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. Joseph Fowler of the debates in the Wesleyan Conference : a centenary contribution to the constitutional history of Methodism : with a biographical sketch

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

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."

It seems a strange predicament to have to apologise for conferring a great boon on one's contemporaries and posterity bysaving 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 Fowler, 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 drbpped. Even should the fresh historic light involve a readjustment of the balance of blame, why should not the readjustment be 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 deserved well of Methodism. But he has not found time to dig far below the surface, or to exhume and put in 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 Writing. 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 plentifully declared the thing as it is ? (Job xxx. 3.) Yes, that is the true function of all honest, serviceable history, to "plentifully declare the thing as it is."

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 authenticated 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 consistency,'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 inestimable 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,|gpeeches ■< would 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 misrepresented 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 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 confidently answer : They were intended for whatever useful purpose they might serve — to rescue from oblivion conversations 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 presented 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 Committee, 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). Swift-sure would 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.

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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 truth, 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.

" I have long deeply and religiously loved Joseph Fowler, and conceived of him as of one of the princes of the Wesleyan pastorate, both in the pulpit and out."— Rev. W, M. Bunting, Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1852, p. 243.

The Rev. Joseph Fowler was for many years a representative man in the Wesleyan Methodist Conference and the Connexional Committees, and he was a model of a Wesleyan Methodist Circuit Minister. Born at Bradfqrd, Yorkshire, in the year 1791, he retained through all the changes of his life the strongly marked characteristics of the genuine Yorkshireman. 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 weatherbeaten 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 manufacturing hives of Yorkshire for the vigour, promptitude, and

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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 §ome successive months. He would have none but Methodist curates ; such as the devoted Mr. Morgan, Charlotte Bronte'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 beginning of the century. 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

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 confidence 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

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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 orthography of his name was Doughty. His Superintendent during the greater part of his term at Pontefract was still more capable and prominent. Robert Filter 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 Methodism.

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 Superintendent, Cleland Kirkpatrick, had lost an arm in the engagement with Paul Jones the pirate, and in his roving youth he had cultivated the strange natural gift of ventriloquism. He sometimes 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 congregation-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 fall' 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. J. C. 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 Lessev John Anderson, and " Captain Hawtrey," brother of Dr Hawtrev' 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

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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 Superintendent. 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 deeplaid policy to get possession of the strongholds of Nonconformity, by placing there the most energetic leaders of their party whenever 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 Congregationalists, 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 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 —

" 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 congregations 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

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 overgrown, 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 wonderfully softened, sweetened, and subdued by other characteristics. No doubt the basis of his character was seriousness and an indomitable 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 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.