alpole occasion to
remark, "It will be a great acquisition to the Methodist sect to have
their hymns set by Giardini." Tomaso Giordani, another Italian, composed
at her request the old familiar tune "Cambridge," for the hymn in the
Countess's book commencing, "Father, how wide Thy glory shines!"

VI.

LADY HUNTINGDON'S CHAPELS.

From the appointment of Whitefield as her chaplain, Lady Huntingdon took
a commanding position in the development of that section of Methodism
which looked rather to Whitefield than to Wesley as its leader, and
which held Calvinistic views. Around the Countess gradually gathered
such fellow-workers as Romaine, Venn, Toplady, Fletcher of Madeley, and
many others equally with them aflame with love for the perishing souls
of men. Religion having become largely a mere matter of outward form
where it was not wholly ignored, great numbers of the clergy being both
ignorant of the true nature of the Gospel and very unwilling that others
should preach it, Lady Huntingdon was led to establish chapels in
different parts of Great Britain. In some parts she rented buildings; in
others she built chapels; and gradually a considerable number of places
of worship, largely originated by her, and almost wholly sustained by
her, came into being. She herself always wished these to remain
connected with the Church of England. She endeavoured to keep their
pulpits supplied with clergymen of her way of thinking, and for a time
succeeded. But the growth of the work early led her to apply the free
agency of lay preachers; and later in life the refusal of the Church of
England, upheld by the Courts, to consider her action legal in
considering them to belong to the Established Church, drove her in
self-defence to constitute her chapels into a connexion with a legal
standing and rights. The hostility on the part of many within the
Established Church of the eighteenth century, to true New Testament
ministry and practice, on the one hand expelled the Wesleyans from the
National Church, and on the other compelled Lady Huntingdon to add one
more to the dissenting bodies.

The most noted of the churches which thus came into being were those at
Brighton, Bath, and Spa Fields. The first named stood upon the site in
North Street, now occupied by a later, larger, and more ornate
structure. Whitefield visited Brighton, first preaching there in the
open air in 1759. This led to the formation of a Christian Society, and
in 1