The proposal of her ladyship was to admit none into her school except such as were truly converted to God, andresolved to dedicate themselves to His service. They were to be at liberty to stay three years, during which time they were to have their education gratis, with every necessary of life, and a suit of clothes once a year. Afterwards, those who desired it might enter into the ministry, either in the Established Church, or among Protestants of any other denomination. The plan for the examination of candidates was drawn up, and approved of by Romaine, Venn, Wesley, and others; and Fletcher was fixed upon to be the president.[600]
Little did the Countess think that the time was near when such a provision would become more important than either she or any of her advisers had imagined. A storm had long been gathering, in both the Oxford and Cambridge Universities; and now it burst. A correspondent of Lloyd’s Evening Post[601] wrote as follows:—
“St. Edmund’s Hall is the place where a lady sends all those who have a mind to creep into Orders. The other day, several of the undergraduates of that Hall disobliged their tutor; and this one spark set their whole Methodistical foundation on fire. The tutor went immediately to their visitor, and laid open all their proceedings, upon which he appointed a meeting of the heads of houses, where seven of them, one of whom is a gentleman commoner, were accused of their several offences. One, I think, was for procuring a false testimonium;[602] another for preaching in the fields before he was in orders; a letter was read publicly, which the tutor had received from a gentleman, testifying that this man had made him a very good periwig only two years before; two or three for frequenting illicit conventicles; but another was accused only of ignorance, impudence, and disobedience, and is acquitted. All the others were expelled, not only for the offences I have mentioned, but, likewise, for preaching doctrines contrary to the Church of England.”
The “lady” referred to in this letter was the Countess of Huntingdon; but there is not the slightest proof of the accusation brought against her.[603] It might contain a modicum of truth; but the base part of the allegation was false and slanderous. The names of the undergraduates were Benjamin Kay, James Matthews, Thomas Jones, ThomasGrove, Erasmus Middleton, and Joseph Shipman. This is not the place to relate the history of the six expelled students; but, it may be added, that, Mr. Kay was of respectable family, and an excellent scholar. Mr. Matthews, who was charged with having been instructed by Fletcher, of Madeley, with being the associate of known Methodists, and with attending illicit conventicles, was afterwards received into Lady Huntingdon’s Academy at Trevecca. Thomas Jones was the periwig-maker, but, for some time, had resided with John Newton, curate of Olney, under whose instruction he had acquired a knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures. Besides the crime of being brought up to the trade of a hair-dresser, he was accused of praying, singing hymns, and expounding the Scriptures in private houses. After his expulsion, he was ordained, became curate of Clifton, near Birmingham, and married the sister of the poet Cowper’s friend, the Lady Austin. Mr. Grove confessed to the Archbishop of Canterbury that he had been led into irregularities; the Chancellor consented to his re-admission; but the Vice-Chancellor refused; and the future history of the submissive undergraduate is unknown. Mr. Middleton was ordained in Ireland by the Bishop of Down; became curate of Romaine and Cadogan; wrote his Biographia Evangelica; and finally was presented to the rectory of Turvey, in the county of Bedford. Mr. Shipman, after his expulsion, was admitted to the Academy of the Countess of Huntingdon at Trevecca. His ministry was soon ended; but, at Plymouth, Bristol, Rodborough, and Haverfordwest, his preaching was singularly useful. He died October 31, 1771.
