The decade of 1805-15 — Extorted modifications of the Poll-Deed — Dr. Coke and Foreign Missions — Committee of Privileges acts — Revivals and their leaders — Lorenzo Dow; sketch of his history — English camp-meetings under Clowes and the Bournes; Conference opposition — Expulsions of the leaders — Origin of the Primitive Methodists in 1810 — History of this organization as the second liberal Methodism in England — Another fruit of the Deed of Declaration as enforced by the Conference, and of entailed Paternalism — Marvelous success of the new movement under liberal principles.
The next decade, from 1805 to 1815, will furnish material for another chapter of English Methodism. The minutes do not record any special changes in the polity of the Conference, except such modifications as were found expedient and quietly incorporated through the influence of the New Connection system which was growing side by side with its parent. Wesley would hardly have recognized the system he enforced and which he endeavored to entail by the Poll-Deed, so radical were the changes made in deference to popular demand and the superior forecast of such men as Bunting. This freedom, the equality of personal rights guaranteed under the British Constitution, exerted its reflex influence upon the minds of Methodists, and the fallacy that church government to be effective must be something different from constitutional civil government, the precedents of the New Testament being ignored, could not be concealed under the plea of Wesley's name as an excuse and justification of arbitrary methods. Even the loyal Wesleyan preacher did his own thinking, and learned that personal rights must be extorted either by the method of reform or revolution. One of these quiet movements within the Conference in 1814, brought about another modification of the Deed of Declaration more in consonance with these personal rights of Christian manhood. That instrument restricted the election of a President and Secretary, annually, to the Legal Hundred. It was a spectacle of class, close corporation government when a Conference of 850 ministers and preachers sat in their seats awaiting the choice of 100 of their number as to who should preside over them. It could not be perpetuated, and a less autocratic mind than Wesley's would have foreseen it. The pressure upon the Legal Hundred wrought the change, but like all bodies, time immemorial, who hold securely vested powers, they doled out concession in scant measure. It was conceded that preachers of fourteen years' standing might vote for President and Secretary, but the election to be subject to the separate vote of the Legal Hundred, thus circumventing the Poll-Deed, and all vacancies in the Legal Hundred were to be filled three out of four by themselves by the old rule of seniority, but the fourth by ballot without restriction as to age. Stevens suggests that the change was made that Bunting might be elevated. This desire was likely a factor in the modifications. There were a few cogs less in the revolving wheel of exclusive authority. The liberty-loving English preacher breathed a little freer. It served to quiet that discontent which a parental or oligarchic system is sure to foment perpetually.
Dr. Coke (for as such he was always known, and never in England as superintendent or bishop) lost no opportunity to further missions in Methodism. He kept the foreign work well in hand,
constantly devising new plans for its extension and prompting liberality by his own generous contributions. He also formed a plan for Home missions which was adopted by the Conference in 1806. It is claimed by Smith as the beginning of modern Home missions and the claim is well established. It has been a useful auxiliary in all the Methodisms ever since. As a kindred work, the British and Foreign Bible Society was organized, and immediately English Methodists espoused it and were conspicuous in its furtherance, such laymen as Lundius and Butterworth prompting it, and Adam Clarke lent his invaluable services as a translator of the Scriptures into Oriental languages.
In 1810 it became apparent that the Committee of Privileges would have responsible work on its hands from the increased disposition manifested of political interference with the Dissenters of every name. It was enlarged, the laymen being conceded a majority representation. The National Church was growing intensely jealous of the growth and power of the nonconformists, it was even intimated by the traducers that the Methodists were aiming at a revolution of the supreme government of the country. A bill was introduced into Parliament which, if it had passed, would have struck down the dearest rights of all the dissenting organizations. Even Wilberforce favored it, so intense was the prejudice of Churchmen against Dissenters. It aroused the Methodists, New Connection and Wesleyan Conference alike, who joined forces with the other Dissenters. Thomas Thompson, who was a member of the House of Commons, did yeoman service, and the obnoxious bill was finally defeated. Then an attempt was made to severely interpret the Act of Toleration, but it resulted in sweeping away the "Five Mile Act" and the "Conventicle Act" together, thus securing liberty of worship for all alike. During this decade the Connection increased ninety thousand, an average gain of nine thousand a year. The obituary column was enriched with the names of not a few of the veterans, John Crook, John Pawson, Thomas Rutherford, John Baxter, and in the closing year, as a cap-sheaf to this stack of the sainted, the name of Thomas Coke.
