more than the whole of the class and ticket money disbursed, without one farthing of it being appropriated to the salary of a minister. Yet in the face of this, it is spread abroad through the land in your veritable production, that all the money raised among us for religious purposes is divided among the preachers. Your Leeds society can spend about £300. per annum in incidentals; and the thousands of societies in our connexion are not allowed one farthing for any such purposes; but the voracious preachers are supposed to swallow up everything! But if our people can do

* There is a small error in this total sum, which appears 1s. 10d. more than the several items amount to. The mistake occurs in the second half-yearly statement. But as I have no means of correcting it, and as it is a trifle of no moment to me, I have left it just as I found it.

without incidentals, so may yours; and then in exacting class and ticket money of you, your leaders are imposing upon you at a fine rate. As your people have talked so eloquently on using the most rigid economy in disposing of the hard-earned pittances received from the poor members of society, I hope they will not object to our incidental expenses being paid from the same fund as their own, and in the same proportion. We have seen that no part of your class and ticket money has been appropriated to the support of ministers; but the whole of it, with the addition of "plan money," and a liberal donation from a friend, has been expended upon other matters. Suppose our class and ticket money were disposed of, like yours, in incidentals; and as this, according to the letter writer, amounts to £127,028, which he has included in the sum total shared among the preachers, it must be deducted from that sum, which we have seen is £198,028, and then the remainder, £71,000, is all we have left to divide among 1,146 preachers, which will average for each nearly £62. a year.

But this is not all. The letter writer supposes that the whole receipts for the missions are expended upon the missionaries. He could not, however, be ignorant, unless he be an idiot, a point which I will not stop to dispute, that considerable sums are devoted to objects, which, though connected with the institution, form no part of the missionaries' salaries. There are the rent and taxes and rates of the mission premises in London; the wages of the servants employed at that establishment; the expense of printing notices, quarterly papers, and general reports; the grants made to schools and chapels, etc. I am quite sure it is much under the truth to estimate these at £4,000. And there is yet an item of £6,000 in his account, under the head of "allowance from circuits for children," which must be expunged from it. The whole income received by the circuit stewards he states to be 2s. 1d. each member per quarter, every farthing of which he supposes to be paid by the stewards to the preachers. I demand

of him, in the name of common sense, how the stewards could pay £6,000 for children, when they had paid the whole of their receipts before "to the support of the preachers and their families?" That the stewards did actually pay the £6,000 I do not dispute; but it is manifest they must have paid it out of the ticket and class money; for he does not assign them any other fund for that purpose. Grasping as the preachers are supposed to be after money, how they can receive £6,000 more than their people give, I am not able to divine. This sum then is charged to the preachers twice by the letter writer; it is first included in the class and ticket money, and then charged separately. These two sums, amounting to £10,000, must therefore be deducted from the above £71,000; and the remainder, £61,000, when equally distributed among 1,146 preachers, will make the salary for each, amount to £53. 4s. 6d. per annum! This is the utmost our preachers could receive, were our stewards, like yours, to devote the whole of the class and ticket money to other purposes. I am far from thinking, however, that the salaries of our preachers do not average more than £53., because I am aware that our stewards are not so profligate as yours are in the expenditure of the money which comes into their hands. These traducers of our character may suppose we receive as much more than £53. 4s. 6d. as they please; because the more they assign to us, the less our stewards will have for other purposes, and the more extravagant in comparison, will the expenditure of your stewards appear: they cannot, therefore, strike at us, without wounding themselves.

