”
His great success was the admission of a ten years’ man into
De. Buntine’s Poticy. 499

the Hundred through the vote of ten years’ men, of which
the immediate and certain sequence was his own elevation to
that signal honour upon the shields of his coevals.

Yes, Jabez Bunting was essentially a reformer in the true
sense—" the innovator with a view to improvement.” But did
not this make the bitter denunciation of a Methodist reformer,
as such, which was so common in that troubled time, all the
more discreditable, unreal, exasperating, and unfair? At a Dis-
trict Meeting at that very time, on protesting against violence
of language in prayer as well as speaking, I was answered by
the Secretary of the Meeting: “I say, I had rather be a
drunkard reeling in the street than a Methodist reformer.”
To which I answered: ‘ Mr. Chairman, I am sorry to be able
to believe my beloved brother in that sad confession.”

Dr. Bunting was appointed the first Assistant Secretary to
the Conference in 1806, on the recommendation of the Presi-
dent, Dr. Adam Clarke (‘‘ Life,” p. 713). He had just com-
pleted the seventh year of his mighty ministry. At this very
Conference, from his Sub-Secretarial desk, he spoke on a case
of discipline, and, in opposition to the earnest recommendations
of the President, urged that the offender should be dismissed
(zbed., 257).

Thus he was no sooner in office than he was in opposition,
and that to the highest officer and the most eminent minister
in the whole Conference. My revered father was present, and
a witness of these wonders.

The published Minutes of the Conference of 1807 contain
evidence of his anxiety to introduce gradually some “ changes in
the administration” (2ézd., 271). Among these was requiring
the attendance of all probationers at Conferences for personal
examination.

In Dr. Bunting’s policy, by which he says “I mean my
course of action,” the supreme authority of the Pastorate was,

‘to all practical intents and purposes, the Constitution under-
lying all documentary elements, whether settlements, Alans of
pacification, reciprocal regulations, enactments of the Conference,
or what not. If at any time any such settlements, plans,
regulations, enactments, precedents, or what else, should
hamper or imperil that supreme authority, ¢hey, not, 24, must
give way. This was the gist of his speech from the Chair
of the Conference in defence of the innovating and irregular
treatment of the Leeds dissensions, of which the “ Life of

GG 2
500 Astrory or Meruopism.

Dr. Bunting” asserts him to have been the directive and
decisive agent. This, too, in the Minutes published in 1828,
is made the justification of the undenied departures from the
settlement in the Plan of Pacification in 1795 and the Leeds
Regulations in 1797. That justification is simply and plainly
that, however divergent from or discrepant with the docu-
mentary constitution it might be, it was indispensably neces-
sary, and constitutional also, in an ‘extraordinary emergency ;”
that very extraordinary emergency being precisely the emergency
which those special rules were carefully devised to meet.

And in what consisted the indispensable necessity for the
infringement of those rules? It was clearly the fear lest, if
those rules or regulations were faithfully adhered to, the
supreme authority of the Pastorate would be thereby ob-
structed or endangered. According to this hypothesis, not
only do circumstances alter cases but circumstances alter
constitutions. Is one party to a ‘‘settlement’’ bound by that
settlement, and the other not?

Again, the Minutes on dzsczpline, published in 1829, thus
modified the adherence of the Conference to the Plan of
Pacification and the Leeds Regulations, which were rightly
regarded as the Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights of the’
Methodist Constitution. They were binding only ‘‘as explained
by the action of Conference.” Some of the Preachers and many
of the people found it hard to understand how a distinct
departure from those regulations could be an explanation of
those regulations. It seemed to them to bear too strong a
resemblance to the mode in which the Vatican observes the
Scriptures—not as taken in their simple, obvious, and straight-
forward sense but as explained by its own action. Hence
resulted the petitions for an authorised explanation of our
rules.

All these petitions, we have seen, Dr. Bunting steadily resisted
and successfully staved off. Anything like a digest, codification,
or authorised compendium he instinctively eschewed. If the
Constitution and the law be definitively explained by the
authority itself in such wise as to shut out all ambiguity or
possibility of two opposed constructions, then the meaning of:a
law can no longer be determined by the action of the Conference ;
but, on the contrary, the action of the Conference must itself
be determined by its own explanation of the Constitution and
the law.
Dr. Buwrine’s Poricy. sor

The primary point in dispute in the disastrous Leeds business
was this: Is the Conference itself bound by its own law, so long
as that law remains ? Or may a law mean one thing at one time
and the direct opposite at another, and so turn and turn about,
according to the ‘“ emergency"?

Take, for example, the essential part of our economy which,
next to the Class meeting, the Conference, and the Circuit, is the
oldest and most central part of our economy—the Quarterly
Meeting. Although the necessity of defining the composition
of the Quarterly Meeting emerged at every crisis of our
history, and was pressed as a necessity by such men as Mr.
James Wood of Manchester, Dr. Bunting stoutly and suc-
cessfully preclosed the question, so that the Quarterly Meeting
could not get to know who had the right to help to discharge
its important Church functions, or to be helped to its hearty
Christmas dinner, till the year of grace 1852.

By the Conference of 1808 the inconvenience of an unstrati-
fied aggregation of laws had become so fretting that three of
the most judicious brethren were appointed to compile a digest :
Wood, Reece, and Lomas. A difference of opinion had arisen
between Mr. Wood and the two others as to whether the
explanation of the reason and purpose of each rule and the
historical occasion of its enactment should be given along with
the rule itself, or in a general preface. Dr. Bunting strongly took
the former view, and greatly rejoiced that such a digest was
forthcoming. His son explains his subsequent aversion to any
systematic arrangement of our laws “to the fear that it would
reveal actual redundancy and theoretical defectiveness,” and that
this ‘ would probably occasion discussion and difficulty ” (p. 303).
But his speeches in deprecation of the measure, and the events
which called forth alike the demand for it and his objection to
it, point much more clearly in the direction I have indicated.
Another of Dr. Bunting's principles he thus expressed :—

“We must not have the tyranny of the Hundred, or raise them above
others. If so, we should have two bodies: one to do as they please, the other
to do as they are bid.” Mr. Bromley replied: I have re-read lately the
Deed Poll, and cannot recall any clause in that instrument which gives power
to a District Meeting to forbid any member of the Legal Conference to be in
his place in that body during any of its sessions."

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘ We all submit to the regulations of 1791, and have
determined to use our privileges in submission to the Conference."

Dr. Warren : ‘Then why must we, year by year, grant a dispensation
to the absent members of the Legal Conference? From what do we dispense
Soz History or Meruoprsm.

them but from the duty of being in theiy places in the Conference? Has not a
member of the Legal Conference, as well as any other man, an absolute right to
do his duty—if he can?"

Mr. Bunting: ‘‘The dispensation is simply granted to show that we
approve of what the District Meeting has done. If we have not a quorum,
we must adjourn till the nearest members of the Hundred can be got.”

These deliverances are highly illustrative of Dr. Bunting’s
daring and adroitness in debate. They exemplify the dexterity
with which he could start a side-issue that afforded him occasion
to pronounce a judgment. The relation of the Legal Conference
to the rest of the Conference was not the question before the
House. That was, moreover, a question of far too great import-
ance to be dogmatically decided by a few offhand and
parenthetical pronouncements. The case before the Conference
was that of a very young man who, after his colleagues had left
him in charge of a highly important and disturbed Circuit, had
given himself a dispensation to leave the Circuit to take charge
of itself.

In the earlier part of his Conferential career he was the
assailant of what he thought might look like, or look in the
direction of what he justly denounced as “‘ tyranny '’"—the having
in Conference two bodies ; “one tc de as they please, and the
other to do as they are bid.” But many thought and felt that
the real danger did not lie in the direction towards which he
pointed. It seemed to them that if “tyranny,” as thus described
so aptly, was to be endured at all, the Legal Conference might be
most fairly and most safely left to exercise that tyranny. Were
they not the most tried and experienced men of the entire
fraternity ? Among them sat the still-surviving elders who had
outlived the Methodist Joshua. They had so far given not the
slightest ground for jealousy. On the contrary, they had presented
to the Conference all the privileges that could possibly be parted
with in anything like consistency with Wesley’s Deed Poll, by
which the Conference itself was constituted a legally recognised
corporation, with authority to control both property and persons.
Besides ‘‘ The Hundred” was a tangible, substantive, ascertain-
able organism. Their names were written and read over ; all
their brethren knew who and what they were.

Above all, they were an e/ected body, installed by the vote
of their brethren. They were not locally congested. They
were scattered all over the three kingdoms, from Bandon to
Hull, and from Newcastle to Penzance. They had no facilities
Dr. Bontine’s Poricy. 503

for “laying their heads together” and taking on_ their
shoulders, already overburdened with their departmental
duties, ‘the care of all the churches.”

In the eyes of men like Mr. Fowler, the danger of a
cleavage in the Conference into two sections, “those who do
as they please, and those who do as they are bid,” lay in
quite another quarter. What they feared, and fought against
with manful honesty, was the gradual growing up of an un-
nominated, unelected, unamenable, intangible, unresponsive
governing body, who could not be “brought to book.”

But Dr. Bunting, as he gathered power and influence, too
often, as we have seen, manifested impatience of animadversion
and inquiry, and still more of opposition, to any project or pro-
posal of his own, whether in the Conference or in the commit-
tees of the two departments of which he had the special charge—
the Missionary and the Theological Institutions. As to both these,
the first great duty of a member of committee was, in his view,
to “repose confidence in the officers.” Busy men, with a sense
of personal responsibility and with duties of their own, felt as
if this reposeful trust might be fulfilled at home withott stirring
from the study or the counting-house. They were like the
gentlemen of Bristol, who did not “care” to leave behind
their families and merchandise, take a drive to Kingswood,
receive assurances that nothing could be better managed, shake
hands with the Governor, enjoy a hearty dinner, and then
return. It reminded them of the historic expedition, when—

“Ten thousand men marched up the hill,
And then marched down again.”

The range of subjects on which demur to any contemplated
action was admissible was restricted to the narrowest limits.
Was a minister to be sent as deputation to the mission-field,
any doubt as to the fitness of the selection was summarily put
down as an infringement on the “rights of Conference.’ On
all such subjects, if not approval, at least assent or acquiescence
was to be the committee man’s “unbounded duty.” And on
general questions the officials ‘‘ must know better” than anybody
else had any “business” to know what was wisest to be done.
Anything like a strenuous objection was construed into a vote
of want of confidence. This position was distinctly taken up
by Dr. Bunting. ‘Hitherto I have met with the approval of
504 Hirstory or Meruopism.

my brethren ; if they do not approve of this particular action,
I will retire from all my offices.” An inquiring brother found
himself under the definition of a note of interrogation: “A
little crooked thing that asks questions.’ Once assumed to
be such, the minority must be mum. “We are the majority;
why can’t you let us alone?’ was Dr. Bunting’s answer to
all inquiring friends on the other side of the house. For
there were inevitably two sides, if not more, to this house as
well as every other, as there were at least two sides to every
question of importance brought before it. There was no need
to be two “garties.’ Thus far my friend Dr. Osborn was
quite right in his speech in justification of his “test”; but
if it must needs be that parties come, why, the reason is the
same as that why “offences must needs come.” Or “whence”
do they come? Come they not even of the same parentage
as “‘wars and fightings,’ which so often follow in their train?
and, therefore, ‘‘ Woe unto that man by whom they come” ina
Christian Church.

But side-taking does not become party in any blamable or
hurtful sense until it generates, or unless it is itself generated
by, a party spirit. So long as the word simply indicates a certain
point of view, such as “the court party” and “the country
party,” there is no more harm in party than in the hemispheres
of an orange. A minority becomes a factzon in the same way
in which a Cabinet degrades itself into a cabal by the employ-
ment of indirect, unworthy methods for strengthening its power
and furthering its purpose.

In a large body like the Conference, composed of men
called out from among their fellows on account of some marked
individuality of intellect and character, there cannot fail to
be two sides in Conference. Even when no one came there
but by Wesley’s invitation, there was a strong Church side
and a stout Nonconforming side. So when Dr. Bunting’s
“policy” took shape, and became pronounced and positive
and peremptory, and began to claim allegiance to itself under
the title of ‘‘ Methodism as it is,” this naturally, and necessarily,
called forth a band of honest, independent thinkers and talkers,
who strove to put the brake upon the wheels of the Royal
Mail or fast express when some danger signal came in sight.
These good and noble men I personally knew. I looked up
to them, and listened to them, and studied them, and stored up
their utterances, their mannerisms, and the impression of their
Dr. Buwrinwe’s Poricy. 505

personality. Forty years ago I conceived the idea of writing
‘‘ The Lives of the Liberals in the Wesleyan Methodist Ministry,”
including Daniel Isaac, Jacob Stanley, William Atherton, Samuel
Jackson, Valentine Ward, J. P. Haswell, and, above all,
the three most persistent and most effective of them all
—Joseph Fowler, Thomas Galland, and Dr. Beaumont. These
‘were all gallant men and true” as ever “hung their shields ”
in knightly hall. They were as honest Methodist Preachers,
as devoted to Methodism, and as deserving well of Method-
ism as, and were no more chargeable with faction than, those
whom they confronted. But Mr. Stanley’s opposition was inter-
mittent, that of Mr. Artherton was sluggish and spasmodic. The
principle of them all was expressed by Mr. Galland: “I fear
extremes, but I think the extreme of Radicalism is worse than
the extreme of Conservatism.”

Another of Dr. Bunting’s principles was: “A Methodist
minister has the right, though not to expel a member from the
society, yet to forbid him the Lord’s Supper, without the
formality of a Leaders’ Meeting.”

“The Conference is the living Wesley.”

Our readers will have no difficulty in gathering from Dr.
Bunting’s speeches other fundamental principles and the
animating spirit of his policy; I need only further name the
most decisive.

A very salient point in Dr. Bunting’s policy was to strengthen
and extend the authority and power of the executive—such as
Chairmen of the Districts.

In short, the aim and merit of Dr. Bunting’s statesmanship
was to solzdzfy and to consolidate the whole economy of Method-
ism, and to give to our economy homogeneity, cohesion, vigour,
and effectiveness. This was an aim worthy of the honourable and
enlightened attention of the ablest of the sons of Methodism.
But, alas !

“« The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Gang oft agley.”

As every man has the faults of his excellences and the
weaknesses of his powers, so every policy and polity has the perils
of its own advantages. Consolidation tends to concentration,
concentration to coxgestion, congestion leads to inflammation,
paroxysm and convulsion, and collapse. One chief charge
against Dr. Bunting’s policy was that it tended towards and
506 ffistory or Meruorism.

resulted in crude centralisation, and thus checked the healthy
distribution both of function and of power.

For some years Mr. Fowler kept notes of proceedings in
Committees. I give a few extracts which cast light upon the
policy of Dr. Bunting, which was just as marked as in the
Conference, as was also his capacity for affairs.

At the three meetings of the committee on the Centenary
celebration Dr. Bunting was, of course, the presiding genius.
Yet he was cautious, and desirous rather of eliciting lay opinion
than of pressing ministerial preferences. He saw that it must
be for the most part alayman’s movement. But he insisted upon
two points: “The result must be something monumental, some-
thing visible, that our people can look at and that will impress
the public with the greatness of our gratitude and the greatness
of our ability. Better have no collection at all, but only
devotional and edifying services, than a pitiful amount which
should expose our inability. It must be on such a scale as would
take hold on the hearts of our people, so that they would give to
it magnificently. We must build a memorial and a testimonial
sufficiently large to be imposing and impressive to the present
and to the future generations: either an ample and commodious
Mission House or Theological Institution, or both. Both are
urgently needed. Our present Mission House is insufficient.
I find it impracticable to get through my own part of the work
much longer without a room to myself. Whichever we build
must have at its entrance a fine marble statue of John Wesley.”
This last was accomplished ten years later by the munificence
of Mr. Farmer.

Dr. Bunting held that the great purpose of the Theological
Institution, next to the training of the future ministry in Method-
ist doctrine, history, and polity, must be the correction of awk-
wardnesses or unattractive habits in young Preachers.

The laymen who really struck the keynote to that munifi-
cent thanksgiving and the wise, brave policy of attempting
great things for God, were Mr. Farmer, of London, and Mr.
James Wood, of Manchester.

Mr. T. P. Bunting asked whether it was contemplated to found a great
establishment for the education of both ministers and laymen.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ That, if possible, would be a glorious consummation. It
was what Mr. Wesley aimed at in building Kingswood." This was also the

view of Mr. Farmer. Mr. Fowler and Mr. Burgess pleaded for the relief
of overburdened trusts.
Dr. Buntine’s Pocicy. 507

Mr. Riggall said: ‘If the Preachers be united in their judgment, they can
lead the people. I will act in unison with my brethren. I cannot vote in
favour of the Institution; but if my brethren decide in favour of it, I shall
support it.”

At the Missionary Committee of Review, 1839, Mr. Galland
asked the Secretaries a question which he thought it was not
disrespectful to ask, as to the communication which had been
addressed to the Mission House on Canadian affairs.

Dr, Bunting: ‘There is nothing disrespectful in the question; but it
is one that requires deliberation. A member of either House may ask
a question of her Majesty's Ministers, but it may not be proper for them to
answer. The reason of my silence is: I doubt whether the committee has
aright to institute such inquiries. The Conference is the proper place for
a question between the Secretaries and Mr. Ryerson.”’

Mr. R. (our representative to Canada): ‘' All was amicably settled in
Canada.” -

Dr. Bunting : ‘I think not; matters are still in a very unsettled, restless
state.”

Mr. Galland: “I think a wise economy has been exercised. I have only
one thing to notice: I have a conscientious objection to men remaining in
the office of Secretary for so many years. I think it will prove injurious
to Methodism.”

Mr. Chapell: ‘‘ Why part with a good servant ?”’

Dr. Bunting: «As Mr. Galland talks about his conscience, I will tell what
I believe in my conscience—namely, that I am fitter for the station at present
than any other man, simply ‘because I have had experienee. I think it would
take any man at least three years to learn what I have learnt in six years. If
I did not believe this, I would not remain Secretary. It is a great tax on my
time and domestic comfort. I think the principle unsound ; there might be
a necessity for a man to remain in office."

Mr. Reece: ‘‘I think the amount of expenditure on the Mission premises
requires a little explanation.”

Mr. Farmer: ‘I would have the letter read which Mr. Galland asks
about.”

Mr. Wood, of Manchester: ‘‘I oppose the reading; because this com-
mittee does not wish it, and because I have full confidence in all the
London Committee does.” /

Mr. Galland: “I think it a matter of regret that the Methodist documents
should first meet the public eye through a hostile medium.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ The letter is neither very good nor bad; neither black
nor white, but good brown ochre. It procured us £1,200. Since it has
been asked about, I would have it read.’ It was read.

Mr. Marriott: ‘(I think £25,000 too large an expenditure on the new
Missionary premises. I believe the: premises themselves were obtained
cheaply; but an amount almost equal to the purchase money has been
expended since.”

Mr. Farmer: ‘‘ The additional expenditure is caused by the alterations
necessary for adapting the premises to their present purpose.”
508 flistory or Meruopism.

Dr, Bunting: “That expenditure did not come out of the Society's
income, but from the Centenary Fund. The question for us now is: Can
we take so many missionaries with a deficiency of £10,000?"

At the Committee of the Theological Instetution it was stated
that two students from Hoxton were the most popular men in
their Circuit.

On this Mr. Galland questioned the judiciousness of making such a
comparison between young men fresh from the Institution and some of
the best Preachers in the Connexion. He thought the Institution itself
would be more popular if some of the students were less dogmatic.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ This is a new and intolerable mode of remark. There
are men who, under pretence of being honest, say things coarse and rude.”

Mr. Galland: ‘'Nothing I have said deserves the epithets ‘intolerable,
coarse, and rude.’ Those words are much more applicable to a charge
upon a brother minister of a pretence of honesty, in having simply done
his duty as 4 member of the committee.”

Dr. Beaumont questioned the necessity of separating an additional
minister from Circuit work to a tutorship at the Institution.

Dr. Bunting: ‘The ruin of Methodism is for men to be going lionising
about the country to Missionary anniversaries and chapel openings instead
of attending to their own Pastoral work."

Dr. Beaumont thought that one remedy for this was that the eminently
capable Missionary Secretaries should relieve the less qualified brethren
of a larger amount of this Connexional service than they are accustomed
to. “It is a serious matter of regret that the surpassing powers of Dr.
Bunting as a Preacher should be almost lost to Methodism."

So there was no small sparring in this Centenary year!

+

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I hate the words Senior Secretary; and hope I shall
hear no more of them.”

At the General Book Commitiee before the Conference of
1836, attention was called to certain articles in the Magazine,
which were said to have given offence on account of the feeling
manifested in them.

Dr. Bunting: ‘I enter my protest against such an objection. I have
not heard of it before. The articles show that a lie is a lie. It is easy
to intrude into a battle. A combatant must strike; if your head and
heart be in the way, you must take the consequence. What feeling? Ought
we not to feel indignation against such proceedings? I would always
take the highest ground in the controversy against Popery everywhere.”

The Editor: ‘Certainly the articles have not complimented the
Radicals.”

Mr. Galland quoted certain recriminatory sentences which he thought
exceptionable. He said: ‘An intermixture of religion and politics in a
denominational organ requires great nicety of handling. I fear extremes;
Dr. Buntine’s Poticy. 509

but I think the extreme of Radicalism is worse than the extreme of Con-
servatism. I have confidence in Mr. Jackson.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I would have us guard against too much entertainment
in our publications. Religion is a serious thing. The attempt to make
religion entertaining has not succeeded. We must include general litera-
ture, not politics. We have access to the largest class of society. Lord
Brougham’s magazine was the wisest measure ever adopted for his purpose.
Let us profit by his example Is it not important to have articles on
chemistry free from materialism ; religious, and yet free from Calvinism?
These are times to adopt the Press for doing good.”

At the Schools Committee, Dr. Bunting said: ‘‘ The best way to learn
English grammar is to learn Latin. There can be no perfect grammarian
without it. Let other learning go rather than it.”

At the Missionary Committee Mr. Rule’s request of £450
from the Missionary Committee to enable him to print a
Commentary on the Gospels was again declined for want of
funds. Several matters in relation to our African Mission were
made the subject of remark and censure.

Dr. Bunting: ‘ Details are of comparatively no importance. The
question now is whether we are to go on at all, or not. I think we
really must recall some sixty niissionaries. There are three aspects under
which our mission work is legal. (1) Is the Divine blessing on them?
Five thousand seven hundred increase this year makes it evident that they
have not fallen out of favour with God. (2) Our income makes it plain that
we have not fallen out of favour with man. (3) The debt can be managed.
Having raised £200,000, we can, if we will, pay off £30,000, if our opulent
friends will act as they profess to believe. But we should not generally
depend upon our opulent friends, nor on a few pounds additional. There
is one thing we must give up, and that is boasting. That is our first sacrifice.
I am sorry to see so much puffing in the Watchman. Breakfast meetings
should not be for speechifying, but for confessing our sins. We must have
no oratory. I can do nothing in that way.”

Some anxiety was expressed for the personal safety of our
missionary in Spain. The inquirer was reassured by being
told, “ The missionary will not be murdered, though he may
be assassinated.”

Missionary Committee, July. Dr. Bunting expressed himself very strongly
on the short term of missionary service. He said: ‘It will ruin the work."
A long discussion on the evils of the return of missionaries, leaving vacated
stations.

Dr. Bunting again expressed his strong conviction that missionaries
should go out for life, though in special cases they might be permitted
to return.
510% History oF METHODISM.

At a meeting of the Committee of Privileges Mr. Fowler
called attention to the fact that a clergyman had refused
to bury a child baptised by a Wesleyan minister. Mr.
President was in the Chair, but Dr. Bunting took up the
case.

J. Fowler said: ‘If our people cannot have their grievances redressed,
we had better hand them over to the Church again.”

