_A._ No; not by one assistant out of three. For instance. Every assistant ought, 1. To “see that the other preachers behave well.” But who has sent me word, whether they did or no? 2. “To visit the classes, regulate the bands, and deliver tickets quarterly.” How few have done this? 3. Love-feasts for the bands have been neglected. 4. Nor have persons been regularly taken in, and put out of the bands. 5. I fear, many of the quarterly meetings are formal, not spiritual. 6. The societies are not half supplied with books, not even with _Kempis_, _Instructions for Children_ and _Primitive Physic_, which ought to be in every house. And why should not each of you do like _William Pennington_? Carry books with you through every round: exert yourselves in this. Be not ashamed. Be not weary. Leave no stone unturned. 7. How few accounts have I had, either of remarkable deaths, or remarkable conversions? 8. How few exact lists have we received of the societies? Take more time, and more pains in preparing them. 9. Who of you has met the married and single men and women once a quarter, even in the largest societies? 10. You have not provided a private room every where for the preacher: nor a bed to himself: neither the library, for want of which, some still read trash. Till this can be done, let there be immediately in every place, at least the _Notes_ and the tract on _Original Sin_.
_Q._ 41. Are there any other advices which you would give the assistants?
_A._ Several. 1. Take a regular catalogue of your societies, as they live, in house-row. 2. Leave your successor a particular account of the state of the circuit. 3. See that every band-leader have the rules of them. 4. Vigorously, but calmly, inforce the rules concerning ruffles, drams, snuff, and tobacco. When any person is admitted into the society, even good breeding requires him to conform to the rules of that society. The same you should inforce in _Scotland_ as _England_. The _Scots_ will hear reason as well as the _English_. 5. As soon as there are four men or women believers in any place, put them into a band. 6. Every where insist on decency and cleanliness. Tell them cleanliness is next to godliness. 7. Suffer no love feast to last above an hour and half; let not one duty interfere with another, and stop all breaking the cake with one another. That silly custom was introduced by _James Wheatley_, and creates much confusion. And, 9. inform all the people from time to time, that none should remove from one society to another, without a sufficient reason; and that those who desire to remove are to acquaint you with their reasons, and to have a certificate in these words (else they will not be received in other societies.) “_A. B._ the bearer, is a member of our society in _M――――_, I believe he has a sufficient cause for removing.” 10. In every place, exhort those who were brought up in the church to continue therein. And in visiting the classes, ask every one, “Do you go to church as often as ever you did?” Set the example yourself: and immediately alter every plan that interferes therewith: so that every preacher may attend the church, at least two Sundays out of four.
Is there not a cause? Are we not unawares by little and little sliding into a separation from the church? O remove every tendency thereto with all diligence. 1. Let all our preachers go to church. 2. Let all the people go constantly; and, 3. Receive the sacrament at every opportunity. 4. Warn all against niceness in hearing, a great and prevailing evil. 5. Warn them also against despising the prayers of the church. 6. Against calling our society _a church_ or _the church_. 7. Against calling our preachers _ministers_, our houses _meeting houses_, (call them plain _preaching houses_.) 8. Do not license them as such: the proper form of a petition to the judge or justice is, “_A. B._ desires to have his house in _C――――_, licensed for public worship.” 9. Do not license yourself till you are constrained, and then not as a _Dissenter_, but a _Methodist_ preacher. It is time enough when you are prosecuted, to take the oaths. And by so doing you are licensed.
_Q._ 42. But are we not _Dissenters_?