Suppose your people had by extra exertion raised £12. more in the course of the last year; and given them to a missionary, or travelling preacher; why then according to their mode of calculating our salaries, their minister would have received £310. a year; because that sum had actually come into the hands of the stewards. How can quarter day dinners, insurance, chapel-keepers' wages, singers' wages, etc., be convert

ed into preachers' income? Our people have these expenses to bear, as well as yours have; and they are just as much the wages of your missionaries as of our preachers. If our stewards were not more economical than yours are in the incidental expenses of worship, instead of having hundreds a year, as your writers pretend, we should not be able to procure bread and water. Your quarter day dinners cost £25. 11s. 2d; ours, £16. 19s. 6d; and our circuit contains many more members than yours. Your local preachers' horse hire, coach fares, and travelling expenses, amount to the enormous sum of £96. 12s. 44d;* ours, for the

* We shall perhaps be told that much of this has been expended by journeys to distant places, to preach the glorious gospel of peace. How these missions are executed we have a specimen in the Magazine for December last, which contains an account of a visit of two of the brethren to Newcastle-upon-Tyne. They held " a public meeting in Butchers' Hall. A statement of the facts connected with the Leeds case was given, which appeared to make a deep impression on the minds of the persons present; so much so, that it was difficult to prevent them from expressing, by outward manifestation, their astonishment and disgust, at the conduct of the Conference preachers." The writer goes on to inform us of "the universality of such feelings, whenever that conduct is fairly stated." Their principal business at Newcastle was, it seems, to collect a mob, and harangue them on the wickedness of Methodist preachers, till their feelings were wound up to the highest pitch. They carried the thing rather too far, it appears; as the orators were obliged to change their tone, and found "it difficult to prevent them from expressing, by outward manifestation," the feelings excited in their hearts respecting the ministers of the old connexion. What is meant by this "outward manifestation," we are left to conjecture. It could not consist in talking against us; for the rabble had as much right to do that, as these spouters; and it seems to have been the chief design of their address to excite the bad passions of their auditors against us. The" outward manifestation," had it taken place, must have been something horrible, when these disgusting preachers felt it necessary, and found it 66 difficult," to allay the storm they had raised. Were the mob going off in a body to give vent, upon the persons of the preachers, to the "astonishment and disgust" they felt at their conduct? This is not a solitary instance; for we are assured of "the universality of such feelings" being excited by similar addresses. This is the way, then, in which your money flies. These ambassadors

same period, does not exceed £16. 15s. You have another item for stationery and printing, £40. 15s. 11d.

of heaven are galloping up and down the country, and holding public meetings, to inspire people with "astonishment and disgust at the conduct of the Conference preachers." This, it seems, is the glorious gospel which they preach: the glad tidings of great joy which they bring to all people, is, that the Conference preachers are a disgusting set of mercenaries. This is, at least, a new method of persuading men to love God and their fellow-creatures, and "to keep their tongues from evil speaking." By such means as these they "promote the work of God," as they term it! You must surely be convinced that your money is much better employed in sending men on such errands, than it was, when you devoted it to the service of God in the old connexion. I am disposed to think that the persons who have been present at such meetings would have felt some little " astonishment and disgust" at these heavenly teachers, had they told them the whole truth, while declaiming against our organs and liturgies, and frankly avowed that they had gotten both, snugly foisted into their own connexion! But they had, no doubt, prudence enough to keep this part of the Leeds most distressing case to themselves.

When Wesley went forth to preach salvation to a ruined world, he adopted another plan. He had no notion that God had sent him to vilify other ministers, to sow the seeds of dissention in their churches, and to create strife and debate and division. Instead of attempting to destroy other religious communities, and to raise a church of his own on their ruins, he went into the world, and preached to lost sinners the unsearchable riches of Christ. If he can look down from heaven, what " astonishment and disgust" must he feel" at the conduct" of those preachers who, in his name, as Wesleyan Protestant Methodists, are endeavouring to distract and destroy the churches of Christ which he founded! Among the seven things which the Lord doth hate and abominate, the last is, "He that soweth discord among brethren." (Prov. vi. 16-19.)

It is not merely the Methodist societies which your people endeavour to disturb. Some disaffected persons belonging to another sect in Newark afforded a most tempting bait, which they could not resist. "Two of the brethren from Leeds were sent;" and their success is thus reported in their Magazine for January, 1829. "There is a small neat chapel, with a society of from thirty to forty members, with a fair prospect of considerable extension. For the prosperity of the work of God" in this and other places, their people are desired to pray. From which we learn, that getting a chapel and members from another community is doing the work of God. So at Walls-end, they nearly, if not quite, broke up a society of Ranters, and boast in their Magazine for