VI THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON 87 Huntingdon founded at Trevecca, and of which Fletcher was Visitor, writes: "He was revered, he was loved, he was almost adored. My heart kindles while I write. Here it was that I saw, shall I say an angel in human flesh? I should not far exceed the truth if I said so." Henry Venn said to one who asked him his opinion of Fletcher, "Sir, he was a luminary-a luminary, did I say?-he was a sun! I have known all the great men for these fifty years, but none like him!" Fletcher was thoroughly worthy of all this admiration, for a more Christ-like man never lived. And it is said that Voltaire, when challenged to produce a character as perfect as that of our Lord, at once mentioned Fletcher of Madeley. Countess of Another still more prominent leader in the early days of the Evangelical revival was Selina, Countess of Huntingdon (1707-1791), whose sole purpose in life was to bring about a revival of religion among the upper Huntingdon. classes. To this she devoted all her energies, time, money, and sacrificed her social reputation. The contempt and ridicule of her own order did not in the least discourage her, and ultimately she was treated with the respect she richly deserved. She drew together the elite of the fashionable world to hear her favourite preachers, either in her drawingroom at Chelsea, or her chapel at Bath, or at the Tabernacle itself, where Whitefield preached. Even some of the bishops went incognito in Bath, where curtained seats were placed immediately inside the door of the chapel into which the prelates were smuggled, the space being termed by the wit of the day "Nicodemus's corner." She made a successful personal petition to King George III. and the Queen against the gaiety of the household of Archbishop Cornwallis, and so impressed the King, that he said to one prelate who complained of the conduct of some of her students and ministers, "I wish there was a Lady Huntingdon in every diocese in the kingdom." She either built or bought chapels "in various parts of the kingdom, in which she appointed such persons to officiate as ministers as she thought fit, revoking such appointments at her pleasure." They were known as "Lady Huntingdon's Connexion," and many still remain, though under changed designations, as, for example, Surrey Chapel, now Christ Church, Westminster Bridge Road. In these the Church Service was used, and the officiating minister wore the customary vesture. She availed herself to the full of her privilege of appointing chaplains, and most of the leading Evangelical clergy served in this capacity. Altogether, she is said to have spent something like £100,000 in the service of religion, itself no mean test of genuineness. The congregations, however, tended to separate themselves from the normal connexion with the National Church. A discussion in the Consistorial Court of London about the status of the chapel in Spa Fields brought the matter to a crisis and rendered it necessary to clearly define her position. If her chapels were still to be regarded as belonging to the Church, then the laws of the Church must be obeyed. If not, and they were to be sheltered under the Toleration Act, they must be registered as dissenting places of worship. And so against her will she found herself a dissenter. She thus commented upon the position: "All the other connexions seem to be at peace, and I have ever found to belong to me [the English is her own and characteristic] while we were at ease in Zion. I am to be cast out of the Church now, only for what I have been doing these forty years-speaking and living for Jesus Christ; and if the days of my captivity are now to be accomplished, those that turn me out, and so set me at liberty, may soon feel what it is, by sore distress themselves for these hard services they have caused me." It is anticipating somewhat, but it should here be noted that after this "secession," by means of which she hoped to find a position somewhere midway between Church and dissent, those parochial clergymen, such as Romaine, Venn, and others, who had given her their gratuitous services, withdrew from the Connexion, though not from her friendship. In both cases, that of John Wesley and that of the Countess of Huntingdon, the final severance is deeply to be lamented, especially in the light of the events of the succeeding century. But it is equally true that, humanly speaking, there was no help for it. They were neither of them easy to work with. They were both of them unconventional in their methods and regardless of consequences. They did not understand the governmental policy of an episcopal Church. We cannot imagine John Wesley as a territorial bishop, or VI THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON 89 even as a provincial archbishop. He would have been carrying his crosier into his brethren's provinces and generally rendering diocesan (as he did parochial) government and unity impossible. And the days were not yet when even a Countess of Huntingdon could be allowed to usurp some of the episcopal functions, such as the appointment of ministers and the cancelling of such appointments at her sole will or whim. Perhaps if Convocation had been sitting some modus vivendi might have been found. As it was, exaggerated individualism on both sides brought with it its customary Nemesis. AUTHORITIES.