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profession-but they have few individuals, and no congregations, among them, that I know of, that can properly be said to be wealthy. For the most part, when men become rich they leave the Methodists [but who draws them-who has drawn away so many rich families from the Friends? ]. The way is too narrow, and the discipline too strait for their continuance. In some few instances, rich men have aimed at swaying a lordly dominance among ns, and have given the Preachers great pain by obstructing the proper discipline of the body for a season: but beyond this I know of no other corruption or mischief that wealth has done us.'

Happy Methodists, who are thus proof against worldly-mindedness in the little! I am sure I cannot say so much for my own fellowmembers, the Friends. However, having thus given place to my respected Correspondent's matter, down to an allusion to the subject of a personal nature, which I do not understand (and which he will perhaps explain to me) I must request, in justice to my Editor-ship, the he will be pleased now to turn back to page 214, Vol. 1, and reperuse the passage; at the same time reading also pages 140–142, 190-192, 261-263, and 280-284 of the same Volume. If he will not, after this, admit that I have done the body to which he belongs ample justice, I know not how to satisfy him. I shall not meet any man's curiosity at the risque of hurting others, and the good cause itself, by specifying individuals or congregations; respecting which I believe I might soon have the matter of offence in my hands. I have not gone throngh this evil world, thus far, with my eyes shut-nor, on the other hand, have I watched for evil in those with whom I have conversed. What I wrote was from my own observation of the spirits and practice (in a religious sense) more than of the private conduct, of divers of that people-to whom I owe, and I believe do endeavour to render, all Christian affection and brotherly help. They have a great deal more (unless I am greatly mistaken) of mere human learning among them, cultivated in reference to and connexion with the ministry of the word, than formerly they are more under the trammels of System and Church-rule: they deal less exclusively with the plain Bible. They are not the people they were in the days of the Wesleys, when they were almost evermore in the highways and hedges; and, like poor Job, had to drink up scorning as water!

But what then-are they alone in the trespass? There is not at this time a religious society on the face of the earth, known to me, that allows to its members individually the true liberty of Conscience in its full extent, or that exercises in entire Charity the true Ecclesiastical rule. No matter to me, whether it be a Bench or a Conference, a Conclave or a Presbytery; it is all one if men do not in these things as they would that others should do to them, but use as power merely the power put into their hands. We have great need of being humbled in God's sight on this account, I verily believe: The Lord (if it be his will yet to spare us) help and mend us all!

If there be not in the Conference a majority disposed to hold with the Hierarchy, in an unscriptural unjust rule over the people, why do not

CATECHETICAL READING OF THE SCRIPTURES.

351

the Methodists now come forth, more generally, to assert their religious privileges, their undoubted birthright as Britons and Christians, in their respective parishes? Why do they not, in the Vestries at large, overwhelm at once the abomination of desolation, the revolting system of fraud and oppression, which in spite of reason and equity so generally prevails, in parochial administrations, throughout the land?

Faithful are the wounds of a friend! Let them forgive me this wrong, if such it should prove; but let them shew themselves (if they would still be the men that WESLEY and WHITFIELD raised up) on the Lord's side against the oppressors of his people. They have become, it is freely admitted, probably the most powerful religious body (once driven or drawn to act in union) that exists in England: they could, I suppose, turn the scale, now, against ignorance, misrule and exaction, as they did formerly in favour of a free teaching administration, in SCHOOLS FOR ALL. Let them, I say again, come forward to the help of the Lord against the mighty.'

If they refuse or neglect to do this-if they prefer to manifest duty the prospect of a snug settlement of their preachers, in the vacant benefices and land-locked tithes, the event may prove them mistaken in their reckoning-they may be shipwrecked, as many have been before them, at the very port of their desires. God Almighty has given us enough in prophecy, and still more in the Gospel of his Son, to assure us that He will have that freely given to man, which he hath freely and bountifully bestowed upon his children; and that the day hastens upon these, in which they shall no longer need to be continually saying to each other, 'Know the Lord'-but shall all know Him, from the least unto the greatest. And not till this day comes, will he deign, in that eminent and excellent manner which prophecy sets forth, to dwell in them and walk in them, and make them as conspicuously His people as He, the Lord Almighty, is THEIR GOD! Ed.

ART. III. From the "FRIEND" (Philadelphia) Journal, of First Mo. 5th 1833: on the subject of a 'Catechetical reading of the Scriptures.'

"My present address to thee arises from a strong solicitude that the important and very worthy design, suggested in the article alluded to [treating the subjects in a preceding No.] may not be protracted. There is a very imperious demand upon the time and talents of those who, by a beneficent Creator, have been blessed with discriminating and comprehensive minds. The situation of our poor lapsed Society, and the uninformed state of those who are rising into active life among us, upon subjects of the greatest magnitude, must convince every religious and reflecting mind, that there is a ponderous debt due to such as are now in the earlier periods of existence. And to what better or more noble purpose can the talents and energies of an individual be devoted, than that of contributing to form characters

among ourselves, who may become ornaments to society; and, by a blessing upon early instruction and dedication to the religion of our adorable Redeemer, eventually be dignified with honour and crowned with Eternal life?"

I am glad to see this paragraph. When I compare the state of things among us in this respect in my childhood, with the present concern and endeavour of Friends, to have their children catechetically instructed in the history and doctrine of Holy Scripture, and reflect how little the ordinary Ministry of the word from the gallery now does for us, I cannot but hail every serious proposal of this kind, as an omen of better days awaiting our Society. Ed.