Dr. Bunting took offence at this, and said: ‘‘Our people must be willing
to suffer wrong for Methodism's sake. I should feel this no offence in my
owncase. If Parliament were sitting, I should bring the case before it. But
we must not have a brawler to introduce it. No notice would be taken of
him. If his be a strong case, I would memorialise the Government. We
might tell them that if these things go on we will join the Dissenters to
petition against Church and State. What Mr. Fowler said is in the spirit
of pettishness. We cannot afford a lawsuit in every case. Some person
said he would give £50 in the Gedney case. Has it ever been seen since?”
The conclusion was that the committee could not countenance going to law.

J. Farrar: “I cannot concur in leaving our pulpits. If that can be
arranged for, I will remain at Richmond.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘No Tutor should take that ground. We must conform
to what will be for the well-being of the Institution. I do not like an
establishment in which servants do as they please.’ Mr. Farrar: ‘I com-
plain that Dr. Bunting has misrepresented me." Mr. Jackson: ‘ The
Institution must not suffer on any plea whatever."

Book Committee. Mr. Rule's MS. on “ Methodism” to be
read by Fowler, Crowther, McLean, and Prest.

The former part of the MS. (dealing with early Methodism)
was approved of, but the latter part, which dealt with the
present position and relations of the Body, was not so satis-
factory. Negotiations ensued which were so protracted that the
work did not see the light till three years later, as “ Wesleyan
Methodism Regarded as the System of a Christian Church.”

Book Committee. Dr. Bunting: “Mr. Rule’s book on
Methodism contains pages of exquisite beauty and great power,
equal to some of Watson’s most brilliant passages. But—
but—it is not proper to be published.” Some sparring took
place between Dr. Bunting and Mr. Fowler about the Conference
understanding as to the Marriage Act.

It was my good hap to be there to see this sparring between
two such doughty athletes. And a smart bit of “science” it
was, quite characteristic of the combatants: Fowler wary, quick-
eyed, imperturbable ; Bunting downbearing and impetuous and
irresistible, except by the prompt persistence of a man who always
Dr. Buwntine’s Poticy. 511

stood his ground, because hé knew the ground on which he
stood. But I have described the scene elsewhere.

A letter was read from Mr. Cryer, of Madras, stating that
on his outward voyage, although on taking his passage his
profession was stated, he was not allowed to perform any
religious service, nor even to pray with and offer consolation to
the dying. In addition to the passengers and crew, there were
600 soldiers on board. The only reason given was that he was
not epzscopally ordained.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ We should be careful. I see that the devil has two
aims by the present movement: (1) To excite bigotry and persecution ;
(2) to make those angry who are the subjects of persecution. I think
he is succeeding in both these aims. We must avoid what is vindictive.
All controversies are productive of great evils.”

J. Fowler maintained that no member of the Committee wished to be
vindictive, or even discourteous to the men, but we could scarcely bear
too hard upon a system which denies to a Methodist minister what it allows
to pernicious errors.

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘The controversy against Antinomianism did a deal of
harm; well nigh made us semi-Pelagians.”

J. Fowler: “It quite saved us from Antinomianism. But let us see
how long Dr. Bunting will keep to his present view about controversy.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think it would be a sin to send a missionary to China
while we have so few missionaries, and so many open doors, in India.
I think Providence has sent home Mr. Arthur to convince us of this.
Let us have no Methodistical bigotry, and interfere with the London
Mission to China. That will prevent our wishing them success. I am
solemnly in earnest about India. My happiest moment, excepting that of
my conversion, was when I offered myself for India. I have no particular
reason to be dissatisfied with my station at home; but I believe that if
I had gone I should have been happier. I believe that in validity of.
orders, and accurate views of truth and Church principles, we are equal,
if not superior, to others; but missionary zeal is not given to the Methodists.”’

At the Commitice of Privileges, met to consider Sir J.
Graham's Education Bill, the retiring and reserved Mr.
Farmer made this strong remark: “The Church we are
attached to is the Church of the Reformation, founded upon
Holy Scripture. From any State Church which moves away
from that foundation we are Dissenters. As Methodists we
must be so. The Church puts us down as Dissenters. We
must oppose this Bill cautiously, but we must offose it.”
512 ffisrory oF Mernonism.

Dr. Bunting disapproved of the Education question having been brought
before the Bristol Quarterly Meeting.

Mr. J. Wood, of Bristol: “I hope we shall accept no favour from the
Government which is not conceded to ali denominational schools.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘That is a Socialist, an Owenite system. I have spent
eight hours in reading the Bill, and am more and more dissatisfied with
it. It does give what we contended for at the last movement on Education :
reading the Scriptures°in the Authorised Version, and giving Christian
instruction therefrom. No Churchman has a right to teach my children
Churchism ; but there are so many clauses in the Bill to which we objected
that I am inclined, on the whole, to reject it. The Constitution of the Board
is perfectly unbearable. If that is not altered, we must oppose the Bill with
all our heart and soul. The poor rate maintenance is a new point in legisla-
tion. I object to compulsory payment and to penalties. The dismissal of the
children is very objectionable. It may be by one Trustee, and he a cleric.
Then, why a cleric in the Chair as such? The appointment by magistrates
is very objectionable. Why should not the ratepayers have the choice?
Should any man be allowed to come with authority between the parents
and their child? Is it right to punish a man with penalties because he
is an infidel? I raise up my sturdy objection to the Bill. No doubt we are
Dissenters. We ave not Churchmen. I for one cannot be a Churchman, at least
a Church minister; I cannot say that everything in the book of Common
Prayer is agreeable to the word of God; still less sign it and say that I
believe it. It is time that we had done with this bushfighting. In a
sense we are Dissenters; yet there is a sense in which we are not, but only
Nonconformists. I cannot defend the foolish sayings of some on this point.
Tell the Government what you approve of, and what you object to. I
think the Bill has been concocted in too much haste. It had better lie
over till next session. But Hume and his party are committed to the
principle. The backbone of this country is its Church. There is no lack of
money among the Roman Catholics or the Church of England. I would
suggest that the country members of this Committee be called together.”
The meeting of the town and country members was held six days later.

Dr. Bunting: ‘It is one. Our business is to see whether any modification
can be made in the Bill, or if it should be opposed altogether.” He restated
his objection to the Bill, and added: “I think it is unmendable. There are
two propositions : (1) To oppose it in a sort of knockdown way, and thus join
the Dissenters. This I think not the best. (z) To try to get the objectionable
parts altered. I fear there is no prospect of doing this, but we shall be in
better state by having made the attempt. I will tell the Government what we
approve: That the Scriptures should be taught in the Authorised Version,
and that Christian training is an essential principle in national education.
But each section of the Church should instruct its own children, and those of
as many others as-choose to place their children under its instruction. If this
Bill be effectually resisted, we must be prepared to do more than we have
done, and not keep our money in our pockets; we must live less self-
indulgently. Tell them our objection to the intolerant, unreasonabie claim
of the Church at any time, particularly at present; I would make a protest
against Puseyism. I wished for an opportunity of doing it last Conference,
but will:do it now. I would deal kindly with the Evangelical party in the
Dr. Buntine's Poticy. 513

Church. The ratepayers should inspect the appropriation. The Board is
perfectly unbearable. The ground of exemption should be altered. No
reason should be required for sending a child where the parents please. A
parent has a right to be capricious towards man, but not towards God. The
dismissal clause and Sunday school clauses must be given up. There are
many other grounds of objection, but I would select the strongest. We must
not talk gossip, but I believe that the history of the Bill is this: The
Radicals are at the bottom of it. The measure the Whigs brought in being
thrown out, the Government consulted the High Church party. They ought
to have consulted the Wesleyans and Dissenters. The subject is full of
difficulty.”

Mr. G. Osborn: “I think the Committee of Privy Council objectionable.
It may be what we like, but it might be otherwise. I know how the power
will be exercised in Manchester, Leeds, Rochdale, etc. No modification
can be made consistent with truth and liberty. The Puseyiting party have
their books and prints in readiness. Their machinery is all ready."

At the adjourned meeting Dr. Bunting read a series of
resolutions which he had drawn up at the request of the
committee. These formed a most perspicuous, forcible, and
statesmanlike document, showing what we approve and what
we disapprove of in the Bill, and why. These, and a vote of
thanks to Dr. Bunting for drawing them up, were carried by
acclamation.

At the May Meeting of the Committee of Privileges, Dr.
Alder gave an account of an interview with Lord John Russell,
from which “it was apparent that Lord John understood our
position as not Churchmen, nor yet Dissenters.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘I think the Government has done us grave harm by
making some important alterations in the Bill, which I believe they honestly
intended to amend it; for instance, the constitution of the Board.”

Mr. Fowler and many others totally dissented from this view.

At the Book Committee—A complaint by Dr. Campbell
was read tq the Committee. The advertising Committee had
declined to stitch in a prospectus of a new periodical of which
he was the Eadzior (the W2tness), on the ground that “ it advocated
the separation of Church and State.”

J. Fowler: “I think this reason insufficient after the strong siding with
the Scotch Free Church by the Conference, the Connexion generally, and our
leading men—Dr. Bunting in particular—and by the Magazine.”

Dr. Bunting: I could show the contrary, but think our time might
be better employed. I move that the Committee now becomes the London
Ministers’ Meeting.” This generalship succeeded, and Dr. Campbell's
complaint fell flat.

HH
514 History or Mernopism.

Dr. Bunting: “It is a base, grovelling, unworthy thing that young men
stay lurking at home when we want men for the foreign work. I could not
speak thus if I had not offered myself to go. Mr. Hoole has been trying
to procure men and cannot succeed. This should be known. Our whole
system is wrong; a man going out and thinking of returning home does not
go in aright spirit. The Bishop of Calcutta said: ‘Where should a Bishop
die but in his diocese?’ I believe that God was never a party to a covenant
for limited service. The going is of God, but the stipulating to return is
of man. Perhaps I have done wrong in expressing myself so freely.”

A letter was read from a minister in Cornwall complaining
of a tract on Teetotalism, written by another minister, which was
alleged to have done great harm in Cornwall. Another letter
was read to the directly opposite effect. Letters from the author
were read complaining of the loss inflicted on him by the Book
Steward’s first granting and then withdrawing permission to
print his name on the title-page.

Mr. Reece: ‘I think the pamphlet violent and inflammatory; the Book
Steward's name should not be upon its title-page.”

The Senior Editor: ‘‘ I concur with Mr. Reece; but the author has been
grievously and painfully provoked.”

Mr. Scott: ‘I think the author did wrong in meddling with another
man’s Circuit.”’

Dr. Bunting, who had just entered: ‘‘ lam not prepared to say that a man
has no right to reply to persons who attack him because they live in another
Circuit.” ,

Mr. Naylor: ‘‘ The writer of the tract had been greatly exasperated, and
but for some personalities I should have approved of the tract.”’

Mr. Prest: ‘‘I approve of the argument of the tract, but condemn its
expression. I am sorry that while the matter is good the manner is so
evil.”

Mr. Naylor and Mr. McLean said they ‘adopted Dr. Bunting’s views
on the subject.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ My views are neither those of Mr. Naylor nor those of
Mr. McLean. I was at first disposed neither to bless the tract nor to curse it;
but am now decidedly of opinion that jt has done more harm than good.
A sub-committee should be appointed to draw up a soothing letter to the
brother, which he may publish if he please.”

Mr. Mason: ‘It would be much better to pay the brother the cost of
a new title-page than have any more publishing on the case.”

Dr. Bunting opposed this, so it did not pass.

The Senior Editor brought a complaint against a brother for having
drawn him into an unseemly newspaper contest for having given a faithful
review of one of his publications.

Dr. Bunting: '' Brother —— has no right to force the Editor into a
literary duel for having done his duty. If the brother had any unfairness to
complain of, he should have brought the matter here.”

The brother defended himself by saying that before issuing the pamphlet
Dr. Buwrine’s Pocicy. 515

he had submitted it to six brethren, three of whom were present. Dr.
Bunting then made some scathing stricture upon the pamphlet.

Dr. B.: ‘‘ You applied to the doctor for the advice you wished for.”

Mr. W. M. Bunting: ‘I think the brethren who sanctioned the publica-
tion of the pamphlet ought to come forward and avow it with manliness and
Christianity, and put themselves into the way of receiving the animadversions
of my father, who is allowed to say what would not be received from any
other person.”

The brother acknowledged he had done wrong in appealing to the public
against the Editor in the conscientious discharge of his duty. Dr. Bunting
was satisfied, and so the matter dropped.

Mr. Fowler inqujred whether the statement in the Leeds Mercury was true
that an advertisement from the Anti-Corn Law Association had been refused
insertion by the Advertising Committee? After some fencing it came out
that it had.

J. Fowler: “I think that very indiscreet.”

Mr. T. Jackson then gave way to angry remarks on the expression of
opinion on such matters.

A work was offered to the Book Room by Henry Williams
on “ The Church Character of Methodism.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I am not sure the time has come to go from our original
position. I would not have a work which might set us against each other.
I think it might be more courteous to read it before declining it. He might
be advised to publish on his own account. It would be more soothing. The
readers thought this the best course, as, though not controversial, it contained
points which lead to controversy among ourselves."’

The combination in one gigantic personality of multitudinous
faculty, facility, and aptitude is no fault or condemnation of the
individual himself. Who could blame Briareus for his being
born with a hundred hands? Yet if Briareus blunders, the
disastrous consequences may be fifty-fold. But this is not the
whole ; and this, perhaps, is not the worst. Concentration of
office, power, and influence in a particular place has its dangers
and disadvantages as well as concentration in a particular person.
London naturally, almost necessarily, attracts to itself and absorbs
within itself the greatest number of the greatest men. If the
London apprentices became at one time a factor in the State, to
be considered and taken into practical account, no wonder that
on Wesley's death the London Preachers should assert themselves
within the commonwealth of Methodism by assuming the
initiative in Methodistic matters, movements, and measures, and
thus form themselves unwittingly into a sort of irresponsible
Directory, or constitute themselves into a sort of Committee of

H H 2
516 Hisrory or Mzrnooism.

Public Safety for the rest of the Connexion. This, in any case,
was what took place, sometimes to the annoyance, if even to the
clear advantage, of their confréres in the country. As other
departments in addition to the Book Room—such as the Mission
House and the Theological Institution—fixed in London their
headquarters, the city on the banks of the royal-towered Thames
came more and more to be regarded as the seat of government
for the entire Connexion. By some it was proposed that
a portion of the Centenary Fund should be devoted to the
building and furnishing of a Presidential residence in the me-
tropolis. This project was not carried, but when the spacious,
stately edifice in Central London was purchased and fitted
up for departmental purposes, this feeling was very much
strengthened. As able and firm-footed men, with grave yet
placid faces—readily recognised as Wesleyan ministers—wound
their way to the Wesleyan Centenary Hall, they felt that
they were going the way to the Downing Street of Methodism.
The advantages were obvious and manifold, but, at the same
time, several ministers, such as Mr. Fowler, Mr. Galland, and
Dr. Beaumont, were awake to the advantages to a community
of distributed administration, and the evils of a bureaucracy or
oligarchic government. °

Hence the resolution of the Birmingham District Meeting
in 1843, moved and seconded by strong Conservatives like
Edward Walker and James Topham, and unanimously carried,
resisting the—as it seemed to them—officious and obtrusive
directions and instructions issued from the Centenary Hall on
matters not confided by the Conference to any one of the
departments or all of them together.

The locating of the Chapel Committee in Manchester has
proved a most auspicious and successful experiment in this
direction. It has not only diffused authority and influence, it
has also utilised a large amount of practical sagacity which must
otherwise have run to waste.

Dr. Bunting, again, was endowed by nature with a mighty
voice, of which he had a perfect mastery. He was no reciter,
but his elocution was consummate. His bare reading of the
Scriptures was expository and homiletical to a higher degree than
most men’s sermons or expoundings. The intelligence, sensi-
bility, and force with which he gave out our hymns struck me
the first time I ever heard him more than even his preaching
and appeals.
Dr. Buwrine’s Poticy. 517

In short, ‘boon Nature” seemed to have dealt with him as
Abraham with Isaac when he left to him the substance of his
varied wealth, and to the rest of his sons “gave gifts and sent
them away,” or like the Semitic millionaire of our own time, who
said, “‘I shall leave my property to my eldest son ; I shall only give
the rest a hundred thousand pounds apiece.” Jabez Bunting was,
first of all, a born speaker, he had the gift of moving his fellow
men by words, and tones, and looks to a wonderful.extent. He
was next a born financier; and learnt “accounts” almost by
intuition. He was then a most expert administrator. It was
most interesting to watch him on the departmental or the
legislative rope-walk, deftly paying out the threads or fingering
the tow which was to be joined into the cable of a three-decker
of the line. He was a born debater; he could be at will the
“ Rupert or the Cromwell” of debate. He could charge uphill
like a regiment of Cavaliers, or bear down on his opponents like a
troop of strong-horsed Ironsides. As a swordsman at close quarters
he never met his match; he could pass or parry, feznt or lunge,
with infallible dexterity. It was fine to note the way in which he
would escape one of Mr. Fowler’s sharp and sudden questions,
retreating under cover of a witticism, or avoiding by a quick
retort. He dealt with Dr. Beaumont’s headlong impetus with
quiet ease. He knew well how to get within his guard. I
witnessed a fine instance of this in the London District Meeting.
When the lists of mission deputations for that District was read
over by the senior Secretary himself, Beaumont arose with the
printed copy of the list in his hand, and, running over it peeringly,
remarked, as if with wonderment, “I don’t see the names of any
one of our Missionary Secretaries on this list. They either are as
well informed about the missions as the rest of us, or they ought
to be. How is it, then, that not one of their four names is to be
found upon this list.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ We haven't time. We have other work to attend to.”

Dr. Beaumont: “ Then I haven't time. I've other work to attend to.”

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ Then why don’t you attend to it? We can't go off to
Petty Nook to reopen a chapel, or to Cats’ Pond to preach Sunday School
sermons.”

At this Dr. Beaumont collapsed, although his strong point
was left untouched.

Another element of strength was his prodigious staying power.
It was apparently exhaustless. In this I never knew his equal.
This fact especially impressed me at the Conference of 1848,
518 ffistoryv or Meruopism.

when he had passed his threescore years and ten, As minister
of the Conference chapel, and the youngest minister on the list,
it was my special privilege to attend to the fathers on the
platform. I noticed that throughout the Conference he never
left the platform for a’ moment during any of its discussions.
He could still sit out the youngest and the strongest. In truth,
nothing of importance could be discussed without his presence
being felt. He had a passion for business, and seemed hungry
for affairs. This gave him an immense advantage. He had
every detail at his fingers’ ends.

The three sources of greatness had their influence. But the
order of the two latter, sources was reversed. He was “born
great,” and had “greatness thrust upon’? him, and ‘“ achieved
greatness.” He was under no temptation to ambition, in the
etymological, the conventional, or vulgar sense of that misused,
mistaken word. He never sought office; it was office that sought
him. It came a-begging to his door, and could never have its
fillof him. He neither made his opportunity nor did opportunity
make him. His amazing preaching powers first brought him
into notice, not by its brilliance but by its soul-wakening and
soul-winning force. As old George Morley said, ‘ Every sen-
tence cut.” He learnt the art of preaching by hearing in his
youth in Oldham Street chapel, Manchester, the most successful
preachers of his time, such as Benson, Clarke, and Bradburn.
He had all the internal force and fittings, and the external
aptitudes, facilities, and accessories of an effective Preacher.

Yet he was not a pulpit orator. People who came to hear
him under that impression were sharply disillusioned. They
found no pyrotechnic splendours and no dazzling coruscations.
They found themselves under arrest, in the grip of a giant.

When at the close of his probation his preaching power had
marked him out for London, his distinguished colleagues soon
discovered in him other gifts of inestimable value to the Church.
His financial faculty was soon put in most testing requisition.
An unsystematic system of give and take had brought the Funds
into confusion. This he set right.

From all these causes an unvoted masterhood was allowed to
Dr. Bunting, and an immunity from the restrictions to which his
brethren were required to be amenable.

As might have been expected, the very strongly featured
solicy which he thought the best for Methodism did not quite
commend itself to some of the most thoughtful and most earnest
Dr. Buntine’s Poricy. 519

of his seniors, his coevals, and his juniors in the ministry.
Moreover, his influence and practical predominance in all depart-
ments of administration, from the Stationing Committee upwards,
produced in some two or three, doubtless, a personal jealousy, and
in many more a sincere, unselfish solicitude for the interests of
the Pastoral Brotherhood, and for the Connexion as a whole.
For his will was to the full as potent and commanding as his
intellect. Hence there sprang up two parties in the Conference.
Two of course, if one at all; for it takes two sides to make
a party as well as to make a quarrel. And the fault is not
always or of necessity with the opposition, or the party out
of power.

That Dr. Bunting’s policy did not work without friction,
creakage, or combustion is only too apparent. But one does not
yet expect the best padded, best appointed Pullman train to be
a musical box or literal guarantee for assurance against accident
to life or limb. The practical question comes to this: Was the
system so well worked as to provide all fair, reasonable, and
humanly attainable safeguards against calamity and crash? Let
us see.

“ By this time (1823) there was a secret feeling amongst a very
few that Bunting must not always have his own way.” (‘‘ Life
of Dr. Bunting,” p. 565.) “Some of the brethren think that Mr.
Bunting has too much power.” (Conference of 1823, zdzd, p. 567.)
Thus, it seems, the first audible ‘‘ murmuring” arose (Acts vi.)
amongst the Methodist brethren against what the instinct of
self-preservation has taught all liberty-loving communities and
commonwealths to guard—an overweening, untrusted, irrespon-
sible authority, gathering like an incrustation round some one
naturally powerful, strong-willed individual, to the curtailment
and the imminent infringement of the rights of the fraternity
in general.

Is it safe or seemly for any member of the Conference,
except the President for the time being, to assume prerogatives
which he himself does not concede to any other member of the
Body, or to enforce upon others obligations and restrictions to
which he will not himself submit? No one, so far as I know, for
a moment questioned the opinion of the letter-writer quoted by
Mr. T. B. Bunting in the ‘Life’ that if it were necessary to
entrust such power to any man, no one could compare with
Dr. Bunting in fitness for that high postiion. And few, if any,
would contest the converse statement, that the objectors to
520 Histoxy oF Meruopism.

Dr. Bunting would not have filled the post so well as he did.
But that is not the point. I accept the putting and the
phraseology of Dr. Smith: “It would have been better for
Methodism and for Dr. Bunting had he never occupied a
position so slippery and dizzy; that he would have been
‘more than human’ to preserve his equipoise; and that his
brethren would have been ‘more than human’ not to think
and feel it to be as exceptionable as it was exceptional.” I
accept also Dr. Smith’s expression: ‘‘The Conference ought
not to have been placed in the position” in which it some-
times found itself by the position taken up by its most
honoured member.

I have often wondered that the Preachers had suppressed
the instinct so effectively developed in their sons at Wood-
house Grove. We would not permit the strongest, the
cleverest, the most popular, the most hero-worshipped of the
hundred boys who constituted that little lively commonwealth—
not even the head of the school or the corporeal cock of the school,
or both rolled into one—to challenge for himself a domination
or to take on the air of masterhood. I think, next to ‘ Robinson
Crusoe” and “All the Voyages Round the World,” the most
popular book amongst us was “Anecdotes of Wesley.” One
of Wesley’s sayings did effective service against assumptive
individualism. When a very eminent minister declared that if
so-and-so was done he should leave the Conference, Mr. .
Wesley quietly observed, “Reach him his hat.” And in our
all-including games, like push-battle, there was one sufficing
settlement of all such menaces: ‘And Mr. Wesley said,
‘Reach him his hat.”

And is not that the proper answer to all such Achillean
threatenings of withdrawal from the council or the camp? In
the cause of the great Wesleyan Methodist commander, no
doubt the Conference at such times felt much as the poet felt
as to the object of his admiration (with the substitution of a
single word) :

“There's so much talent, wit, and spleen about thee,
There is no doing with thee—or without thee.”

One serious abatement of the incalculable service rendered
to the Conference by its ablest member was the checking and
curtailing of that freedom of discussion and inquiry which is
the breath of life to a deliberative assembly. This want of
Dr. Buntine’s Poricy. 521

sufficient ventilation produced an insalubrious effect. But for
the winnowing fans of such men as Fowler, Galland, and
Beaumont, the great threshing-floor of the Connexion would
have become stuffy, almost stifling, except during the three
readings of the stations.

