ART. VII-A Statement of Facts relative to the Conduct of the Reverend John Clayton, Senior, the Reverend John Clayton, Junior, and the Reverend William Clayton: the Proceedings on the Trial of an Action brought by Benjamin Flower against the Reverend John Clayton, Jun. for Defamation; with Remarks, published by the Plaintiff. price 4s. 6d. Bumford, Newgate street, 1808.

WE cannot help regretting very deeply that so much pride and rancour should exist in any one who sets himself apart to be a preacher of the Gospel, as the present Statement of Facts exhibits; but since they do exist we are not sorry that they are thus publicly exposed, since to detect hypocrisy is to display its deformity; and no mode is more effectual than this to prevent mankind from becoming the dupes of it.

The opprobrious charges which were circulated against Mr. Flower, by his relative, the Reverend Mr. Clayton, seem to have been contrived in the most malicious and bitter spirit of enmity; a spirit most unworthy of him as a man, and most disgraceful to him as a minister. The cause of religion is greatly injured, when its public teachers manifest how little they cherish its spirit, and how easily they can disregard its dictates, by giving the fullest scope to the most envenomed malevolence, and the most unnatural animosity..

There seems to be nothing either in the birth, the parentage, or the education of Mr. Clayton which can at all justify that haughty and dictatorial tone which he appears to have assumed throughout the whole of his deportment to Mr. Flower. The origin of their connection, and the circumstances which attended it, are thus related:

Mr. Clayton, previously to his arrival in London, had been recommended to me by some respectable persons, and among others by my cousin, the late Rev. T. Reader of Taunton, as a young man, little known in the religious world, but not undeserving my acquaintance. He possessed popular talents, and his sermons at setting vut in life, were, as indeed has been recently remarked to me by others, far superior to what they have been for several years past. In the pulpit and the parlour, he was tolerably free from that dogmatism and bigotry, and those clerical airs for which he is now so eminently distinguished; nor was he then the priest of the church

ast.

* See his sermon on the application of the dissenters for the repeal of the test His thanksgiving sermon, for the peace of Amiens :- -His charges at the

of England in his exterior, as he had not assumed the gown and the cassock, and frequently preached without even a band! Shortly after the commencement of our acquaintance I introduced him to my family, where he was received with civility by my mother and brother, and with friendship by myself and my sisters. In the course

of a few months he was settled as pastor at the Weigh-house, and about the same time paid his addresses to my eldest sister, by whom they were favourably received. This event was somewhat unexpected by my mother, my brother, and myself; and strong objections were made to the match by the two former, on account of Mr. Clayton's not having a shilling of property but what arose from his then slender income as a preacher, and his not having had a regular education among the dissenters; he having spent part of his minority in an apothecary's shop, but not liking his situation, was transplanted to an hot-bed of the Countess of Huntingdon's, a Welch college, from whence he was shortly sent forth to labour in the methodistical vineyard. The great difference of years being on the wrong side (my sister was 15 years older than her reverend lover) formed an additional objection. Here my friendship for my sister and Mr. Clayton exerted itself. After giving the former the best advice in my power, respecting her own line of conduct in the affair, I strenuously combated the objections of my mother and my brother. I argued, that Mr. Clayton was a man whose religious sentiments and general character they could not object to; that my sister had long since arrived at that age when she had a right to judge for her self in an affair in which her own happiness was principally concerned; and that her property, together with the salary of Mr. C. were sufficient to render them comfortable. All difficulties were at length so far overcome, that the marriage took place.'

The exercise of that friendship on the part of Mr. Flower, which concurred to render the amorous calvinist happy with the object of his wishes, more especially as she possessed considerable property, ought, one should think, to have secured his gratitude. But this is a virtue which is, we fear, not a little rare among the godly of modern times, and this gentleman does not appear to have possessed such a portion of it as would much diminish the scarcity. Mr. Flower was, it seems, in his early days, infected with that spirit of pecuniary speculation which is

ordination of his son John, and George, and his charge at the ordination of Mr. Brooksbank. A curious circumstance attended the latter. The preacher in his usual dictatorial manner, reflected on some of his brethren for leaving their flocks, and spending their time at watering places, &c. when, alas! he for the moment forgot, that few dissenting ministers had made more summer jaunts than himself, and that he had apologised for his present hasty effusion by informing his audience, that he had only been able to study it on his journey from Bath, where be had been for some time past!?

almost always fatal to the fortunes of those who give, themselves up to the dangerous delusion. Those soon become wretchedly poor who trust to chance to render them exorbitantly rich. Mr. Flower had serious reason bitterly to repent his early indiscretion. By continued speculation in the funds,' says he, at the close of the year 1783, I had lost the whole of my property.' In the course of the following year, however, bis friends, in order to rescue him from the adverse circumstances into which his ill-fortune had thrown him, proposed raising a sum of money towards continuing him in the partnership of the house of Anstie and Worstead into which he had entered with considerable prospects of advantage. When application on this subject was made to Mr. Clayton, the divine brother-in-law replied, I will have nothing to do with it, I would not contribute a shilling were it to save him from a jail. This is brotherly love, as exhibited in the new household of faith.

