Your sincerely devoted Friend and Minister,
George Mortimer.
ADDRESS OF THE MINISTER OF MADELEY TO THE INHABITANTS OF MADELEY WOOD AND ITS VICINITY.
Vicarage, March 23, 1822.
My endeared Parishioners,
The very kind reception given to the Address which I circulated among the inhabitants of Coalbrookdale and its vicinity, and the feelings of mutual love and affection it has been the means of eliciting, encourage me to hope that a similar appeal to yourselves will be attended with equally beneficial results.
The principal reason of my now addressing you, is, that I have very painfully witnessed, within the short space of two or three weeks, a great increase of party spirit arising from the measures recently adopted towards forming and carrying on a Sunday school separate and distinct from that which has so long been established among us. The natural consequences of such procedures, I am willing to hope, you did not sufficiently estimate, or I can hardly imagine you would so hastily, and at such a time, have adopted them. You are sensible, I think, that my wish is for peace; that my great desire is, that love may not only prevail, but abound more and more; and that I am striving to pursue that line of conduct, which, as a consistent minister of the Established Church, devolves upon me, so as not to give the least unnecessary offence to others. Permit me, then, to ask, whether these recent measures are at all likely to produce such pacific results? Do they not rather tend to range more decidedly than ever under distinct and separate parties, not only the superintendents and teachers, but likewise the parents of the children themselves? Do they not in some measure force persons to declare themselves on one side or other, and that not merely in opinion, but likewise in decisive action? And are not the individuals, thus compelled to declare themselves, regarded with suspicion by those who move in contrary directions? I would inquire, then, is all this calculated to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace? And are those individuals our best friends who are most earnest in this work of alienation? I mean no personal allusions, I assure you, to any individual among you: I hope I very sincerely love you all; and I wish that bonds of union may be multiplied, which may bring us closer and closer together, instead of these cords of separation which, drawing in other directions, will every day remove us to a greater and yet greater distance.
Permit me also to ask whether this is the time for such exertions? If indeed your minister were sleeping at his post; if he were lying down, and loving to slumber; if the schools happened to be on the decline in respect of numbers, or in regard to the insufficiency of superintendents or teachers; if scarcely anything were going forward adequate to the necessities of the parish; then, indeed, such exertions might be called for. But how contrary is all this to the real state of the case! It is at a time when the schools are so crowded as to render it impossible to instruct them in the usual place: it is at a time when, to afford greater facilities of instruction, the larger schools are being divided into twenty or thirty minor schools, and these so situated as to be almost at the door of every child in the parish, and so arranged as to admit of every one being taught who is capable of instruction. You will readily perceive, then, that the stir which is making at present, is by no means called for in the existing necessities of the case. To what, then, must it be attributed? It is commonly reported that it arises from a fear entertained by some, lest my present plans and procedures should attach too many children to the Established Church, and thus eventually make them Churchmen instead of Methodists. This reason, however, I feel I ought by no means to admit; for, whatever may be said of others, the Methodists of the parish of Madeley have long made it their boast that they were firm in their attachment to our venerable Church: and so strong has been their attachment, that the majority of them would never listen to any proposals of having their services so conducted as at all to interfere with the services of the church, and would never permit the sacrament to be administered in their chapels; and there are many who feel a secret satisfaction in being able to state, that they have never yet partaken of the sacred ordinance, excepting from a clergyman; and they are still determined that no one shall ever make this their consistent glorying to be in vain. [146] It is with peculiar satisfaction, that I consider my relation to such individuals; and I assure you, I rejoice over you as my parishioners; I point you out as an example to others; and I hope we shall never see the time when the parishioners, and more especially the spiritual sons and daughters of the venerable and apostolic Mr. Fletcher, shall cease to be identified with that Church of which he was so bright an ornament, as well as minister. I feel, therefore, that it would be the height of injustice to suppose, that the mass of such of my people as are termed Methodists have any fear of their children becoming members of the Established Church; nay, they would rather rejoice in it;—they rejoice in it even now;—and some of them go so far as even to recommend it. They tell their children, in the fulness of their Catholic spirit, that their own attachment to the people with whom they are joined, never arose from dissatisfaction to the Church, but from a natural love to the private means which their own people at that time so exclusively possessed. But they add, that as these same private means are now offered to them in connexion with the Established Church, they would advise them to join themselves with its respected members; and hence it is, that not a few among our classes are the sons and daughters of such honoured individuals. I say honoured, for who can withhold from such the proper meed of approbation; for such heal the breaches of our Zion, they build up its waste places; they repair the desolations of many generations.
I am aware, however, that the same extent of feeling is not cherished by all. Some prefer their own communion, their own instructors, and classes. But I have heard such with the greatest candour acknowledge, that their predilection arose merely from the circumstance that they happened to receive their first religious good among them; and that notwithstanding this their preference, they very highly respect the Church, and that they wish its ministers abundant success in their very important work. And this I am persuaded is the feeling of ninety-nine out of a hundred of the Methodists who compose my parish. The welcome they invariably give me when I enter their houses or cottages; the smile of approbation which brightens on their countenance when we exchange salutations as we pass; and the liberality which they discover in all points of possible difference whenever they are accidentally touched upon: all these things convince me that they have no hostility either to the Church or to myself, and of course that they would not willingly enter upon any plan which might have the least semblance of opposition.
To what, then, some will still ask, must these procedures connected with the schools be attributed? I feel, I confess, somewhat at a loss to determine. I hope, however, that they have arisen merely from a well-meant, though certainly an ill-timed, zeal—a zeal, likewise, which has a direct tendency, though not previously estimated, to promote disunion among us, and a diminution of loving Christian feelings. But whatever may have been the cause of these procedures, I do hope, that the serious evils which are beginning as a consequence to break forth, will not only be checked, but entirely subside; and that all parties, superintendents, teachers, and parents, will each in their respective stations be ready to show that they are not among the last to bring about so desirable an issue.