Wesley throws all the blame upon M‘Nab; but it may fairly be doubted whether this was just. There can be no question concerning Wesley’s abstract right to appoint to his chapels whom he pleased; but the manner in which the right was exercised is not an improper subject for doubt and discussion. Wesley pleads what he did twenty years before; but, even allowing that his action then was right, it remains to be proved, that the same action, under altered circumstances, was prudent now. During that interval, the number of Methodists and Methodist preachers had more than doubled. Besides, now that the number of itinerant preachers was more than a hundred and sixty; and that many of them were men of great genius and talent, as well as piety; and that all had a right to take part in the deliberations of the annual conference, which really made the appointments for the ensuing year, Wesley’s claim to have the sole and exclusive power, asserted in the document read to the Bath society, is a claim which can hardly be admitted.[342] There is a forgetfulness of existing facts, and therefore a fallaciousness, in the following letter, written on this subject a few weeks after the Bath disturbances occurred. “_January, 1780._ “MY DEAR BROTHER,--You seem not to have well considered the Rules of a Helper, or the rise of Methodism. It pleased God, by me, to awaken, first my brother, and then a few others; who severally desired of me, as a favour, that I would direct them in all things. After my return from Georgia, many were both awakened and converted to God. One, and another, and another of these desired to join with me as sons in the gospel, to be directed by me. I drew up a few plain rules (observe there was no conference in being!), and permitted them to join me on these conditions. Whoever, therefore, violates these conditions, particularly that of being directed by me in the work, does, _ipso facto_, disjoin himself from me. This brother M‘Nab has done (but he cannot see that he has done amiss): and he would have it a common cause; that is, he would have all the preachers do the same. He thinks ‘they have a right so to do.’ So they have. They have a right to disjoin themselves from me whenever they please. But they cannot, in the nature of the thing, join with me any longer than they are directed by me. And what, if fifty of the preachers disjoined themselves! What should I lose thereby? Only a great deal of labour and care, which I do not seek; but endure, because no one else either can or will.