BRIEF MEMOIR OF THE LABOURS, AND A VINDICATION OF THE CHARACTER AND CALL OF THE REV. JAMES CAUGHEY: INCLUDING A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE WESLEYAN CONFERENCE, AND OF THE PRESIDENT'S BY "A WESLEYAN METHODIST." "They know not at what they stumble."-SOLOMON. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO. SHEFFIELD: CHALONER. 1847. Extracted from the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, April, 1847. "MAY I tell a lie to preserve my secret? I am the author of an anonymous work. It is important to me to remain unknown as the author. I am asked if I am the author; or I am charged with being so. Am I compelled to confess? am I allowed to deny ? To this I reply negatively to both enquiries. I am not allowed, by the rules of morality, to say what is not true, because to tell the truth is inconvenient or disagreeable. I may not, therefore, deny. I may not say, No, when they ask me if it is so. But must I say, Yes? must I confess? By no means. I am under no such necessity. I may be silent. I may refuse to answer. I may put aside the enquiry. You say that this would be really to confess, or at least disclose the truth; that it would be so interpreted; and that I am, in this way, robbed of my secret. I reply, that whether my answer is understood as a disclosure, must depend upon the skill with which I frame it, and put the question by; but that, if it is so understood, that is a necessary consequence of writing an anonymous book, and then associating on familiar terms with acute and inquisitive friends. If I am not a match for them in the light skirmish of colloquial attack and defence, I had better keep out of their way, when I am laden with such a secret. Professor Whewell. TO THE CONFERENCE OF THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS. Honoured and Reverend Fathers and Brethren, Very few men who have appeared in our Connexion have had more evil spoken of them, or have been more injuriously treated by common report, than the eminently useful minister of God whose labours, and may be added, whose trials, form the subject of the following pages. it Believing that a brief and continuous statement of the main facts connected with his ministrations in this country, would furnish the best evidence, and the strongest argument that could be adduced in his behalf, I have prefixed such an account-compiled from various authentic sources to a series of details and considerations affecting his position with regard to his own church and to your venerated body. Those details and considerations appear to my mind too important in their connexional bearing and character, to be withheld from the great Wesleyan community, whose public reputation for evangelical kindness and zeal for the Redeemer's glory, has been somewhat jeopardized by recent occurrences. Having been informed on indubitable testimony that the great majority of your body, at the session of 1846, did not possess any personal knowledge of Mr. Caughey or of his proceedings, and were consequently dependent upon report for what little information they could obtain, when required to vote on his case; I may be pardoned for deeming this a sufficient reason for thus publicly desiring to draw your attention to the facts and arguments of this pamphlet. I remain, with sentiments of sincere respect and affection, your humble servant for Christ's sake, A WESLEYAN-METHODIST. Sheffield, May 4, 1847. CONTENTS. PART FIRST-A Brief Memoir of the Labours of the Rev. James Caughey .. PART SECOND-History and Critical Examination of the Resolution of the PAGE PART THIRD-Inquiry into the Character and Connexional Bearings of the President's Declaration prohibitory of Mr. Caughey's Labours ... ERRATA. Page 16, line 8, for " 21st," read "14th." Line 9, for "22nd," read "15th." [In going through his task, the writer has had to give details respecting occurrences and trans- PART FIRST. A BRIEF MEMOIR OF THE LABOURS OF THE REV. JAMES CAUGHEY. "IF God did not intend to make the weak things of the world confound the things which are mighty; and base things, and things which are despised, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are; he never would have chosen and called me, nor have sent me forth on this solemn and important tour." Caughey's Letters, Vol. I., p. 106. ON Thursday, the 29th of July, 1841, about seven o'clock in the evening, a solitary stranger disembarked from the American steamer, Britannia, at Liverpool, and took up his abode for a few days at the Saracen's Head hotel. 66 Unknowing and unknown,"oppressed by his "singular solitariness," and with difficulty keeping his heart from sinking into painful despondency," he occasionally "walked from street to street, and from place to place," of that populous and opulent seaport; but "all were strangers, and everything was strange." On the second day after this occurrence, "glad to while away an hour or two," and to escape from the depressing loneliness of his position, he penned a familiar account of his voyage from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Liverpool; and at the close of it, after expressing what appears to have been the prevailing feeling of his mind during the passage in the sentence which is placed at the head of this Memoir, he wrote-" What is before me, I know not; but I deeply feel there are sore trials approaching. My mind is very unsettled as to what course I ought to take, or where I should open my commission; but my soul is calmly awaiting orders from above. Several times to-day I thought of going immediately into France and Italy, as this is the best season of the year to see those countries; but a voice in my solitary heart seems to say, 'No, if you go there now, you must go alone; for God will not go with you.' My heart constantly replies, then if God will not go with me there, God forbid I should attempt it........I have some confidence that God is controlling and ordering my steps; but he commands me nowhere, and I am doing nothing for God here. There is nothing to |