Great Britain and Her Queen

by Anne E. Keeling

Wesley College, Sheffield

In view of these changed conditions, Conference has expressed itself anxious for such a complete national system of education as might place a Christian unsectarian school within reasonable distance of every family, especially in rural districts, with "adequate representative public management"; it has most earnestly deprecated the exclusion of the Bible, and suitable religious instruction therefrom by the teachers, from the day schools; but, so long as denominational schools form part of the national system, it is resolved to maintain our schools and Training Colleges, in full vigour. Difficulties, undreamed of sixty years ago, surround this great question; but assuredly Methodism will be true to its trust and its traditions.

The cost of Wesleyan schools last year was £215,634, and was met by school fees, subscriptions, and a government grant of £185,780. The Education Fund of 1896, amounting to £7,115, was spent on the Training Colleges, grants to necessitous schools, etc.

Wesley approved of Sunday schools as means of giving religious instruction to the children of the poor, and Hannah Ball at High Wycombe, a good Methodist, and Silas Told, teaching at the Foundery, both anticipated the work of Raikes by several years. In 1837 there were already 3,339 Sunday schools, with 341,442 scholars. Today the schools number 7,147, the officers and teachers 131,145, and there are in the schools 965,201 children and young people. The formation in 1869 of the Circuit Sunday-school Union, and in 1874 of the Connexional Sunday-school Union, has done much for the schools, in providing suitable literature for teachers and scholars, and in organising their work. An additional motive to Scripture study is furnished by the "Religious Knowledge Examinations" instituted by Conference; certificates, signed by the President, being granted to teachers and scholars who succeed in passing the examinations. In recognition of the value of so important a department of the Church, adequate representation at the quarterly meetings is now accorded to the Sunday schools.

It is not in our day only that the pastoral oversight of the young has been deemed worthy of attention; the duty has always been enforced on ministers; but in 1878 there were first formed junior Society classes, to prepare children for full membership. There are now seventy-two thousand in such classes.

In 1896 we note a new effort to bring young people into the kingdom, in the foundation of the "Wesley Guild," of which the President of Conference is the head, with four vice-presidents, two being laymen. The guild is "a union of the young people of a congregation. Its keynote is comradeship, and its aim is to encourage the young people of our Church in the highest aims of life." The story of its origin may be briefly told.

The Rev. Charles H. Kelly introduced the subject in the London Methodist Council, and then brought the matter before the Plymouth Conference of 1895, dwelling on the desire existing to form a Wesley Guild that should do for Britain what the Epworth League does for American Methodism, and secure the best advantages not only of that league, but of the Boys' Brigade, Bands of Hope, Christian Endeavour and Mutual Improvement Societies, which it should federate. The Liverpool Conference of 1896 therefore sanctioned the formation of the "Wesley Guild." Its three grades of members include young people already attached to the Church, with others not yet ripe for such identification, and "older people young in heart," who all join in guild friendship, and aid in forming this federation of the existing societies interesting to young people.

By periodical meetings, weekly if possible, for devotional, social, and literary purposes, a healthy common life and beneficent activity are stimulated, and the rising generation is happily and usefully drawn into relation with the older Church workers, whom it aids by seeking out the young, lonely, and unattached, and bringing them into the warm circle of youthful fellowship.

Such in brief is the programme of the Guild, which may yet greatly enrich the Church with which it is connected.

We turn now to one of the most notable changes in Methodism during the Queen's reign—the wonderful advance in the temperance movement. Wesley himself was an ardent temperance reformer, but his preachers were slow to follow him. A few prominent men strove long to induce Conference to institute a temperance branch of our work, and finally succeeded, their efforts having effected a great change in opinion. For many years our theological students, though not compelled thereto, have almost all been pledged abstainers. 1873 saw Conference appoint a temperance committee "to promote legislation for the more effectual control of the liquor traffic—and in general for the suppression of intemperance." In 1879 a scheme was sanctioned for the formation of Methodist Bands of Hope and Circuit Temperance Unions; and a special Sunday, the last in November, is devoted to considering "the appalling extent and dire result" of our national sin, one of the greatest obstacles to that "spread of scriptural holiness" which is the aim of the true Wesleyan Methodist, whose chosen Church, with its manifold organisation, has unequalled facilities for temperance work. In 1896 the report showed 1,374 temperance societies, with 80,000 members—figures that do not include all the abstainers in Methodism; some societies have no temperance association, and some Methodists are connected with other than our own temperance work. The 4,393 Bands of Hope count 433,027 members.