calculated to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace? And are those individuals our best friends who are most earnest in this work of alienation? I mean no personal allusions, I assure you, to any individual among you: I hope I very sincerely love you all; and I wish that bonds of union may be multiplied, which may bring us closer and closer together, instead of these cords of separation which, drawing in other directions, will every day remove us to a greater and yet greater distance. Permit me also to ask whether this is the time for such exertions? If indeed your minister were sleeping at his post; if he were lying down, and loving to slumber; if the schools happened to be on the decline in respect of numbers, or in regard to the insufficiency of superintendents or teachers; if scarcely anything were going forward adequate to the necessities of the parish; then, indeed, such exertions might be called for. But how contrary is all this to the real state of the case! It is at a time when the schools are so crowded as to render it impossible to instruct them in the usual place: it is at a time when, to afford greater facilities of instruction, the larger schools are being divided into twenty or thirty minor schools, and these so situated as to be almost at the door of every child in the parish, and so arranged as to admit of every one being taught who is capable of instruction. You will readily perceive, then, that the stir which is making at present, is by no means called for in the existing necessities of the case. To what, then, must it be attributed? It is commonly reported that it arises from a fear entertained by some, lest my present plans and procedures should attach too many children to the Established Church, and thus eventually make them Churchmen instead of Methodists. This reason, however, I feel I ought by no means to admit; for, whatever may be said of others, the Methodists of the parish of Madeley have long made it their boast that they were firm in their attachment to our venerable Church: and so strong has been their attachment, that the majority of them would never listen to any proposals of having their services so conducted as at all to interfere with the services of the church, and would never permit the sacrament to be administered in their chapels; and there are many who feel a secret satisfaction in being able to state, that they have never yet partaken of the sacred ordinance, excepting from a clergyman; and they are still determined that no one shall ever make this their consistent glorying to be in vain. {146} It is with peculiar satisfaction, that I consider my relation to such individuals; and I assure you, I rejoice over you as my parishioners; I point you out as an example to others; and I hope we shall never see the time when the parishioners, and more especially the spiritual sons and daughters of the venerable and apostolic Mr. Fletcher, shall cease to be identified with