it is to be feared-mer of no piety. In the feeble and delusive glimmer of the DARK Lantern, these persons, like Jack-in-the-box, immediately spring up into consequence and importance; and then, perfectly deceived by the deceptive character of his own light, the editor of the Lantern trumpets them forth as kings in our Israel-men of influence and worth. If, however, the signs of the time tell any tale at all, it is this: that these men, who rose like the rocket, are now descending like the stick, into their primitive insignificancy-from Smith, the cotton-spinner, of Stockport, to Charles Fergie, the friend and counsellor of Mr. H. Pooley, jun. We are happy to give the following correspondence for the amusement and edification of our readers : DOCTOR WARREN TO MR. J. S. OF CASTLE DONNINGTON. DEAR SIR-Though unknown personally to you, yet from my knowledge of your name and patriotic character I have taken the liberty of sending you the accompanying sheet. I am, dear sir, yours most respectfully, SAML. WARREN. Manchester, 8th. Nov. 1834. MR. J. S. TO DR. WARREN. DEAR SIR-I am in receipt of yours of the 8th inst., with printed resolutions and propositions, made and passed at your quarterly meeting. Although you are personally unknown to me, I have always been accustomed to associate with the name of Samuel Warren, all that is amiable, kind, and characteristic of a minister of Jesus Christ. But on reading a pamphlet of yours, relative to the Theological Institution, purporting to be the substance of a speech delivered before the Conference, I am sorry to say that I thought it greatly wanting in that Christian courtesy I expected to have seen from Dr. Warren, and containing sentiments calculated to excite so much discord in the Methodist connexion. Perusing your printed circular of to-day, contemplating such mighty changes in the constitution of Methodism, issued at a time when there is such a thirst for change in all the institutions of the country, and so much opposition to all kinds of government, both in church and state, I must acknowledge I was perfectly astonished. My dear sir, whatever may be your designs, your proceedings will undoubtedly cause great discord and disunion in the connexion, and a division must take place. I am not surprised that you should be so deeply impressed with the awful risk of indecision, as expressed in your circular. Awful indeed must be the crisis to you and the whole world. Methodism has been attacked many times, but has she appeared less brilliant in her career of usefulness? No! it has been the means of removing some rubbish from her pale, and although many valuable members have been swept away with it, generally speaking, they have returned to the old ship again; and I need not tell you of the prosperity of the cause in those places where these divisions have occurred. Suppose you succeed in causing a division (of which there appears little doubt) in all probability you may have a great many followers; you may be placed at the head. What then? Do you think such subjects will be governed by good and wholesome laws? No: they will be subjects that will refuse to acknow ledge the powers that be. Could you have conceived that a man so base could be found, who would at this crisis of Missionary affairs, when every energy ought to be exerted in that glorious cause, to meet the demand for Missionary labour, go and prevent the holding a Missionary meeting, and thereby cripple her energies by stopping her supplies.* Under a plea which you have supplied, that the Conference had established a theological institution designed to render her ministers more efficient, and her Missionaries better qualified for their important work. No. I cannot conceive for a moment that Dr. Warren ever intended such use to be made of his pamphlet. With regard to the opposition made to the theological institution by the people of Manchester, it comes with a very bad grace from them. I conceive their conversion to its * Mr, S. was not aware that Dr, Warren actually applauded the man who performed this base and dishonourable part at the Bridgewater-street Missionary Meeting, Manchester. See "Work for Doctor Warren," Second Edition, p, 18. faith to be the easiest thing imaginable. Only place me on the stationing Committee two years with full powers, and I would engage to have their liberal support instead of their violent opposition. I would not appoint them Dr. Warren and such men as they have been favoured with!-Relative to the resolutions passed at your meeting, I would observe that it would have been more consistent with the high and honourable character sustained by Dr. Warren, to have quietly left the Methodist connexion, and have joined himself with that section of the Methodist family whose views of church government coincide with his own, instead of agitating the whole body. I must conclude by hoping soon to hear that Dr. Warren has come to his right mind again-that he has returned to his Father's house-a house where he has been blessed and made a blessing; and although there may be a few cobwebs, and a little dust collected upon her pillars these may be swept away, that the nations of the earth may see her glory and beauty. Yours most sincerely, J. S. Castle Donnington, 11th Nov. 1834. NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS. Since the appearance of the first Illuminator, our publisher and his agents have been threatened with law proceedings and what not, by those who "love darkness rather than light." Mr. Beynon, who thinks his character likely to suffer by illumination, has sent us a letter threatening what he will do, in case any portion of that unwelcome thing called light should be thrown upon him. The gentlemen of the "association " may well clamour for the vote by ballot, for above all things they cannot bear being seen. "If one know them, they are in the terrors of the shadow of death.”