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Connexion.

Mr. Wesley had cause to be dissatisfied with the father for a considerable time before, on account of his avowed democratic principles; and, in the issue, had still less cause for satisfaction in the But he remembered that Divine direction, " Judge nothing before the time," and behaved to them with his wonted kindness.

son.

That "time" soon arrived. THE DEED OF DECLARATION, which is now well known, will be considered in its proper place: By it the Chapels throughout the Methodist Connexion obtained a legal settlement, one hundred Preachers being enrolled by name, in the Court of Chancery, as THE CONFERENCE, to whom the right of appointing persons to occupy the pulpits was, by the Trust Deeds of those chapels, specially secured. In filling up that document, the names of both the Hampsons, father and son, were omitted. This greatly offended the elder Hampson, who strove to make a party against the Deed; and the son naturally partook of the feeling in which his father indulged. But that attempt failed; and Mr. Wesley affectionately consented to receive an apology at the following Conference, chiefly through the intercession of Mr. Fletcher, so that the father and son were again appointed to circuits. The elder Hampson, however, departed from his circuit before the end of the year, and accepted an offer to superintend a school in the county of Kent. About the same time the young man listened to a proposal from some pious gentlemen, who had formed an association for introducing religious young men into the ministry in the Church of England; and having received the rudiments of a classical education in Mr. Wesley's school at Kingswood, he was sent by them to Oxford. They both addressed letters of resignation to Mr. Wesley, which were read to him in course, by the writer of these Memoirs. The father wrote under a strong feeling of resentment, and displayed many of his old principles. The young man wrote with more mildness, and expressed some grateful acknowledgments, of the many benefits which he had received; but it was very apparent that he thoroughly participated in the irritation of the father. Quite enough was said by both, about the arbitrary power exercised by Mr. Wesley;† who took little notice of these letters at first, only saying to me, "You see the strength of the cause." But he was afterwards much moved, when he considered the mischief that might ensue; and said with some warmth, "I have

*It is not exactly certain to what extent the Biographer intended this phrase to be applied. It is probable, however, that it has no reference to any regular system of representative government, such as is established by our own happy constitution; but to certain loose, disorganizing principles of a very different character, which are known, in some instances, to have prevailed in England.-AM. ED.

+ Mr. Wesley's arbitrary power, so called, was exercised, from first to last, in keeping his ociates to that work of God, that wholly religious design and employment, which they all professed to embrace as their duty and calling, when they joined him: And from this he certainly would not consent that any of them should swerve. In every thing else, he was, even by their own account, a father, and a friend.

been too tender of these men.

You should have opposed my receiving

them again. You know I halt on that foot."

That Mr. Hampson's LIFE of Mr. Wesley would not be a friendly one, was easily augured; and the perusal of it fully justified the supposition. It was the "amende honourable" made to the Church into which, when he wrote, he was about to enter as a Minister. But, I believe, none of those from whom he had departed expected to see laboured dissertations introduced into the Memoir, with an evident purpose to overthrow those doctrines of the Gospel which he had formerly professed to believe, and the power of which he must have professed to experience, before he could be admitted into that Connexion of which Mr. Wesley was the head! He was constrained, however, as all others have been, to acknowledge the great virtues and talents of the man, whom it was the design of his book to lessen in the estimation of the public.

Mr. Wesley had devised by Will all his Manuscripts to "Thomas Coke, Dr. Whitehead, and Henry Moore, to be burnt, or published, as they should see good." At the period of his decease, Dr. Coke was in America, and Mr. Moore was fully engaged as an Itinerant. Dr. Whitehead resided in London, and was at that time a Local Preacher, acting under the direction of Mr. J. Rogers, the Superintendent of the Circuit.