For not everyone who “had a burden” could screw his
* courage up to face the strongest athlete of the age. This was
a feat requiring no small nerve and hardihood and readiness.
To be knocked down like a ninepin was not a pleasant thing
to look forward to or to look back upon. An amusing illus-
tration of this fact occurs rather early in the life of no less stout
and sturdy a debater than Samuel Romilly Hall. He writes
to his friend Nightingale, after his first speech in Conference,
as if he had been “shooting the Niagara” or crossing the
Atlantic in a punt. Afvopos of Romilly Hall at the Leeds
Conference of 1856, the last that was ever dignified by Dr.
Bunting’s presence, Mr. Hall came to me at the close of
an anxious morning session, and “set” me on my way to
dinner. He said to me most gravely, ‘Gregory, I have a.
very black, tough crow to pluck, with you.” ‘What's that?”
“Why, just that you do not take your proper part in the
Conference crow-plucking. It vexes me to see such men as
you and Wiseman sitting there as silent as a Sphinx whilst
questions are discussed and interests decided on which require
all the thought and reading that can be brought to bear upon
them.” The next Conference, therefore, I took up my parable,
my point being the inadequacy of the obituary of Dr. Bunting,
which had just been read.

At a later Conference first Mr. Vasey and then Dr. Rigg
came to me, and laid it strongly on my conscience to speak
more frequently in Conference, in consideration of the fact that
the extreme fewness of the speakers was detrimental to some
important interests of the Connexion. In fact, at this time it
was an express principle with some leading men that the dis-
cussions in Conference should be left to a very few, for the
most part to the platform. Thus the domestic adage was
extended to the Conference: “Little people should be seen
and not heard.”

The battle of perfect freedom of speech in Conference was
fought by William Arthur, S. R. Hall, T. Vasey, J. H. Rigg,
and the proverbially trepid companion whom they had pressed
into the service.
522 flistory, or Meruoovism.

The most awkward affair of all, perhaps, was to call the
attention of the Conference to a tendency on the part of
authorities at the Mission House and Richmond to stretch
their disciplinary action beyond their rights and powers. It
fell to my lot to fulfil this undelightful task. In the year of
Dr. Bunting’s death (1858) a young man answered an adver-
tisement from the Swindon Circuit for a hired local Preacher
preparatory to the application for an additional minister the
next year. He laboured there with marked acceptance and
effectiveness, as I can testify, having visited the Circuit
repeatedly at that time. The memory of his ministrations is
still cherished there after the lapse of nine-and-thirty years.
At the next District Meeting, in the regular order of business,
on the asking of the question “whether any minister residing
in the District is under engagement to our Missionary Society,”
the Superintendent of the Circuit asked the advice of the
brethren on the case of a probationer for the ministry
employed in his Circuit, who since the Conference had been
dismissed from the Richmond branch of the Institution for
having requested the committee to reconsider his engagement
to the foreign work on the ground of a very important change
in his own personal relations. After due deliberation I was
instructed, as the District Secretary, to make a Mota Bene of
the case in the District Minute, and refer it to the judgment
of the Conference. This was done accordingly.

At the Conference, when the report of the Richmond branch
of the Institution was presented, I inquired what had become
of the student. I was answered that he had been sent home
by the authorities on account of his unwillingness to go abroad
according to his original designation. I asked for the Minute
for his case, and as the Minute Book was not. forthcoming,
moved that it be sent for. This was carried. On the arrival
of the book it was found that while the sentence of expulsion
was definitive and definite, the reason for it was vague and
unexplicit. I asked whether the young man refused to fulfil
his engagement to go abroad. No answer was returned by
the Governor or Secretary; but the Assistant Tutor, Mr.
Hellier, stated that, on the contrary, he had expressly avowed
his readiness to redeem his pledge, if the committee thought
the changed conditions would justify them in releasing him
from that pledge. But on being pressed to say that he could go
“with a glad heart,” he hesitated. He was therefore dismissed.
Dr. Buntine’s Povicy. 523

Against this assumption by a local committee of the power
of excision from the ministry, I appealed to the justice and
the dignity of Conference. I argued, ‘Here is a young man
who has passed with credit all the constitutional Courts and
safeguards against the admission to our ministry of unfit men:
the Quarterly Meeting, the District Meeting, the July Com-
mittee, the Conference itself. But on asking a local committee
whether they do not think an important change in the
conditions of his case might not render inexpedient his being
stationed in the foreign field, he is informed that he has
forfeited not only his studentship but also his position as an
accepted candidate for the Wesleyan Methodist ministry, and
is forthwith sent about his former business. ‘This same local
committee feels itself under no obligation to report this exercise
of the power of life and death. The poor youth is heard of
no more. The wave went over him, and he is gone.”

Of course, this exorbitant assumption of judicial authority
only needed the turning on it of the bull’s-eye of Conference
inquiry to secure its condemnation.

The President, Dr. Waddy, in his own massive style,
showed the gravity of this encroachment on the rights of
Quarterly Meeting, District Meeting, and of Conference. The
cashiered probationer was at once put upon the President’s List
of Reserve, and after thirty-eight years of faithful, efficient
labour in such Circuits as Cheltenham, Bristol, London (Brixton),
and Exeter, he still survives. :

As soon as this case was settled, it was seen that another
case of the kind had taken place during the year, and when
this, too, was disposed of, the President asked with grim
significance, ‘ Are there any more?”

The case to which I called attention closely resembled that
of Thomas Collins, some twenty years before, and the difference
in the mode of treatment showed the steady influx of the
encroaching tide of departmental authority on the guaranteed
rights of individuals and the Conference. A law was made
without delay, requiring that all such exercises of discipline
should be reported to and decided by the Conference itself.

It fell to me also to call attention to the similar dismissal
of a young missiouary by one of the Missionary Secretaries.
His Superintendent had complained to. the Missionary Secre-
taries of his unmanageability and refractoriness. Thereupon
one of those authorities wrote to the young minister, informing
524 History oF Merxopism.

him that he was no longer a Wesleyan Methodist missionary,
and that if he wished his homeward journey to be paid for
he must embark by the first steamer. A copy of this letter
came into my hands. Of course, I felt it to be a call for
inquiry at the Conference. It required no forensic gift to show
that this was a direct violation of the laws and regulations of
the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, drawn up by Dr.
Bunting and Mr. Watson on the formation of the Society, and
published year by year in the Report of that Society. All
that was required was the Secretary’s letter and the first of
those laws. The Conference could do no other than restore
the man to his post, and inform the Secretary that he had
gone beyond his powers. The fact that the man was coltish
and restive, and beyond his Superintendent’s strength and
skill to manage could not invest a Secretary with authority to
pronounce his doom, and ‘let another take his office.”

These were not the only cases of the kind which it fell
to me to bring before the brethren, but they suffice to show
the habitual tendencies of these departments to overstep ‘the
bounds of their lawful jurisdiction.

In the Leeds case we have seen a powerful element of
disaffection in the Connexion generally, through liberties then
taken with the law and Constitution, and the insertion in
the Minutes for two successive years of the novel principle
that the action of the Conference was the decisive exposition
of the meaning and intent of both law and Constitution.

But a new interpretation of the Constitution demands a '
new convention of the parties to it. No Constitution makes pro-
vision for its own infringement by one of the parties to its terms
without the consent of the others. We must therefore say : Dr.
Bunting was too much disposed, by natural temperament, to
trench upon the Constitution and the law if they blocked the
way to a movement or a measure upon which his heart was set.

Hence those regrettable peculiarities which Dr. Smith
describes as ‘infirmities of manner.” But, unhappily, Dr.
Bunting’s frailities, like his powers, were very energetic; so
much so as to infringe too sharply on the sensibilities of others.
Amongst these must be included his occasional indulgence in
an extravagance of language which he would be the last to
tolerate in any other man. Instances of this occur in Mr.
Fowler’s: Journal of Debates. Many of the most notable of these
we have thought it fair to leave uncopied, on the ground that, had
Dr. Bunrine's Portcy 525

reporting been the custom, he might have been more guarded in
expression. But one has heard him in committee and in Con-
ference indulge in phraseology such as Lessey justly designates as
‘‘ cutting,” such as would have been allowed to no one else by
any President who had due respect to himself or to his office.
Such words were sure to leave in sensitive and high-strung
natures a festering sting, to say nothing of the seeming smirch
upon a minister’s repute.

Another mannerism which had a tendency to lessen loyalty
to his Connexional administration was his way of claiming for
himself, and the departments over which he was the chief, a
degree of irresponsibility and of immunity from investigation or
animadversion which he would in no wise suffer in any other
minister. He rightly said : “If I have the responsibility, I must
also have the power.” But he was apt to leave unread the
obverse of the medal: Jf J claim the power, I must take along
with tt the responsibility as well. But this he could by no means
stomach.

And there were worthy members of committees and Conference |
who could not quite see the fairness of permitting the great
Questioner to be the great Unquestioned. So early as 1826 he
had resisted and resented the most proper and, indeed, necessary
question : By what authority a certain public contravention of
an act of Conference had taken place ; and entrenched himself in
the position, that if the matter were any further pressed, he
should take it as a general vote of want of confidence, and should
give up all his offices. Whereupon the questioning had been
transformed into a most true and submissive hope that he would.
do nothing of the kind.

Correspondingly in 1828, when in the Chair of Conference for
the second time, he positively refused to submit to the self-same
inquiry, in which the retiring President had fully acquiesced,
unless a charge against him was submitted in writing. (Smith’s
“Methodism,” vol. iii., p. 131.)

At a later Conference, when, most naturally and rightly, he
was asked for an explanation of various things which he had “laid
against” certain honoured members of the Conference of which
he made no show of proof, he took the same lofty, independent
ground, declaring : “ 7 wzll not be catechised” » and demanded yet
again an explicitly worded, formulated charge.

Not only was Mr. William Bunting’s statement true: “ My
father is allowed to say what no one else may say,” but the great
526 ffistory oF Meruovisu.

man was allowed to be silent in circumstances and under
conditions when many would be required to speak. He was,
so far as I know, the only member of the Conference who took
the liberty, or was left to take the liberty, of disregarding the
explicit ruling of the President. This was signally permitted in
the case of Dr. Bunting’s demand to be informed by Mr. Galland,
on the question of Character, whether or not he was the author
of a certain incendiary letter in the Leeds Mercury which he then
held in his hand. Mr. Galland asked to be allowed to take the
opinion of the Conference whether it merited such an incrimin-
ating epithet ; and the President pronounced this to be a fair and
reasonable demand which ought to be complied with. Dr. Bunt-
ing persistently refused either to withdraw the offensive adjective
or to hand over the paper containing the incriminated letter.

Of the great men nearest to himself in ministerial standing
who followed not with him in his “ policy,” the most redoubt-
able are Valentine Ward, but by two years his junior, and
Joseph Taylor, the second President of that name, who came
out in 1805.

Dr. Bunting was, moreover, with State politics an avowed, an
eager, and an aggressive party man—a pronounced and polemic
Tory. Ofthis he made no secret, in the Conference or elsewhere.
Now the Pastoral Brotherhood of Methodism was far from being
homogeneous in this respect. The great Preachers into whose hands
John Wesley had devolved the management of Methodism held,
on all such matters, very diverse views. Bradburn, Clarke, and
Thomas Taylor, for example, were decided Whigs. Not one
of them was mean enough or weak enough, as has peen
asserted in a Methodist newspaper, to air his politics either in his
preaching or his prayers ; though they discussed them freely in
their social hours. Hence some of the brethren did not greatly
like Dr. Bunting’s obtrusion of his own political partialities from
the platform of the Conference, nor their exhibition on the
hustings of a metropolitan election.

It is not probable that Mr. Fowler brought with him into the
ministry any full-formed party principles. Bradford emerges
into history as a Parliamentary stronghold, having been stormed
by the Royalist forces in the course of the Civil War. But when
I first wot anything of Bradford politics, some threescore and
three years ago, the Tories had been in the ascendant for full
twenty years, owing chiefly to the high character and great
ability of the senior member, Mr. Hardy, father of Lord
Ds. Buwrine's Poricy. 527

Cranbrook. I am old enough and young enough to remember
vividly first the sensation and then the temporary stagnation
produced throughout the neighbourhood by the return of two
Liberals, Lister and Bousfield. But Mr. Fowler’s politics—on
their Church side, in any case—were formed during the first two
years of his probation under the influence of the sane and sober-
minded Whiggism of the great Nonconformist ministers, Andrew
Fuller and Thomas Toller. To this side of the house Mr. Fowler
gradually gravitated.

Among the notables on this side were S. Jackson, Dr. Dixon,
Dr. Beaumont, Thomas Galland, M.A., who “came out to travel ”
three years later. But during the next decade (1820-30) a strong
accession was gradually made to this unorganised party in the
persons of F. A. West, W. M. Bunting, S. Waddy, G. B.
Macdonald, George Osborn (though always a Tory), and George
Steward. Mr. West was Mr. Osborn’s Superintendent.

But, by degrees, the seniors in the ministry either passed
away, by reason of death, or sank into silence from exhaustion
or from conscious inequality to the contest. When Clarke, T.
Stanley, Isaac, Ward, and Galland went up higher, and J. Stanley
and Atherton almost wholly held their peace, Mr. Fowler came
to be regarded as the leading representative of the principle of
free speech and fair play both in Conference and Connexional
Committees. All these worthies I have gazed on with a reverence
bordering on awe. With the one exception of Dr. Clarke, I have
heard them all. With the exception of Clarke, Moore, Watson,
and Ward, I have enjoyed the inestimable privilege of personal
intercourse with them. They were amongst the noblest men
whom our mother Methodism ever brought forth, brought up,
and brought home.

It is plain from Dr. Smith’s “ History of Methodism” and
from the “ Life of Dr. Bunting,” and is admitted both by friends
and foes, that by the space of forty years Dr. Bunting occupied
a perfectly unique position and predominant authority and
influence in the Methodist Connexion, such as no one but the
Founder himself has ever been allowed to wield. Throughout
that period he was, in effect, the Premier, who never went out
of office whosoever might do so, having never been appointed.
It is necessary now to ascertain: (1) What this power really
amounted to. (2) How it was attained. (3) Why it was by any-
one objected to. (1) What Dr. Bunting’s power really amounted
to. According to both Dr. Smith and Mr. T. P. Bunting, it
528 flisrory or Meruovism.

amounted to much more than the being primus inter pares: first
among his peers. During the greater part of the time it amounted
to a veritable Patriarchate or Protectorate. Of his preponderance
in the discussions and over the decisions of the Conference in
session nothing gives so trustworthy a conception as Mr. Fowler's
Journal. This enables every reader to judge for himself.
Government by speaking has had many wonderful examples,
from Pericles to Pitt and Peel, to Gladstone and Disraeli,
but few such marvellous examples as that of, Dr. Bunting.

Dr. Bunting’s influence over the Preachers through his known
preponderance in the Stationing Committee is well touched on
in Mr. Stanley’s manly and fraternal letter. Everyone who
knew Dr. Bunting’ must indignantly repel the idea of his being
capable of intentionally or even consciously influencing votes in
Conference through his recognised and inevitable potency in the
Stationing Department as in every other. But it must be
remembered that a very large proportion of the brethren had a
deep distrust of their own competence to judge, or, indeed, the
safety of their intermeddling with, Connexional affairs, as matters
too high for them. And the practical effect depended not on
Dr. Bunting’s aim but on the impression which prevailed on the
minds of ministers themselves.

There were, on the one side, some szx¢y Circuits of sufficient
weight to share amongst themselves some 200 ministers of
sufficient reputation to secure the most desiderated men, and
on the other to be fairly sure of a high-class Circuit ; but
this left 400 Circuits and at least 1,000 ministers to be
mutually adjusted. Now, with more or less of reason, there
was a prevalent idea that in the matter of appointments it
was of more or less importance to stand well with. Dr. Bunting
and his staff.

This fact was admirably hit and hinted in the Conference by
Mr. Galland in one of his audacious witticisms. A poor brother
had been pleading hard for a better Circuit than the one he was
put down to in the second draft of stations, and Mr. Marsden with
his inimitable quaver tried to quiet him by saying, “ Providence
will take care of you, brother” ; on which the learned Yorkshireman
remarked: ‘Yes; but how nice it must feel to be so near the ear
of Providence as some of you are up there.” That a man’s
supposed side in the inner politics of Methodism was not always
regarded as inadmissible amongst the data for determining his
appointment by the Stationing Committee, is undeniable.
Dr. Buyntine’s Poricy, 529

We have seen that in the critical “Leeds case” Dr. Bunting
was the ruling spirit. (See Smith’s ‘‘ Methodism,” vol. iii., p. 130.)
“Doubtless it was he who guided the deliberations and decisions
of the Special District Meetings. The gist of the charge was that
he and a few others influenced by him managed the affairs of the
Connexion, and that those who opposed him in Conference were
sent by his instigation to inferior Circuits. The first part of the
charge could not be denied.” (‘‘ Life of Dr. Bunting,” p. 600.)

This deliberate. record by Dr. Bunting’s filial biographer
ought surely to be taken as decisive of the fact that the actual
government of Methodism at this period was an autocracy,
strengthened by an oligarchy. That “he and a few others in-
fluenced by him” managed the affairs of the Connexion is
undeniable. Then let no one attempt to deny it, much less to
denounce as factious anyone who says the same.

This is, indeed, the impression produced by his biography on
outsiders, who derive all their knowledge of our greatest man
from this exquisitely written monograph, which is a classic
specimen of gentlemanly English. Thus the article ‘“ Jabez
Bunting ” in Herzog’s “ Encyclopedia,’ whose one authority is
this tasteful, truthful Memoir, affirms: “ Azs word was law.”
This is an exaggerated notion, but, happily, the other sentence
in the summing-up is absolutely impregnable: “He used his
influences for no personal ends, and withal kept his heart pure
and humble.” He: was, in fact, our Cincinnatus and our
Washington.

Dr. Bunting’s influence and authority were very greatly
strengthened by the wise though small concessions, and the real
though restricted reforms which he proposed and, of course,
carried at the Conference of 1835, after the Warrenite dis-
turbances. For the next nine years he “ flourished like a palm
tree, and sent forth his roots like Lebanon.” During this period
occurred his third and fourth Presidency, the latter of which
marked the culmination of his power. But, as the admirable
sketch in ‘‘ Wesley and his Successors ” tells us: ‘‘ From 1813 to
the date of his death (1858) the chief parts of Dr. Bunting’s
personal history have also been leading facts in the history of
Methodism and its institutions.”

Dr. Smith must be again quoted :

“One preacher of remarkable powers, when comparatively young, made

his début in Conference by supporting the application of the Liverpool
Trustees for leave to erect an organ, and secured the object. He

It
530 flsrory or Meruopism.

continued to distinguish himself so that, im respect of matters with which he had
no individual connection, he was frequently referred to as the ruling spirit of
Methodist government.” (Vol. iii, p. 228.) ‘According to the theory of
Methodism, as of the Christian Church in its Scriptural character, al] ministers
ave equal. True, indeed, the former, like the latter, will admit of a primus
inter pares, but the question arises: Was not the position now attained by
this eminent minister something more than that of first among his brethren? It is
utterly absurd to suppose that the position which Mr. Bunting occupied was
secured by any grasping ambition, or through servile adulation or submission
on the part of his brethren. Neither of these causes could have produced this
effect. His elevation unquestionably resulted from the employment—in
absolute and universal devotion to the well-being of Methodism—of a most
comprehensive and forcible intellect coupled with great tenacity of purpose,
remarkable tact, and a chaste and effective eloquence, consecrated in an
eminent degree to the service of the church, and fully recognised by the great
majority of his ministerial brethren. But though the position and influence
of this eminent minister arose out of the special endowments with which he
was favoured, the distinction which it created, and the amount of influence
and power with which it invested him, were on this account no less positive
or real; and Mr. Bunting must have been much more than human if this
position did not expose him to peculiar temptations. His brethren must have
been similarly raised above the frailties of our common nature if they, in these
circumstances, felt no tendency to envying and evil surmising. We feel bound to
recognise these facts as they existed, the more especially as we regard the vast
influence which Jabez Bunting exerted on the Methodist Connexion as the
grand characteristic of modern Methodism.” (‘ History of Methodism.”)

This admirable deliverance of Dr. Smith’s weighty, judicious,
and discriminating intellect in no wise overrates the greatness
of, on the whole, the greatest man whom Methodism has yet
produced, In truth, I have not yet met with any realistic
presentation of that gigantic personality which could give to
the public and posterity the full proportions of that mighty
man. I was thankful to be told by his last surviving child
and others that what I have already published has done much
to rectify this unintentional injustice. The painter, the pho-
tographer, and the engraver have been more successful than
the most affectionate, appreciative biographer and sketcher.

And Dr. Smith is entirely right in describing as preposterous
the imputation of ambition against this noble man. The
associating of ambition with the name of Jabez Bunting,
taking that word in its etymological, its conventional, or vulgar
sense, can be nothing but ridiculous to one who saw so much
of him as I did. Jabez Bunting was above ambition in any
sinister, ignoble sense. He had no more need to be ambitious
than Chimborazo or the Hindu Kush, “Ambition should be
Dr. Buntine’s Poticy. 531

made of sterner stuff.” And it should be made of softer and
more supple stuff.

“ Unskilful he to fawn or seek for power
By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour.”

Lt was power that sought for him. It was office that came,.
cap in hand, and knocked, and knocked persistently at the
modest mansion, triennially “cleaned up” or “cleaned down,”
for the new Preacher and his family. In the fine sense in which
the word is used in the Revised Version, he was ambitious
enough in all good conscience. ‘ Be ambitious to be quiet, and
to do your own business.” ‘‘ We are ambitious to be well-pleasing
unto Him.’ “ Being ambitious so to preach the Gospel,’ etc. No
doubt Dr. Bunting was high-minded in the Aristotelian sense :
The high-minded man is he who, being “really worthy of great
things, holds himself worthy of them.” But the great philosopher
demonstrates that there is a ¢vue high-mindedness and a false
one. Of ambition, in the original meaning of the word, the
going about canvassing for a place of honour, Dr. Bunting was
entirely innocent. He was, in truth, under no temptation to it.

Dr. Smith’s recorded judgment that a man must be far more
than human if the accumulation of office and authority upon
him did not expose him to very great and special temptations ;
and, on their side, his brethren must have been more than humam
if it did not awake in them ‘“‘envy and evil surmising,” involves
a serious condemnation of its unwarranted and hazardous excess.
It is surely as unfair as it is unsafe to place mortal man, however
great, who is still admitted to be “but a man,” in a position
of such dizzy, dangerous eminence. Nor should his brethren,
on their own part, have exposed themselves to a temptation
putting to excessive strain the resisting capability of human
nature. Indeed, although the great Methodist historian, a warm
personal friend of Dr. Bunting, strongly blames “the sfzrzt”
in which,Dr. Warren objected to this smothering with offices any
single member of the Brotherhood, he at the same time frankly
gives his own clear judgment that this was a serious mistake
on the part of Dr. Bunting’s friends.

And this brings our second head. The saintly, simple-
minded heroine, Queen Esther, would not form a judgment
on a matter until she had made quite sure: (1) What it was,
and (2) Why it was. We have learnt from the most un
challengeable witnesses what a vast, undefinable supremacy Dr.

112
532 History or Meruovism.

Bunting came to exercise in the Connexion. We have also
seen how this came about. Jabez Bunting owed his position in
our Church, fitst of all, to a Divine designation graven by the
finger of God upon the man himself. He bore Heaven’s im-
primatur on his frontispiece. ‘Jabez was honoured above his
brethren” because he was, both by gifts and services, “ more
honourable than his brethren.” (I. Chronicles, v. 9, 10, New
Version.) And Jabez Bunting’s prayer was that of his name-
sake in the olden time: ‘‘Oh, that Thou would’st bless me
indeed, and enlarge my border, and that Thy hand may be
with me.” And God brought that which he had asked. Kor
Jabez Bunting was a ‘man of prayer.” He was wise enough
to “covet earnestly the best of gifts,” and as earnestly to cultivate
them when bestowed. His most rich endowments were the
gift of utterance and “helps” and governments. Hence, in
rising to the top he simply found his level. These great qualities
were recognised not only in the Conference but wherever
they might find their element, most notably in the counsels
of the Evangelical Alliance, as I have elsewhere shown. No
member of that gathering in Freemasons’ Hall had the least
difficulty in understanding how he rose to such an eminence
in his own denomination. The impression was just as strong
on the great Scotchmen who were founders of the Free
Church, at the time of his visit to Edinburgh in 1846-47.
His surpassing genius for organisation and adminisiration was
most frankly and most warmly recognised by those greatest
reconstructors of our modern times.

