The Methodist Magazine

be raised, so as to perpetuate the remembrance of the solemnity, and to remind the future age of the sentiments of the present.

There has long been much wanted a large Building in some central situation in London, for the purpose of accomodating a numerous audience on the Anniversaries of Religious Institutions, and especially at the Annual Meeting of our own Missionary Society. The Wesleyan Missionary Committee are also so greatly inconvenienced for want of proper offices to carry on with efficiency and despatch the increased and very increasing business of our extensive Missions, that they must of necessity look speedily out for the requisite accommodation in more extensive premises.

As MR. WESLEY was once himself a Missionary to the Heathen; as his work at home was pursued in the missionary spirit and character; and as the foreign Missions of the Methodists were commenced during his life, and had his warmest patronage ;perhaps nothing could be more appropriate on the Centenary of his Ordination, nothing could be more in his spirit, and in the spirit of his people,-than to make a general Subscription and Collection, in order to raise a fund sufficient to purchase land and erect suitable Premises for a WESLEYAN MISSION-HOUSE and a spacious HALL for the Public Meetings of the Society, with suitable OFFICES for such other branches of the business of the CONNEXION, as may demand a public and a permanent situation; that so those great interests, in which his heart was so engaged, and for which he lived and died, may be conducted on a scale commensurate with their present extended magnitude, and with the prospects of their growing importance. The Hall should be constructed on such a scale as to contain a very large assembly, by which means the Subscribers and Friends to our Missions may be accommodated, at all the Public Meetings of the Society.Subscriptions made for this object should be considered as Subscriptions to the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, and as such entitling the Subscribers to the same privileges of admission, which belong to members in general according to the present Rule.

It is proposed that the Property shall be vested in twenty-four Trustees, twelve Travelling Preachers, and twelve other Gentlemen, (members of the Society,) in trust for the use of the WesleyanMethodist Missionary Society; and to be under the direction and control of the Committee, appointed from year to year by the Conference, for the management of their Missions.

In addition to the enlarged accommodation afforded to the Missions, the advantages to the Connexion at large of having a central and public place of notoriety in the Metropolis, in which all the public records of the Connexion might be deposited,-a Library for the Connexion collected, to which many large donations of books would be constantly made, or bequeathed,—and

known and irremoveable offices of Registry established,-are so obvious as to require no arguments to prove their general utility. They are important interests now, and they will become still more so in future years.

On these suggestions, but one sentiment pervaded the Public Breakfast-Meeting, in London, 4th May, 1824, and the following Resolutions were adopted :

"1. That this Meeting, impressed with the unspeakable advantages which, under God, the Methodist Connexion, and the whole British Empire, have derived from the labours and writings of the late REV. JOHN WESLEY, A. M., think it a suitable expression of their gratitude to God, and their veneration for the character and principles of their Founder, to mark the Centenary of his entrance into the Ministerial Office, by a public Commemoration.

"2. That as this Meeting ascribe the whole glory of the great work which was commenced and carried on by the labours of their revered Founder, to God alone, and honour man only as the instrument of God, they recommend that the appointed day shall be celebrated by solemn religious services.

"3. That this Meeting agree to recommend to the Conference, that the Centenary of MR. WESLEY'S Ordination to the Christian Ministry be celebrated on the 19th of September, 1825; that on that day Public Service shall be held in the Chapels of the Methodist Connexion both at home and abroad, and appropriate Sermons preached; that two Papers shall be prepared to be read on that occasion, one briefly detailing the principal events of MR. WESLEY'S Life, the other containing a view of the Doctrines which he so successfully taught, and of the Discipline which he established in our Societies; that Collections be made on that day, (to be added to the Private Subscriptions previously raised,) for the purpose of erecting suitable Premises in London, for conducting the business of the Wesleyan Missions, and especially for erecting a Hall sufficiently commodious for holding the Annual Meetings of the Wesleyan-Methodist Missionary Society, including also rooms for a General Register Office, and for other general purposes of the Connexion; and that the Missionary Committee be requested to transmit this Resolution to the Conference, with such details of the plan as may be deemed necessary."

The following List of Subscriptions made at the Meeting will best show the interest which was excited among the friends assembled, and the lively gratitude to God which was produced in their hearts by their being thus reminded of the "years of the right hand of the most High," and of the propriety of giving to their thankfulness a visible and permanent expression, in a Monument at once appropriate and commemorative.

The Subscription thus liberally begun is commended to the Connexion at large, as well as the proposed Plan. From the

manner in which it is received, the Conference will be able more fully to judge of the propriety of the whole proposal, and to make the preparatory arrangements.

