RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Methodists
ence, 1,675; South African, including English and native, 117,146.
Methodism was introduced into Ireland in 1747
by Thomas Williams. In the same year Wesley
visited that country, and on his return
11. Wes- to England sent back his brother leyan Charles and Charles Perronet, who re- Methodism mained six months preaching and orin Ireland, ganizing societies. As Methodism increased so did the efforts of the Roman Catholic Church to crush it. Mobs attacked the " Swaddlers," as Methodists were called, but Wesleyan Methodism gained many converts from the Roman Catholics, as well as from the unattached peasantry, whatever their belief or non-belief. Wesley visited Ireland more than twenty times, and after his death Coke became the apostle of Ireland, visiting it twenty-five times, at his own charge, giving freely to needy preachers and for the erection of chapels. In 1782, when he presided at the Irish conference, there were fifteen circuits and 6,000 members. In 1813 there were fifty-six circuits and 28,770 members. Among the untiring laborers Gideon Ouseley was foremost. Disputes arose concerning the sacraments, which, after the death of Coke, the people received from Presbyterians or the Established Church, according to the tendency of the Methodist preacher. In 1816 a large number seceded, claiming to be members of the Established Church of Ireland, and organized the Primitive Methodist Society of Ireland; but in 1878, after serious vicissitudes, they reunited with the Wesleyan Church of Ireland. A permanent difficulty in the way of retaining a large number of Methodist communicants in the Emerald Isle has been the constant emigration to America; by this means the church for years lost more than 1,000 members per annum. Yet in the centennial year 1839, the 26,000 members contributed $75,000 to the fund, established schools in Dublin and Cork, and, with the aid of friends in the United States and Canada, founded in 1868, and have since maintained, a college of high repute in Belfast. Prominent laymen and ministers have been converted and developed in the Irish Wesleyan Methodist Church; among the ministers, William Arthur, Adam Clarke and Henry Moore, the more distinguished. In 1877 laymen were admitted to the conference. The acts of the Wesleyan conference in Ireland, in accordance with the provision in the conference deed-poll, are made valid by the official concurrence with the said acts of a delegate from the British conference, which concurrence is to the Irish conference what the legal hundred is to the British conference. Ten ministers of the Irish conference are members of the legal hundred of the British, and the ex-president of the British conference presides in the sessions of the Irish conference.
The report for 1909 is 246 ministers, 621 lay preachers, 421 church buildings, 1,606 other preaching-places, 25,969 communicants.
2. Calvinistic Methodists: After the death of Whitefield, the Calvinistic Methodists divided into three sects. The first, known as Lady Huntingdon's Connection (see Huntingdon, Selina Hastings, Countess of), observed strictly the litur- VII.— 22
gical forms of the Church of England, and instead of an itinerant ministry instituted a settled pastorate. As practically a congregational polity was adopted, many of the congregations became associated with the collection of Congregational churches. The second division was the Tabernacle Connection, or Whitefield Methodists. As each society considered itself independent, they soon disappeared as a distinctive denomination, most of them affiliating with the Congregationalists or Independents. The third was the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists (see Presbyterians), organized in 1743. They have prospered, extending principally in Wales and reaching the United States by way of immigration. They are influential and vigorous, at times experiencing revivals of such intensity as to attract the attention of the Christian world. After contributing for many years to the London Missionary Society, the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Foreign Missionary Society was founded in Liverpool in 1840. Its first attempts were in India, where persevering faith has been rewarded. There are more than 500 preaching-places, 450 day schools, 6,000 communicants, and nearly 20,000 attendants.
3. The Methodist New Connection: Alexander Kilham, born in Epworth, 1762, of Methodist parents, became a local preacher, and in 1785 Wesley received him into the regular itinerant ministry. As he grew in influence he proposed various alterations. Three years before the death of Wesley, Kilham made known his design of petitioning the conference " to let us have the liberty of Englishmen, and to give the Lord's Supper to our societies." He sent petitions to the conference of 1791, and submitted a new system of government for the connection. As discussion progressed he grew more determined, appealing to God " to destroy everything that belongs to despotism wherever it appears." At the conference of 1796 he was put upon trial. After hot debate the conference unanimously adjudged him " unworthy of being a member of the Methodist Connection." Soon afterward he began the formation of the Methodist New Connection. In places where the Wesleyans would not allow him to preach in their chapels, dissenters opened their houses of worship. To disseminate his views he established, at Leeds, a periodical called The Monitor. In Leeds 167 class-leaders and other officers, and sixty-seven delegates from the trustees of the connection appeared at the conference of 1797, calling for changes in the government. The spread of sympathy with Kilham's projects within the pale of the Wesleyan connection caused alarm.
The conference of the Methodist New Connection was constituted upon the representative system, laymen having an equal voice with the clergy in the government of the church; while in doctrine and general usages they did not differ from the old connection. This church at first gained rapidly, and later at a slow but steady pace. At the first ecumenical conference, held in London, 1881, it was reported to have 31,652 members. It took the first step in mission work in 1824, and soon after established missions in Ireland. It began a mission in Canada in 1837, and thirty-eight years after,
Methodists