-In addition to the authorities at the end of the last chapter may be noted Dict. Nat. Biog., article "Fletcher of Madeley" and authorities cited therein. Fletcher's Works, 8 vols., 1836, should be consulted especially for his correspondence. The Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, by a member of the Houses of Shirley and Hastings, 2 vols. 1839, is full and accurate. Mr. Quiller-Couch has given in his Hetty Wesley a living picture of the time and of the characters of the Wesley family. The best Life of George Whitefield is that by the Rev. J. P. Gledstone. Some striking extracts from the Walker-Wesley correspondence will be found in an able article in the Saturday Review for March 28, 1891, of which Canon Overton thought so highly that he wished to thank the author for it. But the author, the Rev. Thomas Hancock, a high authority on the whole period, was dead before it was discovered who had written the article, and then Overton was gone also. Details of the Yatton epileptic will be found in the Encycl. Brit., sixth edition, article "Possession." CHAPTER VII POTTER, GIBSON, AND SHERLOCK THE Condition of things described at the end of the last chapter affords ample illustration of the harm which had been done to the Church by the silencing of Convocation, for then surely was the time when synodal action was needed. More than twenty years had elapsed since Convocation had met, and there is not the slightest ground for believing that the temporary disputes, by no means of so serious a character as is often represented, which led to that arbitrary proceeding would have continued to interfere with its harmonious action. As it was, both the bishops and the clergy were placed in a most embarrassing position. They had to deal, each on his own personal responsibility, with a problem which had never before presented itself in a similar form to the Church. In the whole range of Church history there had never been any question requiring to be settled precisely like that raised by the early Methodists. The closest parallel to be found is that of the action of the Friars, who invaded parishes, heard confessions, and were not subject to episcopal authority and jurisdiction. And the Methodist question was totally different from that raised by the Puritans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Then, an alteration in the Church's doctrine and discipline or formularies, or all three, was loudly called for. The Puritans, even the most moderate of them, were dissatisfied, more or less, with the Church and Constitution. But there was nothing of this kind in the case of the early Methodists. Of their great leader (for, after all, in spite The Methodists and the Church. CHAP. VII JOHN WESLEY'S CHURCHMANSHIP 91 of the temporary prominence of George Whitefield and the many merits of others, John Wesley was the real life and soul of the whole movement) it was said by Alexander Knox, who knew him perhaps better than any man did, or at any rate could judge of him impartially because he viewed him ab extra, "He was a Church of England man even in circumstantials. There was not a service or a ceremony, a gesture or a habit, for which he had not an unfeigned predilection." John position. John Wesley himself perceived, and on more than one occasion dwelt with pride on this marked distinction between his work and previous movements. In a striking sermon which he preached on laying the foundation-stone of the City Road Chapel, he specially drew attention to "one circumstance attending the present revival of religion which," he says, "I apprehend is quite peculiar to it. It cannot be denied that there have been several considerable revivals of religion in England since the Reformation. But the generality of the English nation were little profited thereby, because they that were the subjects of those revivals, preachers as well as people, soon separated from the Established Church, and formed themselves into a distinct sect. So did the Presbyterians first; afterwards the Independents, the Anabaptists, and the Quakers; and after this was done they did Wesley's scarce any good, except to their own little body. . . . But it is not so in the present revival of religion. Methodists (so termed) know their own calling. Their first purpose is, let the clergy or laity use them well or ill, by the grace of God, to endure all things, to hold on their even course, and to continue in the Church, maugre men or devils, unless God permits them to be thrust out." And in his still more striking serion on the ministerial office, preached only two years before his death, he thus apostrophises his followers: "Ye are a new phenomenon in the earth-a body of people who, being of no sect or party, are friends to all parties, and endeavour to forward all in heart-religion, in the knowledge. and love of God and man. Ye yourselves were at first called in the Church of England; and though ye have and will have a thousand temptations to leave it, and set up for yourselves, regard them not; be Church of England men still; do not cast away the peculiar glory which God hath put upon you, The |