4 6 



MINISTRY AT STAND. [Chap. III. 



miserably small wages. There was a great improvement in 

 the conduct of the people, from what would have happened 

 some years before, owing to the spread of intelligence. " There 

 has been very little outrage ; in many cases they have refused 

 drink offered, and have kept each other from violence, saying 

 that that was not their object." 



His Buxton excursion shows how much vigour he now 

 enjoyed. His pulpit-record notes that he not unfrequently 

 preached three times; e.g., after his own services, he preached 

 in the evening at the Mosley Street School-room, walking there 

 and back — twelve miles. He finds that he must restrain his 

 voice, " which people say is much too powerful." At Monton, 

 where he preached his first "charity sermon," he spoke with 

 such animation as once to make the bell sound ! 



About this time, there was a drifting away from the 

 Unitarian landmarks. In two periodicals, articles appeared 

 which seemed deistical, and caused him great pain ; but when 

 they were discussed at a private meeting of ministers, with such 

 intemperate language that Rev. J. J. Tayler (who was greatly 

 saddened by it) intimated that he might have to leave the 

 body, his sympathies went with the sufferers. 



In November, he was invited by a clergyman of the neigh- 

 bourhood, who was secretary of the Bible Society, to meet 

 some ministers before a public meeting. " As I entered, Mr. 

 S. took me into a room by myself, and was evidently very 

 uncomfortable. At last he told me that he liked to be candid, 

 and that the fact was that he had asked me, intending to give 

 me a resolution ; but the committee decided that a Unitarian 

 was not to speak or act [hold office ?], though he might give 

 his money. I told him he need not be uncomfortable, as it 

 was no fault of his ; that I had no wish to speak, individually ; 

 and as to our body, we were so accustomed to be treated as not 

 Christians,* that it did not surprise us, and we were only 



* Some years before, an effort had been made to expel Unitarians from 

 the Bible Society, which was unsuccessful ; and those who were eager for 

 their exclusion founded the Trinitarian Bible Society. As regards the 

 Scriptural Unitarians, like Dr. L. Carpenter, it certainly seemed incon- 



