It was, also, decided, that if a man was not able to preach twice a day, he should be only a local preacher; that, of the two, it was better to give up the evening preaching in a place than the morning; that the congregations must constantly kneel in prayer, and stand both in singing and while the text was read, and be serious and silent while the service lasted, and when coming and going away. Persons not having band tickets were not to be permitted to be present at the public meeting of the bands, for this would make the tickets cheap, and would discourage those who had them. Preachers were to be allowed £8, at least, and if possible £10 a year for clothing; and £10 a year were to be allowed for the support of each preacher’s wife. The preachers were to preach frequently and strongly on fasting; and were to practise it every Friday, health permitting. Next to luxury, they were to avoid idleness, and were to spend one hour every day in private prayer. Six preachers were admitted, one of whom was Philip Guier, concerning whom we must say a word. It is well known, that a number of Palatines, driven from Germany, had settled in the neighbourhood of Ballingran; and that, though they were in the first instance a sober, well conducted, and moral people, they had, through having no minister of their own, and no German worship, degenerated into an irreligious, drunken, swearing community. Amidst this general degeneracy, Philip Guier breasted the wave, and, like Milton’s Abdiel, proved faithful among the faithless. He was the master of the German school at Ballingran; and it was in his school, that Philip Embury (subsequently the founder of Methodism in the United States, now a young man thirty-two years of age), had been taught to read and write. By means of Guier, also, the devoted Thomas Walsh, of the same age as Embury, had been enlightened, and prepared to receive the truth as it is in Jesus. Philip Guier was made the leader of the infant society at Limerick, and now, in 1752, was appointed to act as a local preacher among the Palatines. He still kept his school, but devoted his spare hours to preaching. The people loved the man, and sent him, if not money, yet flour, oatmeal, bacon, and potatoes, so that Philip, if not rich, was not in want. It is a remarkable fact, that, after the lapse of a hundred years, the name of Philip Guier is as fresh in Ballingran as it ever was; for there, even papists as well as protestants are accustomed to salute the Methodist minister as he jogs along on his circuit horse, and to say, “There goes Philip Guier, who drove the devil out of Ballingran!”[176] Under the date of May 7, 1778, Wesley writes: “Two months ago, good Philip Guier fell asleep, one of the Palatines that came over and settled in Ireland, between sixty and seventy years ago. He was a father both to this” [Newmarket] “and the other German societies, loving and cherishing them as his own children.