How strange it is that Sabbath-school teachers generally have been able to conduct their own affairs without the aid of your fraternity for sixty years, and you have just made the discovery that they are incapable of doing so any longer; surely you, with all your boasted wisdom, must have forgotten how many thousands of church members have been raised out of Sabbath-schools-how many eminent preachers of the gospel-how many enterprizing merchants, clever manufacturers, skilful artizans and mechanics, trustworthy book-keepers and confidential managers of firms, factories, collieries, furnaces, forges, &c., &c., have been raised out of Sabbath-schools, conducted, in many instances, by men who are still alive, who are worthy of all honour, and who are still engaged in the same benevolent work-they are yet minding the same things, and walking by the same rule. Surely you had forgot that such a man as Mr. J. Smith sat at Mr. Barnett's left elbow—a man of untiring industry, acknowledged talent and real respectability, raised, as he himself informed the meeting, out of the first Sabbath-school ever commenced in this locality, taught in a small room about eleven feet square, by one teacher only. With such facts as these before our eyes, how can we believe your statements about the necessity of your officious interference with Sabbath-school teachers? I am fully convinced that the amount of good done by them in the last half-century in our country, as far exceeds that done by paid preachers, as the light of the sun exceeds that of the moon; in fact, it is now become a query with many, whether money-bought preachers do most good or most evil! But, not content with endeavouring to lower Sabbath-school teachers in the estimation of the meeting, Mr. Barnett drew a comparison, by telling us that the ignorant Sabbath-school teachers were like some called preachers of the gospel, but who did not themselves understand the gospel which they professed to preach to others. I thought this remark ill-timed indeed, and that it demanded public notice. I waited until he repeated it, and as no other person took it up, I felt it my duty to do so. I knew it was a delicate subject to enter upon, and therefore I approached it with caution, endeavouring to avoid every word which I thought calculated to stir up angry feelings; but no sooner had I said that I felt grieved with Mr. Barnett's comparison, and conceived it to be intended as a stigma upon lay preachers, than you immediately forgot both your duty and what you said in an earlier stage of the meeting-namely, that it was " a free conference"-you violently interrupted me, made use of exciting expressions, and then recklessly burst the bounds of decorum, violating even decency itself; you, specially appointed the conservator of order, you raised a tumult by calling upon the meeting to silence me by what I call popular clamour-a show of hands, moved and seconded, (if moved and seconded at all,) and put by one individual, and that individual the chairman-yourself. If I had said anything wrong, surely two classical scholars like you and Mr. Barnett would have been able, either by sound argument or stubborn fact, to have proved it, without summoning to your aid all the disorder and bad feeling that you could create in the meeting, and bringing it all to bear upon one solitary individual. What would the people of England have thought of their great Captain General, if, when engaged in the Peninsular War, he had met with a single individual enemy, had he called out all his troops, and by an exciting speech worked upon their passions until he had raised their wrath, and then commanded the whole army to fire a volley at the unfortunate single-handed enemy? why the whole nation would have concluded he was more fit to be the inmate of a lunatic asylum, than to be Generalissimo of the British army. Yet you did the same thing in principle. You met with what you conceived to be an opponent, a single opponent, and you immediately marshal the whole of your tag-playing forces, and fire a general volley at him. But after you had shot me as dead as you could, I appealed to Mr. Barnett himself, before you and the meeting. He admitted he had said words to the same effect; but said he did not intend them as a stigma upon lay preachers. I replied if he did not I was sorry I had misunderstood him, and hoped he would forgive me. I have had time since then to think the matter over deliberately, and I have come to this conclusion, that if the words were not uttered with the meaning I attached to them in the meeting, they must have been uttered without any meaning at all, and as Mr. Barnett is a young man, I would advise him to be more guarded in future.* *Since writing this letter to Mr. Colledge, I have seen a sort of puffpamphlet, written by that poor vain young man, Mr. Barnett, in which, in reference to the meeting spoken of in this Letter, he says I made unprovoked and dastardly attack" upon him. I am really sorry that he should disgrace himself and his trade, by telling two known untruths, and an 66 There were two other observations of yours which I must notice before I conclude. You described yourself and Mr. Barnett as lay preachers; but upon a different occasion you would soon have told me and the meeting, too, that you were classically educated, regularly appointed, and solemnly ordained ministers of the Gospel, and I don't know what besides. I admit that, in a very limited and churchified sense, you may sometimes be called laymen; but I look upon all those ministers who make a trade and a living by preaching the gospel as being clergymen, and all those, and those only, who preach the gospel without charge, as being lay preachers. Again, you told me I came to the meeting prepossessed. However I might come to the meeting, I can freely tell you how I returned from it. I returned from it with a strengthened conviction that priestcraft is, in principle, the same in all ages, countries, and denominations—all the difference lies in circumstances; and