The revivals of the period were numerous and extraordinary, specially among the Home missionaries, who labored hard and suffered much toiling among the coal miners and lowly peasantry. The names of Entwistle, Farrar, Patrington, Welwick, Burton, Pidsea, Ottringham, and Roos, Joseph Marsh, John Hughes, Owen Davies, and William Bramwell, the last a burning torch, an evangelistic flame. In Cornwall, William Carvosso merits distinct mention as a type of the fervent and successful class leader. His biography has been published, covering sixty years of humble piety and exceptional usefulness. Mary Fletcher and Lady Mary Fitzgerald closed careers of memorable piety and activity. Among the useful laymen who were evolved out of this revival period were William Clowes and Hugh and James Bourne of Staffordshire. Their names are coupled with an epoch in the history of the Wesleyan Conference. The movement calls for the introduction of Lorenzo Dow, who became an American itinerant under Asbury in the latter years of the last century and traversed a large circuit in Vermont and other arduous fields. He was cast in an eccentric mold, an original genius, of some mentality and unquestioned piety. He followed his impressions at whatever cost of time and labor and suffering. One of these impressions led him at the close of the century to abandon his home field and make his way to Ireland by the way of Canada, embarking in a leaking canoe with a brush sail down the Missisquei river, that he might preach to the Irish papists.
He thus became an independent itinerant, whose fame covers the Methodist world which he compassed in his travels. His published writings, mostly against Calvinism, form a large volume, and thousands claimed him as the instrument of their conversion. He found a congenial companion, his other self in everything, in Peggy, his wife, for a number of years. He closed his remarkable
career in Georgetown, D. C., at the home of George W. Haller, a sympathizing Methodist Protestant friend, in 1834, dying peacefully, aged fifty-six years. He was buried by personal friends, after a funeral sermon by Rev. T. H. Stockton, in the Holmstead graveyard, and a suitable slab of marble recorded his memory. After the cemetery was removed, on the solicitation of some kind Methodists, the philanthropist W. W. Corcoran of Washington had his remains transferred to an eligible lot in Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown, D. C., and covered with the antique slab lettered more than fifty years before. During his visit to Ireland he labored hard and was favorably received by the common people. He returned to the United States and traveled widely as an independent itinerant, and in 1807 returned to Britain, visiting Staffordshire. He suggested to the zealous people under Clowes and the Bournes the plan of the American camp-meeting, then in successful operation in the rural districts of America, and officially recognized by Asbury and promoted by Snethen, one of the originators, borrowing the hint from some Kentucky Presbyterians, who, like these English lay-preachers, departed from church "order," and, being persuaded that they were right and favored of God, persevered and were expelled the regular Presbyterian Church, forming the Cumberland Presbyterian Church under a modified Calvinism.