The tutor, who preferred the charges against the Methodist students, was Mr. Higson, who was not always compos mentis, and had been treated as insane. The Vice-Chancellor was the Rev. Dr. Durell, who was the determined enemy of the accused. Their friend, the Rev. Dr. Dixon, was the principal of their college. Their judges were Drs. Durell, Randolph, Fothergill, Nowell, and Atterbury. The expulsion took place on March 11, 1768.[604]
The event, as might be expected, created a national sensation.A large number of persons warmly approved of the sentence of the judicial junta; among whom was the famous Dr. Johnson. “Sir,” said Johnson to his friend Boswell, “the expulsion was extremely just and proper. What have they to do at a University, who are not willing to be taught, but will presume to teach? Where is religion to be learnt but at a University? Sir, they were examined, and found to be mighty ignorant fellows.” Boswell: “But was it not hard, sir, to expel them, for I am told they were good beings?” Johnson: “I believe they might be good beings, but they were not fit to be in the University of Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in the field, but we turn her out of a garden.”[605] Johnson’s similitude was more forcible than appropriate; but, even admitting that, in a literary point of view, the expelled were not fit for the University, it may be asked, who were responsible for their admission? Really, their only crimes were, that some of them had been ignobly bred, and all of them had sung, and prayed, and read the Scriptures in private houses. In this respect, they were not alone. Dr. Stillingfleet, Fellow of Merton College, and afterwards Prebendary of Worcester; Mr. Foster, of Queen’s College; Mr. Pugh, of Hertford College; Mr. Gordon, of Magdalen; Mr. Clark, of St. John’s; and Mr. Halward, of Worcester College, had done just the same; but these were gentlemen whom it would have been somewhat perilous to treat with the same collegiate tyranny that was exercised towards the humble undergraduates who were ignominiously expelled.
The latter, however, were not without friends. Rowland Hill and his Methodist associates, Pentycross, Simpson, Robinson, and others, at Cambridge, were in intimate communion with them; and Rowland Hill’s brother, afterwards Sir Richard Hill, became their principal defender. He published his “Pietas Oxoniensis.” (8vo. 85 pp.); which was answered by Dr. Nowell, principal of St. Mary’s Hall. Other pamphlets, pro et con, were issued, too numerous to be mentioned here; but Whitefield’s must have attention. It was the last he published, and was entitled, “A Letter to theReverend Dr. Durell, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford; occasioned by a late Expulsion of Six Students from Edmund Hall. By George Whitefield, M.A., late of Pembroke College, Oxford; and Chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon.” (8vo., 50 pp.) The “Letter” was dated, “London, April 12, 1768,” and was one of Whitefield’s most spirited productions. In reply to “one article of impeachment, namely, that some of” the six expelled students “were of trades before they entered the University,” he reminded the Vice-Chancellor that there was no “evil or crime worthy of expulsion” in this, for “God took David from the sheep-fold;” “David’s Lord had for his reputed father a carpenter, and, in all probability, worked at the trade of a carpenter Himself;” He “chose poor fishermen to be His apostles;” and St. Paul “laboured with his own hands, and worked at the trade of a tent-maker.”
In reference to the charge of using extempore prayer, Whitefield argued, that, though the “English liturgy is one of the most excellent forms of public prayer in the world,” yet no form “can possibly suit every particular case.” Besides, said he, “what great sinners must they have been, who prayed, in an extempore way, before any forms of prayer existed? The prayers we read of in Scripture,—the prayers which opened and shut heaven, the effectual, fervent, energetic prayers of those righteous and holy men of old, which availed so much with God, were all of an extempore nature. And I am apt to believe, if, not only our students and ministers, but private Christians, were born from above, and taught of God, as those wrestlers with God were, they would want forms of prayer no more than they did.”[606] “The crime of using extempore prayer is not so much as mentioned in any of our law books; and, therefore, a crime for which, it is to be hoped, no student will hereafter be summoned to appear at the bar of any of the reverend doctors of divinity, or heads of houses in the University of Oxford.” “It is also to be hoped that as somehave been expelled for extempore praying, we shall hear of some being expelled for extempore swearing.”
One extract must suffice respecting the charge of “singing hymns”:—
“Were the sons of the prophets more frequently to entertain themselves thus, it would be as suitable to the ministerial character as tripping up their heels, skipping and dancing at the music of a ball-room, or playing a first fiddle at a concert. The voice of spiritual melody would be as much to the honour of the University as the more frequent noise of box and dice, at the unlawful games of hazard and back-gammon.”