Page:A History of Horncastle from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.djvu/95

76 on the retired list, on account of his impaired health, a yearly pension of £25 being assigned to him. He was still, however, to be at liberty to visit different parts of the connection; and during the next ten years of his superannuation he kept up a very wide correspondence on religious matters, and made a missionary visit to America. The last conference which he attended was at Yarmouth, in 1851. For several years he had felt a premonition that the year 1852 would be his last. The last sermon which he preached was at Norton Green, on Feb. 22, 1852; and on Oct. 11, in that year, he surrendered his happy spirit into the hands of God, who gave it, when "the weary wheels of life stood still." His chief residence would appear to have been at Bemersley, where it was long felt that they had lost in him "a man of great faith and mighty prayer."

We now pass over a period of several years. Clowes received a call to Hull. He had crowded the work of a life-time into some 17 years, and his health was now far from good. At a meeting in December, 1827, he exhibited such weakness as showed that he had done his best work. However, he continued to reside in Hull and visited other places from there, as his strength allowed. It is certain that he visited Horncastle, for an old lady, Mrs. Baildham, who died in May, 1900, having been a member of the connection more than 70 years, frequently asserted that she had heard both Clowes and his wife preach in, presumably, the second chapel in Mill Lane.

At the Conference in 1842, 35 years after the first camp meeting on Mow Cop, both Clowes and Bourne were present; but the assembly was saddened to see the original founders, of what was now a thoroughly established and wide-spread community, both shattered in health and broken by toil. Nine years later Clowes said to a friend "I feel myself failing fast, I am fully prepared. He spoke of the glories of heaven, and said "I shall possess it all through the merits of Christ." His speech began to fail, but he got downstairs, and once more led his class. On the Saturday he attended a committee meeting; on Sunday he was too weak to go to chapel; on Monday there was further weakness; early on Tuesday slight paralysis; and on March 2, 1851, he quietly passed to his rest, aged 71. The people of Hull were greatly moved, and many thousands lined the streets as the funeral procession passed to the grave, at which the Rev. William Harland briefly recited the story of the good man's work.

Of the general progress of the connexion, we may say, that down to 1870 it was simply a Home and Colonial body, but, in that year, the Norwich branch sent out the missioners, Burnett and Roe, to the island of Fernando Po, on the west coast of Africa. This was in response to an appeal from the Fernandians, who had been converted by a member of the connexion, Ship Carpenter Hands, of the ship Elgiva, who, with his godly Captain, Robinson, had in the course of trade visited that country. The same year also saw a mission estabhshed at Aliwal North, in the eastern province of Cape Colony.

In 1884 the Primitive Methodists of Canada formed themselves into an independent community, although with expressions of mutual good will on both sides; their numbers at that time were 8223, with 99 travelling and 246 local ministers, and 237 chapels.

From the middle of the 19th century to its close was a period of great expansion, a return in 1888 reporting the existence in Great Britain of 4,406 chapels, there having been in 1843 only 1278. In 1864 Elmfield College was opened at York, as a middle class school, one of their best; John Petty being