have had several warm contests with a friend because I woiilil not liave my child baptized in the usual way. The storm, however, soon blew over. I hope God will open the eyes of the JNIcthodists to see their sin and fol- ly in their inconsistent connection with the Church." The opposition against ecclesiastical subservienc}' to the laws of the Church of England became more determined after the decision of the Conference at ilanchester, July 20, 17'J1, the first after Mr. Wesley's death, to " take the plan as ]Mr. Wesley had left it." '" The controversy could not," says Stevens {Ulstorij of Methadhm, iii, 38), "but be resumed, and more definite results must be reached before the Church could be at rest. Partisans of the national Church regarded the pledge as binding the jMethodists to the Establishment ; the advocates of progress dissented, and, in the language of Pawson, de- clared, ' Not so ; our old plan has been to follow the openings of Providence, and to alter or amend the plan as we saw it needful, in order to be more useful in the hand of God." Hanby, whom Wesley had authorized to administer the sacraments, still claimed the right to do so wherever the societies wished him. Pawson wrote the same year that if the people ^vere denied the sacraments they woidd leave the connection in many places. Taylor was determined to administer them in Liverpool; and Atmore wrote that, having 'solemnly promised upon his knees before God and his people that he would give all diligence not only to preach the word, but to administer the sacraments in the Church of God,' he woultl do so wherever required by the people. ' We were as much divided,' he later wrote, ' in our views and practice as before ;' and numerous disputes occurred dur- ing the year respecting the administration of the sacra- ments and a total separation from the Church of Eng- land. Circular letters in great abundance were sent into different parts of the kingdom, and the minds of the people were much diverted from the pursuit of more sublime objects by others which tended but little to the profit of the soul.' The diversified opinions of the con- nection were, in fine, resolving themselves into three classes, and giving rise to as many parties, composed respectively of men who, from their attachment to the EstaliUshment, wished no change, unless it might be a greater subordination to the national Church by the abandonment of the sacraments in those cases where Wesley had admitted them ; of such as wished to main- tain Wesley's plan intact, with official provisions which might be requisite to administer it ; and such as desired revolutionarjr changes, with a more equal distribution of powers among laymen and preachers." Kilham be- longed to the third party, and used all the means at his command to influence the leaders in that direction. At the next Conference, however, he was severely crit- icised for his assertion of the popular rights, and for the pulilication of a pamjihlet on the Progress of LiherUj. in which he urged a distribution of the power of govern- ment between the clerical and the lay elements. In the course of the controversy severe remarks had been thrown out by Kilham, which were construed by the preachers into defamations of the society, and at the London C(3nference of 1790 he was formally arraigned, and expcUed from the connection. Tliis sunimarj' pro- cess precipitated the division of sentiment, and residted in the estabUshment of an independent body (now known as the New Connection Methodists) in 1797 at Ebenezer Chapel. Sec Methodists, New Connection. A writ- er in the Wesleyan Times of May \i, 1802, furnishes doc- uments wliich go to prove that Kilham's course, both in 1793-4, and even as late as 1790, had the approval of the most celebrated leaders of Methodism. At that time Dr. Adam Clarke, Pawson, Bromwell, and Cownley, all earnestly indorsed the movement. Kilham himself did not long survive the ecclesiastical censure of his breth- ren. He died in 1798. It is but just to his memory to say that he is acknowledged by all to have been a man of fervent piety, and that he was animated by great zeal for the success of the Weslcvan cause. What he
actually sought to accomplish was the entire separation of the Methodists from the Established Church, with a due representation of the lay element in the govern- ment of the new Church, to be formed at once. See, for a fuller discussion of this subject, besides the article New Connection Methodists, and the authorities al- ready quoted. Smith, Hist, of Wesleyan Methodism (new edition), ii, 30 sq. ; Cooke, Ilisf. of Kilham. (J. H. W.) Kilhamites. See Kilham.