By her will dated January 11,1790, Lady Huntingdon bequeathed "all her
chapels, houses, furniture therein, and all the residue of her estates
and effects to Thomas Haweis and Janetta Payne, his wife, Lady Ann
Erskine, and John Lloyd." These persons were thus constituted trustees
of all her property, to administer it all to the best of their ability,
in harmony with what they knew to be her wishes. Many of the buildings
associated with her name and ministers were local trusts, so that the
power of the Connexion trustees never extended over more than a portion
of the churches which her evangelistic zeal had founded or strengthened.
It was almost inevitable that such an arrangement should be fatal to
development, and so it has proved.
The latest sketch of Lady Huntingdon's life thus sets forth the present
position of the Connexion: "The Fifteen Articles are the bond and
doctrinal basis of administration in the Connexion; and in the words of
the Countess, written when she left the Church of England, 'Our
ministers must come recommended by that neutrality between Church and
Dissent--secession.' Beyond this the Connexion has no act of uniformity.
The worship, according to the varying needs of different localities,
may be liturgical or non liturgical. Congregations are allowed much
liberty in the form of their self-government." [1]
[Footnote 1: _The Countess of Huntingdon and her Connexion_, edited by
Rev. J.B. Figgis, M.A., p. 48.]
[Illustration: L: Huntingdon]
When Lady Huntingdon died there were only seven chapels in the legal
possession of her representatives; but there were in all about one
hundred in close union with and considered as together forming her
Connexion. In the century succeeding her decease, while the number
vested in the trustees of the Connexion increased from seven to
thirty-three, the total number diminished to less than one half. Not a
few of those included in the latter half became Congregational Churches,
and remain in that fellowship up to this time. Some have been swept away
by modern improvements, and never rebuilt elsewhere. The steady pressure
of life and thought during the last half century has told rather against
the development of churches which stand apart from the life and
associations on the one hand of the Established Church, and on the other
of Nonconformity. But the mere enumeration of the chief chapels yet
remaining, either in the central or in special local trusts, is
interesting as an illustration of how the evangelising influence of Lady
Huntingdon and her preachers extended to all corners of the kingdom.
They are found at Bath, Bristol, Brighton, Canterbury, Cheltenham, Ely,
Exeter, Hereford, Kidderminster, Malvern, Margate, Norwich, St. Ives,
Cornwall, Rochdale, Swansea, Spa Fields, Tunbridge Wells, Worcester,
and Yarmouth.
X.
CLOSING YEARS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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