I know no more striking instance of the identity of human
nature and affairs throughout the ages than the portraiture
of Jabez Bunting given in the Book of Job in the person
of an Arab sheik: “My glory was fresh in me, and my
bow was renewed in my hands. Unto me men gave ear and
waited, and kept silence at my counsel. After my words, they
spake not again; and my speech dropped upon them. And
they waited for me as for the rain, and they opened their mouths
wide as for the latter rain. . . . The light of my countenance
they cast not down. I chose out their way, and sat chief ; and dwelt
as a king in the army, as one that comforteth the mourners.”
This Mr. Fowler often quoted with reference to Dr. Bunting.

Moreover, Dr. Bunting was a mighty theologian ; and this
fact, throughout his course, most naturally and most rightly
gave him a strong additional lien over the Wesleyan Methodist,
Dr. Buntine's Poricy. 533

mind. For our theologians and theological leaders were not
yet so “advanced” as to depreciate theology, or to give it the
vague and misty definition which has since been supplied to
Sunday schools. At the close of his thirteenth ministerial year
(1806), “ the Conference, desiring some clear and forcible exposi-
tion of justification by faith, requested Jabez Bunting to preach a
sermon on the subject. This discourse he delivered at Leeds, before
the Conference of 1812” (Smith, vol. li., p. 433). Jabez Bunting
never could have wielded the unique authority which he held
for forty years in the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion if he had
not been throughout his course a thorough Wesleyan Methodist
himself. The Liverpool Minutes, drawn up by him in 1820,
have, as Mr. Grindrod says, “exerted a paramount influence in
forming the principles, habits, and characters of our ministers,
and essentially contributed to the preservation of the primitive
spirit and discipline of Wesleyan Methodism.” (Compendium
Preface.) May they never lose that influence !

Dr. Smith exclaims: ‘‘Who shall estimate the amount of
power and influence wielded by Dr. Bunting? If for thirty years
Wesleyan legislation bore the impress of his mind, if for a genera-
tion he framed the great majority of the Acts of Conference—what
could he not do?” (‘‘ Methodism,” vol. iii., p. 455.) Dr. Smith
is also absolutely right in adding: ‘‘ The state of things which
the history of this period exhibits could not have been brought
about by the pride, vanity, or ambition of anyone. It was Dr.
Bunting’s pre-eminent ability, his vast administrative talent,
which commanded his measures to general acceptance.”’

As they say in Dr. Bunting’s own ancestral county : ‘ That
shall be true.” For the strong substratum of this great man’s
eminence was solid, substantive, and serviceable—so much so
that the threat of throwing up his office made everyone aghast.
Dr. Smith, however, asks :—

«Was there not an obvious reason why the friends of Dr. Bunting should
have exercised great self-denial, and an equal reason why his friends and ad-
mirers should be agreed, while he possessed this great influence, for him to have
a moderate amount of official responsibility and power? When the Theological
Institution was successfully launched, why was it necessary for him to be its
President? Does anyone maintain that no other man could command the same
degree of confidence and respect? We fully assent. But while we admit there
were cogent reasons for the appointment, we gravely doubt and seriously question
the wisdom of insisting on it. The greater Dr, Bunting’s just and necessary
influence, the greater his acquired and consolidated personal authority, the
less desirable was it there should be anything like a concentration of official
534 History oF METHobDISN,

authority in his hands. We believe we have enunciated a sound principle,
and if it had been acted on in the case of Dr. Bunting, it would have produced
the happiest results to himself and the Connexion.” (‘‘ History of Methodism,”
vol. iii., p. 456.)

These are wise, brave words. Unquestionably, the taking
upon themselves, by a committee appointed for another purpose,
the delicate, important task, which was not intrusted to them, of
nominating officers to the new establishment, and the heaping
upon one of their own number the two most important of those
offices, whilst yet retaining another office which required the
very best attention of the very ablest man, was an injudicious
and unseemly act. .

The inevitable effect upon himself of so often thrusting Dr.
Bunting into the most prominent position in a dispute with
which he had no direct concern whatever, any more than any
other Methodist minister, was most painful and injurious. It
put him into a false, invidious position. As Mr. T. P. Bunting
says: ‘At this period of his history he was put into the pillory
of almost universal discussion.’”’ (‘‘ Life,’ p. 601.) Certainly.
And by whom and by what was he made the subject of almost
universal discussion? ‘ The disturbance amongst the Methodists
was fair game for the secular Press ; the quasi-Liberal portion
of which, of course,” etc. (/ézd.) Dr. Bunting’s proclaimed,
aggressive partisanship on the one side was sure to cause him
to be regarded as “fair game” by the other side, whether
“quasi”-Liberals or genuine.

Another mischievous result of these blunders was the abstract-
ing the attention of both ministers and people to questions of
polity and policy, law and Constitution. Another still more
mischievous, but happily more local and sporadic, was the
adoption by a certain style of Superintendents, in their own
sphere, of the “‘ constitutional emergency” principle of govern-
ment—in Mr. Watson's phrase, ‘the intemperate exercise of
authority”; and Dr. Bunting’s, ‘the riding on the neck of
authority” and “the Bashaw” style of Superintendency. Of
this I was myself a most pained and indignant witness. I was
spending a Sunday in Heanor (Dr. Gervase Smith's birthplace).
In the afternoon the patriarch of the Society called in at mine
host’s on his way from Class. A most patriarchal personage he
was, and the then head of a family well known in the Derbyshire
coal trade. It had been the Quarterly Visitation of his Class, and
the Superintendent had met it. It came out that at the close of
Dr. Bowrine’s Porscy. 535,

the meeting the Superintendent had asked him whether he was a
member of a trades union. On answering that he was, and being
asked to give it up, he replied that he could not promise to do
that, as he knew no law against it, human or Divine, and the
union to which he belonged was legalised by an Act of Par-
liament. The Conference did not forbid although it strongly
disapproved of such associations. The minister, putting the Class
book into his own pocket, informed the patriarch that he was no
longer Leader of a Class. Thus summarily was a venerable Leader
degraded from his office and estranged from the Society. As
the Superintendent was also Chairman of the District, the old
man did not think it of the slightest use to appeal to him as
Chairman against his own act as Superintendent. The effect of
such a procedure on the Society in general was extremely
painful. Happily, this sort of thing was not the ordinary
course. All this time the minister himself was, socially, kind-
hearted and considerate to a remarkable degree.

The next great blunder was the forcing back into the regular
ministry of Mr. Everett, after he had clearly shown that his
treasure and his heart were in the book trade. During the
earliest years of his ministry he was a sound Methodist
Preacher, but at the end of the fourth year he took so
little interest in Conference matters that he preferred remain-
ing another year on trial to attendance at the Conference. This
he himself attributes to “timidity and indifference.” This
“ indifference continued to the close of his Connexional career,
though his “timidity” was of very short duration. His explana-
tion to Dr. Beaumont of the inveterate indifference to the highest
council of his Church was that_his talent did ‘not lie in the
direction of debate. Conference would have a very thin
attendance if that were thought sufficient reason for abstention
from it.

How anyone who had heard Mr. Everett preach and talk
could wish him back into the work is to me a mystery. The
only way in which I can account for it was that the bookshop in
the middle of Manchester had become a sort of lounge and
rendezvous for the interchange of Methodist gossip, and that Mr.
Everett’s Sunday services, throughout a large and populous area,
were not found to be condutive to the peaceful and pleasant
working of Lancashire Methodism. Of this Dr. Newton, Chair-
man of the Manchester District, who started the question, was
well aware ; but Manchester was relieved at the expense of the
536 ‘History of Me&rHopIsM.

Connexion. Mr. Everett was presented with a grievance which
he was sure to turn most skilfully against the Conference.

The loyalty of the Methodist brotherhood as a whole to the
powers that be was beauteous to behold. I may illustrate this by
a pleasantry I passed on Thomas Vasey when he began to be a
Conference man. I said: ‘‘ How glad I am to see you so desirous
of securing your interest in your brethren’s prayers.” ‘‘ What do
you mean?” said he. I answered: ‘You are evidently most
anxious to secure a share in the benediction incessantly invoked
on those who ‘take a more active part in the business of the Con-
ference.” ‘ Meek, simple followers of the Lamb,” they were but
too thankful to see the work done well to grudge due praise to
those who “ performed the doing of it.” The appreciation of Dr.
Bunting’s talents and his services by men like Joseph Fowler,
Thomas Galland, and Francis A. West was unbounded. As
for his genius for administration and discussion, it is enough to
note the frequency with which Mr. Fowler deplores the absence
from the Conference of its one great master-mind.

I never heard but two persons in my life who ever spoke a
syllable in disparagement of the intellectual power of Dr.
Bunting, and the deduction in both cases was the same—the
absence of “ originality.”

A devoted adherent of Dr. Bunting’s policy, who was
also the greatest sermon-hunter I ever knew, pronounced
him “one of the most commonplace preachers it ever was
his fate to hear.” My contention was: “You might as well
complain of Wellington for want of originality as Jabez
Bunting.” It is not incredible that some portionless itinerants,
aware of Dr. -Bunting’s influence in stationing as in every-
thing besides, might have thought it best to solicit that
influence on behalf of themselves and their belongings; and,
as Sir Walter Scott was taught by dearly bought experience,
“Enough of ill-nature to keep your good nature from being
abused is no bad ingredient in their dispositions who have
favours to bestow.”

But all the more resistlessly the question will recur. How,
then, did it come to pass that, with all these charming and
commanding qualities in the real and effective manager of
Methodism by the space of forty years, the closing years of
his administration were signalised by the loss of 100,000 mem-
bers out of a total of 358,277? This question, again, resolves
itself practically into another. How did it come about that
Dr. Buntine’s Poricy. 537

the ly Sheets, with all their repulsive rancour and offen-
sive personal antipathy, could occasion a catastrophe on this
stupendous scale? And this question also bifurcates: (1) How
much of it may be explained by what occurred before those
evil-omened missives were sent forth? (2) And how much
by what was subsequently said and done?

The preparatory causes of the mischief-working. potency
of those productions were, of course, deep-seated, complex,
and intricate. Dr. Rigg has indicated most of them. The
intrusion of secular politics into Church affairs, the develop-
ment of self-inflation in the Body through the world-surprising
produce of the Centenary celebration, the consequent lowering
of spiritual power and influence in many, not in most, of
the ministers and people, and the attempt to remedy this
by a “spurious revivalism,” meaning by that a professional,
mechanical, and artificial revivalism.

All these were, doubtless, highly favourable conditions for
the propagation of disturbance and the facilitating of dis-
ruption. But it must in all fairness be remembered that the
political element was not confined to either side. The one
side was as chargeable as the other with the violation of
political neutrality. A one-sided neutrality is as unfair,
absurd, and, in fact, impossible and pretenceful, as one-sided
reciprocity. If Mr. Galland had written to a provincial news-
paper in vindication of a Methodist’s supporting the Govern-
ment measure for finding some way of meeting current
Church expenses less irritating and objectionable than Church
Rates levied on, unwilling Nonconformists, Dr. Bunting had
appeared upon the hustings in the Metropolis itself, and
had written to the Standard newspaper in favour of a Tory
candidate, and had successfully written to the newspaper
against the candidature of Lord John Russell for the repre-
sentation of Bedford. In short, more obtrusive violations of
political neutrality had been committed on the side of that
which declared itself to be the majority than on the other.

William Griffith, indeed, was the only minister who could
fairly be described as a political agitator, since he brought
his politics into the pulpit, and even into his prayers. I
heard his first sermon in his last Circuit (Ripley). I had a
little while before heard Feargus O'Connor, the Chartist
chieftain, harangue an outdoor mob, and his street speech
was not nearly so inflammatory as Mr. Griffith’s Sunday
538 History oF Meruovism.

morning prayer in the town chapel of the Circuit of which
he was the Superintendent. No doubt he did what he dared
to propagate his politics through the medium of his minis-
trations. But, on the whole, the Tory party in the Conference
was quite as aggressive and as provocative of reprisal as the
Whigs and Radicals.

I do not think that either envy on the one side or
adulation on the other played a very leading part in aggra-
vating the disruptive paroxysm. The author of the Fly
Sheets ‘was the ‘only Methodist minister who reminded one of
the picture:

“Pale envy withering at another's joy,
Hating the excellence he cannot reach.’

No; the homage and the deference paid to Dr. Bunting
by his brethren was as universal as deserved. The Confer-
ence and the Connexion could not but be proud of Jabez
Bunting. The predictive benediction upon Judah rested
richly on his brow: “Thou art him whom thy brethren
shall praise.” But with the more insistence the question
still rebounds: How, then, could it come about that the
régime of one so great and good should close in a catastrophe?

The answer is already given. It was owing to one car-
dinal defect. His own designation of it was “ impetuosity.”
But the flaw in the. diamond is more aptly indicated by
the fine-pointed pen of his filial biographer: he was con-
genitally “ masterful.” Alas! for our unhumble human nature
at its very dest; how easily does the imperial become
imperious, the masterly assume the masterful !

It is impossible to estimate the policy of Dr. Bunting without
bringing into view his personality. For his personality was the
father of his policy. And was ever son more like his father than
Dr. Bunting’s policy was, as again they say in his ancestral
county, “the very moral (model) of his personality”? Jabez
Bunting was a born orator, a born financier, a born debater, a
born pleader, and, “ over and above that,” he was a born autocrat.
To avail ourselves of his own epigrammatic style, he was con-
stitutionally unconstitutional.

He would himself reply, putting his strong, soft fingers on my
arm, and lifting his cerulean orbs to mine (as I have seen him do
to Mr. Arthur): “ Yes, you’ve just hit it. That was just what
I was, and what I meant to be; I was unconstitutional enough

it
Dr. Buwntine’s Pocicy. 539

in an extraordinary emergency; but I was constitutionally
unconstitutional.”

The accent and the pose of Dr. Bunting was that of authority,
and his elocution was in nothing so effective as in terms and
tones of reprobation and of scorn. The first time I ever heard him,
at the opening of Woodhouse Grove chapel in 1833, this, next to
his giving out the hymns, left upon my mind the most vivid,
permanent impression. There was, of course, a fearful crush to
gain admission. During the announcement of the first hymn, a
noisy charge was made by disappointed pilgrims from a distance
on the guardians at the top of the stairs. This uncouth uproar
was too much for Dr. Bunting’s sense of reverence, so he turned
in the direction whence it came and dealt out a terrible rebuke.
I can, surely, never lose the feeling roused within me by his
rendering of the next verse of the hymn, on the same pitch :—

“ Fools never raise their thoughts so high ;
Like brutes they live, like brutes they die.”

His text was: “But seek ye first the Kingdom of God
and His righteousness,” etc., and he made a warm appeal against
the passionate pursuit of wealth. And I cannot forget the way
he drew himself up as he proclaimed: “ But, you say, Ye sons of
Levi take too much upon yourselves.” No one I ever heard,
except the late Bishop Wordsworth, could read the 15th chapter
of the 1st of Corinthians with such befitting dignity as
Dr. Bunting. But the solemn pathos of the passage was a little
marred by the jerk with which the latter hurried out the
words, “ Thou fool.”

He evidently found it hard to deny himself the luxury of
smart and irritative satire. I believe that no other of his
unattractive mannerisms did so much to lessen and to loosen the
respect and loyalty with which he was regarded. Nothing in the
whole “ly Sheets was so effective as the famous testimonial
paragraph. The genial institution of valedictory testimonial,
which does so much to mitigate the hardships of itinerancy, was
only coming into vogue some sixty years ago. With the
exception of the impecunious Sammy Bradburn, Methodist
ministers had found them to be “Like angels’ visits, few and
far between.” But by this time there had grown up among the
brethren a sort of pious opinion that this particular phase of
philanthropy was not to be discouraged rudely. Dr. Bunting
took against it stoutly, and talked against it with no little
540 History or Meruopism.

tartness. He was wont to speak of the testimonialised brethren as
being “lacquered”; as if by this process the itinerary luminary,
like Milton’s day-star :

“Tricked his beams, and with new golden dye
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.”

It implied that something made of tin or brass had received a
thin artificial coating of the most precious metal. This was not
felt to be very complimentary to the worthy gentlemen whose
popularity brought them, once in three years, gold and silver,
with the regularity of the navy of Tarshish.

But in process of time some wealthy Wesleyan Methodists did
themselves the honour to raise a very handsome and well-earned
testimonial to the virtues and the services of the greatest man in
the Connexion. This, of course, he recognised as a most timely,
Providential supply of the need of a now ageing minister of Christ,
who for more than forty years had “spent and been spent” in
the service of the Church. And not the most cynical of his
observers could have found the slightest fault with this, but for
the untoward fact that he had borne so hard upon his brethren
who had been favoured in like manner, though on a smaller scale.

Another of our hero’s strong infirmities of manner was the
native outcome of abnormal strength of will. What the poet
said of Alexander was just as true of Dr. Bunting: ‘‘ He wd/s not
that another man should cross #zs wi.” Hence his imperfect
tolerance of opposition to any plan on which his heart was set.

Again, he was the most impetuous polemarch that ever led
a charge. In no other man did I ever witness the certaminis
gaudia so passionately pursued. “The rapture of the strife”
seemed to be, indeed, “to him the breath of life.” It was
grand though terrible to see him “let himself go” in the éan
‘of the onset.

But, at the same time, it must be owned that I never saw so
hard a hitter who was so thinskinned himself. His own blows
cracked like a whip and cut like a whip.

His personality and his polity were all of a piece, and were
therefore all the more imposing and impressive, like the rock and
castle of Mont Orgueil, in the Isle of Jersey, the fort being built
out of, as well as on, the very substance of the cliff itself. And ~
no man ever stamped the impress of his individuality upon the
institutions which he fashioned more deeply or more sharply
than did Dr. Bunting. Yet no full-length portrait of this strong
Dr. Buwntine’s Pocicy. 541

Church chieftain has ever yet been drawn. This could not
possibly be done by anyone who did not know him nearly, and
had not contemplated him con amore in all the varied spheres in
which his lustrous orb revolved. The most elaborate “ taking”
of him is that by Mr. Everett ; but it is in reality a mere torso,
and gives a most inadequate conception of what manner of man
he was. The best and truest is the obituary in the Minutes of
the Conference of 1858. I made an essay towards an outline of
his character in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine for 1887, but
that, too, was sketchy and unfinished.

A just medallion of the man has yet to be struck off.

In one essential qualification for this task—affectionate admira-
tion and an all but filial reverence—I claim to have no rival. If
a prize epic, or Jabezzad, were proposed, old as I am I should be
tempted to compete.

Jabez Bunting, though by birth and bringing up a Manchester
man, was a veritable son of the soil. By heredity and affinity he
was of the progeny of the Peak of Derbyshire, and of the remnant
of its giants. He had in him the grit of the limestone and the
“ strength of the hills.”

In my young days I knew well the Derbyshire Buntings, who
all hailed from Moneyash. They were a sweet-spirited, gentle-
natured tribe, steady-going, serviceable, quiet in the land, yet of
bright intelligence and ready wit. They were artisans of the
better class, who ‘‘took in the Preachers,” and served the cause
in many other ways. The Redferns were a strong-willed race,
and were for the most part Friends or Church folks.

The importance of placing the strongest man procurable
at the head of an institution for the training of young men
for the Wesleyan Methodist ministry was so obvious and so
urgent that very few, who thought it safe to start the Insti-
tution at all, doubted the necessity of placing it under the
government of our very strongest man. All experience shows
that unless assemblages of high-spirited young men are under
men endowed with the highest gubernatorial gifts, the establish-
ment is far more likely to become “a joy of wild asses” than
“a pasture of flocks.”

And, in combination with his unrivalled faculty for com-
mand and leadership, Dr. Bunting showed some very winning,
charming, and to me even captivating qualities. Among these
was his affectionate and respectful bearing towards youths of
likelihood and promise. His bearing towards Mr. Arthur,
542 History oF Meruopism.

for instance, even when in opposition, was, with one exception,
touching to behold.

And the great man’s enjoyment of the offhanded smartness
and the thrice comfortable coolness of young Thomas Vasey, at
his first appearance at the Book Committee and his challenging
the right of the Meeting to impose on any member of it any
regulations to which he had been no party, was almost as
amusing as was the young man’s arrest of business by haggling
about a sixpence fine for late attendance.

Nothing could have been more fatherly or more assuring
than his manner at the private examination of the candidates
for ordination in the year of his fourth Presidency, 1844.
The promptitude and heartiness with which he recognised the
gifts and worth of probationers like George Osborn, George
Steward, F. J. Jobson, and John Morris was as generous as
it was discerning.

In fact, a catholicity of appreciation of any real intellectual
gift was as strongly characteristic of Dr. Bunting himself as
of his sons William and Percival.

This accounts for the marked attention which he paid to
Mr. Everett, and for his tenderness to Mr. Bromley’s awkward
eccentricities. And is not this the explanation of his otherwise
unaccountable obtuseness to the disqualifications of some of
the able men whom he chose out for departmental office?
For his influence was just as potent in this point as in others.
He had no temptation to Napoleon’s jealousy of a general who
might share the glory with himself, as of Moreau, of Kleber,
and of Hoche. Of him it could never have been said: “He
bears, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.” And in
friendship he was not an unimpeachable Arminian. Unconditional

. perseverance seemed to be his doctrine in this matter. “Once in
grace always in grace,” seemed to be the rule with Dr. Bunting.

In physique Dr. Bunting was ‘a proper man,’ tall, well
moulded, well developed, and presenting an eye-arresting
figure on the platform of a great Church gathering. In this
the Centenary picture does him great injustice, giving but a
side view of a man whose full face and erect, unbending form
would alone convey a good idea of the great counsellor,
debater, administrator, leader, and commander. His successive
portraits in ‘‘ Wesley and his Successors” represent him truly
as he was at the dates of his four Presidencies. In that for
1820 we see the intensely earnest Preacher, with shapely, balanced
Dr. Buytine’s Pocicy. 543

brow, direct and searching gaze, the compressed lips, and the
resolute determination of the reformer and revivalist. <A
marked change must have come upon the outer man between
the dates of his first Presidency and his second (1820, 1828),
judging from the portraits of the periods. At the later date
he stands before us in all the strong maturity of middle
manhood. His forelocks have been mowed off by the gentle
scythe of time, leaving bare his large development of bene-
volence, humour, veneration, and comparison. The vivid
eagerness and sternness of the juvenile reformer have sobered
down perceptibly.

The portrait of Dr. Bunting as he was in his fourth
Presidency, given in ‘Wesley and his Successors,” is most
felicitously faithful. There he sits, the picture of an ideal
President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference. The public
and posterity can seek no more from the portrait painter's
art. It does one good to look at him once more as one used
to see him on “the platform,” in the Chair of a public meeting,
or as the listener in the social gatherings of his later years.
There you have him in his mature and well-developed, and
as yet unfading, manhood, with his smooth, broad, bare brow,
a Methodist Preacher unmistakably, still Jabez Bunting, Preacher
of the Gospel.

