ady Huntingdon never intended her chapels or societies to be organised
into a denomination--she never thought of providing for them an
ecclesiastical constitution as such. As she intended and sustained them
they were simply evangelising agencies. The spiritual necessities of her
day induced her to become a builder of chapels for Evangelical preaching
and worship. These she sustained and ruled as her own private property,
devoted by her to the service of Christ, but disposable by her own
uncontrolled will. No elements of ecclesiastical constitution or
permanence are to be found in such an agency. Nor are there in the
trusts declared after her death. The trustees of her chapels are
invested with absolute powers of government, like her own." [1]

[Footnote 1: Address by Dr. Allon in the _Centenary Celebration of
Cheshunt College_, p. 33.]

By her will dated January 11,1790, Lady Huntingdon bequeathed "all her
chapels, houses, furniture therein, and all the residue of her estates
and effects to Thomas Haweis and Janetta Payne, his wife, Lady Ann
Erskine, and John Lloyd." These persons were thus constituted trustees
of all her property, to administer it all to the best of their ability,
in harmony with what they knew to be her wishes. Many of the buildings
associated with her name and ministers were local trusts, so that the
power of the Connexion trustees never extended over more than a portion
of the churches which her evangelistic zeal had founded or strengthened.
It was almost inevitable that such an arrangement should be fatal to
development, and so it has proved.

The latest sketch of Lady Huntingdon's life thus sets forth the present
position of the Connexion: "The Fifteen Articles are the bond and
doctrinal basis of administration in the Connexion; and in the words of
the Countess, written when she left the Church of England, 'Our
ministers must come recommended by that neutrality between Church and
Dissent--secession.' Beyond this the Connexion has no act of uniformity.
The worship, according to the varying needs of different localities,
may be liturgical or non liturgical. Congregations are allowed much
liberty in the form of their self-government." [1]

[Footnote 1: _The Countess of Huntingdon and her Connexion_, edited by
Rev. J.B. Figgis, M.A., p. 48.]

[Illustration: L: Huntingdon]

When Lady Huntingdon died there were only seven chapels in the legal
possession of her representatives; but there were in al