establishment of the theological institution, but who were desirous that the government of the societies should be so vested in the lay officers, conjointly with the preachers, as that there might be an efficient protection against ministerial absolutism.

Appeals were made to the ensuing Conference for the removal of alleged grievances. These appeals were unsuccessful. The Conference resolved to maintain all the authority which had been claimed for the itinerant ministers; laws more decisively declaring such authority were enacted; and it was determined that those should be expelled from the connexion who refused to submit to those laws, unless they withdrew. Some on account of bearing their testimony against these laws, which they regarded as violations of the established constitution of Methodism, and as unscriptural and oppressive, were expelled, and many thousands withdrew from the Conference Connexion. Most of these united in various parts of the kingdom to form new societies, and these societies appointed representatives, who met together and formed THE WESLEYAN METHODIST ASSOCIATION.

In the town of Birmingham there were many members of the Methodist Society who sympathised with the opinions avowed by those who objected to the proceedings of the Conference. Some of these became united together and formed a church. For some time they worshipped in a hired chapel; but after a short period, ground was obtained and a chapel erected for their accommodation in Bath-street, which was opened for worship in 1839.

The following statistical account of the Wesleyan Methodist Association is taken from the minutes of its annual assembly, held in August, 1848. Itinerant

preachers and missionaries, 96; local preachers, 986; chapels and other preaching rooms, 531; church members, 20,775; Sunday school scholars, 42,032; Sunday school teachers, 6,162. We are also informed that, in several places the number of church members has considerably increased during the present year. It is probable that the present number of church members is about 21,500.

Doctrinally this community holds similar opinions to those held by the Old Connexion, but secures to the lay officers, private members, and churches, a larger share in the exercise of church discipline, and in the management of the connexional affairs.*

THE PRIMITIVE METHODISTS.

The last report of this branch of the Wesleyan body, of which there are several congregations in Birmingham, contains the following statistics-they have 513 travelling preachers; 8,291 local preachers; 5,679 class leaders; 1,511 chapels; 3,345 rented rooms; 1,194 Sunday schools; 94,876 Sunday scholars; 18,169 gratuitous teachers; and 95,557 members. They have also established missions in Canada, in Australia, and in New Zealand. They hold an annual Conference, have a book room, publish annually minutes of Conference, and have both their denominational hymn books and magazine, together with funds for the support of their ministry, and also committees of various kinds for the management of their ecclesiastical affairs. In short, they are in a state of complete and effective organization, and furnish one of the most extraordinary instances on record of what may be accomplished in a

*This account has been obtained from a very respectable minister and member of the body here described.

land of religious liberty, by fervid and indomitable religious zeal, even where it had neither wealth, rank, education, eloquence, nor fanatical peculiarities of doctrine to sustain it.

In the year 1780, a child was born at Burslem, in the Staffordshire Potteries, who when of proper age was apprenticed to learn the trade of his native place. William Clowes, for such was his name, was a youth of great energy and activity; forward and foremost in the sins and follies of his neighbourhood. He was, however, not without the visitings of compunction, and the remonstrance of his conscience, even in the midst of his vices. His relentings were of short continuance, and usually ended in greater excesses than before. He went at one time to such an extreme of impiety as to hold with his dissolute companions a mock prayer meeting at a public house, at which the other and less abandoned bacchanalians were so shocked that they turned the profane crew into the streets, where these hardened sinners continued their blasphemous comedy. William Clowes seems to have been a ringleader of this company, and of their sport. At this time of his life dancing, singing, drinking, and fighting, occupied the chief part of his time, and as the wages of a journeyman potter could not go far to supply indulgences such as he delighted in, it is no wonder that this drunken mechanic was by idleness and extravagance soon plunged into debt.

At length, however, the conscience of William Clowes was roused from its deep and torpid slumber, and by attending the meetings of the Methodists, he became a true convert from the error of his ways. The native ardour and energy of his mind were carried into his religious profession. He was always a man of strong

feeling, and of excitable temperament, and the habitude of his mind was that of rapturous emotion. In his solitary musings and in the exercises of social devotion, he would give audible expression to his feelings, which he was unable, perhaps unwilling, to restrain. He soon became a class leader and a local preacher among the Methodists, by whom he was known, and not altogether approved as an unusually vociferous devotee. They wished him to be somewhat more restrained in his gestures, tones, and words; but William Clowes thought this would be quenching the spirit, or at any rate damping the fire that burned within. About the year 1810, assemblages of people were convened in the fields of his native place and neighbourhood for preaching and other religious exercises, called "camp meetings, which were an imitation of similar convocations held fifty or sixty years ago, by the Methodists in the back woods of America. These were the delight of Mr. Clowes's heart, and he bore a conspicuous part in them as one of the preachers. This practice, and especially the part he took in it, gave offence to the more sober members of the Wesleyan body, and called forth the remonstrance of the superintendent of the circuit. Mr. Clowes was informed he must discontinue some of his practices, especially his beloved camp meetings. He pleaded the example of Wesley and the primitive followers of that extraordinary man. This was to no avail, his name was struck off the list of preachers, and his ticket of membership refused, which amounted to a virtual exclusion from the body.

Mr. Clowes's expulsion caused a great sensation in the neighbourhood, where his zeal and his eccentricities had excited much attention; many sympathised with him, and some adhered to him; among whom where

some

Hugh and James Borne, James Nixon, and others. These after a short time formed themselves into a new confederation, took to themselves the name of PRIMITIVE METHODISTS, and proceeded to arrange a plan of denominational organization and action. This occurred July 26, 1811, at Tunstall, when seventeen preachers and seventeen places were enrolled, or at least by the following September this amount had been reached.

Previous to this, Mr. Clowes had been released from his daily labour by two friends who had engaged to raise him a little support. In reference to which, he remarks in bis journal, "My wife began to feel that the allowance so disinterestedly given by the two pious and zealous friends was inadequate to our support, for in consequence of our peculiar position and religious connexions, we had many comers and goers, and to make them comfortable, and to maintain hospitality, we endeavoured to practice self-denial to the utmost to avoid being in debt. We, therefore, used coarser food, dining, when by ourselves, on a little salt and potatoes, or a piece of bread and a drink of water. But as we found our expenditure still to exceed our income, we sold the feather bed we slept on; for it was a maxim with us, to which we regularly adhered, never to go in debt without a possibility of paying that debt. My proceeding, however, in these instances of self-denial, were unknown to my Christian friends and coadjutors in the infancy of Primitive Methodism : it was enough for me to know, that God knew all my conduct, and the motives that influenced it in every particular movement." I am no advocate for the modes of Primitive Methodism, nor an approver of all Mr. Clowes's plans of action, but I should be strangely wanting in perception of the just,