—In the midst of all these alarms and threats, the circuit-stewards in the Liverpool North Circuit have received the sum of £18 8s. 4d. from their quondam friends of Leedsstreet, for which they before applied repeatedly, but in vain. A few weeks ago, the question about paying a part of this money then more than due was put to the seceding leaders' meeting, and rejected by a large majority. Since then the Illuminator has emitted a single flash, and they have "unanimously resolved" to pay the whole forthwith. We happen to know, that although the account sent to the stewards is not quite satisfactory, yet these gentlemen duly appreciate our services as illuminators! The documents which accompany this remittance may be of some importance. The Music-Hall meeting, by a formal vote, has directed part of the society's income for the past quarter to be paid over to the circuit stewards, and part to be kept back. The authority which thus disposes of the revenues, without consulting any body but itself, and according to its mere will and pleasure, is, of course, sovereign and supreme, and can only belong to a separate and independent community. The documents are duly signed and authenticated, and establish the independence of the new community, beyond all contradiction. Strange that these sons of freedom did not long time since, as they have done at last, by a short-lived act of violence, throw off the incubus of a Conference superintendency, and assert their rights as free-born Britons. This would have saved half an age of strife and contentionall the unpleasantness connected with the recent expulsions, and the ridiculous hubbub which has arisen out of them. Communications of a most encouraging character, in reference to the feelings in favour of the present constitution and discipline of Methodism, have been received since our last went to press, from the following circuits :-Haverford West, Guisborough, Alnwick, Howden, Leeds, Loughborough, Huddersfield, North Shields, Bolton, Dover, London north, Lymm, Halifax, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Bridlington, Manchester, Newark-upon-Trent, Portsmouth, Tavistock, Market Raisen. From A Lover of Methodism, Philalethes, Sigma, Mentor, A. B., Delta, W. B., W. P., and Faithful, we have received important communications, and hope to be favored with their assistance as often as their other engagements will permit. Israel is under consideration. If he will leave his address at our publisher's, we should have pleasure in corresponding with him. An Admirer of "The Case without a Parallel ;" Review of John Beynon's Case; Logic in a Lantern-or, John Gordon at the Music Hall, Leeds, will appear in our next. Printed and Published by R. Dickinson, 67, Pool-lane, to whom all Communications (post-paid) are to be addressed. ILLUMINATOR; DESIGNED TO EXHIBIT THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF THE WESLEYAN CONSTITUTION; TO VINDICATE THE CHARACTER OF ITS AUTHORITIES; TO GUARD THE MEMBERS AGAINST THE ATTEMPTS MADE TO SEDUCE THEM FROM THE SOCIETY; AND EXPOSE THE SPIRIT AND OBJECTS OF THE SO CALLED GRAND CENTRAL ASSOCIATION.' 66 TO BE PUBLISHED EVERY FORTNIGHT. No. 3. SECOND EDITION. LIVERPOOL, SEPT. 6, 1835. Price 2d. AN EARNEST APPEAL TO THE MEMBERS OF THE WESLEYAN METHODIST SOCIETIES, IN LIVERPOOL, On the Anarchy introduced by the Members of the so called (Concluded from our last.) APPEALS are made to you-loud and impassioned-that the preachers are corrupt, tyrannical, and constantly encroaching on your liberties.A distinction is attempted to be set up between the interests of the people and the preachers, and it is to be apprehended that the stratagem to divide you into two distinct classes has been but too successful. We have the strange anomaly of preachers' men and peoples' men. As the connexion of the two parties is altogether voluntary, we ask you, whether the interests of the preachers can be separable from yours? It is obviously for their advantage to have the united, affectionate and Christian support of all the church with whom they may be associated. It would be a proof of absolute folly for the preachers intentionally to isolate their interests. As we believe that God and religion make the happiness and good of ministers and people identical, so we cannot imagine that the preachers are so destitute of common prudence, to say nothing of higher principle, as to frame their proceedings with a view to grind and oppress those to whom they are sent to minister the word of life. We put it to you, our brethren in Christ, whether you have been deprived of any of your privileges and rights? You know that you have possessed whatever Methodism possesses. Its gates have been thrown widely open to you, and you have been encouraged to luxuriate freely, and without let or hindrance, in its richest spiritual pastures. It found many of you spiritually poor, but it has made you rich-it found you in darkness and the shadow of death, and it has given you light; and, as piety is power, and God bestows with regeneration gifts for usefulness, greater THE BRITISH CRITIC AND THE ASSOCIATION. We give the following extracts from a Review of "Stephens' Life of Dr. Clarke, by the British Critic, for Jan. 1835, as exhibiting the feeling with which our dissensions are regarded by Churchmen; a feeling as creditable to them as the cause producing it is disgraceful to those whose rebellious and turbulent conduct has thus become the subject of remark and reprehension: 'We have perused this volume with very mixed emotions. It has afforded us ample gratification as exhibiting the life and labours of a most extraordinary man, and it has filled us with melancholy as it discloses the spirit of division which-if