ART. IV.-FABLES, &c., IN PROSE AND VERSE-CONTINUED, The Mice and the Weasel.

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Weak, and half blind with age ;—no more
A match for robbers of the store,
By swiftness or by nose,
The weasel hit upon a scheme,
Roll'd in the mealy dust, to seem
Like nought that creeps or goes.

A mouse, by this device, was brought
Within the prowler's reach, and caught;
A second followed, soon;

And quickly thus, as weasel's food,
O'er death's irremeable flood

The colony had gone!

But one there was, prop of the state,
Gray-haired, with counsel in his pate,
Though wanting half his tail;

So well-informed in penal law,

Traps, gins,-nay, shrewd Grimalkin's paw,
With him were found to fail.

Forth peeping from his hold, he spies
The ambuscade, and in a trice

Detects the wily stoat:

"Could I but have my will," cried he,

"Nor mouse nor meal should stuffing be

For that well-powder'd coat!”

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Communications may be addressed, POST PAID, For the Editor of the Yorkshireman,"

at the Printer's, Pontefract; at Longman and Co's, London; John Baines and Co's, Leeds; and W. Alexander's, York.

CHARLES ELCOCK, PRINTER, PONTEFRACT.

THE

YORKSHIREMAN,

Α

RELIGIOUS AND LITERARY JOURNAL

No. XLVII.

BY A FRIEND.

PRO PATRIA.

SECOND DAY, 16th SIXTH Mo. 1834. PRICE 4d.

The YEARLY MEETING OF FRIENDS held in LONDON concluded on the 30th ult. a Session of nine days, being the hundred and fiftyseventh in regular succession from its commencement. (a) The principal object for which this Meeting was first held, to-wit, collecting the accounts of the Sufferings of Friends, and taking the needful measures thereon, has been attended to at this season.

It being a time of profound peace, the distraints upon our members for Military demands (if any occurred) must have been of very trifling amount. In the Sufferings for 1832, reported last year, there was found but the sum of Eleven Pounds taken on this account: I did not ascertain, being pressed for time, whether any such were now reported at all-But the account (ascertained or presumed) for ECCLESIASTICAL PURPOSES, stands thus: For the year 1833, now reported, a Total of Eleven thousand nine hundred and nineteen pounds-the same for 1832 having been Twelve thousand three hundred and sixty-four pounds; and for 1831, Twelve thousand seven hundred and thirty-three pounds. The probable total loss to the Society, by distraints on the property of its members at the instance of the Levitical priesthood of the Establishment, and its Officers, being now about ONE MILLION, ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-NINE THOUSAND POUNDS. It is, admitted that, from some cause, there is an annual diminution in the amount of these distraints; so that the sum reported in 1834 is less than that reported in 1830 by £2681-it may be, from an increasing measure of forbearance on the part of the Claimants; but it should not be forgotten, that we are now an oppressed (by other means than force) and in numbers, if not

(a) There were General meetings of the Society in London before 1678, but not constituted as at present. See on this subject page 219 of this Volume.

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in substance also, a gradually diminishing people. The power to exact, too, continues in unabated strength: and who shall say, when the race of fox hunting parsons shall have become extinct, and their places shall be fully supplied by a set of Scribes and Pharisees, more precise in manners and more punctual in performance, how soon and how sorely it may be renewed upon us? For my own part, I think Friends have done perfectly right in going before Parliament at this season, to renew their ancient, well known Testimony and Protest against every practice inconsistent with the freedom of Gospel ministry, in the following terms :—

ART. I.-Petition of the Quakers against Tithes, &c.

"We the undersigned Members of the Religious Society of Friends, assembled at our Yearly Meeting in London, deem it right in consequence of the measures now in contemplation of the Government, to approach the Legislature on the subject of Tithes, and other Ecclesiastical Imposts. Firmly convinced that all exactions for religious services are contrary to the Spirit and Letter of the Christian Religion, and that when enforced on persons who conscientiously disapprove of these services, they are opposed to the Laws of immutable Justice, the foundation of all right Legislation, We do most respectfully but earnestly beseech you, to adopt no measure which may tend in any new form to render Ecclesiastical Claims more fixed and permanent. "These imposts originated in times of darkness and superstition. We believe their continuance after the Reformation in this Country, tended greatly to obstruct its course, and that the cause of Christianity is intimately connected with the abolition of compulsory payments for Religious Services. Your Petitioners gratefully acknowledge the relief which from time to time has been afforded to this Society by the Legislature, from sufferings endured for the Testimony of a good conscience, in regard to these claims; but apprehending that the inevitable tendency of the proposed measures, is to confirm an unjustifiable interference on the part of the Civil Power in the Religious concerns of the Community, they feel bound to beseech the House that they may not pass into Laws, but that effectual measures may be taken for the entire abolition of Tithes, and the Rates called Church Rates, Easter-Offerings, Mortuaries and every other kind of Ecclesiastical charge.

"In conclusion, they continue to desire that it may please Almighty God to preserve the Land in peace, and the King in safety, and to direct his and your counsels to the advancement of Truth and Righteousness on earth, the prosperity of our beloved Country, and the welfare of Mankind at large."

This petition passed the Yearly Meeting the 28th of the Fifth Month, and before the lapse of two days had received the signatures of more than Eight Hundred Friends, with their residences specified :-Of its presentation to both Houses, should it take place in time, hereafter. In reporting the Petition of last year, I mentioned that the Tithe taken in kind, without warrant, amounted in the Report for 1831 to

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