Jabez Bunting’s great greatness has never yet received its due
of recognition and of reverence. He has no place in such a work
as Leaders of the Church Universal, wherein much smaller men
are being honoured with an ample record. In the folios of
Schaff's “Herzog,” a fragment of a column is literally all that
is accorded to the greatest Wesleyan since Wesley, in that necro-
polis of Church celebrities, Herzog’s ‘‘ Encyclopedia.” Yet
in a sterling Christian Plutarch Jabez Bunting would stand out a
massive and majestic figure. I have elsewhere shown the points
of correspondence between him and Pitt, but the resemblance
between Dr. Bunting and the gréat Greek statesman Pericles is still
more striking. Each of them began his public life as an ardent
advocate of popular reform, yet each of them full soon became a
stout and staunch Conservative. Yet no candid student of men,
career, and character can for a moment doubt that each of them
was actuated from the very first by the purest personal conviction.
Their eloquence’ was also wonderfully alike in simplicity and
force, in weight and impact. Their elocution, too, seems to have
been marvellously similar in modulation and distinctness. They
544 flistory¥ or MeEruopism.

were alike also in dignity of bearing and in their resolute,
commanding air. They were akin, too, in disinterestedness and
sublime unselfishness, and in strenuous and sedulous devotion to
the public service. They were alike, also, in the choice of able
coadjutors. As the first triumph of the Grecian statesman was the
restricting greatly the authority of the Areopagus, so that of the
great Wesleyan Methodist was the limiting of the power of the
Legal Conference ; and the great Jabez, like his Grecian analogue,
full soon became Conservative, and therefore anti-popular. As
Pericles was a most eager advocate of one all-including Hellenic
race, so Dr. Bunting was the presiding genius of the Evangelical
Alliance.

But such was the greatness of the Methodist Leader that
it requires the two great ancient heroes, Pericles and his
Roman parallel in Plutarch, Fabius ieximns, to make one
Jabez Bunting. The policy of Jabez Bunting in its later
stages was distinctly Fabian. Dr. Bunting was four times
President, and Fabius but five times held the -Consulship.
The description Mommsen gives of* Fabius would, mutatis
mutandis, serve as well for Dr. Bunting: “Zealous in his
reverence for the good old times, for the political (ecclesi-
astical) omnipotence of the. senate (Conference), and for the
command of the burgomasters (selected laymen); one who
looked, next to sacrifice and prayer, to a methodical prosecu-
tion of defensive and aggressive warfare as the main of the
salvation of the commonwealth.” And the parallel. extends
just one step further; it was only when the dictatorship was
grasped by other and less skilful and experienced hands that
the crash came on.

And the record of this fact is but bare justice to the
memory of our very greatest man. To anyone who reads the
“Life of Dr. Bunting” with sufficient care, it is apparent that
his control of the Connexion closed with the Conference of 1848,
whilst he was in his seventieth year. “In the growing strife
Dr. Bunting was scarcely seen or heard. . . . His strength
was broken.’ To one of his children he writes: “JI have
great weakness and loss of voice.” ‘In the most painful and
often greatly excited proceedings which led to the adoption
of this measure (the expulsions of 1849) Dr. Bunting took no
prominent part. He seldom spoke except to points of order”
(pp. 703-7).

his testimony is true. But fancy a Conference at which
Dr. Buwrine’s Pocicy. 545

Dr. Bunting was present and yet took no prominent part in
its most critical proceedings! Assuredly this was the first
Conference for forty years of which that statement could be
made. Does it not demonstrate that the predominance of Dr.
Bunting had determined, and that the forty years of his prac-
tical Premiership must be counted from 1808 to 1848? Of
the critical Conference of 1850 it is recorded: ‘‘ Dr. Bunting
can scarcely be said to have exercised all his usual influence
in guiding his brethren. . . . He was in bad health and
depressed by much bodily weakness, as well as much harassed
by private cares and anxieties. He’ was therefore indisposed to
consider any modification of the Church system of Methodism.

. Afterwards he came to acknowledge the wisdom of these
measures.”

To the same effect was his conspicuous absence in the
spring of 1849 from the Meetings of the Book Committee
and the London ministers, during which the Papers on Wes-
leyan Matters were discussed—the only instances I can recall
in which he was not the very foremost in discussion. In the
like spirit was his grave rebuke in the Conference of 1849 of
the discreditable want of the calmness and decorum befitting
a solemn and most anxious council of our Church when the
ministerial life or death of three well-known ministers was
trembling in the balance; and in the same direction was his
expressed wish that the sentence on Mr. Everett himself
might leave unbolted the door for his return. In full accord
with this was the whole tone and spirit of his converse when
I met him in Southampton shortly after the Conference of
1851, when he came down with a band of missionaries ready
to embark.

In his advice to the consultative meeting assembled in
London in 1852, he warned the brethren against ‘ultraism
—love of change for change’s or for theory’s sake.”

Little did I think when, in 1848, I took the whole service
in the Conference chapel, Hull, except the sermon—one of
his most celebrated homilies—little did I think that this would
be his last sermon in a Conference chapel in connection with
a Conference, and that it marked the ending of a Premiership
of forty years.

Jd
CHAPTER XI.
DIRECT CAUSES OF THE DISRUPTION OF 1849.

‘The disruption of 1849 was a gigantic blunder on both sides.’"—Sir
Henry Fow cer.

“In our unnatural war none, I hope, is so weak and wilful as to deny
many good men, though misled, on both sides. Behold how heaven is
hard-grating one diamond with another. As for all those who uncharitably
deny any good in that party which they dislike, such show themselves
diamonds indeed in their hardness and cruel censures, but none in any
commendable quality.""—THomas FULLER, Good Thoughts in Bad Times.

“Do you confess so much? Give me your hand.”
“Ay, and my heart too!”
: —SHAKESPEARE.

In--inquiring into the causes of the disruption of 1849, it
will be best to take them chronologically. In this way their
historical concatenation will be the most apparent.

The first of these, then, was, as we have seen, the
growing up within the Conference itself of a vague, in-
definite, unappointed, irresponsive, irremovable Government or
Cabinet, which, never having been called in, could not be
voted out—not even if out-voted. This consisted of the un-
nominated Premiership of one surpassing personality and of
a circle or a cincture of some very able men, who with
him constituted the perennial administration whoever might
come into office or go out of it. Thus the real, active,
working policy of Methodism had become in its main
feature an impalpable bureaucracy.

This fact is rendered undeniable not only by the Con-
ference discussions recorded in Mr. Fowler’s Journals, but also
by the affirmations and admissions of such competent autho-
rities as Dr. Smith’s “ History of Methodism” and Mr. T. P.
Bunting’s “ Life of Dr. Bunting.” The question is no longer,
“Was that so?” but “How did the system work?”

The answer to this question may readily be gathered
DireEcT Causes or THE DisRuPTION OF 1849. 547

from the Conference discussions. All that seems now neces-
sary is just to indicate the proximate occasions of the
mischief. The first of these, as we have seen, was the forcing
back‘ into the itinerancy of Mr. Everett, who had evidently
lost all heart for it, and the presenting him with a grievance
and a grudge which he well knew how to capitalise and
make the most of.

He had to give up a prospering business. He implicitly
forewarned the Conference of the sequel by telling them
that though fourteen years of shop life, with preaching when
and where he pleased, had banished his bronchitis, yet the
resumption of Circuit work now that he was on the downward
slope cf life would be a risk of which the Conference must
take the responsibility. As a shrewd brother showed the
Conference, this practically meant the extreme likelihood of
Mr. Everett’s speedy return to the supernumerary list, with
no business to fall back upon. Mr. Everett was the one
man allowed to choose his own Circuit, and his selection
of Newcastle upon- Tyne did not indicate much terror
of bronchitis.

The companion blunder to this was the readmitting Mr.
Griffith into the ministry after he had demonstrated the
unsuitability of such a step by a series of most warning
escapades and insubordinations, and despite the solemn and
sagacious demur of men like Richard Reece and Dr. Beau-
mont. It was and is to me a mystery how anyone who
had heard the two future dividers of the Body preach and
talk could fail to see in each a perpetual peril to the peace
and unity of the Connexion, and that in proportion to their
popularity.

The next false step was the irritating course which was
resorted to in dealing with the “Takings.” Assuredly the
course suggested by Mr. Fowler and by Dr. Beaumont
would have been much wiser and more dignified than the
walking into the trap prepared by Everett. In order to
baffle and divert the scent, he had, in his Preface to his
third edition, thrown out certain names of ministers whom
some wiseacre here or there might have hazarded as the
imaginable authors. Thereupon the London District Meeting,
with Dr. Bunting in the Chair, despatched to the five
different District Meetings, then in session, to which these
brethren belonged, laying it upon their loyalty to Methodism

JJ 2 :
548 ffistory oF Meruopism.

to put these brethren through the sieve in such a way as
either to convict or clear them. All this, of course, greatly
furthered Mr. Everett's purpose.

Another serious mistake was the beginning to send forth
from the Centenary Hall, in addition to the required schedules
for statistics, gratuitous instructions as to the way in which
Superintendents and Chairmen of Districts, and District Meet-
ings themselves, should go about their business. Can it be
much wondered at that Superintendents and Chairmen of
experience and of competence such as ex-President Taylor,
and well-manned District Meetings like Birmingham and
Nottingham and Derby, should decline to recognise these
““missives,” as they were called? And was it not an aggra-
vation of the blunder to complain of such men to the
Conference as guilty of “discourtesy” in refusing to acknow-
ledge an authority under which they had not been placed
by Conference?

Then came the second supernumeraryship of Mr. Everett,
which in his case meant by no means a retirement from ‘ the
active work,” but from the regular work of a Circuit minister.
As his published journal proves, it involved far greater exertion of
the voice and exposure to the weather than any ordinary Circuit
would entail, and almost incessant travelling and speaking in
crowded chapels, and often out of doors—for he was greatly in
request for foundation-stone laying, and was still an exceptionally
hale, stalwart, strong-voiced speaker. The coupling with him
of Dr. Beaumont in the same condemnation removed all Super-
intendential scruples against utilising in their Circuits his money-
raising power, since the notion was ridiculous of depriving the
Connexion of Dr. Beaumont’s services on such occasions. Mr.
Everett thus became at once the Connexional Zadler and
Rambler. With one hand he sowed disaffection and distrust,
and with the other gleaned materials for his Fly Sheets. ;

Then came the Fly Sheets, which proved the occasion of the
terrible division, not by their own potency, but through the
genius for blundering which was displayed in the measures taken
to counteract their mischief. The time at which they came was
most untimely. The tide had evidently turned in favour of free
speech and of frank, fraternal criticism, without fear or favour, about
all departmental things. Men who had been kept out of the
Chair of Conference for a stretch of years (Stanley, Atherton, and
Samuel Jackson), for no imaginable reason but for trying to put
DrrR&EcT CAUSES OF THE DISRUPTION OF 1849. 549

some constitutional drake upon tendencies which they thought to
be unhealthy, were now elected in succession.

Moreover, some younger men in Conference had begun to
speak out their convictions freely. Of these the most notable
was George Osborn. He set an admirable example of the
principle which he announced a few years later: Speak freely in
discussions, but when once a question is decided, do not agitate
but acquiesce. Throughout life he was a model of submission to
the judgment of the Conference ; but the allowing him to turn a
Declaration into what he himself described as a “‘test,” but which the
Conference carefully described as a purely “‘ permitted” document,
proved to be a very grievous error. The ‘ precedents’ which he
alleged were all, in reality, distinctly condemnatory of it, either in
their character and their relation to the Conference, or in their
practical effect. The Agreement amongst Wesley’s Preachers was
in no sense a test, nor even a declaration, but just what it called
itself, simply an Agreement—not an enactment, to be enforced
under pain of Connexional disability and discredit. The Declara-
tion of 1797 expressly and most carefully repudiated its being a
test. It was not initiated by or in the Conference, but was
the spontaneous expression of some of the younger brethren of
their perfect confidence in their senior brethren. The Declara-
tion of 1834 was issued not by Conference but by the London
Ministers’ Meeting, and not unanimously, excepting after
wringing pressure, as in the case of Mr. Stanley. The Brother-
hood was kept for years upon the tenterhook before a sufficient
number of signatures was gained to make it presentable in the
Minutes. It proved to be just another demonstration of the
worthlessness of a Declaration under penalty and pressure.

It must surely be admitted that to turn a declaration into a
test is to make it worthless as a testimony. The wise man gives
as a piquant exhibition of the human heart: ‘It is nought, it is
nought, saith the buyer ; but when he has gone his way, then he
boasteth.” Thomas Fuller, in exposing the deceitfulness of sin,
shows that before it is committed it is made to look like a
shallow, narrow stream, to be crossed by stepping-stones with
little risk, but after its commission it appears a flood too deep
to wade and too strong to swim in.

The danger of such documents being misused both against the
signers and the non-signers was too clearly shown in 1834 by the
attempt, in Conference, to make it out as committing the signers
to vote in one particular direction, and as disqualifying the non-
550 ffistoryv or Meruopism.

signers for nomination to the Hundred. Mr. Osborn’s motive
for reissuing a ‘‘ permitted” declaration two years later, without
consulting Conference on the matter, was doubtless high and
pure, but it proved to be ill-advised and harmful, and disastrous
in its consequences. It could not confer on any member of the
Brotherhood the right to consign any of his brethren to a black
list opposite the white list.

The next deplorable mistake was the publishing and, in spite
of earnest protest, the selling at the Book Room, of anonymous
attacks on eminent and worthy ministers. Was not this a
fatuous abandonment of the high moral and religious vantage
ground which had been so wisely and so strongly occupied, and
posting their artillery on what they had themselves so justly and
so zealously denounced as a forbidden tract to men of honour and
of Christian principle? And the battery so falsely fixed was not
turned against the enemy himself but against honest-hearted
fellow-soldiers, who were held back by nature and by grace from
resorting to reprisals. This was a stupendous blunder. It made
the fortune of the Fly Sheets, which would otherwise have been
annoying and exasperating enough, but comparatively futile and
innocuous. The issuing of this organ of anonymous detraction ot
eminent and honoured ministers, with the publisher’s name upon
its title-page, and its exposure for sale at the Wesleyan Methodist
Book Room and Conference Office, emboldened the author of
the Fly Sheets, with his lay accomplices, to do what up to this
point they had not dared todo. The stealthy private circulars,
without even a printer’s name, and sent by post to ministers
alone, were now collected, advertised, sold openly as literature
in the guise of a vindication from assault.

Mr. Osborn did himself great credit, and showed just self-
respect, by publicly washing his hands, by a letter tothe Watchman,
of all connection or complicity with this slanderous miscellany,
the Pagers, etc.

The next grave blunder was the way of dealing with Dunn,
Everett, and Griffith. I now agree, though I did not at the
time, with my beloved and honoured Superintendent, Mr. Fowler,
that the safe, the dignified, and the effective course would. have
been to treat them as all wise men treat anonymous, unpublished
slander—with stern and silent scorn. But I can forgive myself
and my fellow-signers in this matter for feeling and for acting
otherwise. The attack on Dr. Bunting was especially detestable.
I often quoted Shakespeare's noble couplet :
Direcr Causes oF THE DISRUPTION OF 1849. 551

" An eagle, towering in his pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawked at”;

which I sometimes thus adapted :

‘A lion, couching in his pride of power,
Was by a mining mole clawed at and chafed.”

But our present question is as to the way in which the mole was
hunted. It seemed to me, and events too well confirmed the
notion, that two most serious errors were committed. The first
was the non-isolation of Mr. Everett, and the turning out ot
three ministers of, at any rate, diverse degrees of guilt at one
fell stroke. The second was the non-avoidance of everything
that could look like a stretch of power or a strain of law, or
a party cows. Would it not have been immeasurably better to
deal with the arch-conspirator alone? ,

No one I ever met with, or ever heard of, who had listened to
James Everett’s pulpit-talk and table-talk, and had become
familiar with his style of writing, had the slightest doubt that,
whoever might have knowingly or unknowingly aided or abetted
him, the Fly Sheets were his productions. It seemed to me
a very maladroit manceuvre to bundle up in the self-same con-
demnation two other ministers of whose connection with the
business there might be—and there actually was—a very reasonable
doubt. I myself did not believe that either Dunn or Griffith
was capable of any such complicity. As it turned out, Dunn had
nothing to do with them whatever ; and, as he told the Confer-
ence when first the matter came before it, no one who really
knew him could in the least suspect him of a trick so palpably
repugnant to his nature and his habits. His perversities were
of quite another kind.

As to William Griffith, I thought, with most folks, it was not
like him to give himself deliberately to such tortuous and sub-
terranean workings. He was a headlong, headstrong politician,
but I thought him far too big and brave to be burrowing under-
ground, and too impatient and impetuous to be driving galleries
beneath the soil. But I learnt later, from indubitable evidence,
that he had received and read the proof-sheets of those ill-
omened documents.

It was a marvellous mistake to send forth into the field an
armed triumvirate instead of a solitary and suspected individual ;
to twine a threefold cord instead of leaving one thin, tangled
thread to bear the strain. James Everett, by his single self,
552 HAlisrory or Meruopism.

would have cut a sorry figure, either on the platform of Exeter
Hall or on the well-glazed pages of the J//ustrated London News,
without the Titanic bulk of William Griffith on the one side, and
the sturdy, white-haired, pink-faced Samuel Dunn upon the
other. A moulting “sparrow on the housetops” of the holy
city could scarce have been a more pitiable picture, or uttered
a more cheerless chirp.

But William Griffith would have agitated all the. more
furiously! Yes, “like a wild bull in a net,” and with a noose
about each horn and hoof. Dr. Bunting’s safe advice about
refractory Leaders, in 1835, would have come in aptly here.
“Y would bear with him. If he be a really bad man, he will
do something worse, and we shall get hold of him at last.”

Be it well remembered that our present point is the effect
of the expulsions on the Methodist mind and on the outside
public. William Griffith might have been safely trusted to
commit some dashing deed which would have brought him well
within the grip of the law. But what of Samuel Dunn? Well,
his case and its treatment by his brethren made a very strong
appeal to public sympathy. Folks did not like the look of it.
He was guiltless of the anonymous detractions resorted to by
the Papers on Wesleyan Matters. His Wesley Banner was not
a whit more intermeddling, nor a whit more partisan, than the
Watchman, which received a vote of thanks from the Conference.

Again, I could not but think at the time, and Iam as incapable
of judging otherwise to-day, that the resort in these cases to the
ugly-looking and extreme appliance of the ‘‘ brotherly question,”
under pain of expulsion on a refusal to give a categorical and
unconditional reply, was a very grave mistake. The principle
which lies at the basis of the right of brotherly questioning,
and the corresponding wrongness of a refusal to return a
brotherly reply, is indeed essential to the coherence and reality
of a brotherhood like that of the Wesleyan Methodist Pastorate.
I should be sorry and alarmed to find myself able to under-
stand how a man with the heart of a Methodist minister
can persistently refuse a frank, fraternal answer to a frank,
fraternal question. The Methodist minister who has some
deliberate act or habit to conceal from his brethren has some-
thing to repent of and something to renounce. We especially
must “walk in the light” to “have fellowship one with
another.” Anything like evasion is abhorrent to the genuine
Methodist Pastor, But there were very serious awkward-
Direct CAUSES oF THE DisRUPTION OF 1849. 553

nesses in the application of the brotherly question to a case
of Methodistic life or death.

The Conference had expressly and explicitly bound itself,
on its first and third assembling after Wesley’s death, not to
make a high-handed, unrestricted use of the absolute power of
expulsion of any of its members with which it found itself
entrusted by the Deed of Declaration ‘‘ for any cause which to
the Conference may seem fit or necessary." The question arose
at once and naturally : “ For any cause; but does that imply zz
any way? Does it mean: Without either evidence or trial?”
These were brotherly questions which could not but crop up.
And therefore, immediately after Mr. Wesley’s death, certain
regulations were adopted for the administration of justice, so as
to furnish an apparently safe check upon all “clandestine or
arbitrary expulsions.” (“ Polity of the Wesleyan Methodists,”
p. 292.) Again, 1793, it was enacted: “If any Preacher be
accused of immorality, the Preacher accused and his accuser shall
respectively choose two Preachers of their District, and the
Chairman of the District with the four Preachers chosen as above
shall try the accused Preacher, and they shall have authority, if
he be found guilty,” etc. (zdzd., 293).

This seemed to be, and was intended to be, a safeguard against
the expulsion of any minister without a regular trial and an
amount of evidence sufficient to convince at least three out of five
brethren. But still the right of brotherly questioning, and the
wrong of a refusal to answer, were regarded as in full force.
This is plain from the action of both Kilham and the Conference, in
the celebrated cause of 1796. The Conference assumed the utmost
freedom of interrogation, and the suspect, Mr. Kilham, did not make
the least demur to the exercise of that unquestioned right of
questioning. He either answered there and then, or desired
“time to consider this question,” with a view to full, frank
answering. The transparent stream of kindly sentiment was
“winding at its own sweet will” hard by the rigidly embanked
canal of legislative equity. On the part of the Conference, the
demands of legality were most religiously respected ; but the
brotherly question took precedence: “Do you acknowledge
the pamphlet?” Kilham—like a man and a brother: ‘I do.”
Mr. Mather: ‘‘ Do you intend to support the paragraph on the
first page ?”? Kilham: “ I desire time to consider.”

Had, then, Messrs. Everett, Dunn, and Griffith any precedent
for refusing to answer a question with regard to their action in
554 ffistory or Meruopism.

relation to Methodist matters? Unhappily they had. One
minister, and one alone so far as I remember, had set the perilous
example of persistently refusing to reply to a fair, a proper, and '
a necessary question put in Conference. He had done this
repeatedly ; he had done so with the menace of resigning all
his offices; he had done so from the Chair of the Conference ;
he had done so with impunity, with success. He had, when for
the second time the occupant of the Presidential Chair, demanded
a formulated verbal charge as the condition of paying the slightest
attention to any questioning of his conduct in connection with a
course of action which had already cost a thousand members,
He had subsequently cast abroad from the platform a humiliating
and discrediting aspersion on the motives and the acts of the
honourable members of the Conference who felt bound to express
dissent from one of his proposals, and when most rightly asked
to define and prove his charge, had peremptorily answered: I
well not be catechised”; and had repeated his demand for a
definite and written accusation. He had, under the name of
‘‘badgering,” resisted and resented questioning which alike the
duty and the dignity of Conference required it to both put and
press. After this continuous” course, had he been expelled?
Not so—for a second, third, and fourth time he was made
President of the Conference.

All this made the resort to the brotherly question a rather
awkward-looking move in a case which involved no less than
Connexional life or death. The Watchman, in a very notable
leading article, whilst suggesting to the Conference this rough
and ready implement, had confessed that it was not incapable of
_ perilous misuse. But it had not put its pen-point on the real
pith of the matter. It had stopped short of showing that the
brotherly question might become most trying and unbrotherly,
in look if not in fact, unless applied all round. The releasing
any one member of the Brotherhood from its brotherly embrace
was to leave it optional to any brother to be held by it or not.

Now be it borne in mind that our present question is the
wisdom or unwisdom of using this appliance in the particular and
respective cases of Messrs. Everett, Dunn, and Griffith. And
does not this question resolve itself into another : “ Was it wise
or unwise to give to such a man as Mr. Everett a plausible,
presentable contention that the very expulsion of himself and
the two others was a pat proof and a signal illustration of one
of the chief charges put forth in the Aly Sheets?” Was it
Direcr Causes or THE DISRUPTION oF 1849. 555

wise or unwise to disregard entirely the inevitable look of the
proceeding to the British public and the British Press ?

Are there not certain elementary, essential principles of “ fazr
play,” and all-roundness, and equality before the Jaw, our Saxon
sensitiveness to which is not to be despised? This principle is
embodied in the petition in the sacramental prayer for the whole
State of Christ’s Church Militant: that “all who are put in
authority may truly and indifferently administer justice for the
punishment of wickedness.” This is a matter in which it will not
do to have one law for the platform and another for the pew in
a holy fraternity of equals; one law for a departmental brother
and another for a supernumerary. This necessity for a just and
equal administration was expressly called attention to by a very
fine-spirited brother, Robert Inglis: “If Everett be expelled, even-
handed justice requires that everyone else should be expelled
who has refused to answer questions put to him in Conference.”

This awkwardness was evidently felt by many of the
speakers.

This moved Mr. Bell to say: “I am in great difficulties; I hope the
extreme penalty will not be inflicted. I warn my brethren against expelling
a man on vague reports.”

