ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



city in 1772 little progress seems to have been made ; he was received 

 by ' a small company of plain loving people.' It is evident that Carlisle 

 did not at first take to methodism. Wesley had but a poor opinion 

 of his prospects in the cathedral city. When he preached at the town 

 hall there in 1780, it was to the poor only, as the rich could not rise 

 in time to hear him. From the number and seriousness of his hearers 

 at a later meeting, he ' conceived a little hope that even here some good 

 will be done.' 1 The same opinion was expressed in 1797 by a church- 

 man who described the people of Carlisle as ' very ignorant in religion : 

 they wander as sheep without a shepherd. They seem, however, open 

 to conviction, they have conscience. There are here some methodist 

 and dissenting interests, but feeble and of little weight, nor is there 

 a dissenter here of any popularity, or as it should seem of any 

 religious zeal.' " Of all the scenes of Wesley's personal ministrations 

 in Cumberland, his hopes of Whitehaven, where he often preached, 

 were the brightest. Of this town he wrote in 1784 that there was a 

 fairer prospect than there had been for many years. The society was 

 united in love, not conformed to the world, but labouring to experience 

 the full image of God, wherein they were created. His meetings had 

 been attended by all the church ministers and most of the gentry of the 

 town, but they behaved with as much decency as if they had been 

 colliers." 



There can be little doubt that methodism made slight impression 

 on the people of Cumberland before the secession of 1791-1836. It 

 was only after it had become an integral portion of nonconformity that 

 its influence began to be felt in towns or country villages. The process 

 of separation went on gradually for almost fifty years, and it is only now 

 and again that we get glimpses of it as an organized religious community. 

 As soon as its members determined to create charitable trusts and to 

 accept gifts of real property for the support of their distinctive tenets, 

 it may be said that its independent existence was assured. One of the 

 earliest establishments in the county was made at Brampton in 1789 

 during the lifetime of Wesley. No other charitable trust had been 

 registered on behalf of the methodists during the eighteenth century. 

 But very soon after, the endowment of the society went on apace. In 

 1802 and 1817 gifts of real property were registered for their use at 

 Carlisle, in 1806 at Maryport, in 1811 at Alston, in 1814 at Keswick, 

 in 1826 at Workington, in 1827 at Whitehaven, and in 1828 at 

 Wigton.* In all these places there was no rapid cleavage between the 

 church and methodism. It is quite true that chapels sprang up and 

 congregations to some extent came together, but among those early 

 methodists there was a lingering love for the sacramental ministrations 

 of the parish clergy. Attendance on the services of the church was not 

 wholly relinquished. The parish priest was often called in to baptize 



i Journal of John Wesley (London, 1829), pp. 359, 412, 490, 640, 666, 720, 766-7. 

 ' Life of Dean Milner, p. 130. Journal of John Wesley, p. 808. 



Trans. Cumb. and Westmor. Arch. Soc. new series, ii. 348-79. 



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