THE historical associations and the practical uses of Mr. Tindall's beautiful, complete and invaluable Atlas demand, at least, a passing consideration. By way of encouragement, in view of the contrast between the present and the past, let attention be for a moment recalled to some of the chief

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centres of past success. Take Cornwall, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire, Northumberland, as examples. Almost everywhere, Wesleyan Wesleyan Methodism was born in outhouses and nursed by persecution. Through constant opposition the dauntless leader urged his way. one, Hervey, Gambold and Stonehouse dropped behind, leaving him alone. When Maxfield, Nelson, and other 'ignorant and unlearned Galileans' came to his side, if we except his brother, he had not a single helper on whom he could implicitly depend. But then Maxfield was one of the first-fruits of his own ministry at Bristol. Nelson was a seal to Whitefield's rousing ministry, but escaped his blunder of proclaiming a limited Gospel. It was when he heard Wesley at the Foundery that he forsook all and followed Christ. Master and pupil, both belonged to the 'sect everywhere spoken against ;' yet, even then, 'scattered over all parts of town, from Wapping to Westminster.'

A Society-ticket was picked up in Cornwall bearing date 1739. Before Mr. Ingham fell into 'stillness,' he had formed threescore Societies in Yorkshire. Personally, Mr. Wesley suffered little from the enemies of all righteousness in the capital of the clothing district: the local clergy, contrary to the wont of their cloth in other places, never failed to give him the right hand of fellowship. As to his own people in Leeds, they were

able to say of Wesley, through the independent labours of Barber Shent and Mason Nelson: We took him into Society, not he us.'

But, at Wednesbury, Sheffield, and even in Cornwall, the case was far otherwise. While the first Leeds Methodists 'met their Classes and went to church;' at Wednesbury, Mr. Wesley, when he went to church, had to listen to a railing sermon against himself, which stirred up lewd fellows of the baser sort,' who, set on by Bishop and Clergy, would have swallowed him up quick, had not the Lord delivered him out of their hands. At Walsall and at Sheffield he was struck with stones, the chapel in the latter town being levelled with the ground, and no magistrate in the place could be found to restrain the violence of the mob or hear the appeals of unoffending sufferers. If, indeed, at any place, a magistrate was at hand, it was too often to hound on, rather than to rebuke, the unruly; and usually, he was a clerical justice. The name of Borlase will go down to posterity as that of the historian of Cornwall, and the persecutor of the Methodists. Under his instigation, the populace, in their frenzy, celebrated the victory of the British fleet over the Spaniards by gutting a chapel; and their spiritual guide did his best to send the Preachers on board men-of-war. 'The war against the Methodists,' wrote Wesley at the time, is 'everywhere carried on with far more vigour than that against the Spaniards !'

But in a few years the scene changed. Even at St. Ives, Wesley 'walked to church without so much as one huzza.' In Yorkshire, 'mad Grimshaw' anticipated the act of

Fletcher by accepting, in commendam with the vicarage of Haworth, the Superintendency (1755) of the Haworth Circuit, John Nelson being his junior colleague. The Manchester Society met for worship in a little garret by the Irwell side.' From 1748, the county of Stafford became a Circuit; with Wensbury,' for the fifth of its seven stations. In this same year, Todmorden made the first choice of Stewards.' 6 the next, the Cornish Methodists held their inaugural 'watch-night,' none daring or desiring to make them afraid.

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On reaching the year 1763, we find -among the twenty 'rounds' or Circuits then formed in England-Cornwall, Sheffield, Leeds, Birstal, Haworth, York, Yarm and the Dales, followed by Staffordshire and Newcastle-on-Tyne. Lancashire, as a field of Methodist triumphs, was of somewhat later date; yet Wesley and Grimshaw had been mobbed at Colne under the pulpit instigation of White the parish priest, and under the influence of his beer; some of the good men's hearers being thrown from a rock twelve feet high into the river.

Upon the whole, however, the storm had blown over, and the scene of pious labour bloomed and smiled. To fields of battle succeeded golden harvests. Where hardships were greatest and sufferings severest, victories were noblest and triumphs most complete. Mr. Wesley, made it his invariable rule, 'not to strike one stroke in any place where he could not follow the blow.' Yet, he was as firm in winnowing the wheat as he was ardent in sowing the seed and mowing the harvest; his grand object being to garner solid grain.

Take, then, Mr. Tindall's Atlas, and see what has been done and what yet remains for us to do. Where is the moor, the mountain, or the morass, of which it might not be exclaimed, 'How beautiful...are the feet

of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace.' Cruise round the coast, and you shall find no principal port or dockyard, which has not memories of the august revivalist and his brave auxiliaries. On every mart of trade they set their mark. The spire-topped cities were disturbed in their centuries of slumber by three watchmen's voices; and Ripon, Truro, Manchester were eminent among our hills of Zion, long before they became the sees of Bishops. Much, no doubt, remains for us to do, but not more than we may accomplish, if emulous of our fathers' fidelity. Are there not two quarter-days, and the annual District Meetings, before Conference? What is to hinder the Ministers and Church Officers of each Circuit from attentively studying these maps and figures, especially as affecting themselves, with solemn consideration of the subject as it presents itself between each Circuit and the Circuit or Circuits abutting, with a view to their conjointly covering the outside or intervening ground, and sending forward to their respective District Meetings the plans they may have formed-for synodal consideration and eventual presentation to the Conference.

There can be no good reason why chapels of some sort should not be contemplated at once for such of the destitute villages as have a population sufficiently large to justify the enterprize, while in the hamlets, at the bottom of Mr. Tindall's tabulated scale, a system of domiciliary visitation and of cottage-services might be formed, for the distribution of tracts and the regular holding of small meetings for prayer, singing, reading the Scriptures, and edifying sation. If the silent labours of Mr. Tindall have this or a similar result, He who saw him in secret, will, even now and here, have rewarded him openly.