Dr. Whitehead had been an Itinerant Preacher for some years. He then married and settled in business at Bristol. From thence he removed to Wandsworth, in the vicinity of London, and opened a school. He there became acquainted with the late Dr. Lettsom, two of whose sons were his pupils. Under the Doctor's direction, he studied physic, and by his recommendation he obtained from the late Mr. Barclay, an eminent Quaker, the appointment of guardian to his son, who was pursuing his studies at Leyden in Holland. Mr. Whitehead himself at the same time completed his own studies in that University, and returned to England with the diploma of Doctor of Medicine. He had, some time before, joined the Society of Quakers; and, by their influence chiefly, he obtained the situation of Physician to the London Dispensary. After a few years, he again joined the Methodist Society, and was received by Mr. Wesley with his usual kindness.

The rumour of the intended publication of Mr. Hampson's Memoirs decided Mr. Wesley's friends to publish a Life of him, for the benefit of that charity to which he had bequeathed all his literary property. At a meeting held by the Preachers for the purpose of giving effect to this determination, at which Mr. Wesley's Executors, and other friends, were present, it was proposed by Mr. Rogers, that Dr. Whitehead should compile a Life of Mr. Wesley, from his published Journals, and other Documents in print and manuscript, for which he should receive One

Hundred Guineas, as a remuneration fon his trouble and loss of time. To this proposal, Dr. Whitehead cheerfully acceded, and it was unanimously adopted as the resolution of the Meeting. The manuscripts were also deposited with him, under an express stipulation that they should be examined according to the Will of the Testator, previously to any of them being published. At the following Conference this agreement was confirmed in every particular, and Dr. Whitehead was appointed a member of the Book Committee in London.

He had now an opportunity of proving the sincerity of his attachment to his old friends, and to the cause which, with various changes, he had first and last espoused. This opportunity he lost. His reputed friends considered his engagement respecting the life of Mr. Wesley, as the effect of weakness: and he was told, "that he ought not to regard it; that the work would produce a great sum of money; that he might realize Two Thousand Pounds by it; and that, to be thus employed for so small a sum as One Hundred, would be an act of injustice to himself and his family." The Doctor unhappily listened to this advice, and fell into the temptation. To the astonishment of those who were immédiately concerned in this affair, he declared, "that he would write the Life of Mr. Wesley as an independent man; that the copy-right should be solely his own; and that, if it should be printed at the Office of the Conference, he would have half of the clear profits." But that which constituted his indelible dishonour, was his absolute refusal to suffer the manuscripts, with which he had been intrusted, to be examined according to the Will of the Testator. The effrontery and injustice of the man utterly confounded those with whom he had entered into the former engagements.

It must needs be, considering what human nature is, that offences should come. Every religious society, however pure in its origin, has had, after some time, its offended and prejudiced members. The Doctor's advi

sers were of this description. He had listened to them, and departed from simplicity and rectitude. They now embarked with him in the design to which they had given birth, and formed themselves into a "Committee to advise, support, and defend Dr. Whitehead." A party was thus formed, which troubled and divided the Society in London for a considerable time: and many were hurt by the contention. The Preachers and those who supported them in their just and benevolent views, laboured to bring the Doctor to a better mind; but their efforts were in vain. Nothing but a suit in Chancery would do, and this could not be safely undertaken, without the consent of the Conference. No course therefore seemed to remain, except that of publishing a Life of Mr. Wesley, to be compiled by the two remaining Trustees of his Manuscripts. This was accordingly performed, without the smallest

personal emolument to them, and with a success which was beyond their most sanguine expectations.