The English camp-meetings were very popular and successful, and the religious excitement of the early Methodists was revived in their conduct. They were criticized and attacked by the Conference preachers. Hugh Bourne vindicated them in a pamphlet, and counter publications were issued. It came before the Conference, and the regulars in authority pronounced that they were "highly improper in England, and likely to be productive of considerable mischief, and we disclaim connection with them." Hugh Bourne, who was a chapel trustee and not a local preacher, but full of zeal and courage, traveled to and fro over several counties besides Staffordshire, arousing the people and holding during the clement season the camp-meetings. To be recalcitrant to authority, even to quarterly meeting authority among Methodists, is to commit unpardonable offense. It is an adage with some people, that the worst use you can make of a man is to hang him. All history has proven that the worst use you can make of a Methodist, either minister or layman, is to expel him for other cause than immorality. A year after, Clowes raised his flag on Mow Hill for the first English camp-meeting and the circumjacent people flocked to it, and, in 1808, Hugh Bourne was expelled the Wesleyan connection by the Burslem quarterly meeting. Two years after, Clowes, who continued to use the camp-meeting, met with a like fate. He at once gave up his temporal business and entered upon a crusade of defense and missionary labor. Thus was organized, by the necessity of their situation, the Primitive Methodists in 1810. Stevens dismisses his account of the movement[1]
without one word of disparagement, all the more creditable to him as it was a palpable case of maladministration. At least indirectly the Deed of Declaration is again responsible for a schism in Methodism by its sixteenth section, which invests the Wesleyan preachers of the Conference with power to expel from the visible Church of God for any reason deemed sufficient, other than immorality. Thus martyrs for opinions' sake are made, and their figurative blood becomes the seed of secession and new church organizations.
A glance at the history of the Primitive Methodists. For the data recurrence is made to the symposium in the New York Independent of March, 1891, on the Centenary of Methodism. The sketch is furnished by Rev. D. Hallam, then President of the Primitive Conference. Hugh Bourne in his conduct of the prayer-meetings in Staffordshire closed them at an early hour on the principle that the wage-earner needed rest, but in the white heat of their spiritual quickening the spirit of complaint
burst out, and one Daniel Shubetham declared, almost prophetically, "You shall have a meeting upon Mow, some Sunday, and have a whole day's praying, and then you'll be satisfied." And so it proved, as already discovered.
The meeting was held May 31, 1807, by Hugh Bourne and his associates. Four preaching stands were surrounded by thousands of hearers. Two other such meetings were held, and in August one at Norton-in-the-Moors. Between the first and the fourth meeting the Wesleyan Conference met and decided against the camp-meetings. At the Norton meeting neither Shubotham nor Clowes appeared
— they bowed their heads to the storm of ecclesiastical authority. Even Hugh Bourne wavered, but rose to the occasion, and the meeting was held. His expulsion followed within a year without notice of charge or trial. He paid up his class money and retired peacefully. Three years later, William Clewes was denied his ticket of membership because he attended the camp-meetings and would not promise to desist. The excluded had formed no idea of a new Church, they were simply intent upon saving the souls of the people. Ten such converts, at a place called Stanley, met in fellowship and were offered as a class to the Methodist circuit, but were rejected because connected with the Bournes. It was of the first importance that nursery provision should be made for those who were thus converted. In May, 1810, that class organized in March became the nucleus of a new organization. In 1812 the first preachers' plan was issued, the name Primitive Methodists adopted, and a separate existence and work were fairly begun. It did net set out as did the New Connection Methodists, with any considerable secessions from the old societies. "Many long years of pioneering followed. Men like John Oxtoby, John Flesher, William Harland, Thomas Dawson, John Petty, W.
G. Belham, John Ride, Thomas Russell, Joseph Spoor, and a host of others went forth with meager, often empty, purses, but hearts full of enthusiasm for Christ; and this new electric force exerted its transforming power over the moral and spiritual life of the nation, from the miners of Northumberland to those of Cornwall. There are many chapters of heroism in this long period of pioneer labor; not a few have been told, but many are unrecorded, for the workers were mostly modest men who praised not themselves." They soon felt the need of a Book Room and a literature of their own. The second Annual Assembly, which was in 1821, established a Book Room at Bemersley, under the management of the two brothers, Hugh and James Bourne. Twenty years afterward it was removed to London, and for many years has done a flourishing business. In 1890 it issued 102,580 copies of its magazines, and 1813 of its Quarter Review. For ten years past it has made an annual grant to the Superannuated Preachers' Fund, varying from 3200 to 4400, with grants of smaller sums for other connectional interests.
In 1825 a General Missionary Committee was formed, but did not become effective until 1843.
It has done much in fostering struggling interests in the rural districts of England, in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Missions were established in various parts of Africa, the laborers enduring much suffering, imprisonment, and death. The large cities and towns of England were more recently brought under the Missionary Committee, and fresh ground broken. The work of alleviating the distressed and gathering in the poor is one of the brightest chapters in the denominational history.