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J. M. H.

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MR. BARCLAY'S proper subject is the History of the Society of Friends, a history never before written with such accuracy and exhaustive fulness. The historical circumstances leading up to George Fox's work are set forth at length, his peculiar views are traced back to their most remote sources, and as the facts are largely drawn from unpublished documents, the result is a solid contribution to English Church-history.

Our author reminds us that although we commonly describe all dissenters of the Commonwealth period as Puritans, the name strictly belongs to the Presbyterians alone, in contradistinction from the Independents and other sects. The former sought to ally themselves with the throne, while the latter, under Cromwell's leadership, overthrew it. But the Presbyterians only pursued this policy in the hope and with the intention of making their doctrine and polity supreme in England. This was the condition on which they gave their support to the Stuart Kings. They required Charles II., in his time of need, to take the Covenant, 'compelling him to do it voluntarily.' On the question of a State-Church there was no great difference between Presbyterian and Episcopalian, and it is interesting to note that this accord has continued to our own day. The sole object of the Presbyterian was to presbyterianise the English Church, to substitute the Genevan doctrine and polity for those already existing. Puritan then described the Presbyterian in contradistinction to the Pre

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latist. The other bodies were known as Independents, Anabaptists, Brownists, and generally as Separatists. Hence Presbyterian and Episcopalian united in denouncing the principles of the Separatists. One of the bitterest books ever written is the Gangræna of Edwards, a Presbyterian Minister, against Independency; in which he describes or caricatures some two hundred heresies and blasphemies of the sects. One of the greatest difficulties in the way of the student of Church-history is that he is so often dependent for the materials of his judgment, as to individuals and communities, on the accounts of their avowed enemies. It may be some comfort to those who lament the bitterness of modern religious controversy that we are at least no worse than our forefathers. Edwards certainly had never learnt to speak 'the truth in love.' The notion of

'mechanics-as smiths, tailors, pedlers, weavers, shoemakers-taking upon themselves to preach' drives him frantic. His opinion of toleration is that it is 'the grand design of the devil; it is the most transcendent, catholic and fundamental evil for this kingdom, as original sin is the most fundamental sin...... This is Abaddon,

Apollyon, the destroyer of all religion, the

abomination of desolation and astonishment, the liberty of perdition: all the devils in hell and their instruments being at work to promote a toleration.'

Indeed, the principle of religious toleration was very far from being generally admitted in those days. The Presbyterians were consistently against it. Their ideal was the establishment of a theocracy alike in

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Geneva, Scotland and England. The Independents generally were favourable to the principle, but there were exceptions. The Baptists and Friends were, without exception, its stanch advocates The position of the Presbyterians is sufficiently evinced by the whole strain of their teaching and legislation. A Synod held at Sion College, in 1645, denounced toleration as a root of gall and bitterness both in present and future ages.' Calamy, in 1644, told the House of Commons: 'If do not labour, according to your duty and power, to suppress the errors and heresies that are spread in the kingdom, all those errors are your errors, and those heresies are your heresies; they are your sins, and God calls for a parliamentary repentance from you for them this day.' Baxter, whose sympathies were with the Puritans proper, judged that unlimited toleration was to be abhorred.' His own proposal was that public catechisers should be appointed, and that 'all persons submit to be catechised by these Ministers, under some fit penalty every month they shall refuse to be catechised.' In his plan for A Holy Commonwealth,' he suggests that 'no persons be electors, none as cives, but those who have publicly owned the Baptismal Covenant, personally, deliberately and seriously.' He confesses that, in order to the realization of this theological Utopia, our Parliament must be more divine.' It was a Presbyterian Parliament which, in 1644, prohibited the Book of Common Prayer, even in the household, under a penalty of £5 for the first, and £100 for the third offence. At the same time, an elaborate plan of a Presbyterian State-Church was drawn up, and all preaching forbidden by others than those appointed by Parliament. The Presbyterians were always accused by their dissenting rivals of holding principles essentially identical with those of the

Prelatists. The Presbyterian yoke was declared to be as heavy as the old episcopal one. A Baptist ends his impeachment thus:

'Mr. Presbyter, your principles are large and dangerous. Who can tell what you will judge tolerable? Such as cannot dance after your way, and rule in your way, you judge heretics, and they must appear before your dreadful tribunal to receive your reproof, which is sharp and terrible, and strikes at our liberties, estates and lives. You still want to use a sword; who sees not that, if you had it, you would have wounded yourselves and others: and we had as good be under the Pope as under your Presbyterian check?'

As to the attitude of the Independents, the polity they set up in New England, where they were supreme, is evidence enough. One of their churches at Amsterdam held that it was the duty of princes and magistrates to suppress and root out by their authority all false ministries, voluntary religions and counterfeit worship of God; yea, to enforce all their subjects, whether ecclesiastical or civil, to do their duties to God and men.' But among the Independents were many who held more enlightened views. The Brownist section advocated full liberty of conscience.' As to some of the parties it is evident that the complaint was not of persecution, but of persecution of the wrong side. This was the ground taken even by sufferers and martyrs.

The Brownists obtained their name from Robert Browne, a cousin of Lord Burghley. He was an able Preacher and travelled much. According to a book published by him in 1582, Christ is Head of the Church, every congregation of Christians is a church free from external control, the government of the Church by civil power is the Kingdom of Antichrist; the office of teaching or guiding is a charge or message conmitted by God to those who have gifts for the same; the people of the congregation are the proper judges