Nothing was introduced into that Life to give even a hint of the unhappy dispute which had arisen. It was not expected, however, that Dr. Whitehead would follow this pacific example. His character had been awfully compromised; and, under a feeling of the need of self-defence, he lost no opportunity of defaming the Preachers in the Memoirs which he gave to the world. Although a known Dissenter in principle, he assumed the language and sentiments of a High-Church man, and laboured in that way to exalt the character of Mr. Charles Wesley, at the expense of his brother, and of the Itinerant Preachers. He is particularly sarcastic and bitter in treating of Mr. Wesley's giving a regular ministry, by Ordination with imposition of hands, to the Societies in America after their political independency had been acknowledged by the mother-country. Among gamblers, it is said, the loser is considered as having a privilege to rail: the Doctor had a feeling somewhat similar to this, added to the party spirit by which he was influenced. He had been much pleased with Mr. Wesley's exercise of that power in his Societies; and had applied to him, through the compiler of the present work, requesting to receive ordination from his hands, and to be appointed a Superintendent. He engaged, in that case, to relinquish the Dispensary and his medical practice, and to come out into the work of the ministry as at the beginning. As I felt an ardent wish to serve my friend in what I esteemed to be his best interests, I accordingly informed Mr. Wesley of the Doctor's request, adding my own to it. Mr. Wesley replied to every part of my letter except that which concerned the Doctor; on this point not a word was written. Hoping, with the Doctor, that the omission was to be attributed to forgetfulness, I wrote again, and strongly repeated the former request. The answer was as before,a total silence on that point. The Doctor's disappointment was extreme. I believe, at that time, he sincerely desired to resume what he considered to be the call of God, given in his best days; but he would not undertake the work again without Ordination. Mr. Wesley loved the man; but he knew his versatility, and would not trust him again with so important an office.

I have now lying before me a minute account of all these transactions, the publication of which I hope will never be required. It is needful, however, that I should state thus much respecting the Doctor, as I shall be obliged to animadvert on many parts of the Memoirs which he has published. His book is still extant, and should be answered, though he himself is no longer accountable to men.

When Dr. Whitehead had made such use of Mr. Wesley's papers as he thought proper, he returned them to the Chapel-house in the City

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Road, in the year 1796. But those into whose hands they fell, seem to have had no more regard to Mr. Wesley's will than the Doctor himself. The trustees of Mr. Wesley's manuscripts were thus again deprived of many valuable documents, which would have made this Life more complete. So easy is it to follow a bad example! So light does trespass appear, when once the hedge is broken! Upon my expostulating with those who acted thus, the papers and manuscript books that remained, were sent to me; but none of those which had been thus unjustly taken away have to this day been restored. Wherever they are found, they belong to me; and those which have been published, either by Dr. Whitehead, or any other person, are my property, which I shall freely use, according to my best judgment. Among those which have been restored to me, there are several documents, which are highly useful in such a work, and have never yet been printed.

A Life of Mr. Wesley, as full as possible, without being tedious, seems now to be a desideratum, especially since the strange Memoir lately published by Robert Southey, Esq., Poet Laureate. Concerning that production, it may be thought that little need be said, as it has been an ample subject of animadversion in various publications, and has been ably reviewed by Mr. Watson. It has indeed been generally acknowledged, by competent judges of religious biography, that the names of WESLEY and of SOUTHEY were never designed to be joined together in the same sentence. But Mr. Southey is, to use the words of Johnson, a writer by trade,- -an able and industrious servant of all work. His industry, indeed, is conspicuous and laudable. It has been said, and, we believe, with truth, that Mr. Southey exerts himself beyond almost any writer, to collect every thing which bears on his undertaking. He lays the whole world of letters under contribution, for facts, images, and arguments, until every magazine of information is utterly exhausted. He has thus given such a portrait of Mr. Wesley, and of the eminent characters connected with him, as has astonished both the religionists and the skeptics of the present age. They were not prepared to see religion in its peace, power, and purity, as set forth not only in the writings of Mr. Wesley, but of the Fathers of the Church of England, described as a mental disease of the most pitiable description; which, nevertheless, excited the subjects of it to the most extraordinary exertions for the good of mankind, (a good, not only acknowledged, but applauded by Mr. Southey,) and which continued without intermission during threescore years! The work, too, in which these worthies were engaged, is owned to have been planned with a wisdom, and executed with an energy, that astonishes the biographer himself! He considers also the subject of his history, not only as a man of the greatest natural endowments, of the deepest and most solid erudition, of "great views

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