Mr. Macdonald: ‘‘I do not sympathise with Everett, but I think it
would be better to suspend for twelve months.” Even Mr. J. W. Thomas
(Vates) thought ‘‘ suspension would be better than expulsion, if safe."

Mr. Methley: “It will be dangerous to our Circuits to expel on this
ground.”

Mr. Bromley put the same point in his own way: ‘It is a marvellous
thing to expel a man against whom no charge is laid. If Mr. Everett is
expelled for the crime of contumacy in not answering a brotherly question,
then all who are in the same category of crime must be placed in the
same category of punishment. I propose that all who have taken this ground
should be arraigned before we expel one.”’

Dr. Bunting: ‘‘I move that a clause be inserted that if at the end of
twelve months Mr. Everett give satisfaction, his case be reconsidered.”

Dr. Dixon: ‘‘I think expulsion for contumacy, without this clause, is
beyond the rule of equity.”

Mr. Haswell: ‘I think a person who is the author or abettor of the
Fly Sheets should not be a member of the Conference ; but I propose ‘ That
Mr. Everett be reproved from the Chair, his name left off the Minutes, and
that he be not allowed to preach out of his own Circuit.’”

Dr. Newton opposed this. Dr. Beaumont: ‘Are we not in danger of
overstraining the Constitution? By a resolution of the London Book
Committee slanderous publications have been sold at our Book Room. I
support Mr. Haswell's proposition. To slanderous publications I am an
inveterate, indomitable enemy. But in developing your mysterious resources
to crush slander on one side, take care you do not foster it on another. I
556 flrstory oF JETHODISM.

have a duty to perform to Christ and eternal justice, and I should have lost
my self-respect if I had not done what I have done.”

I have not the slightest sympathy either with Mr. Everett
or for him. The man who resorts to such means for carrying
Church measures as he so deeply planned and so sedulously
worked, by that very act outlaws himself from Christian
society. The individual who, instead of speaking his mind in
the assemblies of the fraternity of which he is a favoured
member, prefers to devote himself to the stealthy stabbing
of invaluable reputations is not the sort of soldier to defend
whose honour I would risk my own. ‘

But there is a sort of dabblers in the waters of strife to
whom the last warning words of David still apply : ‘The man
who shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff
of a spear.” Nothing could be plainer than that Mr. Everett
had made up his mind either to achieve his purpose or to
divide the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion. Was it wise to
supply him with the desired and the handiest facilities for
accomplishing that object? Yet this was the very thing that
was actually done. The course taken gave to Mr. Everett, his
fly Sheets, and his other machinations, a factitious importance,
an effectiveness and successfulness, greatly beyond anything
‘they could have otherwise effected. I cannot but think that if
Mr. Fowler’s counsel of the non-notice of anonymous vituperation
were not adopted, the next best course would have been to
follow the advice of Messrs. A. E. Farrar, Vevers, and the Book
Steward, to try Mr. Everett in the regular and precedented
way, by Minor District Meeting. This would have met his
own challenge: ‘If I am the most suspected, there must be
some evidence against me; produce it.” Assuredly it would
have needed no prodigious development of the forensic faculty
so to cross-question Mr. Everett, and the ministers who were
known to know who the author really was, and so to present
the evidence thus adduced that no five Wesleyan Methodist
ministers could’ pretend to doubt his authorship. If he chose
two of his closest friends, say Mr. Walton and Mr. Burdsall,
or Mr. Griffith, they knew perfectly well that he was the
author. The wary, shrewd, experienced Book Steward was
not the man to say “I think I know” without some clue,
which the close connection of the establishment of which he
was the head with the general book trade and the “Row” had
Direcr Causes oF THE DisrupPrion oF 1849. 557

put into his hands. In this way Mr. Everett would have lost
his strongest, keenest weapon. The point of this weapon was
the precedent which he claimed to have followed in the
position he took up in Conference, and for maintaining which
he was expelled. The most honoured member of the Con-
ference had repeatedly assumed the ground which he had
occupied, in some foregoing Conferences. He said in this: “I
will submit to the humiliation of a trial, if my accusers will
show themselves.” Mr. Everett said: “I demand the name
of my accuser and the charge in writing, and the opportunity
to defend myself in a constitutional way.”

And was it not a very serious blunder for the Conference
to go out of its way to move a vote of thanks to the
Watchman after having expelled two'-ministers for the ex-
press reason that they declined to promise not to write
for or to the Wesleyan Times, and to give up the Wesley
Banner, unless other brethren would make the like agreement
not to write for the Watchman any longer? This action of
the Conference, in the eyes of many thousands of Methodists,
gave to the expulsion of Messrs. Dunn and Griffith the appear-
ance of a party triumph. For had not the Watchman, they
argued, let itself be made the organ of a party by its impertinent
interference with Conference in the election of its President,
by its offensive efforts to prevent the election of such an
eminent and worthy minister as the Secretary of the
Conference and Chairman of the London District, and by
advocating the adoption by Conference of a mode of ex-
pulsion unprecedented in its extremeness and its questionable
lawfulness ?

Another lamentable error was the putting on the powerful
committee for the examination of the accused, and for a draw-
ing up a recommendation on their case for the adoption of Con-
ference—a committee which, being composed of ex-Presidents
and Chairmen of Districts, could not be thought unequal to the
work—of three Manchester ministers, who had no such dignity
or training for the work. This was done in spite of Mr.
William Bunting’s strong remonstrance that the very reason
given for adding them to the committee was the strongest
possible ground for keeping them away—namely, that they
were mixed up with the affair—a ground clearly for their
appearing before the court, but, according to all notions of
propriety and justice, decisively prohibitory of their being
* 558 History or Meruopism.

assessors in the Conference. The putting Dr. Osborn on the
committee was too much like the placing of the prosecutor
on a case of judicial arbitration and appeal. And as to
his two colleagues, whatsoever commendable qualities of
Thomas Fuller’s “diamonds” they might possess, they were
proverbial in the Body for “cuttingness and hardness.” There
was, indeed, a sort of stern naiveté in the reason given by
the President for putting those three particular brethren on,
their having “been painfully mixed up with the matter from the
beginning,” which made the simple-minded public raise its eye-
brows in surprise. Their selection could not have been made
with a view to eke out the efficiency of the ex-Presidents and
Chairmen of the Districts) To what, then, was it due? “To
impartial men,” as Mr. William Bunting said, “it had a strong
feature of unfairness.”’

The next mistake was the carrying into Circuit adminis-
tration the like extreme measures to those which had been
‘resorted to in Conference, and the applying to the people the
repressive and hard-handed policy which had been adopted by
the Pastors to their own order.

The next grave blunder was the postponing by the Con-
ference of 1850 of the consideration of the memorials from
Circuits till Conference was at its last gasp and the fugitive
moment was refusing to stay, and their turning a deaf ear to
the counsel of such men as John Scott, William Bunting,
George Macdonald, William Arthur, and Dr. Beaumont to
appoint a committee to consider these memorials in the spirit
of conciliation and concession. Can anyone indulge a moment’s
doubt that if our dear and honoured friend, Mr. T.,P. Bunting,
could have seen his way to propose in 1850 the wise pacific
measure which he so zealously promoted a quarter of a century
later, in 1875, many thousands of attached, devoted Methodists
would have been saved to our community? Was it not, how-
ever, at the latter date a pleasant and instructive spectacle to
see the two distinguished sons of the two noble men who had
so often confronted each other in discussion now combined’ in
the most peaceful and beneficial development of our policy ?

The “ proceedings” of the Conference of 1849 are rightly
described as “often greatly excited.” And, unhappily, this
excitedness of many of the Pastors had not died down when
their own sheepfolds were regained. It is only just to say
that the excitedness of the Conference was mainly due to its
Direct Causes OF THE DISRUPTION OF 1849. 559

environment. Had it been held elsewhere than in Manchester,
a more sedate and sober spirit would doubtless have prevailed.
But Manchester was the headquarters of what had now become
the party of expulsion. Had the President and the Conference
been left to the dictates and the intuitions of their own
devout and simple hearts, no such resemblances to a Parisian
Parliament could have come upon them. But the expulsion
of the two editors of the Wesley Banner, as well as of the
author of the FA/y Sheets, was a predetermined item of the
Manchester programme. That Banner must “to earth be
borne.”

In the wonderful Icelandic saga, Gretta the Outlaw, we
are told that, in a case involving even the possible temporary
outlawry of a freeman, the topography of jurisprudence was
most strictly guarded, with a view to the most absolute isola-
tion of the court and the accused pending the proceedings.
The place selected was a mound which rose within the crater
of an extinct volcano. It was carpeted by nature with flower-
besprinkled, dew-bright moss. The court and the accused were
sufficiently but soberly provisioned, like a garrison in a state
of siege, so that no eye-blinding hospitalities or importunate —
household consolations might in the least imperil the clearness
and straightforwardness of kindly, honest-hearted judgment.
Poor, unadvanced, yet not unevangelised Icelanders !

The Conference of 1849 might possibly have been some
little less ‘excited’ had some sub-Arctic safeguard of the kind
been thought of and available. In that case the discussions
would have been more like deliberations and less like con-
cussions and collisions. But the Manchester party seem to
have felt that the time was now or not at all, the place
Manchester or nowhere. Hence the hot haste with which the
risky matter was rushed on. At the Conference of 1848 not
a word was said about Declaration or /7y Sheets. Mr. Dunn
had been nominated for election into the Legal Conference,
and received sixty-eight votes. Dr. Osborn and Mr. Griffith
had stood shoulder to shoulder in opposing the recommenda-
tions of the Education Committee to accept the State scheme
and the State subsidy. No one dreamt that at the next Con-
ference Declaration and fly Sheets would be summoned from
the shades, and at Dr. Osborn’s instance Dunn and Griffith
expelled.

There is great hazard of more haste than speed in driving at
560 History or Meruopism.

high pressure in the dark a mighty steamship, with all its
precious freight of human lives and human interests, by trying a
short cut into an unfrequented strait, with perilous proximity to
islands, reefs and headlands, and sunken rocks. Who can wonder
if there comes a shock, a crash, and lamentable loss of life ?

The last consummating blunder, as it seemed and seems to
me, was the resolute refusal to hold parley with the “ delegates”
from the disturbed Circuits. This was in striking contrast with
the action of the critical Conference of 1795, and a signal
departure from that auspicious precedent of a truly patriarchal
policy. I cannot but still think, in those points in which the
policy of 1850-51 departed from the policy of 1795-97, the middle
of the present century showed to no little disadvantage as
compared with the closing years of that which saw the rise of
Methodism.

It is needful, in conclusion, to glance at Dr. Osborn’s speech,
delivered at the call of the Chair as a prelude to the expulsions of
1849, and in vindication of his reissue, without leave of Con-
ference and in the new and avowed character of a discriminating
“test,” of the Declaration issued expressly by “ permission” of
an earlier Conference. This gave the keynote to the whole tone
of the proceedings. .

Dr. Osborn: ‘' Why, it is asked, should there not be two parties in the
Conference as well as in the House of Commons who both claim to be strictly
loyal to the Constitution, however they may be divided on questions of admin-
istration?’’ This will be seen at once to be a point of such gravity and import
that it has not been exaggerated by his own epithets, ‘ vital to the existence
and prosperity of Methodism.” He gives to the question a positive and
peremptory negative, and states the ground on which he builds. “' Political
parties are based entirely on political considerations. Methodism exists for a
purely spiritual purpose: To spread Scriptural holiness throughout the world,
to nourish that Divine principle in the individual heart.” Hence he main-
tained there can be in the Conference nothing like a ‘‘ Government party "
and an ‘‘ Opposition.”

In truth, a Government party in the Conference is neither
needed nor admissible, since there is no Government in Conference,
save the President for the year. But is this an absolute security
against an actual governing party and the consequent inevitability,
and even the necessity, of some kind of opposition? Methodism has
no Cabinet, no Ministry—in the secular sense of the word—to
direct its Pastoral ministry in the Church sense. And Dr.
Osborn’s distinction between a community based upon “ political
considerations”! and a Connexion like that of the people called
Direct Causes or THE DISRUPTION OF 1849. 561

Methodists is solid and important, and quite relevant to the
question of the legitimacy of party distinctions in the Wesleyan
Methodist Conference. Indeed, so long as Church politics are
conducted on New Testament principles there can be no such
thing as party in the New Testament conception of that idea.
No one word, indeed, occurs in the Greek Testament which
could befairlyrendered by the English “ party.” St. Paul uses the
phrase, however, which we find in classic Greek—e.g. Thucydides
——that comes nearest to our modern English term and modern
English notion, party. “I am of Paul,’ “I am of Apollos,” “I
am of Cephas,” is a true Greek mode of expressing our idea of
“ party ’—meaning, ‘I am of Paul’s party,” etc. For the original
conception of a party was that of the personal following of some
special leader. Then came that of individuals banded together
for some common object, like Paul’s “them of the circumcision,”
those who were bent on making circumcision as well as baptism
a necessary condition of membership in the Christian Church.
They thus formed a party in the Church, inasmuch as they strove
to make their own particular preferences and notions obligatory
on all their brethren, and combined for the attainment of that
object. They thus came within the meaning of the word used by
the classic Latin writers to designate a party—Studium. a fondness,
a study, a zeal or enthustasm for any particular person or project.
Now this is pronounced in the New Testament to be inadmissible
in the politics of the city of God, “ the commonwealth of Israel,”
though so common in and, as it were, indigenous to the noblest
States of heathendom, such as Athens, Rome, and Carthage. To
adopt such individualistic practices, and to indulge proclivities of
this sort, is to “ walk as men,” to aspire to no higher moral and
spiritual plane than the statesmen, the orators, and heroes of
“this present world.” If you can stoop to this, “ Are ye not
carnal?” or at best but babes in Christ, incapable as yet of any
more spiritual or moral aliment than the spoon-meat of an
Aristotle or a Cicero? What are its tactics but “‘fleshly wisdom”?
“But our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience
that, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, we
have our polity in this world, and more abundantly toward
you — ze. in our Church relations.

Now the principles of the domestic policy of ‘the household
of faith’ preclude all partisanship of this mundane, ethnic sort.
Its axioms are such as these: ‘Ye younger, submit yourselves
unto the elder,” and “ Yea, all of you be subject one to another,

K K
562 _  istory or Meruopism.

and be clothed with humility” (1 Peter v. 5). Humility, then, is
the senatorial robe of dignity and grace. Finally, “ Be ye all of
one mind, having compassion one of another : love as brethren,
be pitiful, be courteous: not rendering evil for evil, or railing
for railing : but contrariwise blessing” (1 Peter iii. 8,9). ‘“ My
beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak,
slow to wrath : for the wrath of man worketh not the righteous-
ness of God’ (James i. 19, 20).

These golden rules were not made for one side of a Church
Council to silence and suppress the other with, nor for the stronger
to enforce upon the weaker.; nor for one brother to “ begin to
beat his fellow-servants’’ with. They were made for each side
to curb itself withal ; and for each one to enforce upon his own
unruly heart and tongue. And these rules can in no wise be
safely put in force by penal enactment, nor imposed upon a
minority by vote of a majority. ‘The brotherly question ” must
be brotherly at both ends, or it will snap to pieces in the middle.
It will not work for one brother, least of all if he be on the
platform or in the Chair, to call another brother out into the aisle,
and say with authority, or vociferate with clamour: “ None of
your explanations: Yes or No, or out you go.” Ofa truth, it is
impossible for a brotherhood like the Methodist Conference to
“hang together in firm accord and concord,” excepting by the
silken, fine-twined cord of a heartfelt instinct of brotherly
affection. But you might as well expect a frozen millstream
to grind your corn, as depend upon a bounding, leaping, onward-
bearing sentiment to turn hard grains into a home batch, when
you have it congealed into a statute to be enforced “ with the
utmost rigour of the law.”

In like manner the signatures to any declaration lose all their
value as evidence of ‘‘ brotherly love,” and all their validity as
guarantee for its continuance, if the autograph be procured under
pressure, or under pain of seeing his name upon a black list if he
will not put it.on the white one. Such procedure in Methodism
was a nineteenth-century invention. Mr. Wesley’s Agreement
was purely optional. It began with a truly brotherly compact
between the two brothers, John and Charles, and was at first
signed by them only. It simply bound the brothers to act in
concert in carrying on their great evangelistic enterprise. Their
devoted friend Perronet afterwards signed the document. The few
Preachers present at the Conference signed this or a similar
document. But it bore not the slightest kinship or likeness to a
Direct CAUSES OF THE DISRUPTION OF 1849. 563

“test.” The Liverpool Minutes, which Dr. Osborn had to count
along with Wesley’s Agreement in order to make up his four
precedents for the test of 1849, was not and is not presented
to and pressed on the brethren to be signed ; nor were or are
they personally pestered with questions as to why they do not
sign them.

The capital mistake in Dr. Osborn’s fateful speech in 1849
was his failing to distinguish between an honest party and a
faction. The history of party in England, which begins with
the Restoration, is resplendent with the noblest proofs that a man
can be a member of a party without being a partisan. One has
only to name the last Conservative First Lord of the Treasury
and the last Liberal Secretary of State for India to carry
this point by acclamation. Factions may, to serve their own
purposes, help or hamper parties ;. but you may not charge
with bitter, unjust partisanship men like Peel, Russell, or
Forster.

For our purposes it is enough to say that a party, in the
condemnatory sense, is the following a particular individual ; the
being “ puffed up for one against another,” or the being bound
together to upset or override an act in contravention of a pro-
mulgation of the supreme Church Council, as did ‘‘ they of the
circumcision” in apostolic times. But in this sense there had
been no such thing as an Opposition in the Methodist Conferc
ence. From Kilham to Warren, 1796-1835, there had been no
member of the Conference whose name had become a party desig-
nation among the people called Methodists, with the terminal
addition ‘‘zte.” And neither of these leaders of secession had any
formidable following in the Conference itself. True, men who
were in spirit partisans, resorted to the trickery of branding as
disloyal all who would not share in their own divisive measures.
But the branders, not the branded, were the veritable partisans.

There had never been any organised or factious opposition
in the Conference itself; never any band of men who made it
their business, nor any individual minister who took upon himself
the functions of a Connexional supervisor or censor, or snifing
sanitary inspector, self-elected to the office and work of a fault
finder with departmental officers. The men who acted as a
check upon the braced-up ecclesiasticism of Dr. Bunting and his
school were united rather by a common principle than by a
common project. There was, indeed, a very small ante-Bunting

section in the Conference, but one could count them on. his
K K 2
564 History or METHODISM.

fingers. Our friend Mr. T. P. Bunting enables us to catch in
a teaspoon the first ooze and trickle of this tiny waterway :
“Other members of the (Missionary) Committee adopted, more
or less, the views of the majority of the Secretaries; whilst by this
time ’’ (1823) ‘there was a secret feeling amongst a very few that
Bunting must not always have his own way.” (“ Life,” p. 563.)

This secret feeling amongst a very few in the Missionary
Committee soon found its way into the Conference, as we learn
from the same unquestionable authority, and also found expres-
sion both in colloquy and correspondence during Conference
time. Neither the “secret feeling” nor the softly spoken and
impersonal notion was effectually put down by the attitude
assumed and the position taken up by Dr. Bunting when older
men than he felt bound to ask in Conference by what authority
the authority of Conference had been summarily set aside by
public acts. What his answer was we have seen.

A few began to think that this was a little too much like an
invaluable and unmatchable servant saying: ‘“‘I’ll render you
unstinted and untiring service on this simple, sole condition,
that you let me do pretty much what I like.” It was this
masterful element in his nature that stood in the way of his
universal popularity. Like his great historic prototype Pericles,
he was foo indifferent to popularity and to the sensibilities and
susceptibilities of other men. On great occasions he seldom
seemed so much himself as when dealing with such a text as:
“Curse ye Meroz, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof;
because they came not up to the help of the Lord, to the help
of the Lord against the mighty,”’ or “I am doing a great work,
so that I cannot come down.” Of this he seemed to be well
aware, as appeared from his reply to Mr. Chapell’s observation :
“T am afraid of Dr. Bunting’s making concessions to clamour.”
Dr. Bunting : “I am altogether the other way.”

Hence, in a letter written by a minister referring to the
Conference of 1823, we find these sentences: ‘‘ Mr. Bunting has
not talked so much as I have heard him on former occasions.
Some of the brethren think that Mr. Bunting has too much
power.” (‘‘Life,” p. 567.) This statement was quite true, and
the number of ministers who received this impression gradually
increased; but Mr. Fowler’s Journal clearly shows that Dr.
Bunting’s most redoubtable opponents never gave the least
obstruction to any of his measures just because he started them.
On the contrary, they were all the more eager to support every
Direct Causes of THE DisruPrion or 18409. 565

one of his proposals of which they could approve, in order to
demonstrate that. their opposition was altogether free from
factiousness. Mr. Dunn was the one exception.

The underlying fallacy in our dear friend Dr. Osborn’s fateful
speech consisted in the strange assumption that in Wesleyan
Methodism a majority can never be a party. A party is such
whether in power or out of power; whether it can command
a majority or not. And if there ever was a party in Methodist
history, it was that of the Pagers on Wesleyan Matters, which had
also for the time being gained predominance on the rota of the
Watchman, outtalking quiet men like Mr. Farmer.

And it was this that gave, in the eyes of myriads of the
Methodists, as well as of the outside public generally, such an
exasperating look of unfairness and high-handedness to the
expulsion of Dunn and Griffith on the express ground that they
refused to pledge themselves to abstain from writing for the
Wesleyan Times, and to give up the Wesley Banner, unless other
brethren would promise to desist from carrying on the warfare in
the Watchman, and not to publish party organs on the other side.
It seemed to be scarcely equal-handed to pass a vote of thanks
to one newspaper for intermeddling with strictly Conferential
matters, even to the extent of designating the next President
and advocating the extremest possible measures in Conference
management of its own members, whilst it expelled two ministers
for insisting on the right of reply to an aggressive and assumptive
carrying on of the debate by their opponents all the year round.

The fact is, Methodism was made a shuttlecock between the
battledores of two extreme parties. Hence the conspicuous
absence of what fine old Mr. Scarth of Leeds was ever urging—
tenderness for Methodism. Hence the thrusting aside of that
gentle dealing, and that sensitive and scrupulous comity, which
so befits the Christian Pastorate.

I trust that this volume will, to some extent, accomplish
its main purposes. These are :—

To vindicate for some right noble ministers of Christianity
their true place and their fair significance in the Constitutional
history of Methodism. The Centenary of the Wesleyan Methodist
Constitution is, in fact, drawing to its close. Zhe Leeds Regula-
tzons of 1797 completed our documentary Constitution.

The Plan of Pacification in 1795, and its completion in
1797, have been recognised as our Magna Charta and our
Bill of Rights. But the shaping hypothesis of Wesleyan
566 flistory or METHoDISM.

Methodist polity, as we have seen, was the outbirth of the
brain of the greatest ecclesiastical statesman which Methodism
has ever yet produced. Some very able, earnest men, however, as
we have seen, thought that his forceful and unfaltering policy had,
as the sailors say, a little too much /zst—ze. onesided impetus ;
and that his grand, gigantic personal qualities would be at once
more serviceable and more safe if kept under vigilant and kindly
check. They, therefore, ever and again essayed to slacken speed
a little, and to correct his, leanings by timely and fraternal
questioning, which was justly judged to be essential to the
working ‘of our system. But, as we have also seen, this course
brought the leal-hearted and sagacious men who followed
it into disrepute with writers who were bent on making Dr.
Bunting’s “policy or, as he explained it, “course of action,”
to be identical with Methodism. Now it so happens that all
the men who, since the death of Benson, sometimes took in
Conference a diverse view of things from that of Dr. Bunting,
I still vividly remember them, having heard them ail, from
Wood, who came out in 1773, and died in the year in which
I entered the ministry, 1840; Henry Moore, who came out
in 1779, and died in the year in which I was ordained, and
Richard Reece, who, as supernumerary, was a member of my
own congregation in Great Queen Street chapel ; to Thomas
Galland, Joseph Fowler, and Joseph Beaumont. My con-
nection with these men is, in my heart’s just estimation,
prized above all price. No other minister now living knew
them half so well as I did.