The cold and austere selfishness of the saint did not however so far overcome the feelings of Mr. Flower as to make him forget the ties of kindred, and the claims of family affection. He thought that the heart of the evangelical preacher might possibly not be so far petrified as to be past all softening. He wrote therefore to Mr.Clayton and to his sister,reminding then of their former friendship; of the obligations which they once acknowledged that they owed to him; of the improvement which he had made of his sister's fortune by speculations similar to those by which he had lost his own; and after remon strating on the attacks which had been most unjustly made upon his character, concluded with a wish that family differences might be forgotten, and that at least the intimacy of ordinary friendship might be restored.

To this letter I received an answer written in the highest style of priestly insult, and hypocrisy. The following extract will be a sufficient specimen. A due regard to the sanctity of my office prevents me from holding any intercourse with you, and I therefore peremptorily forbid you entering my doors.... at the same time I shall not cease to pray for you, both in the closet and IN MY FAMILY, that God would deliver you from all blindness, and hardness of heart, and contempt of his word and commandments. To this letter I briefly replied in substance as follows:-That I admitted the plea of sanctity of office,' as it was indeed the best he could make; that it had been the common apology of priests in all ages for conduct abhorrent to every other species of sanctity; that I was duly sensible of the value of his prayers, particularly of those which he offer

ed up for me before his family, servants, friends, &c. that the best way of rendering them effectual would be to offer up at the same time, the same prayers for himself. I assured him, that however I might feel or lament his injurious treatment, he might make himself perfectly easy with respect to any intrusion on my part, for that my shadow should never darkens his doors, until his probibition should be removed in as explicit terms as it had been enjoined; but that whenever he discovered a disposition to be reconciled, he would find a corresponding disposition on my part. Thus closed my friendship and connection with my brother and sister Clayton.'

The statement next proceeds to detail the unprovoked and infamous calumny which was the subject of the trial. For the particulars we must refer the reader to the work itself. Slander more abominable, mixed up with malice more virulent, was perhaps hardly ever exhibited to the public. The letter of John Clayton, Junior, written in consequence of an application made to him by a friend of Mr. Flower, to retract the unfounded and scandalous report which he had so busily and so deliberately circulated, is a testimonial of the puritanic cant of the writer, which can hardly be exceeded even by the sect to which he be longs.

MY DEAR UNCLE,

Hackney, Saturday Afternoon. March 5.

'As I understand that you wish to have an interview with me respecting a conversation, which Mr. Flight called at my house to engage in concerning you, I just drop this line to say, that it will afford me pleasure to see you, in Well-street, when you come to

town.

Accustomed as I have generally been, to cast the mantle of love over the characters of my fellow creatures, instead of pointing against them the arrows of invective and reproach, I shall be truly sorry, if my compliance with an inquiry of apparent friendship were to prove the unjust occasion of giving your feelings the slightest wound. But, whenever I am required to speak the truth, to you, or any other person, I hope always to be ready to do so, with decision, and in the spirit of meekness.

With best respects to Mrs. Flower,
I remain your affectionate nephew,
JOHN CLAYTON, Junior,

Nothing can be more disgusting than thus to behold the sentimental cant of philanthropy made subservient to the worst purposes of hypocrisy and falsehood. That a man should express himself truly sorry to inflict the slightest wound, whilst he is secretly inflicting wounds the most deep and the most incurable, and that he should pro

fess the spirit of meekness, while he is labouring by the most atrocious slanders to rob one of his nearest relatives of his reputation; all this is very nauseating. It exhibits a very odious spectacle, and such as, we will venture to say, exists no where but in the sanctuary of methodism.

Mr. Flower has certainly laid before the public a stateinent of facts which must impress every reader with sentiments not very favourable to the religious character of Mr. Clayton. It is impossible not to feel the most lively indignation and the deepest abhorrence on finding a head full of texts, a tongue voluble with devotion, and a heart corroded with rancour and bitterness.

'It will naturally be inquired,' says Mr. Flower, what could possibly nave been the motives, or what apology can be alleged for the conduct of my persecutors?

2

With respect to my reverend brother in law, he says,' who dur ing the space of nearly one half of my life has proved himself to be my most bitter and inveterate enemy, I shall leave it to others to determine, whether, in the exercise of his malignant disposition towards me, he has not discovered something of revenge on the me mory of my mother: whether the calumny-" That I had reduced my mother to beggary," was not partly suggested by the recollection of her uncourteous language to him, whilst paying his addresses to my sister, shortly after I had introduced him to our family. My sister, I perfectly recollect, one day bitterly complained to me of an insult which her lover had received from my mother, when in her contemptuous indignation, for what she thought his presumption, she told him, 'You are nothing but a beggar! On my remonstrat ing with her, she gave me the following severe reproof; I tell you, Ben, you have made a pretty piece of work of it, in introdu cing this beggar to the family.' If my mother had spoken prophetically, and meant that I had made, a pretty piece of work of it' for my own happiness, she could not have uttered a greater truth. I, however, argued with her on the impropriety of holding such language to Mr. Clayton in future. Although I was sensible he had nothing but his then slender, precarious, preaching salary to depend upon, I by no means considered poverty in itself, as disrepu❤ table. I therefore do not mean it as any reflection on Mr. C.'s birth, parentage, and education, when I state, that he was born of poor but honest parents, who together with himself, and the other branches of the family, were, compared with my mother in every stage of her life, in a state of beggary.' ' Persons who are heirs to vast estates may, perhaps, be indulged in that licence of speech, which represents those who have an independent income of only 3001. a year, as in a comparative state of beggary; but for persons who