one and sixpence. I reminded them of the fact that the Book-room
had abundance of spare capital which might be profitably used in such a
work, and I pointed out the advantages likely to result from the
encouragement of thoughtful and studious habits among the people. I
published a pamphlet on the subject, entitled _The Church and the
Press_, showing that the churches might almost monopolize the supply of
books, and become the teachers and the rulers of the nations, I said,
"If the Church at large would do its duty, every dark place on earth
might be visited, and the seeds of truth and righteousness sown in every
part of the globe in a few years." With regard to our own Connexion I
said, "Our Magazine and Book-room, which ought to be promoting the
intellectual and religious improvement of the Connexion and the world,
are doing just nothing at all, or next to nothing. The leading articles
of the Magazine are among the dullest and most useless things ever
printed. The Book-room, which has capital enough to publish thirty or
forty new books a year, does not issue one. An institution which ought
to be filling the Connexion and the country generally with the light and
blessings of Christianity, and which is capable of being made a blessing
to the world at large, is allowed to 'stand there all the day idle.'"

I then proposed, as a means of stimulating the Book Committee and the
Editor of the Magazine to greater activity, that I and my friends should
be allowed to publish a periodical, and to establish a Book-room, at our
own expense. The proposal was not only rejected, but even treated as a
capital offence.

5. I had labored hard against the infidel socialists, lecturing against
them in almost all the large towns in the kingdom, and I was, to a great
extent, the means of breaking up their societies. But my contests with
those infidels made me more sensible of the necessity of abandoning all
human additions to Christ's doctrine, and of having nothing to defend
but the beautiful and beneficent principles of pure unadulterated
Christianity. Hence I became still less of a sectarian in my belief, and
more and more of a simple Christian, and I labored to promote a stricter
conformity to the teachings of Christ among ministers and Christians
generally.

6. I wrote against the waste of God's money by professing Christians in
luxurious living and vain show, and exhorted the rich to employ their
surplus wealth in doing good.

7. Th