The charge of factiousness, when brought against any of
these true ministers of Christ, recoils upon the man who brings
it. They were as loyal and leal Methodists as was any one
of the men who strove to make the public think them other-
wise. Being human, they were not impeccable. Dr. Beaumont
had, so far as I could see, but one serious fault. His absence
from his Circuit full three-quarters of his time, and his enormous
popularity, made him an inconsiderate and an unsympathetic
colleague, oppressing his already over-burdened juniors with
work which in all fairness and equality belonged to him. In
this respect he was the reverse of Mr. Fowler, who was as
thoughtful of his colleagues as he was unsparing and exacting
to himself. But Dr. Beaumont was a mighty Methodist
Preacher, a true pastor when he was hastily visiting the
home-close ; and, when my Superintendent, was a most firm
Direct Causes or THE DISRUPTION OF 1849. 567

and faithful and, therefore, a most gentle and most gracious
administrator, an exemplary Pastoral Chairman of a Quarterly
Meeting or a Leaders’ Meeting, and the best addresser of a
Society Meeting, and one of the best conductors of a Covenant
Service, that I ever met with. It is, therefore, painful to find
mistaken and misleading statements with regard to him still
repeated where they are most likely to produce a wrong im-
pression. For example, is it not unfortunate that he is said
to have been ruled out of order and solemnly censured from
the Chair? His question was not ruled out of order by its
own merits. The fact is, as we have seen, he was ruled
out of order and censured from the Chair for being in the
Conference with no other authority than that of the President,
who gave the ruling and pronounced the censure. “He
ought not to be here, therefore he ought not to be heard,”
was Dr. Bunting’s pronouncement on the case. So far from
‘being blameworthy on that occasion, Dr. Beaumont did the
Conference great service, as he did on many subsequent
occasions. And Mr. Fowler did himself and Methodism no
discredit in nominating for election into the Hundred one of the
best as well as most brilliant preachers in the Body. I confess
it hurts me to see injustice done to the memory of such
ministers of Christ. To say that he was treated with tender-
ness (“ Life of Dr. Bunting”) by the Conference in being only
censured from the Chair for not calling a Special District
Meeting to convict a member who had been acquitted by his
Leaders’ Meeting is to affirm that he ought at least to have
been disqualified for any future Superintendency, for having
acted in accordance with the advice of-Dr. Bunting in 1835,
and for not having made the Sixth London Circuit a ruin
like the Zhzrd.

The faint praise doled out to a man like Mr. Galland in
the same beautiful biography, along with the partisan indict-
ment, is also most distasteful to one who had far better
opportunities of knowing him than the writer who discounts
his claims on Methodism with such an air and obvious feeling
of an exhausting stretch of generosity.

Next to my duty to my colleagues, and to my personal
and hereditary obligations, must be placed my duty to my
beloved people. I trust that I have shown that in this un-
happy conflict the sentiment and object of the expelled lay
office-bearers and their adherents was not wholly and. only
568 ffisTorY oF METHODISM.

anti-Methodistic or anti-ministerial. In the Third London Circuit,
although the minority of male and female Class Leaders and the
Stewards who remained were, on the whole, the cream of
the cream, yet the majority who left were at heart most loving
and devoted Methodists. Whilst I lived in the Tower Hamlets
I often thought of Cowper’s saying: “I daresay there are
people living in Wapping and in Ratcliffe Highway whom it
would be worth living in Wapping or in Ratcliffe Highway
to get to know.” Assuredly I became acquainted with many
denizens of those dingy, dusty thoroughfares whose character
and habits showed that their citizenship was in Heaven, and
whose solidity and spiritual polish marked them out to be the
King’s own in the day when He ‘makes up His jewels.” And
so it was in all Circuits with which I was acquainted where
the paroxysm was the sharpest and the dividing chasm was
the deepest. It was so in Manchester. This I afterwards dis-
covered, when the chief seceders were my zealous fellow-
labourers in the work of the Lord, such as Howarth, Norburry,
and Kelly, not to mention gentlemen like Johnson, who joined
himself to Union Chapel, and became a strong and stately
pillar in Dr. Maclaren’s goodly Church. It was even so in the
Belper and the Ripley Circuits, where the rent was most
decisive and disastrous. It was so in Rochester, where politics
had naught to do with the contention, and where the leaders
on both sides had worked together from their youth in the
most pleasant and most well-beseeming unity. It was so at
Rawtenstall, where the two fair sanctuaries have so long
stood side by side, like the rival rocks of some narrow, deep
ravine, riven by Plutonic force, as monuments of ghastly
earthquake.

It is not enough to say ‘‘ Faults on both sides” ; that, alas!
is but too true. But what is that but superfluous commonplace ?
Is it not included in the very fact that the combatants were as
human on the one side as the other? What I am ina position
and, thank God, in a disposition to affirm is, that there were on
both sides virtues, graces, and loyal love to Methodism. And
what can be the harm of saying this? Mutual confession is
surely as respectable and Christian as mutual crimination and
mutual upbraiding. The seceders have set us the example of
confession. Mr. Kirsop, in his history of the Methodist Free
Churches, does himself and those Churches the honour of
adinitting the indefensible wrongness of some of the main tactical
Direct Causes oF tHE DISRUPTION OF 1849. 569

positions taken up by the reformers; and Mr. Chew, the bio-
grapher of Everett and of Griffith, admits that the Ply Sheets
were ‘‘betrayed into”! personalities and intermeddling with the
private affairs of public men. (‘‘ Life of Everett,” p. 364.) It
should, then, be confessed on our side that in the mode in which
the three ministers were expelled, and in the way in which these
- expulsions were contrived and brought about, there was much
that seemed questionable and exasperating in the eyes of simple-
minded, honest-hearted Methodists, who loved the Methodist
ministers without respect of parties.

Surely the palliation which Dr. George Smith suggests of the
anonymous detractions and attacks on the precious character of
estimable ministers, whom their brethren and the Connexion
thought worthy of all honour, should be available also in
extenuation of the sympathisers with ministers whom they
thought to be too hardly dealt with, by the way in which they
had been summarily deprived of their maintenance and status.
Detraction was done deliberately and in a monthly organ, and
without provocation or foundation in fact. In the ‘“‘ Life of Dr.
Bunting” we find this statement : “ There is no doubt that the
disaffected party had more or less confidently calculated upon
Mr. Fowler’s sympathy.” If so, who put that preposterous
idea into their disaffected heads? The Papers on Wesleyan
Matters, and that with the object of keeping Mr. Fowler out of
the Chair of the Conference.

My position, then, on this point is simply this. That
anonymous detraction of ministerial and official character, with
a view to the accomplishment of Church measures, is only evil
continually, and that the better the cause which is attempted to
be served by any such expedient the more reprehensible and the
more mischievous is the resort to such ignoble and ungodly
tactics. Is not this the right reply to anyone who expresses a
holy indignation against anonymous misrepresentation, and forth-
with betakes himself to the self-same ill-favoured and unsavoury
tactics against honest, honourable servants of the Master?

-Theretore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art...
for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for
thou that judgest doest the same things. But we are sure that
the judgment of God is, according to truth, against them that
commit such things. And thinkest thou this, O man, that
judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that
thou shalt escape the judgment of God ?”” (Rom. ii. 1-3.) Will
570 ffistorY oF MErTHODISM.

ye speak wickedly for God, and talk deceitfully for Him?”
(Job xiii. 7.)

I trust also that I have not altogether failed in my sincere
endeavour to present to the public and posterity the personality
and the policy of the greatest ecclesiastical statesman our Church
has ever seen.

My honest aim has been to place before my readers the
veritable Jabez Bunting. It has seemed to me that I should
thus do truer justice to that great and good man, and render a
more solid and enduring service to the Church of which he was for
so long a time both the guard and the ennobling ornament, and,
at the same time, best discharge my own indebtedness to the
tenderness and sympathy of by far the strongest man I ever
knew, than by sketching an ideal hero.

I humbly hope that I have also been enabled to pour some
light upon what I know has been an inscrutable historic
mystery to many lovingly inquiring minds—how it came to
pass that the catastrophe of 1849 assumed such terrible
dimensions. It is truly said in the “ Life of Dr. Bunting”
that “the full history will never be written.” But surely
that is no sufficient reason why a fair history should not be
written? No one can condemn too strongly anonymous attacks
upon the character of ministers of Christ—invaluable to their
flocks as well as to themselves; or violence and virulence of
language in dispute amongst pastors or between pastors and
people ; or party agitation in the Church of Christ. But let
us show our sincerity and truthfulness by blaming these sore
evils most severely when they are committed on behalf of
that which we have ourselves espoused as the right side.

Butler’s lines are often quoted :

“Atone for sins we are inclined to
By damning those we have no mind to.”

Might one venture to “cap” that couplet thus:

“Vent holy wrath on crimes we curse,
By perpetrating something worse.”

It would be too painfully easy to match the intemperate
and exasperating language employed upon the one side in
that fierce fratricidal conflict by too servile and successful
imitations on the other.

I may well expect to have the brotherly question put to
me which I had to answer at the time. On my way from

*
Direcr Causes oF THE Disrurrion oF 1849. 571

London to the Newcastle Conference in 1851 it was my
good hap to have as my companions in travel, in the same
compartment, a band of honest, hearty men from Mr.
Fowler's birthplace. They soon found me out to be a
Methodist minister, whereupon their first question was: ‘Do
ye belong to t’ Reform Party or to t? Owd Body?” My answer
then must be my answer now: “By God’s grace I shall
always belong to the Old Body, but never to any Methodist
party, either out of it or zz it.”

And the first lesson of this book should be: Beware
of anything which might favour the formation of party in
the Wesleyan Methodist Conference and Connexion. Of
course, I mean party in the sense condemned in the New
Testament—the being “ puffed up for one against another,”
the dividing of the Conference, and therefore the Connexion,
into two confronting camps. To escape this there must be
no aggregation or magnetic massing around any leader with
a following intent on drawing Methodism in some particular
direction, or into some particular organisation other than the
native and specific organism shaped for it by its inner life.
There must be no combination within the Connexion which
might be fitly designated by the termination “ze,” such as
Kilhamite or Warrenite, needing a special organ, in the shape
of newspaper or other periodical, to set forth and propagate
its views and aims. Such schemes should be religiously
discountenanced.

The maxims of Thomas Galland and Jabez Bunting might be
safely acted upon: “I dread extremes; but the extreme of
Radicalism is worse than the extreme of Conservatism.” (Mr.
Galland in Mixed Committee.) ‘‘ Ultraism and love of change
for change’s or for theory’s sake will be fatal,’ Dr. Bunting‘
wrote to the “consultative meeting” in London in 1852.

No greater peril to a Connexion of Churches could be more
easily contrived than a newspaper after the fashion of the
Christian Advocate and the Wesleyan Times, propelled by
“ultraism and love of change for change’s sake or for theory’s
sake.’ When once a paper is set a-going as the bassinet of some
vociferous hypothesis its own working hypothesis must always be :

‘Rock! a bye, Baby, on the tree-top !
While the wind blows, the cradle will rock,
When the wind ceases, the cradle will fall !
Down will come cradle and Baby and all!”
572 fistoryv or MeruHopism.

If the fire of faction is burning low, every party-housemaid knows
what next to do; bring a newspaper and spread it out along the
bars, and if that will not raise a flame, it is very near its end.

In the most solemn, serious words, but to the same effect, we
are admonished: “ Also of your own selves will men arise
speaking perverse things, seeking to draw away disciples after
them” (St. Paul to the Ephesian Elders). It is one of the
commonplaces of history that your successful demagogue always
makes the most thorough despot.

Ifa man in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and the fifty-
eighth of his ministry, may be allowed a word of warning and of
forecast on the present outlook, I would just repeat the admonition
of the clear-sighted ex-President Gaulter, in his last speech in
Conference: ‘If ever Methodism be destroyed, it will be from
within.” So long as it continues to be Methodism, it is in-
destructible. On this point I would commend to the consideration
of my readers the speeches of my old friend Mr. James Heald, of
Stockport, delivered in the mixed committees, and those of
Richard Reece, Dr. Dixon, and especially that of Mr. F. A.
West at the first Hull Conference fifty years ago, bearing on this
very point.

Methodism can only continue to subsist by fidelity to itself,
to its original idea. It is no use trying to conjure by the name
of Methodism. The deepest principle of Machiavelli’s state-
craft was: “If you want to supplant an institution which has
endeared itself to people by the benefits it has conferred, let its
name be the last thing you attempt to change. Glory in the
name; be the fondest professed adherent to it. Let all your
proposed changes be professedly for the sole purpose of increasing
its eficiency and removing obstructions from its progress ; when
you have changed it by degrees into what you want to make
it, then will be the time for giving it a name more suited to the
thing you have transformed it into.” The peril at the present
time is from those who are, consciously or unconsciously, acting
out this policy.

If Methodism is to “renew its youth like the eagle,” that
can only be by resolute adherence or by prompt recurrence to its
primal principles and teachings, and thus replenish with new
life the channels which its life-force originally made. Let us go
back to the head-springs of its history. It arose out of the dim
recesses of a hard, cold mountain rift, and ‘‘ won its widening
way” by its own heaven-imparted impetus, till it became an
‘

Direcr Causes oF THE DISRUPTION OF 1849. 573

- exalting and abounding river,” spreading out ever and again
into limpid lakes of heaven-reflecting purity.

“ Thou didst spring from caverns darkling,
Leaping bright from rock to rock,
Pure as mountain-child and sparkling,

Glad at every dash and shock.

* Pent no more in rock-worn basin,
Mixed with many a sister brook,

Soon thy gladsome waters hasten

Onwards from their silent nook.

‘Now the quiet vale hath led thee
"Neath the green and mossy brake,
And the hand of Nature spread thee
In a fair and crystal lake.”

What is to preserve it in its crystal clearness, in its freshness and
beauty? Nothing but the perpetual and continuous inflow of
‘‘the vital stream, God's holy word.” This only can preserve
it from plague-breeding stagnancy, and force for it an outlet into
the weedy waste of unbelief, indifference, and worldliness and
immorality.

Will Methodism “ continue so long as the moon endureth,” as
John Wesley did his best to make assurance doubly sure? To
answer this intelligently we must first determine in what the
real vital continuity of the Methodist or of any other Church
consists. This essential question the inspiring Spirit has already
answered. The vital cord of a Church’s continuity is the purity,
integrity, and identity of its doctrinal entrustment, and the true
Apostolic succession in its ministry is the connected line ot
Apostolic men who preach the Apostolic doctrine with Apostolic
faith and faithfulness. ‘‘ That which thou hast heard, the same
commit thou to faithful men who shall be able to teach others
also.” And the cord of our contemutty as a Church is in like
manner the cord of our “ Connexion as a veritable Church” at
“unity with itself’ and “a city compact together.” It is
a fanatical illusion to suppose that a free Church, not clamped
together by State patronage and State authority, can long keep
itself together as a veritable Conmnexzon, after it has let slip or
loosened its doctrinal unity, along with its systematic Pastoral
oversight and its mutual upbuilding. In the divinely designed
Tabernacle no pains were spared to give to the symbolic
structure the most perfect symmetry and unity. The cerulean
574 “lisToryY oF METHODISM,

curtains, of most choice material and the fittest, firmest texture,
were all of corresponding pattern and all fashioned to the same
ideal. And they were all most carefully connected by golden
“‘taches”” and by strong elastic couplings, and its shapely pillars
were closely fitted with silver sockets, so that it might be “ one
tabernacle" whilst consisting of so many parts. And this is the
true New Testament ideal of the Christian Church. ‘ The whole
body fitly framed together and compacted.”

Even those who seem the most solicitous to hush to sleep
solicitude with regard to the ministerial question: “ Does he
believe and preach our doctrines ?” do not affect for one moment
to deny that it is to the definiteness of its doctrines and the
intensity of personal conviction with which they have been
preached that Methodism owes its triumphs in the past. It was
“to make this preaching fully known” that John and Charles
Wesley forsook all and followed the Divine Preacher Who “went
through the villages and cities preaching ” repentance, faith, and
holiness. Out of Methodist preaching sprang the Methodist
expertence, and out of the experience sprang the Class meeting
and the Class Leader, a mighty band binding together the strong
close structure of our Church organisation, including our whole
system of finance. Everyone admits this, even amongst those
who seem most anxious to forget the fact. But I feel it on my
conscience to reiterate the Apostolic warning : “ Beware lest any
man despoil you through philosophy and vain conceit and
oppositions of science, falsely so called.” If we allow ourselves
to be disinherited of the doctrines which have thus far proved
the sources of our spiritual life—that inward experience which
made the Class Meeting at once a necessity and a luxury to the
awakened soul—we drain off the very sources of that life. How
can we keep our young people to Methodism, unless we keep
Methodism for them to keep to? And if our experience dwindles,
be ye well assured that our finance will follow. What was it
that made the poorest churches in the land, the Methodist
communities, a proverb of and a provocative to a lavish
liberality? It was joy and peace through believing. Let that
run low, and we shall soon find ourselves in low water as to
all our funds, whether Circuit or Connexional.

‘Stop the supplies” was much more an arousing than a
terrifying signal-shout when it touched only collections and sub-
scriptions, a penny a week and a shilling a quarter. When a
Superintendent told the Conference that the Warrenites had got
Direct CAUSES oF THE Disrurrion oF 1849. 575

all the chapels in his Circuit which were not upon the Model
Deed, Dr. Bunting nobly told him to go out into the streets and
lanes and fields and commons and preach the doctrines that
our fathers preached, and in the way they preached them,
and we should soon have as good chapels or better ones, or
as big chapels or bigger.

“Oh! but our chapels are on the Model Deeds, and that
secures them to our doctrines.” So every honest- hearted
Methodist would think. But just suppose that a low, loose,
higher casuistry policy should steal in upon us, and bring
in a low, loose code of honesty and honour as to ministerial
pledges and avowals. Whereabouts should we be then?
Busy as he is, it would be worth the devil's while to build
and ‘settle’? any number of Methodist chapels if, on our part,
we would let him supply the pulpit with men who have
adopted that hypothesis.

The twentieth century, the third millennium of the Christian
era, may find “Methodism” a momentary millionaire. But if
this new working hypothesis as to ministerial honesty and
honour be permitted to prevail, what legal instrument can
secure to us any longer the consonance, integrity, and unity
of doctrine which has been hitherto the secret of our strength
and success, and must ever be “the ark of our magnificent
and awful cause” ?

Sometimes a rhythmic epigram has done good service in
the political and social history of England. When an attempt
was made, in the interests of ‘cultivation,’ to enrich the
wealthy at the poor man’s cost, not many speeches or
pamphlets did so much towards gaining fairer terms for the
restricted labourer than a rhymed epigram which I may thus

parallel :—
“If he with other thieves be locked in

Who steals the chapel from the doctrine ;
Who would not with the burglar grapple,
Who steals the doctrine from the chapel ?”

No need of the prophetic gift to fore-announce to Method-
ism the certain consequence of a departure from the doctrines
to which it owes its birth and its perennial vitality. A
smattering of Church history will tell us that. We have but
to glance at the chronicles of the two once great denominations
most closely akin to Methodism, the one in polity—the English
and the Irish Presbyterians—and the other in spirit—the
576 History or Meruovism.

Society of Friends, our very next-of-kin in revivalistic aggres-
sion and in mutual upbuilding. Two centuries and a half ago,
as we all know, the Presbyterians were the leading English
Nonconformists. But what a feeble folk the English Pres-
byterians proper had become before the coalescence of the
English Evangelic Presbyterians with the Scotch. For, be it
borne in mind, the strong Presbyterian churches in England,
such as James Hamilton's, Donald Fraser’s, Dr. Macfarlane’s
in London, were the offspring of the glorious evangelical re-
vival under Chalmers and his mates. What brought historic
English Presbyterianism into such a pitiable plight numerically,
financially, and as a missionary agency? It was the dalliance
with “advanced” theology and no theology. In proportion
as Presbyterianism in England and Ireland became Socinianised
and Rationalised it became paralysed and pauperised. - Read
the paragraphs on Presbyterianism in Dr. Stoughton’s “ History
of Religion in England,” and tell us what you think.

And so of Quakerism. George Fox left at his death as
many Quakers in the land as Wesley did of Methodists at his.
Let those who measure Churches by statistics note the present
position of the Society of Friends.

And how fell upon this spiritual, aggressive, philanthropic
host such monetary shrinkage and depletion? Read “Its
Internal History,’ by the noble Robert Barclay, late of
Tottenham. “Read, and you will know.”

The Hull Gonfeeance of 1898 will celebrate the Jubilee of
the First Hull Conference, 1848. This was an epochal Con-
ference, as we have seen. It closed with peaceful dignity the
long and strong Protectorate of the mighty Jabez Bunting.
Henceforth, until the next Hull Conference in 1858, which heard
the reading of his obituary, his place was taken by a kind of
Regency, or Mixed Committee of Management and of Control, a
Directory, in which the lay element was perceptibly predominant.

‘‘Our fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they
live for ever?’ Where are all the mighties that then dignified
the platform, and all the vigorous and able men who took
part in the discussions? “They are all gone into the world
of light.” God forbid that we, their children, should undo
their work through the vain attempts to mend it; or should
sit by serenely and let it be transformed into another Method-
ism! Suffer the word of exhortation from the son and
grandson of faithful, plodding Methodist Preachers. I would
Direct Causes oF THE DISRUPTION OF 1849. 577

venture to submit to all who feel an interest in the vital
unity, the integrity and continuity, of Wesleyan Methodism,
and the speedy accomplishment of its glorious mission amongst
men, a few of the leading lessons to be learnt from this history :
(1) The doctrine that the end sanctifies the means is to be
excluded from Church politics. (2) It is a very dangerous course
for the makers and administrators of the law to take the
initiative in law-breaking, and thus to give their sanction to it.
One of the office-bearers who were expelled without trial on the
ground that they were self-excluded by attending a meeting of
sympathy for the expelled ministers replied to an expostulation
from me against violence of language: ‘If you bring down your
boot-heel on my poor corns, I will not promise you to squeal by
the gamut.”

Last of all, I would implore my brethren (I have “not many
fathers”) to take a fresh and firmer grasp of ‘our doctrines
and our pristine principles.”

Let us not bequeath to the twentieth century of our era
a crude and puffy product of the taste of the time under the
delusive brand of the ‘thought of the time,” instead of ‘the
things that are revealed, which belong to us and to our
children” also. By faithfulness to our past we shall best win
the gratitude and reverence of all future generations. We
shall retain the exhaustless recuperative energy of Wesleyan
‘Methodism. Then shall be brought to pass the saying which
is written: “Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the
voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye,
when the Lord shall bring again Zion,’ and “Thy people
shall be freewill offerings in the day of Thy power: in the
beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, Thou
hast the dew of Thy youth.”
INDEX.