With respect to the proposed Premises for carrying on the concerns of the Missions, &c., &c., it may be necessary to say, that from the great accumulation of business in that important department, the present Mission House has become exceedingly inconvenient, and a removal to other premises, which may afford proper accommodation, must ere long take place. We are also to look to the future; and from the rapid extension of our Missions, and their success under the Divine blessing, such an accommodation for the efficient despatch of the business connected with them ought in prudence to be provided as may meet the wants of succeeding years.

As to a Hall for holding the Annual Meetings, that also has become necessary, both from the inconvenient situation of our larger Chapels, and from other advantages which would be derived, not only from a central situation, but from the circumstance of meeting in a Building erected principally for this purpose. Large as this Hall must be for that occasion, it will not remain unoccupied in the intervals of the Annual Meetings, as it is designed so to construct it, as to enclose a part, when not thus employed, for various other useful purposes. Collectively taken, the Hall, the Mission-Office, and other Offices, for the use of different branches of the public business of the Connexion, constructed on a plan, in the pure taste of MR. WESLEY himself, noble yet simple, will form an honourable monument to his name, and place Methodism visibly among the PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS of the Country. The direct connexion of such a building with the spread of the work of God in the world is, however, its strongest commendation; and if a public Monument to MR. WESLEY is to be at all erected, it is difficult to conceive of one more appropriate than that, in which constant impulse, and direction, and aid will be given, from year to year, to the manifestation of those pure doctrines which were taught by him to the various tribes of men throughout the earth, and to the establishment of that salutary discipline which he introduced, and which has been found so peculiarly efficient in the promotion of Missionary objects. On any other project there would be great differences of opinion; on this, scarcely any ;and unanimity is of great importance. Methodism was Missionary from its first rise; in this it assimilates more to primitive Christianity, than any other revival of the Work of God from the primitive ages of the Church. Our very hymns are the standing proofs of this-they show, that our Founder connected, in the strength of his faith, the work of God in its earliest stages in these lands, with the coming of his universal kingdom;-that he bounded in his anticipations from the conversion of an individual to the conversion of the whole world, and taught us, having obtained mercy ourselves, to ask

"What shall I do to make it known

What thou for all mankind hast done?"

The general amount of a public Congregational Collection, throughout the Connexion, can nearly be estimated; but it will depend entirely upon the Private Subscriptions which our principal friends may immediately offer, to what extent the Committee may carry their views, and make their preliminary arrangements. It will be remembered that a central situation for the proposed premises is essential to the plan, and that the price of land in the City of London, with the buildings which must be purchased along with any suitable site, will be found exceedingly costly. But the erection of such a commemorative Building is a work which, if done at all, ought to be done liberally; representing, as it will, the GRATITUDE, the PUBLIC FEELING, and TASTE of the whole Body. It will have, too, this crowning consideration, that every part of the money laid out will from age to age be employing itself in the promotion of the Kingdom of our Lord, by giving efficiency to the operations carried on in every Mission Station.

The friends who commenced the Subscriptions at the MorningChapel in London made them all in Guineas, rather than in Pounds, in the hope that that part of their example also would be cheerfully followed.

Many of the persons who began the Subscription adopted a suggestion which had been thrown out, that it might be advisable. for Heads of Families to enter in the list the names of their several CHILDREN as sharers with themselves in this act of public gratitude; thereby marking their sense of the debt of gratitude owing by their families, as well as by themselves, to Religion, and to the great man, from whom, instrumentally, many have derived their acquaintance with its truth and power; and, at the same time, conveying to their children an impressive testimony of their desire that the vital Doctrines of Christianity, which have been so beneficial and so dear to their own hearts, may be always held sacred by their posterity. An exact List of all the Subscribers. will be published, and preserved in the Mission-House, when completed.

LIST OF SUBSCRIPTIONS,

At the Public Breakfast, in the Morning-Chapel, City-Road, Tuesday, May 4th, 1824:

Joseph Butterworth, Esq., M. P.

Thomas Farmer, Esq., Lambeth Society and Congregation,

John Carr, Esq., Sewardstone,

Mr. Thomas Maughan, himself, Wife, and three Children, Ten Guineas each,

James Wood, Esq. Manchester,

£. S. d.

525* 0 0 525 0 0

52 10 0

W. G. Scarth, Esq., Leeds,

Mr. Alexander Suter, of Halifax, for himself and four Brothers, viz.
John Wesley, Henry, Peter, and Samuel Suter, Ten guineas each,
Joseph Carne, Esq., Penzance,

William Dickenson, Esq. Newington

Mrs. Dickinson,

Mr. Hall, Holborn,