Preaching, on his way, at Chester, Bolton, Manchester, Chelmerton, Wednesbury, and other places, he arrived in Bristol on August 25, and held a conference with about fifty of his preachers. The rules of the society were “read, and carefully considered one by one; and all agreed to abide by them all, and to recommend them with all their might.” The rules of the bands were similarly considered, and, after making some verbal alterations, all consented to observe and to enforce them. The rules of Kingswood school were also reviewed, and were pronounced “agreeable to Scripture and reason.” It was also determined to begin a subscription for the school in every place; and, if needful, to make a collection every year. The principal point discussed was the same as that which occupied so much of the time and attention of the conference of 1755. Wesley writes: “We largely considered the necessity of keeping in the Church, and using the clergy with tenderness; and there was no dissenting voice. God gave us all to be of one mind and of one judgment. My brother and I closed the conference by a solemn declaration of our purpose never to separate from the Church; and all our brethren concurred therein.” This, among the Methodists, was the great question of the day, and deserves the reader’s best attention. “The attempt to force the Methodists to an attendance upon the services of the Church, by refusing to them the sacraments from their own preachers, and by closing their chapels during the sabbath, except early in the morning, and in the evening, drove many of them into a state of actual separation both from the Church and their own societies, and placed them in the hands of Dissenters. At Leeds, Mr. Edwards had assumed the character of an independent minister, as Charles Skelton had done in London, and had drawn away the greater part of the society with him.”[268] Besides this, Edward Perronet, a man of great wit, had published a withering satire on the national Establishment, entitled “The Mitre,” 12mo, 279 pages. As the book was suppressed by Wesley,[269] and is now so extremely scarce, that perhaps not more than a dozen copies can be found,[270] the following selection, from the concluding verses of the first canto, may be acceptable, and may serve to suggest an idea of all the others. They are intended to describe the Established Church. “To what compare thy fertile womb? A den, a cavern, or the tomb? Why not compare to all? Dark, hollow, teeming, large and deep; Or wild, or dead, or fast asleep; And stubborn as a wall. Or like a _mart_, high vending place; Open for every age and face, Who loiter, steal, or range: Or, like the common road or street, Where knaves, as honest, walk or meet; As _Albion’s_ grand _Exchange_.