no children, yet I have travelled in several of the best circuits in the connexion, such as Newcastle-uponTyne, Shields, York, Sheffield, Hull, etc., where my salary was larger than that of many of my brethren in the poor circuits, who had three or four children. I know that those who have large families, and are stationed in the best circuits, have considerably more than £110. a year; but I know also that all the single men and many of the married men, in the poor circuits, receive much less. There are the Arbroath, Banff, and Inverness circuits, which have five preachers, and only two hundred and twenty-three members. They were assisted from the contingent fund by a grant of £203., and from the school fund, for the education of a son and daughter, £20. How, with this help, could the few poor members make the average of their preachers' salaries come anything near to £100? All circumstances, therefore, taken into the account, I am disposed to consider mine as a pretty fair average of the preachers' income.

The representations contained in your Magazine, from month to month, of our pecuniary affairs, have had, I doubt not, a powerful influence in alienating many of your minds from us. But some of you have thought, that if it be such a great sin to support us, you ought to have a cheaper gospel in your new connexion. Your guides have laboured assiduously to impress it upon your minds, that with us religion is only an affair of pounds, shillings, and pence; and that our craving for money is insatiable. In your Magazine for August last, our friends in Leeds are insulted for having had, in order to replenish their exhausted funds, recourse once more to the begging system, from door to door; and this is not confined to the members of the society, but embraces persons who are occasional hearers, and belonging to other denominations also." This is, no doubt, very wicked; but how are your travelling preachers supported? without money? No, Your people have also had recourse to the begging system; and have carried the matter a little fur

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ther than, with all our avarice, we have ventured to do. A short time ago bills were posted in the most conspicuous parts of this town, headed, " Home Missions," announcing preachers, and a public meeting, to finish with collections; and inviting the attendance of he inhabitants generally to help in this good work: he plain English of which is, when stripped of its verbosity, be so good as to give us something towards the support of our travelling preachers. It must be very disgraceful in our people to stoop so low as to ask the assistance of our occasional hearers; but very laudable in your people to beg of those who never hear them at all! But you wish perhaps to have a monopoly of the begging system, as you have already carried it much beyond what we ever dreamed of.

Besides the public meeting, your people have had recourse to the expedient, in order to maintain your travelling preachers, of begging" from door to door; and this is not confined to the members of the society,' and" occasional hearers belonging to other denominations," but is extended to persons of other denominations who never come near them. Thus, two females, furnished with a bag for the siller, and with a book and pencil to note down the names of subscribers, set off a begging from door to door. In the course of their rambles, they called upon one of our friends, and requested a subscription for the missionaries. Our friend replied that she did subscribe for them, being under an impression that the applicants were collecting for foreign missions. The ladies retired, and our friend afterwards learned, that they were begging for Protestant travelling preachers. A lady, on whose veracity I can place the most implicit confidence, assured me that she was one day accosted by two of her own sex, who begged a subscription for the missions. Having a slight knowledge of the parties, she suspected all was not right, and after a little catechising, their cheeks became suffused with a blush, as the secret transpired that they were Protestant Methodists, begging for the support of their preachers, not in

foreign countries, for there they have none, but in

our own.

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This is doing the thing in a style to which I confess we are not accustomed. Look at the ingenuity of the plan. The missionary cause is popular; ladies' associations are often connected with these institutions; and female collectors have been remarkably successful in procuring pecuniary supplies. But we never heard before, I believe, of females canvassing for subscriptions for the missions, when the design was, not to send men to preach the gospel to the heathen abroad, but to employ them at home, to inspire their hearers with astonishment and disgust at the conduct of the Conference preachers." But this mode of procedure is easily defended upon the new Protestant principles. Though the subscribers might be ignorant that the Protestant preachers are called missionaries, and might give their money under the notion that they were supporting foreign missionaries; yet surely the Protestants ought not to be blamed for this; they should have made further inquiries; and if they gave their money under a wrong impression, that will not hinder it from being useful in promoting the work of God. But when the whole truth comes out, the halfstatements, though they may be correct as far as they go, look very suspicious!