The revenue at the disposal of the Missionary Committee in 1890 was 18,456. In Great Britain and Ireland it employs 72 missionaries, with a church membership of 6538; in the Australian colonies, 41, and 2184 members; in Africa, 7 European missionaries, 2 native assistants, 4 native teachers, and 1 native artisan assistant, with 44 white and 486 colored members. A college for training young ministers was opened at Sunderland in 1868, under Rev. W. Antliff, D.D., and after serving a good
purpose for some years was removed to larger and more respectable buildings in Manchester. The Connection has also two educational colleges for boys, York and Birmingham, which are successful.
The Orphan Home is the latest and most popular of its institutions. Its premises at Arlesford, near Winchester, are free of debt. The Connection has its own insurance company to protect its property against loss from fire; its general Chapel Fund to relieve distressed chapels; its Chapel Aid Association to assist trustees in canceling debts; its Metropolitan and Chapel and School Building Fund, to meet the increased needs of London; its Sunday-school Union; its Superannuated and Widows' and Orphans' Fund. Temperance is interwoven with the very texture of its church life. As early as 1840 it shut out fermented wines from its sacramental occasions, and its chapels are always open for promoting the cause. It has found its sphere as an organization among the workmen of England, as did the Wesleys and Whitefield, and its success is due, Thomas Burt, member of Parliament, has declared, to the fact that "it represented the democratic and progressive side of religion." "In its highest court, the Conference, the ministry is represented by one-third, and the laity by two-thirds of the delegates, while the same proportion is maintained in district meetings.
Elsewhere there is no recognition of this proportionate representation. The democratic element is seen in the fact that the occupancy of the chair in every court, from the Conference to the leaders' meeting, is not claimed as the right of any minister, but is determined by vote, and may be occupied by laymen. The conservative element is found in there being no direct representation of the membership in the higher circuit courts, thus causing the official element to be the ruling element in a circuit. This combination of opposites has, however, worked well and satisfactorily." In Eastern and Western North America they have two Conferences with 5639 members, 61 ministers, 171 local preachers, 99 Sabbath-schools, 1354 teachers and officers, 96 churches, 38 parsonages, with a probable value of church property of $231,565. They are not under the Presidency of the English Conference, and recent suggestions have been made of their organic union with the Methodist Protestant Church. They had in Canada, when the union of the Methodist bodies took place under one "Methodist Church," 8223 members, 99 ministers, 246 local preachers, 237 churches, 169 Sabbath-schools, 1253 teachers, and 9343 scholars. This union cost them no sacrifice of fundamental principles, as it is a lay-representation, voting Church with an elective, limited superintendency. In the British Islands the statistical returns are for 1890: 193,658 members, 1049 traveling preachers, 16,315 local preachers, 10,563 class leaders, 4234 Sabbath-schools, 61,724 teachers, 431,868 scholars, 4460 connectional chapels, 1398 other chapels and halls, 580,746 hearers, and estimated value of church property, 3,291,192.
This brief history is a demonstration of the fallacy of all arguments in favor of the oligarchic system of government for Methodism as essential to its conservation and success. Numerically, other things being equal and length of organization specially considered, the Primitive Methodists have exceeded the parent body by a decided percentage. If in pecuniary values they are not on an equal footing, the poor class of people from whom they have so largely drawn their recruits must be the explanation, while in liberality their superiority must be confessed. In allegiance to the doctrines and means of grace of Wesleyan Methodism they are not excelled. And yet to this day they are subjected to disparagement and obloquy, in common with other dissenting Methodist churches, from those in the parent bodies of England and America who make for themselves exclusive Wesleyan claims as
"the temple of the Lord." A late instance of the kind was during the second Methodist Ecumenical Conference in Washington, D. C., in 1891, which the writer witnessed, when Farmer-Atkinson, member of Parliament and delegate from the Wesleyan Conference, in open debate so wantonly