we may judge from the tenor of this work-is now threatening to rend the vitals of the whole. Methodistic system. We have no sort of delight in contemplating these elements of discord. Confusion, divergency, and gradual decomposition, we verily believe to be the natural fate of separation. Dissent is born to this sort of trouble as the sparks of fire fly upward. But foul befal that Churchman who can look upon the fulfilment of this destiny with feelings of satisfaction. If his heart be right with God or with man, instead of rejoicing, he would be prompted to exclaim, with the sorrowing Priest of Anathoth-() that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears!' And of all the families of dissent, there assuredly is no one better entitled to the sympathies of Churchmen than the communion of John Wesley. It is a miserable thing to see his people running into the broad and beaten ways of anarchy and confusion; his own heart would bleed, if he were now living, to behold such sights. And Churchmen though we be, ourheart bleeds at the thought of what he would have to endure, if he could witness the spirit which seems now to be abroad among them who call themselves by his name. "From this we may learn, that the Spirit of the Age is most magnanimously impartial it can attack the Wesleyan hierarchy as fiercely as the national hierarchy.— An intractable and self-willed minister sets at defiance the canons of the Conference; for this he is suspended from his functions; and straightway the Spirit of the Age, speaking by the mouth of its trusty and brazen-tongued herald, proclaims the primate an intolerable autocrat, and threatens the Synod with the wholesome superintendence of a body of lay-delegates. And this reform, it further declares, will be irresistibly enforced by the voice of the people; and there is confidently anticipated a 'crisis in Methodism' which will produce the most beneficial result in the entire body.' This crisis, it would seem, is actually hastening to its completion; for we find that a meeting of stewards, leaders, trustees, and local preachers has recently been held at Manchester, with a view to the formation of a religious association for obtaining religious liberty;' and further, that the people now begin to speak of three manner of persons-Whig Methodists, Tory Methodists, and Radical Methodists. The Warrenites are called Whigs; those who continue their allegiance to the Conference, Tories; and the Stephenites, Radicals. It is almost needless for us to say, that our cordial wishes are with the Tory Methodists; for this seems to be the only portion of the body which retains a single fragment of John Wesley's ecclesiastical mantle." The phraseology cited above, and hacknied by political reformers, sufficiently shows that the agitation of political subjects among all classes has produced a strong tendency to republicanism, a restless desire of polical change, and an aversion to all restraint and rule; and this spirit is transfused into religious communities, and, like a mighty incubus, sits brooding over the churches, stifling all useful exertion, and fostering under its dark wing,' discord, rebellion, and schism. But is there any parallel between the power devolving on our Conference, and the power of civil government; or, indeed, that of a national church supported by statutes, and the civil arm? Is not the power exerted by the Conference moral influence chiefly, and that based upon the confidence inspired by the salutary effects which have resulted from the beneficial working of the system to individuals and society in general? Is the union of our people with the body voluntary, or is it compulsory? If voluntary, is not that a sufficient check to an undue assumption of power? Is it likely that means, illegitimate in themselves, and offensive to just and scriptural principles, should be employed, when the people have the liberty at any time to withdraw themselves, and thereby to dissolve the Connexion? If, then, there is no parallel between our constitution and the civil constitution, it is clear that the weapons employed to subvert the one cannot prosper against the other; they may agitate, but cannot destroy. And ruefully are they mistaken who engage in such a contest, and greatly chagrined will they be at the futility of their assaults— "As surging waves against a solid rock, Though all to shivers dashed, th' assault renew- Has, then, Methodism effected the good which is generally attributed to Correspondence. TO THE EDITOR OF THE ILLUMINATOR. Sir-No society was ever formed by the servants of God, under the influences of the Spirit of Wisdom, without suffering from the open and secret attacks of the enemies of order and discipline. These assiduously introduce themselves to the notice, friendship, and fellowship of men, who, with a real desire of advancing the good of others, as well as of receiving good themselves, joyfully hail every sign, no matter how small and indistinct, which may encourage them to hope that a work of grace has been commenced in the heart; at once do they offer the right hand of fellowship, and enter into the closest intimacy with many who, having first deceived themselves, find it no difficult manner to deceive almost every one with whom they are connected. In this way, tares of the most rancorous and destructive kind have been sown amongst the wheat; and notwithstanding the laborious efforts of those who have the care of the gospel field to preserve the good seed from being stinted in its growth, or "choked" by the fatal and withering influence of the offensive or the bad, they see with pain that it is utterly impossible to produce any beneficial effect to the whole but by effecting a separation of the one from the other. This is equally wise and judicious. Notwithstanding |