The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-13 00:00:00

The Rev. JABEZ BURNS, D.D., was in the chair. Ile
said it was known that ho earnestly sympathised
in the cause they had met to advocate. Ile
believed firmly in the divine mission of John
Wesley, who wu sent to establish methodism, and
his original design had been carried out fur about half a
century. The greet object of methodism was to exhibit an
establishment in which religious liberties were held sacred.
Like all ecclesiastical establishments it had been liable to
deterioration, and that had been foreseen by several mem-
bers of the ',Oily, among others by William Bramwell and
Dr. Adam Clarice. In 15.3.5 the conference gave the grow-
ing evils of the baily a legalised existence, and the result
was that the action of those ends were brought to bear en
individuals, and three ministers were scandalously deposed
and unrighteously excommunicated, viz., the Rev. James
Everett, Samuel Dunn, and William Griffith. These were
the first victims, and it was thought they would
be satisfied, but they went further, and required that the
excommunication should be endorsed by all the preachers.
A small body of the ministers would not countenance the
proceeding, and the people rose up as witnesses to God's
truth and man's freedom. The persecution of ministers
went on, and some of those who had so suffered he would
intrielt%Lo meetin —the Rev. Thomas Rowland,
the . ealy.
17:fralfteeis man sit villetliteil nearly the whoThartii%
Great Britain, and he hod met but three persona out of the
pale of methodism who had uuy sympathy with the confer-
ence, and he believed that the present movement of the
Wesleyem body met with universal concurrence, inasmuch
as it was a movement in the cause of religious freedom.
The Secretary (Mr. HARRISON) read a report, which
showed the great increase in the number of preachers,
preaching ;.laces, and members of the reforming section of
the Wesleyan body.
Thu Ike. T. ROWLAND then came forward, and was
received with great applause. lie said that 30 years ago
he had discovered that there was something wrung in the
administration of their affairs, fur in 1821 he had been re•
moved from the Gravesend circuit, contrary to the meant-
MOUS wish of the people, because Ito laid expressed an
opinion wince was opposed to a regulation which hail
been Mode by the executive as to the arrangement of the
circuit. Mr. Everett, Mr. Griffith, and Mr. Dunn had
been expelled because they refused to answer question,
and he had been removed because be had answered one.
On another occasion, when he expressed his judgment
on the question of the Leeds organ controversy,
he was told by the President that he was a "marked man."
(The rev. gentleman then, at great length, mentioned a
number of cases in ethic's the ministers were removed by
t.,e conference from places and sent to others, contrary to
the w islies of their congregations and other instances of the
arbitrary proceedings of that body.)
The Bev. \V. BURNErr next addressed the meeting,
and denied the assertion which had been lately made by a
well-known writer, that Wesleyan reform was both an im-
position and a failure. He appeared as a suepended'iMnis-
ter, and for what? For, in the first place, not signing
Mr. Osburne's test, and Mr. Thomas Jackson's declare-
tion. Then came the affair of the Holt Chancery suit,
in which he bad done his best to help Mr. Cosens
Hardy out of a difficulty in which he had unwittingly
placed hint by not having done a part of his duty as super-
iutendent of a circuit in closing the accounts of trusteeship.
Again, he had not expelled some of the members of his cir-
cuit whiehad come to a district meeting as delegates. At
the Conference a charge bout been mule against him on
account of a letter he had written in self-vindication to the
Wesleyan Times. A committee was appointed to inquire
into his conduct, which required the retractation of a letter
he had sent to the Conference in answer to an admonition
from that body, which he &tinted, and was in consequence
suspended.
Mr. LANDGRIDGE, of Southwark, moved a r.aiolution,
which was carried, to the effect that the meeting desired to ex-
press its sympathy with tho Rev. T. Rowland in the painful
circumstances in which he was placed by the cruel and despo-
tic proceedings of the Wesleyan Conference, which had
sought to degrade him as a Christian minister, for having
given a conscientious vote on a question of church disci-
pline on which he was summoned as a juror, and recorded its
approval of the noble stand he had made against ecclesias-
tical tyranny. It also recorded its sympathy with and ap-
proval of the Rev. William Burnett, who had been left
without a circuit because of the conscientious avowal of his
principles.
The nee. J. G. MANLY, in a lengthened address, said he
did nut appear there as a person expelled from the metho-
dist connexion, but as one who had withdrawn from it
because he could not submit to the despotism of its ecele.
siastical government, and because ho could not be identi-
fied with the perse.aitiou of some of its miuisters, and the
expulsion of 4)6,000 of its members. The reverend gentle-
man then detailed a number of instances of the arbitrary
proceedings adopted by missionary secretaries with refer-
ence to the ministers iii Jamaica. lie thou described the
uulair mode in which a memorial against the secretaries
was dealt with by the ceuferenee. He proceeded, in very
strong language to protest against the present system of
Methodism, Wad urgesl on its professors tine necessity of
breaking down a system so full of evil to the body.
The 'tee. JAMES EVERETT, one of the expelled
ministers, moved a resolution that
"The meeting having heard the statement of the Rev. J.
' G. MANLY, late missionary in connexion with the Wes-
leyan Missionary Society in the island of Jamaica, ex-
pressed its admiration of the course he bad adopted to
expose the ev;is which were practised by the missionary
secretaries, and permitted by the missionary committee and
the conference, and trusted that this further exposure of
time evils of methodism ' as it is,' would hasten the much
needed rethrin in the connexion ;" which was agreed to.
Atter a vote of thanks to the chairman, the meeting
separated.