ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



arrival ' preached at noon in the most riotous part of the town where four 

 ways met ; but none made any noise or spoke one word while I called the 

 wicked to forsake his way.' ^'^^ The civic authorities, however, took alarm, 

 and ' after I was set down a constable came and said, " Sir, the mayor dis- 

 charges you from preaching in the Borough any more," ' whereupon 

 Wesley replied, ' While King George gives me leave to preach I shall not 

 ask leave of the mayor of Shaftesbury.' "° Wesley's impressions of the 

 town underwent many changes in the years succeeding. In 1755, after 

 preaching to ' sleepy ' congregations at Reading, he reported ' a much more 

 lively people at Shaftesbury,' '" but on the occasion of a visit, 28 September, 

 1766, described the town as ' cold, uncomfortable Shaftesbury . . . spoke 

 exceeding strong words.' '''^ The previous 29 August he had opened the new 

 chapel here.'*'' In 1 771, stopping at Shaftesbury on his way to Portsmouth 

 from Bristol, the 'Journal records ' preached to a numerous congregation but 

 wonderfully unconcerned. I scarce know a town in England where so much 

 preaching has been to so little purpose.' '** The indifference and coldness of 

 which Wesley complained at Shaftesbury may possibly be explained by a 

 reference to another town not far removed : Frome, ' dry, barren, uncomfort- 

 able place.' '*^ ' In this town,' says Wesley, ' there be such a mixture of men 

 of all opinions, Anabaptists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Arians, Antinomians, 

 Moravians and what not. If any hold to the truth in the midst of all these 

 surely the power must be of God.^*^ His last reference to Shaftesbury, how- 

 ever, is more encouraging, 'I preached,' says the yoi^r/7rt/, 15 August, 1785, 

 ' at Shaftesbury at nine to such a congregation as I had not seen there before. 

 I was glad to see among them the gentleman who thirty years ago sent his 

 officer to discharge me from preaching in his borough.' '*^ 



The spiritual awakening in the Church, which towards the middle of the 

 nineteenth century resulted from the Oxford Movement, dates in Dorset from 

 the year 1836, when by an order in council the whole county forming the 

 archdeaconry was detached from the diocese of Bristol and became again 

 united to that of Salisbury. In such dioceses as Salisbury under Bishops 

 Denison, Hamilton and Moberly you trace, says the ecclesiastical historian 

 of this period, the peculiar stamp of the Revival in what was done.'*^ The 

 charge delivered in 1855 by Bishop Kerr Hamilton in which he outlines the 

 changes initiated by his predecessor Bishop Denison, 1837—54, gives some 

 idea of the practical work accomplished in the parishes and in the diocese 

 at large.'*^ Beginning with confirmation, the late bishop's first care, he says : 



The old custom in this diocese before the present century was, I believe, to confirm only at 

 the few places at which visitations were held. This number had been afterwards a little 

 increased, but the year in which Bishop Denison began his ministry he formed, with the 

 assistance of the archdeacons, a much enlarged scheme for holding 28 confirmations in 

 Dorset and 29 in Wilts. At his last tour of confirmations this number was increased 

 to 45 in Dorset and to 40 in Wilts, and he also arranged that there should be an annual 

 confirmation in the chief towns of that part of the diocese where the general confir- 

 mation was not held.^^° 



S39 



' Journ. ii, 172. "" Ibid. "' Ibid. 305. '" Ibid, iii, 351. '" Ibid. 217. 



'" Ibid. 451. Another entry records that Wesley preached at Melcombe and Shaftesbury on 15 Sept. 

 1779. Ibid, iv, 169. 



^" Ibid, ii, 264. "■ Ibid, iii, 351. '" Ibid, iv, 327. 



"* Overton, The Anglican Revival, 2 1 8. 



"' Charge to the Clergy of Diocese of Salisbury at his primary visitation. '^ Ibid. 13. 



43 



