en the English
Wesleyan Committee and Conference seceded from the Union with the
Canadian Conference, I was appointed to Adelaide Street station in
Toronto, which had been filled for two years by the Rev. Dr. Richey--an
eloquent and popular preacher. The separation between the two
Conferences had taken place the week before I assumed the charge of
Adelaide Street station. Dr. Richey had carried off the greater part of
both the private and official members of the Church, and I was left with
but a skeleton of each. When I ascended the pulpit for the first time,
the pews in the body of the church, which had been occupied by those who
had seceded, were empty, and there were but scattered hearers, here and
there, in the other pews and in the gallery. By faith and prayer I had
prepared myself for the crucial test, and conducted the services without
apparent depression or embarrassment. I made no pretensions, and had
never made any, to pulpit eloquence--the motto of my ministry being to
make things plain and strong by previous thought and prayer, and without
verbal preparation. I often went from lying on my back in my study, in
an agony of distress and prayer, to the pulpit, where a divine anointing
seemed to rest upon me, such as I had never before experienced. There
were frequent prayer-meetings in my own study, at six o'clock in the
morning. The result was, by the Divine blessing, that the church was
filled with hearers, and the membership was more than doubled.

At the first Annual Missionary Meeting in the Church after the division,
the President of the Executive Council presided; several members of the
Government were on the platform, and the collections and subscriptions
were more than double those of any previous year. The pretext for this
separation of the English Wesleyan Committee and Conference from the
Canadian Conference, was professed loyalty in Church and State; but both
the Imperial and Canadian Government of that day approved the position
of the Canadian Conference, withdrew and suspended the grant previously
made to the London Wesleyan Missionary Committee during the seven years
of its hostility to the Canadian Conference, and only consented to its
restoration for the joint interests of the two Conferences, and on
recommendation of the Representatives of the Canadian Conference, after
the reconciliation and reunion of the two Conferences, in 1847.

[Illustration: Old Newgate Street (afterwards Adelaide St.)