believed to be the corruptions of the great bulk of her clergy, many of whom even Mr. Wesley, with all his High Church prejudices, was constrained to brand as "Heathenish Priests and Mitred infidels"
If you reply that your Church was a branch of the Catholic. Church long anterior to Maetin Luther's day, your answer applies to my church as well as to your own. Methodism is a branch, and not an unfruitful branch, of the Church Catholic, and exister long anterior to John Wesley's day. The essence of Methodismis a branch, sir, is holidness of heart and life. It flourished on the day of Pentecost; under many names and many outward forms, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Congregational, Quaker, Methodist, &c., &c.,has come down to us fromgeneration to generation, and will surely grow and prevail until. it cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.*
And now, sir, I must tell you that I shall not follow you into that interminable wildernessof bootless controversy into which you have thought fit to wnader from the cnetral point at issue between us, namely, the rightness or the wrongness of your own conduct.
To put that conduct the more plainly in what I conceive to be its true light, allow me to suppose a case. Let me suppose that a member of your Church sends me a private note asking a subscription towards the erection of a Protestant Episcopalian place of worship. Let me suppose that I answer him through the columns of a newspaper to the following effect: -"Dear sir, - I cannot conscientiously send you a subscription for the following reasons: - Although your Chruch professes to glory in Apostolic order, I do not believe there is on the face of the earth a Church that exhibits so shocking a spectacle of Disunity, both in doctrine and in worship, as she does; she is torn to pieces by schisms, not only among her laity, but among her Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; they have marshalled themselves under the antagonistic banners of High Church, and Low Church, and Broad Church; of Ritualism, Rationalism, Puseyism, Colensoism, and Evangeliscism; some of them extol their Church as the bulwark of Protestantism, others execrate the name of Protestant, and hold up their own noble army of martyrs to ridicule and scorn; some of them insist that her baptismal water regenerates the soul, others that the fable of baptismal regeneration is a perilous delusion; some that at the bidding of her priests her sacramental elements of bread and wine are miraculously turned into flesh and blood, others that this pretence is downright popery; some that her clergy can. forgive sin, others that to forgive sin is the incommunicable perogative of Deity. You will therefore admit, dear sir, that I see good cause for declining to give one farthing to a Church so deformed with error, and so frightfully divided against herself. I am, dear sir, &c."
And if, Mr. Macarthur, I should be blamed, as well I might be, for taking so impertinent a method of dealing out my asperities upon a large body of my fellow Christians, I could plead that I was only following the example of the Rev. Head Master of the King's School at Parramatta.
Your personal allusions to myself are scarcely in good taste, and wer certainly no more called for than your original attack upon your Methodist neighbours. If I, though an ordained Minister, am earning my bread in a secular pursuit, you, sit, though an ordained minister are doing the same thing. And if you can account for the anomaly of your position by reasons satisfactory to your own conscience, so can I. +
It may not be out of place to remark, that towards the venerable Church of England I have ever cherished. kindly and respectful feelings. For half a century I have occasionally attended her services, and partaken of her Holy Communion; and with not a few of her clergy it has been my privelge to enjoy brotherly intercourse, both in the private circle and in public movements.
Nor may it be unreasonable in me to refer to the odd coincidence, that some one and thirty years ago it developed upon me, as a public journalist, to defend your late respected father, Hannibal Hawkins Macarthur, Esq., against the censures of his Bishop for having laid the foundation stone of the Wesleyan Centenary Chapel in this town of Parramatta; and that now, in this same town of Parramatta, it has developed upon me to rebuke the son of the lamented gentlemen for having gone out of his way to insult the very Church to which his father had thus publicly bidden God speed.
Here, sir, our contest ends. On this arena I shall have nothing more to say to you about yourself or your Church; nor shall i read anything more that you may say about my Church or me.
But in retiring from the lists, let me say a few heart-breathed words: May you long be spared. to sit under the vine and under the figtree. of the Church of your affections, resposing in quiet beneath her tranquil shades, and banqueting on her pleasant fruits; and may you have grace to breathe a like kindly prayer for all your neighbours who love the Lord Jesus. Christ in sincerity, whatever name they bear. And with regard to that better land in which I humbly hope to
* That Methodism is not an unfruitful branch of the Church Catholic is shewn by the following statistics, taken from Dr. Jacoby's History of Methodism, recently published in two volumes at Bremen, in the German language. Number of Methodists throughout the World: Enrolled members, 3 389 166; Ministers, 19 049; Local Preachers, 57 934; Sunday School Scholars, 3 654 215; besides probationers and attendants on Public Worship not included in these numbers. The figures comprise Wesleyan Methodists, Primitive Methodists, the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of America, and other branches of the Methodist communion. The attendants on Public Worship who are not enrolled members. average about 5 or 6 to 1 of the latter. This gives for the whole Methodist family an aggregate of above Twenty Millions of Souls.
+ The circumstances which, many years ago, induced the writer to withdraw from the service of the Wesleyan Missionary Society have been publicly explained by him more than once. They involved nothing of which he ever was or ever needed to be ashamed, though much that he deeply lamented. He is not aware that the circumstances which induced Mr. Macarthur to exchange the cure of souls for the business of a school-master though pretty well understood, have ever been explained by him to the public. It is known that he left the incumbency of a Church in the suburbs of Sydney; that he set up a school at Macquarie Field; that the speculation was not a commercial success; that he thereupon turned to his present enterprise at Parramatta; and that his friends entertain the hope that this adventure, if not damaged by imprudence and mismanagement on his own part, may prove remunerative.