Bad as we are, however, your people in Leeds seem to have no objection to appear before their townsmen in a simple Methodist garb. When the collectors for our Sunday schools went round to gather in the subscriptions, they were told in several instances that the subscriptions were already paid; and when the matter was investigated, it turned out that the Protestants had obtained these sums under pretence that they were begging for the Methodist Sunday schools. The word Protestant was left out in these applications, and the gentlemen believed at the time, that they were subscribing to our schools. But your managers are wise in their generation. They know the value of the word Protestant, in Leeds, and

are aware if prominence were given to this term, they need not go far beyond their own society to beg for their own institutions—they know that Methodist, not Protestant, Sunday schools will command the support of the public.

In the public notice given of the sermons to be preached for their Sunday schools, the bills were headed, "Methodist Sunday Schools ;" and the word Protestant was omitted. And in their last report, the title is, "The Annual Report of the Methodist Sunday Schools, Leeds; established January, 1806." I have carefully examined this report, of thirty pages, and the word Protestant does not once occur in it. The title says, these schools were established in 1806, which is very true as regards our schools; but there were no Protestant Sunday schools till more than twenty years after that period. If they had really believed, what they have laboured so hard to make others believe, that the old connexion was nothing, and theirs all in all, in the esteem of their townsmen, they would have been afraid and ashamed at the thought that any one should commit the blunder of identifying them with us; and would have taken pains to prevent such a mistake. But they knew better. Such facts as these speak more than volumes of special pleading to the contrary, that they are conscious public opinion is in our favour, and opposed to them; and I can almost forgive the disingenuousness of their appeal to the inhabitants of Leeds, in our name, in the testimony it bears to their consciousness of our superiority of character. When they want assistance from the public purse, to support their preachers and schools, why then put the little deformed abortion of a Protestant to bed, and rock the crazy thing to sleep, and set off a begging for the missions, and for Methodist Sunday

schools!

The fact seems to be, that several of you are getting your eyes open. You have, come to the conclusion that, if the preachers pocket all the money raised in the whole connexion, you need not contribute much

now that you are free from them. Thus in the halfyear ending September last, the ticket and class money had both fallen off; and though the stewards begun the year with £36. 10s. 10d. in hand, they finished it with 1s. 8d. in debt; and through their extravagance they are becoming much more craving for money than their neighbours, and have recourse to expedients to raise the wind, which people who are not proof against the censures of the world, by their extraordinary sanctity, as yours are, would be ashamed of, Some have found it out, that ours is the cheapest concern, and have returned to us in consequence.

Your pastors and masters, I hear, are complaining of my writing, because, as they say, the controversy was dying and would soon have become extinct, but for my interference. Had I perceived any signs of this on their part, I would not have written a line; for though I think I possess some little ability to defend the truth, yet I greatly prefer peace to disputation; and have never taken up my pen in her cause but as a painful task, and under the impression of duty. Peace was what I greatly desired. In looking into your Magazine, however, I found a large proportion of its columns, every succeeding month, taken up in vilifying us; and instead of the angry spirit subsiding, a second periodical was started at the commencement of this year; and they seem to vie with each other as to which shall call us by the foulest names. And so late as April last, your Magazine contains an article under the title, "Can the Leeds case be forgotten?" In this conciliatory paper, our preachers are represented to be as bad as the worst of the Romish priests, as exercising a large share of chicane and cunning, as perpetrators of disgraceful and tyrannical acts, and as being wolves, etc. Our wish to live in peace, which was well known, was acknowledged, but at the same time ridiculed. Hear this son of peace: "I was very amused, a short time ago, by a friend informing me how very peaceable and conciliating the present Leeds preachers were, so much so, that they will not allow any conversation in