of the Assistant Secretaries of the Conference, and in 1848 was elected by nomination into the Legal Conference.

A new chapel was built in St. Ives in 1792. It is yet standing, and serves as a warehouse. After worshipping in this chapel for about twenty years, and when the Society numbered seventy-five members, they resolved upon building another chapel. The Rev. Joseph Benson preached the first sermon. There are yet living some who tell of the marvellous unction that accompanied the service. An old Methodist, who died only a few years ago, after telling of the large amount of gold and silver and copper collected that day, used to add: but, bless the Lord! the best of all was, there was a collection of souls.'

About this time several attempts were made to suppress the aggressive spirit of Methodism in the neighbourhood of St. Ives. As one instance out of many, I may relate that which was given to me by a Local Preacher whose name had been on the Plan for more than sixty years. He had been preaching in the neighbourhood one Sunday evening to a large congregation. One of the magistrates, a Clergyman, resolved to make an example of him, thinking that the brother had been preaching without a licence. The Clergyman's gardener, having heard what his master intended, warned the Preacher of the coming danger. In order that he might be prepared, he put his licence into his pocket. Early in the forenoon, the constable summoned Mr. W-, and offered to lead him away before the magistrates.

Stop, stop,' said the good brother, you can't take me; nor all the constables in the county. Your master, the high-constable, must take me, if I am taken at all' the Local Preacher himself being a constable. The constable returned to

his superior, and said: 'Mr. Whalley won't come with me; he says that all the constables in the county can't take him.' 'But go and give my compliments to him, and tell him, if I fetch him, I shall charge him half-a-guinea.' Upon hearing this, Brother W. consented to go without further trouble. Said the Clerk of the Peace: 'Is your name Whalley?' 'Yes, Sir, it is.' 'You are summoned before this bench for preaching at Hurst last Sunday without a licence. What do you say to that?' 'I say it's false, Sir.' 'What do you mean by saying it's false?' 'I mean what I say, Sir.' 'Do you mean to say you have a licence?' 'Yes, I do, Sir.' Produce it, then.' Whalley produced it, and added: "Philip Pansion, of Godmanchester, granted me the licence, and said: "God bless you in your work."

After consultation with the magistrates, the Clerk informed Mr. Whalley that he could leave the court, as they had done with him. 'No, Gentlemen, I feel aggrieved, and I think I ought to have some redress for being falsely accused and arrested.' It was impossible, however, to get redress. Whalley left the court, and went on his way working and rejoicing in the Lord, and through his labours several Methodist Societies were formed in the county and in the West of Cambridgeshire.

No sketch of early Methodism in St. Ives could be complete or just without reference to Dr. Leigh, an able and successful Local Preacher.

For a time the Doctor was connected with the Baptists; but not finding rest of soul, he began to worship with the Friends. He might be seen wending his way with broadbrimmed hat and sober countenance to their meeting-house. Not obtaining peace there, he began to attend the Independent ministry, but with no better result. 'I tell thee what

it is,' said the Doctor to an old Methodist Class Leader, 'thou must put my name in thy Class-book. I've been amongst the Baptists, where I got the baptism of water; I've been amongst the Quakers, where I got into the mists of mysticism ; I've been to the Independents, where I got into an ice-house; but I find you Methodists speak about the sprinkled blood and the baptism of fire.' He had not long met in Class before he found the peace of God. Being a man of gifts as well as grace, he soon began to preach the Gospel. He was of gigantic strength, physical and mental, and all his powers of body and mind he laid at the feet of Christ. We have rarely met with a man who could so truthfully sing: 'Thine I live, thrice happy I!' Not until the light of eternity falls upon the records of time will it be known how many seals God was pleased to give to the preaching of good Doctor Leigh.

More than fifty years ago there were Methodist Societies at Warboys, Wistow, Kneedingworth, Swavesey, Elsworth, Fen-Stanton, Houghton and several other villages in the neighbourhood of St. Ives, all of which have disappeared from the plan. Interesting incidents connected with the introduction of Methodism into these villages might be mentioned; but we pass on to glance at the early history of Methodism in Earith and a few other Huntingdonshire villages. There is an incident having reference to Wesley's passing through Earith, on his way to commence his Mission in Godmanchester. He writes:

Nov. 25th, 1774.-I set out between eight and nine in a one-horse chaise, the wind being high and cold enough. Much snow lay on the ground, and much fell as we crept along over the fen-banks. Honest r. Tubbs would needs walk and lead the through water and mud up to his , smiling and saying: "We fen-men

do not mind a little dirt." When we had gone about four miles the road would not admit of a chaise. So I borrowed a horse and rode forward; but not far, for all the grounds were under water. Here, therefore, I procured a boat, full twice as large as a kneading-trough. I was at one end and a boy at the other, who paddled me safe to Earith. There Miss L- waited for me with another chaise, which brought me to St. Ives.'

We have not been able to trace Methodism in Earith to an earlier date than 1814 or 1815. A Mr. Edwards, having heard of the Rev. T. Osborne's intention to conduct an open-air service in the outskirts of the Ely Circuit, went to hear him. Mr. Edwards, who was gardener to a Friend residing in Earith, told his master of the good which was being done by the Methodists in Haddenham, Sutton and other places, and thought it would be desirable to invite them to Earith. After consultation with each other and prayer for Divine direction, Edwards was impressed with the thought that it was his duty to secure the services of these men of God. He, therefore, went to Sutton to meet the Rev. Samuel Ward, then Superintendent of the Ely Circuit, and said: 'If thou wilt come to Earith and preach, I will entertain thee and thy colleagues until there are friends of thine own raised up to receive the Preachers.'