that in you and Mr. Barnett, there is some remains of that cruel persecuting spirit which dwelt in those Baptist and Independent ministers who, 200 years ago, were mainly instrumental in bringing King Charles I. to the scaffold, and who, during their brief accession to power and church preferment, imprisoned thousands of honest, conscientious Quakers, many of whom miserably perished in dark, deep, unhealthy dungeons. But, thank God, that day is past. All you can do is to pour contumely upon the heads of those who dare to think and speak for themselves. In writing the above, I disdain all intention of attacking yours or Mr. Barnett's private character. As private individuals, you may be kind, estimable men, and I sincerely wish you all good; and I wish Sabbath-schools success, and would willingly use my little influence in promoting union amongst them; but, while I am a friend to Sabbath-school Union, I am a decided opponent to Clerical Combination. I am, Sir, Yours very respectfully, which could not possibly be anything but untruths. How could my attack be unprovoked, when I only took up his own words? How could it be dastardly, when I mentioned it openly and fairly to his face? I begin to think far worse of him than before. I wish for his own sake he had not published to the world these two barefaced falsehoods. A REPLY TO MR. BARNETT'S PAMPHLET, BY T. SHORE. "Veritas est magnus et prevalebit." EARLY in the beginning of the year 1841, I deserted from the tyranny and thraldom of hireling parsons, once and for ever, and volunteered into the Free-Gospel service of the Lord Jesus Christ. Never can I forget the experience of that day. I had glorious openings and a wonderful enlargement of heart: it seemed as if hell, with her innumerable woes, was shut against me; and that heaven, with its ineffable glories and transcendant joys, was opened to my view; and so, in that respect, it remains to this day. In those days there were many prophets prophesying the downfall of Original Methodism. We need not say that they were lying prophets. Some said twelve months would see it through, and others said two years, and a few gave it a longer period wherein to run its race; but none gave it very long. In September of 1841 I was travelling in the country about the work of the Lord, and met an old friend with whom I had been very intimate when in the ranks of hirelings. My friend rated me in no measured terms for deserting the hireling cause and falling in with what he termed "that low cut the Originals." He too was one of the lying prophets of those days, and declared with a great deal of warmth, that in six years there would not be a man left of all the "Originals," and that the name would be quite dead. But in reply I told my friend that he would never stay to see the death of Original Methodism, and in this I spoke the truth; for long years have rolled away since my old friend decamped in the night, and so left the country-his country in disgrace, and I have not once heard of him since that time. Yet since the day when he prophesied the death of Original Methodism or Free-Gospelism, upwards of twice six years have gone into eternity, and still Free Gospelism lives-it grows-it flourishes-it lifts up its head-aye, and will lift it up, and rejoice to the end of the world. Its gala days are yet to come-they must come-they will come, for the mouth of the Lord hath declared it. Some three years ago that branch of the Free-Gospel Church called the Original Methodists, began to publish a Magazine, designated the "Original Methodists' Record." Articles have appeared in this Magazine from time to time, written by different hands, exposing the evils which arise from a paid ministry. These articles have given great umbrage to hirelings of all denominations; they have caused hirelings to fret and fume, also to have recourse to the malignant practice of slandering the Free-Gospellers. These things have been going on for some time, and, notwithstanding all this hireling rage, accompanied with threats and thundering anathemas from their pulpits, both the Original Methodists and their Record have continued to make headway. Soon after the Record began to be published, an hireling among the Primitive Methodists dipped his pen in gall to crush their proceedings; but his paltry fustian was soon cut up and disposed off, by the rasping pen of a Free-Gospeller. Now another attack has been made upon them--a base attack-by a sapient wiseacre, called Mr. Barnett, the hired Baptist minister of Riddings, Derbyshire, who has published a pamphlet levelled principally against me and J. Tomlinson in particular, and against the Original Methodists in general. Against me on account of certain letters which I sent him; and against J. Tomlinson on account of an attack which he says J. Tomlinson made upon him at Riddings, in a public meeting. In this pamphlet Mr. Barnett would fain make the public believe that he is wonderfully learned, and that I am very illiterate. All that I shall say upon this point is this-that if his pamphlet be subjected to a just criticism, it will be found, in point of orthography, syntax, and punctuation, a worthless production, and fit only to be classed with the dirtiest of all dirty rags. And if Mr. Barnett himself, in respect of his own education, was fairly analyzed, it would be found that so far from being a genuine literati, he would fall far short of being the shadow of one; and this I have no doubt I shall be able to prove to a demonstration whenever Mr. Barnett pleases to call me to a tete-a-tete test. I am really sorry to make such remarks as these; but Mr. Barnett has urged me to it-so let him bear the cost. I may further add, that Mr. Barnett declares in his pamphlet that he has transcribed my letter in all respects, just as I sent it him. This I possitively affirm is a palpable falsehood; and so far from doing so, he has changed some words altogether, and altered the orthography of others. Let Mr. Barnett deny this if he can by bringing the original wn |