Address of Conference to King William

» to Queen Victoria, 250, 299
» to Irish Conference, 2
» Pastoral, of Conference to Methodist
Societies, 245, 279, 284, 320, 347.
748, 350, 353, 389
Agar, Mr., in York Speech, 190
Agnew, Sir A., 374 .
Aitken, Rev. Robert, M.A., 185-210
Alder, Rev. Dr., 140, 290, 291, 307, 395
Alton, Rev. G., 354
Anderson, Sas II, 174, 189
Arthur, Rev. W., 18, 384, 417, 423, 479,
2

521
Ashantee, Princes introduced to Confer-
ence, 288
», Mission, 300
Atherton, Rev. W., President (1846), 392
y» Speeches, etc., IOI, 130, 145, 100,
_., 208, 224, 257, 296, 309, 440, 441
Auxiliary fund, 223, 388

Baptism, Discussion on doctrine of, and
mode of administration, 219
Refusal to bury unbaptised child,

219
Use of sign of the Cross in baptism,
21
» ofa Caaker) 7h
», Article on, in Catechism, 257
» Mode of administering, -
Baptismal regeneration, 3583 Sponsors at
baptism, 359
Baptised children, 399
Barker, Rev. Jonathan, 206, 212
Barrett, Rev. Alfred, 13, 32, 327
Barton, Rev. W., 17, 421
Beaumont, Rev. Dr., 108-110, 113-115,
161, 167, 178, 185, 203, 205, 231,
an 258, 262, 263, 265, 275, 2 75
288, 292, 297, 298, 302, 303, 308-
310, 314, 320, 330, 342, 349, 357,
373, 374, 381, 384, 394, 405: 407;
429, 447, 448
Administration
(1849-1856), 475
Beal, Rev., 422
Bedford, 202, 236
» Duke of, 27 '
Beecham, Rev. Dr., 215, 282, 303
Biddle, Mr., of Stratford, 467

during agitation

”

 

Birmingham, 214, 339
» _ Conference held at, 353
Book affairs. 383, 416, 417, 434, 439
» Committee, II7, 513
» Room, Profits of, 137, 249, 283
» Steward’s appointment, Motion to
extend term of, 221
Christian
started, 221
Limit of officials’ respon-
sibility, 285

Miscellany

” ”

”» ”

Bowers, 420
Bradford, 6, 7, 471, 472, 474
Bramwell, Rev. W., 72
Bridgeman, Rev. T., 97
Bristol, 12, 253
Bromley, Rev. J., 130, 134, 142, 158, 181,
202-205, 213, 217, 218, 242, 256,
_ 280, 418, 419, 457, 458
Bunting, Rev. Jabez, D.D., Io
» President of Conference (1828), 57
» Speech as retiring President, 74
» President of Conference oe 215

5 si 1844), 353

» President's speech, 353 x

» Official adviser of President, 68

» Only Conference missed in fifty-four
years, 95

» Speech at Centenary Meeting in
Leeds, 98

» Missionary secretary, 140

» General Superintendent of Theo-
logical Institution, 170

» Visitor to Theological Institution,

179
» Requested to assist Dr. Newton as
Secretary of Conference, 206
» Growing influence of, 251, 261
» Sensitiveness to decline of power as
ublic speaker, 281
» The master mind of Methodism,

7
4% RA es claims of Tory candidate
for Finsbury, 165

A pronounced Tory, 526

», Writes in opposition of Lord John
Russell's election at Bedford, 202

», D. O'Connell's description of, 279

» Consulted by St. George’s Circuit
ministers, 462

» A Reformer, 498, 499

» Greatness of gifts, 516-520

» Last Sermon at Conference, 545
580

Bunting, Rev. Jabez, D.D.—
» Pronouncements on Methodist doc-
trine during examinations of candi-
dates, 218, 219, 245, 256, 257
* Views on term of service in mis-
sion field, TOO
if » 9» Responsibility of editor,
12

55-0 » 9 lay representation in

‘ Conference, 188

Methodist church
polity, 191, 192

right ofinsurrection, 208

lay delegation, 209

Church rates, 238

agitation against State
Church, 155

State education, 120, 277

Congregational _ sing-
ing, 283 |

Ministers wearing

own, 303-305

High hurch = and
Evangelicals, 317

‘ Teetotalism, 318

is » 1» Wesleyan education,
352, 512

Sheffield school, 371

Fly Sheets, Attacks in,
410, 433

3 » ~~», Conference journals
and reporting, 459

Legal Conference, sor-

og 508

» Unique position in Conference, 527,

a” ” 7

ee Pe aali of, 530
» Characteristic sayings of, 102, 106,
128, 217, 224, 225, 228, 282, 296,
297, 299, 302, 315, 322, 323, 331,
342, 403, 404, 417, 449
» Speeches. See also reports of the
various discussions in Conference
Bunting, Rev, W. M., Rev. J. Fowler's
colleague, 12
», Writes account of Rev. J. Fowler’s
‘ death, speeches, etc., for Wesleyan
Magazine, 34, 112, 147, 154, 204,
234, 240, 249, 289, 298, 302, pa
ae a 370, 314, es 358;
4 Nn ay » 441, 453, 4
pine ae T. P., 4, 5, 64, 438, 449, 490,

504
Burdsall, Rev. J., 118, 173, 452
Burslem, 147
Burton, Rev. John, 400, 477

Calder, Rev. F., 203

Calvert, Rev. James, 243

Canada, Methodism in, 221, 222, 290-296,
418. (See Ryerson.)

Catechism—Mr, Datings
teaching discussed

Caughey, Rev, Mr., 315, 344, 345, 368,
369, 390, 391, 400-402, 403, 412-
415, 419

system of

 

INDEX.

Chipchase, Mr., of St. George’s, 463, 464.
466, 469, 470
Centenary Hall, 516
Chapman, Rev. D., 212
Chapell, Mr. G., 190
Chapel Deed, 93
Chapel Fund, 228, 385
ss » Metropolitan, suggested, 367
Chartist Riots, 343
Children’s Fund established, 228
Christian Advocate, Discussion on, 128-
132, 144-146
Church, Established, of England, Wes-
leyan ministers joining, 358
93 Separation Society, 151
aa Rate controversy, 237, 238
Clarke, Dr. Adam, 49
»  Founds schools in Co. Derry, 103
» Schools handed over to Irish
Conference, 103
» Action questioned by Conference,

104
» Appointed to Hinde St. (1828), 107
8 me Supernumerary (1831), 106-
10.
» Speeches on case, 108-111
» Appeals for Shetland, 116
I fa schools transferred to Wes-
leyan Missionary Society, 125
» Death of, 125
» Remarks on Obituary, 135
Discussion of Offer of MSS. to
Book Committee, 138, 139
Coley, Rev. S., 354, 484
Collins, Rev. T., 145
Committee of Advice, 68
» Chapel, 516
» to confer with London delegates, 208
on education, Wesleyan, 352, 382,
301, 398, 419, 428
» Education, Report of, 259, 260
», Education of probationers, 105, 142
» Missionary, 507, 509
» Pastoral visitation, 417
»» Preparatory to Conference (1835),
187-192 ; (1851), 492
» of privileges, 101, 384, 513
» Report of, 259, 260
» Theological Institution (1834), 133,

134
Conference of 1827, 49
‘i 1828, 34

” 1830,

’ 1831, 100
‘i 1832, 106
98 1833, 127
7 1834, 134
” 1835, 193
- 1830, 214

‘a 1837, 230
9 1838, 253
9 1839, 262

A 1840, 286
33 1841, 301
Ww 1842, 321

” 1843, 338
INDEX.

Conference of 1844, 353

” 1845, 381
” 1846, 392
” 1847, 405
” 1848, 433
» 1849, 444
” 1850, 475

” 1851, 491
Conference, Freedom of speech in, 521
» Length of sittings, 380
» Official journals of, 319, 320, 352,
459
» Singing, 431
Constitution of Methodism, 499, 500
Conversation on decrease, 246, 426
Conversation, First, in Conference, on
state of the Work of God, go, 419
Cooke, Dr., of Paris, Letter to Confer-
ence, 89
» Rev. Corbett, 377
Crvok, Mr., of Liverpool, Speech at Con-
ference, 134
Cubitt, Rev. G., 33, 177, 330
Cusworth, Rev. J., nominated to Legal
Hundred, 262

Declaration of London ministers, 186, 187,
262-265, 267
Deputations to Duke of Bedford, 224
» to Duke of Kent, 296
» to grenaency Alliance Meeting,
Derby, oo
District eS Special laws of, defined,

» Emendation of law of special, 210
Dixon, Rev. J., D.D., Speeches, etc., in
Conference, 76, 77, 130, 162, 247,
248, 274, 288, 302, 349, 371, 385
» elected to Legal Conference, 421,
458, 477
» President (1841), 301
Doctrines, Methodist, Importance attached
to, by Conference, 183, 301, 302,
362, 417, 422, 423. (See also Ex-
AMINATION OF CANDIDATES)
Dowty, Rev. T., 9
Duncan, Rev. P., 302, 454, 462, 466
Dunn, Rev. S., 148, 180, I8I, 324, 325, 337,
379, 408, 411, 432, 450, 451, 457,
458, 552
» Expulsion of, 475

Eckett, Rev. R., 98
Education, Government scheme for na-
tional education in Ireland, Variety
of views on, 117-123
» Government scheme for national
education in England, Variety of
views on, 268, 260, 278, 279
Wesleyan, Discussion in Conference,
351, 352
- ie Report on, 369
» fund, 374

”

 

581

Entwistle, Rev. J., 50, 157
43 app House Superintendent of
heological Institution, 176, 177,
186, 225
» fetires from governorship of Institu-
tion, 259, 203-26
», Conversation on Obituary, 323
Everett, Rev. J: 143-145, 152, 186, 289,
308, 326, 413, 452, 459, 460, 535,
547, 551, 550
» Expulsion of, 456
Examination of candidates for Ordination,
218-220, 245, 256, 280, 315, 328,
329, 359-362, 391, 392

Farmer, Mr. T., 133, 190, 436, 481, 492
is Mrs. T., 436
4 Miss, 367
Farrar, Rev. A., 390, 400-403
» Rev. J., senior, 234
yy junior, 425
Fiddian, Rev. S., 26
Fielden, Rev., 446, 447
Fisk, Rev. Dr., of America, 215, 225, 227
Fowler, Rev, Joseph, Birth, 6
» Conversion and call to ministry, 8
» Successive Circuits, 8, 32
Kindness to “Grove boy,” 13, 16
» Fondness for dumb creatures, 16
» Devotion to work, 13, 35, 36
», Pulpit power, 21, 23, 3, 45, 46
» Pastoral fidelity, 24-26, 46
» Administrative ability, 28, 30
», Interest in public matters, 30, 31
» Letters to Rev, F. A. West, 18, 21,

23, 24

a tier laces and death, 32, 35, 47

» Relation to Constitutional History
of Methodism, 42, 44, 46, 47

Journals of Conferences : commence-
ment of writing, 48; importance
of their publication, 106, 114;
Trustworthiness of, 4, 37; elected
to Legal Conference, 301 ; Secre-
tary to Conference, 421, 446

Speeches in Conference, 84, 208, 221,
230, 280, 298, 310, 319, 328, 340,

Od ehayel debts, etc., 301, 346, 347
Imputation of connection with Fly
heets answered, 392, 421, 474

Fowler, Mrs, Joseph, 37, 38

Fowler, Sir H. H., 39-41

Fowler, Rev. Robert, 3

Fowler, The Misses, 38, 39
Frankland, Rev. Benjamin, 364

Fly Sheets, 394-396, 407-410, 433-443

Gandy, Mr., 465, 469, 470

Galland, Rev. Thomas, 26, 70, 97, 147,
160, 178, 212, 230

Writes to Leeds Mercury against
Church rates—Letter objected to
by Dr. Bunting, 237

”
582

Galland, Rev. Thomas, Discussion in
Conference on the case, 238, 241,

245
» Letter to Leeds Mercury on scheme
of national education discussed in
Conference, 268-278
» Conversation on Obituary, 339
Garrett, Rev. Charles, 420
Gaulter, Rev. J., 130, 158, 159, 174, 267,

572

Geden, Rev. J. D., 3 4

ee Gedney Case,” 2

George, Rev. J. C., 448, 451, 454, 458

Glasgow, 398, 402

Gostick, Rev. Joseph, 266

Gown and robes, 287, 296, 297, 303-308,
342, 398.

Green, Mr., Artist, 42

Greaves, Rev. J. W., 354 -

Griffith, Rev. illiam, IIs, 127, 185, 212,
po5ds 41G, 425, 451, 455, 456

» Expulsion of, 458 5 $50 | 552

Giindred Juhs Edmund, , 92, 90, 98,
227
ss Present of Conference (1837), 230,
207

Grosjean, Mr., 475
Guest, Mr., of South Wales, 133, 184

Halifax, Rev. eee appointed to, 10
Hall, Rev. S. R., 12, 385
Hammett, Rev. Dr., of America, 71
Hamilton, Dr., of Leeds, 424
Hannah, Rev. D.D., J.P., appointed
Theological Tutor, 176, 177
» President (1842), 371, (1851), 493
» Speeches, 280, 360, 382, 447
Hardcastle, Rev. Philip, 462
Hare, Rev. E., 10
Harris, Rev. ie 147°
Hartley, Mrs., "Mother of Mrs. Joseph
Fowler, 15
Hay, Rev. David, 180, 257
Heald, Mr., speech, 188
‘a Elected M.P. Addresses Confer-
a 5
Hellier, Rev. Benj., 354
Henshaw, Rev. we, ee
Hoby, of London, 190
Hollingsworth, Rev. Joseph, 223
Holden, Sir Isaac, 99
Hoole, Mr., go
Penserssei 414, 416
Hull, Rev. J. Fowler appointed to, 12, 35,
247, 280, 304, 307, 308, 399
Hunt, Mr. Thomas, 4 7, 409, 470
Hurst, Rev. W., 354

ee Dr., 41
legs, Rev. T, C., 484
Treland, Methodism i in, 92, 127, 217, 444
(See DR. CLARKE)
Isaac, Rev. Daniel, 50, 58, 95, 96
3 ‘Conversation on Obituary, 142

 

INDEX.

ackson, Rev. S., 193, 260, we 3090
» President (1847), 40S, 4
», Governor of Richmond alte oo 425
» Rev. T., 105, ea 249, 266, 290,

369, 4
Peadcue (1838), ey
% # President (1849 9)» 445
» Theological tutor at Richmond, 316,

” ”

447, 479
ames, Rev. J., as I 28
enkins, Rev. RE D., 392
obson, Rev. F. J., D.D., 32, aii
ohnson, Mr. M., §
ones, Rev, J. S., 266

 

4
a
4
a

Kay, Mr. Hildreth, of St. George's Circuit,
465, 469, 470
» _ Rev. Stephen, 448, 455
Keeling, Rev. Isaac, 256, 272, 301, 369, 370
Kilham, Rev. eee 553
Kirk, Rev. John, 266
Kirkpatrick, Rev. C., 10
Kingswood School, 2r7, 336, 384, 415

Leach, Rev. W., 169
Leeds, Q-II
» Introduction of organ to Brunswick
Chapel, 52
» Specia District Meeting on case, a
» Discussions in Conference, 57-
65, 74-82, 94 ;
» Memorials on case from other cir-
cuits, 75-82, 87, 88
» Reflections on case, 60-64, ° 228
» Conference held at Oa 8
” ” 1845 381
Lamy Rev. T. » OI, 104, 159, 265
cra of Conference (1839),
262
», Conversation on Obituary, 301
Liverpool, 80, 88, 222, 247, 420
5 Conferences held at, 262, 405

» Minutes, 496
Lomas, Rev. John, 12, 381
London, 27
» Conference in (1834), 134; (1842),
321; (18

‘“ ey oa beta preachers, 133,
5 Gone tdner 272
» Circular from, to tie of Dis-
»_tricts, 299, 300, 308, 309, 313, 314
» (First) Cit Boa Circuit, 32, 45, 51,
78, 79, 3, 84, 225
” Recon ) es Queen Street, 12, 26-

4 rind) 8 St. Corie! s, 461-463, 568
4s Sympathy _ of
laymen with the three expelled
ministers, 463-468
» South, 59, 75, 79, 86, 87
» _ Sixth) 475
Lord, Rev. W.,_287, 299
Louth, 326, 337
INDEX.

Lloyd, i Mr., Vicar of Llanbister,
24

Magazine, Welsh Methodist, 131
Manchester Conference, 104, 105, 210-212,

301, 492
pacing Methodist chapels, 236, 297,
296, 390, 3
Marsden, Rev. oor e, 130, 352
» President of Canadian Conference,
141
» Rev. J., 89
Marsland, Rev. G., 154
Mason, Rev. John, 92, 119, 145, 330
Mather, Rev. G., 354
Mathews, Mr. C., 93
Maynooth Grant, oe cation to, 382, 384
McAllum, Rev. Duncan, 143
McAulay, Rev. Alexander, 364
McCullagh, Rev. T., 354
McDonald, Rev. G. B., 97, 318
McKenny, Peo 180
McLean, Rev. John, 148, 162, 236, 256,
__ 283, 207, 332, 370
MecNicoll, Rev. David, 10, 76, 77, 228
McOwen, Rev. Peter, 299, 337
Magazine, Wesleyan Methodist, 117-120,
289, 330, 383 :
Magazine, Protestant Methodist, 71
Methodism, Importance of fidelity to vital
principles of, 572-577
Missionary Committee of Review, 507,

5
Mission Hoses action of Secretaries, 522-
524
» Laws of, 524
Missionary, West Indian case of, 137
46 case of, 524

Naylor, Rev. W., 79, 80, 130, 288, 400
Newcastle Conference, 286, 287, 289, 491
New Connexion, 287, 402
New Zealand, ae
Newton, Rev. Robert, D.D., 10
» President (1832), 100; (1840), 286;
(1848), 421
» Secretary of Conference, 205, 321
» Canvasses eg Lord J. Russell
at Tavistock, 202
Speeches, etc., in Conference, 131,
210, 257, 268-270, 283, 400

. Oddfellows, Order of, 93
Ordination, Form of, adopted, 220
Osborn, Rev. G., D.D., 336, 353, 379, 389,
404, 417, 419, 550, 500 -
» Elected to Legal Conference, 445
»» Speech at President's request (1849),

453

Papers on Wesleyan Matters, 437-439,
443, 451, 509

 

583

Parties in Methodism, 560-563

Pilter, Rev. J., 9, 138, 222

Politics, Ministers engaged in, 100, 147,
149, 165, 202, 224, 315

Posnett, Rev. L., 32

Powell, Rev. T., 287, 358, 359.

Presbyterianism, 334

Prest, Rev. C., 16, 43

Punshon, Rev. W. Morley, 354, 490, 493

pus keclina, 570

uarterly Meeting, Necessity of defining,
50r

Quick, Rev, W., 461

Radcliffe, Dr., 41, 42
Rattenbury, Rev. John, 13, 32
Ray, Rev. R., 372, 373, 387
Reece, Rey. Richard, 50, 146, 148
», President (1885), 193, 194, 224, 230,
263, 265, 282, 302, 342, 343, 303,
Rigg Bee cons 59
igg, Rev. J., 267, 413, 414, 4
Rigg Rev. James H., D.D., 2, 122, 269,
392, 521
Rochester conduct of Circuit during
agitation, 481, 491
Robinson, Rev. E. J., 354
Rowland, Rev. T., 267, 282, 476
Rowley, Mrs., 113
Rule, Rev. W. H., D.D., 341
Russell, Lord John, 41, 202, 291, 513
Ryerson, Revs. E. and J., of Canada, 222,
291-296, 299

Sabbath, Observance of, 329, 405, 419

Savage, Rev. William, of Canada, 473

Soak Mr. Gilyard, of Leeds, 22, 133,
m5, 565

Schools’ fund, 217

Scotland, Methodism in, 316, 333, 341, 342,

412
Scott, Rev. John,162, 174, 202, 321, 388, 480
» President, 33
Shaw, Rev. William, elected to Legal
Conference, 215
Sheffield, Conference in, 193, 338
» School, 226, 227, 283, 207, 330-332,
369-372, pe
Sigston, Mr., of Leeds, 66, 67, 73, 99
Slater, Rev. Barnard, 81, 169
Slavery, Opposition to, 94, 216
Slugg, Rev. T., 230
Smetham, ve Jenn: 275

”, ” ohn, 321

Smith, Hon. H., 41

Soule, Bishop, Address to Conference, 335

Southampton, 491

Squance, Rev. T’., 152

Staley, Mr., of Sheffield, 133

Stanley, Rev. Jacob, 10, 131, 144, 193, 215
3 Bresident (1845), 381

» Rev. T., 10
584

Steinpkoff, Rev. Dr., visits Conference,

322
Stephens, Rev. J., 10
» President (1827), 52, 1§0, 163
» Rev. Joseph Rayner, Discussion of
case in Conference, 150-164
Steward, Rev. G., 3, 12, 360, 477
Strangers’ Friend Society, wh a7
Superintendency, “ Bashaw style” of, §34
Sutcliffe, Rev. Pieoh, 50, 135
Sydow, Rev. Mr., visits Conference, 327

Taft, Rev. Zechariah, 202
» Mrs,, 127
“ Takings,” Wesleyan Centenary, 4, 288

308, 312
Taunton School, 369, 372-374, 377, 387
Taylor, Rev. J., President (1834), 133, 225,
267, 300, 333
» Rev. M. C., 419
Teetotalism, 318
» Tract on, 514, 515
Temperance Convention, Letter from,

402
Theological Institution, 93, 316, 394, 411,
425, 506, 508
» Discussion in Conference on forma-
tion, 169-184
Thomas, Rev, J. W., 455) 456
Thompson, Mr. G., M.P., 94
Thomson, Rev. W. J., 403, 412
Thorold, Mr., of Lincoln, 133, 189
Tobias, Rev. M., 93
Todmorden, 148
Toller, Rev. T., 8,9
Treffry, Rev. Richard, President, 127,

142
» Becomes Supernumerary, 316

Vasey, Rev. Thomas, 419, 521, 542
Vevers, Rev., 241, 274, 393

eS Rev. B., 422
” €

v. R., 300

» Rev. S. D., 10, 226, 227, 304-307,
337

- Appears in favour of

Parliamentary candidates, 235, 386

Walton, Rev. D., 449,450, 458

Walker, Rev. E., 330, 348

Ward, Be V., 50, 58, 90, 100, 131, 136,
I61

» Appointed General Superintendent
of West Indian Missions, 167

 

INDEX.

Warren, Dr., 133, 152, 158, 170, 172, 186,
201

» Trial of, in Conference, 193-201
», Loss of members by his agitation,

220
Watchman, The (newspaper), 345, 346,
436, 443, 445, 459 550, 554
Waterhouse, Rev. J., 253
Watson, Rev. Richard, 50, 58, 83, 91, 92,
Q5, 100, II, 120, 121
Een in Conference, 124-
I2
» Thanked for special services to
Methodism, 125
» MSS. purchased, 138, 139
Wesley Banner, 450, 45
Wesleyan Chronicle, 436
Wesleyan Times, 430, 443, 455, 450, 458
Wesley, Rev. John, 147, 159, 214, 300
A Views on separation from Estab-
lished Church, 157
» On what and how to teach, 219
» his chapel, Uproar in, during Confer-
ence (850), 475 .
Wesley’s Field Bible presented to Presi-
dent, 354
» House,
», Works presented to Council in Dr.
‘Warren's case, 224
» Works presented to Rev. G. Osborn,

”

Wesieyet Hymn Book, Supplement to,
102
West, Rev. Francis A., II, 18, 38
» Speech on decrease, 427
y» Sermon at Conference (1847), 428
» Elected to Legal Conference, 421
», Speeches, 314, 337, 419
Wilson, Rev. Gilchrist, 401, 462
Witty, Mr., of Hull, 38
Wood, Rev. James, 49, 130, 172, 176,
2

223
» Mr. J., of Bristol, 160, 189, 512
» Mr. J., of Manchester, 189, 223
» Rev. Joshua, M.A., 251
Wood, Rev. Robert, 87, 90, 131, 225
Woodhouse Grove School, 13, 125, 250,

7
» Grove, Dr. Bunting’s sermon on
opening chapel at, 539
Woolmer, Rev. Theophilus, 468

Yeadon, 168, 169
wong Rev. H., 266
s ev. Robert, 8, 23

 

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The Boy Hunters of Kentucky, By | Jack Marston’s Anchor.
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; or, ‘‘ Those who Live in Glass 3
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Strong to Suffer: A Story of the Jews. By Manik ee Days. By Emma

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Bi ietures tor Boys Those Golden San
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Peo:
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‘ =
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Thorns and Tangles. Shay and Doll. Harry Maxwell.
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Three Wee Ulster Lassies BY pend ene Sea.
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oe gt

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Dick’s Hero; & other Stories. | Jeff and

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Wonders of Animal Instinct.
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The “World in Pictures” Series.
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Cloth, 1s. 6d,
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Little wolket Sunday J Boek
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Working to Win,

At the South Pole,

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Rbymes for the Young Folls. VBy William
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he Sunday Scrap Book. With Several
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The New “Little Folks” Painting Book. Containing nearly 350 Outline Illustrations suitable for
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John Cassell. By G. Holden Pike.
Charles meee NR By G. Holden

Pi
Dr. Arnold of Ri By Rose E, Selfe,
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ts. each,

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Turner the Artist.

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