In the course of a short time the Ely Ministers entered this door of usefulness. Open-air services proving a great success, a cottage was taken. The place was transferred from the Ely to the St. Ives Circuit about the year 1820.

In the course of twelve years, the father of Doctor Leigh and of Mrs. White, the wife of a well-known Methodist Missionary in New Zealand, although a member of another Church, gave the land for a chapel, which was erected in 1828, and opened by the Rev. W. Atherton.

Mr. Millard testifies that 'from 1811 to 1826 the Wesleyan Church was, without question, the chief source of spiritual life to the town.' He might have fixed the first date as at 1793. The Methodist Church at so early a date was as a light in a dark place. Prejudice against dissent was deeply rooted. Some of the principal inhabitants used to thank God that, prior to 1790, they had no sectaries to disturb them. It was at one time thought that the last of the Dissenters in the town was dead, and at the glad tidings the Clergyman ordered the church-bells to proclaim the fact in a merry chime. We do

We

not know whether this was the same Clergyman who, in the early years of the present century, forbade a mason to open a vault in the churchyard, because he was a Dissenter. meet with accounts of balls, prize fights, cock-fighting, theatrical performances. The chief magistrate was charged 'to keep a watchful eye upon the hopeful race of ragamuffins who graced certain quarters of the town and neighbourhood, for accomplished youths of both sexes abounded in Huntingdon.'*

A Sunday-school, numbering from two to three hundred, was started. It was managed by Wesleyans, and for many years was the only one in the town. It seems, also, that the Methodist revival was largely felt by the Congregational Churches, for in 1797 the Bedfordshire Union commenced its work in this locality. Some twelve or thirteen languishing or dead Churches revived, and other new ones were formed.

In 1822, the Huntingdon Society suffered very severely. Thomas Tattershall and his wife died within eighteen days of each other; and four

influential men and a few others separated from the Society and joined the Independents. There was a large debt upon the chapel, which for a long time crippled the energies of the Society. Other Sunday-schools were started in the town and immediate neighbourhood, so that the Wesleyan school, which about this time numbered some three hundred and fifty scholars, was reduced by one-half. It gradually declined, and at last became extinct; and so remained until about 1835, when James Freshfield, Esq., with a few associates, recommenced it.

The Rev. Henry Venn, in a letter to the Rev. James Stillinflint, bearing date December 24th, 1782, says, with regard to St. Neots: • The church having long been deserted, and all worship of God given up, that even curiosity will not bring them to hear, and in a morning not more than one hundred out of a population of sixteen hundred are to be seen at church.' Venn continued for many years to preach occasionally at St. Neots. On one occasion he and the sainted Fletcher met in the town.

In his eighty-fifth year Wesley paid his last visit to St. Neots. He says: We had a lovely congregation at St. Neots, who seemed ripe for the promises; so I preached on our Lord's words to the leper, “I will; be thou clean.”

In 1794 the first Methodist chapel was built in St. Neots. In 1800 it became the head of the Circuit, including St. Ives and Huntingdon, and it retained this position for twelve years. There was both a Sunday-school and a Tract Society at St. Neots about the year 1797.

THE most prominent topic in the second volume as it is, indeed, in the first-is that of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, which is narrated with a fulness and impartiality which contrasts favourably with its treatment by previous historians, and enables us to view as a whole a revolution which has more than any other transformed both the outward and inward life of England, and given it that energy and independence which the monastic system has so fatally destroyed wherever it has carried on its reign into modern times and countries. In England, the history of monasticism—an institution which, as our author observes, after a life among us of a thousand years, perished in a day-is invested with all the memories of a romantic past, and is read rather in the exquisite relics of its former glory, which are to be seen in every part of our country, than in the page of the mere chronicler of its rise and fall. The results of the dissolution, though the evil portion of them has been eloquently set forth in a digression (p. 218), are but partially drawn, and too little regard is shown to the benefits which were derived to the country indirectly from this transfer into lay hands of the vast estates which had been amassed by the monastic bodies, not always honestly, and always to the great

injury of the relatives of founders and benefactors. The visitation of Archbishop Warham, in 1511, discloses a state of laxity of discipline and corruption of manners in the monastic bodies which too well prepares us for the disclosures of the Commissioners, whose charges, however exaggerated, were rendered but too probable by the more friendly. investigation of the Primate and the Bishops in an earlier day.

6

The loss of the poor in regard to the education of their children in the monastic schools, appears to us to be greatly extenuated by the new provisions which were made for the creation of Grammar Schools in every town, by Henry VIII., Edward VI. and Elizabeth, and the far better education which was provided in these for the teaching of all classes of the community. Our author observes that when the monasteries were falling, many petitions are said to have been received that the free schools might stand'; and the failure of these is attributed to Henry, Cromwell* and his fellows, in whom Cranmer is evidently included. In some cases, however (as in that of Tonbridge), it was not the Archbishop, but the inhabitants, who opposed the change from a monastic to a scholastic foundation, and the plan of Cranmer for the re-foundation of Christ Church, Canterbury, would,

Asher.