Vol 2, pages 1-100 - My Primitive Methodist Ancestors

THE PERIOD OF CIRCUIT PREDOMINANCE A.ND ENTERPRISE 85
branch, together with Pocklington, Brotherton, Hutton Rudby, York, Leeds, and
Tadcaster, have been referred to. Now, by 1820, we see that a beginning has been
"
made with Driffield and the Wold-towns.
" Bridlington means that the sea-coast of
the East and North Ridings, over and above Holderness, has to be missioned ;
while
"Malton" means that the country lying north of Pocklington and the Wolds and
between the Hambledon Hills and the sea-coast, and stretching northwards to the
Cleveland Hills, has to be attempted. Nor must we forget that Hutton Rudby is
already an independent circuit, and, by 1822, will have reached Guisborough. So,
although the discovery of the rich beds of hematite are still in the future, and no one
as yet dreams of the busy iron-towns which one day will stand on the flats by the
estuary of the Tees, still in that direction the country, such as it was, had by 1822
been penetrated by our missionaries.
Speaking generally, the work of Hull Circuit at this time was carried on and its
successes gained in a country possessing few towns of any magnitude. Of necessity, it
was mainly village evangelisation that was carried on, and the Journals of the
missionaries show that in the East and North Ridings scores of villages were entered,
converts won, and causes established in the short space of two or three years. Once
more we may question whether we have not lost ground, and have not to-day fewer
village interests than we had in the pioneer days.
All important
is it for us to know what was the religious condition of
this district at
the time of its first missioning, and what ameliorative influences were brought to bear
upon the people by the new evangel. Even yet there are parts of the North Riding
which are wild and thinly populated, as any one who has walked from Pickering to
Whitbv will know. Eighty years ago the inhabitants of these moors and dales were
indeed a people remote and secluded. Our missionaries penetrated into scattered
villages that were sadly neglected. We are not without reliable evidence on this head.
The late Canon Atkinson* tells us that, when he became parish clergyman of Danby in
1846, the days were but lately passed when one clergyman had charge of three, and in
one case he knew, of four parishes, making one service a Sunday and a modicum of
visitation on week-days a thing to be desired rather than actually enjoyed.
Yet, though
what would be called pluralists, these clergymen were but poorly paid, their pittance
barely reaching the proverbial forty pounds a year. Mr. Carter, the Vicar of Lastingham,
got only 20 a year and a few surplice fees. True : he was an expert angler, and
caught sufficient fish with his line and hook to serve his family, and to effect a change
in kind with his neighbours. Still, he felt the pinch of poverty and, to add to his
income, he hit upon the expedient of having refreshments served up between the
services in the Saxon crypt. At the archidiaconal visitation he told his ecclesiastical
superior that " he took down his fiddle to play a few tunes, and then he could see that
no one got more drink than was good for him, and if the young people proposed
a dance he seldom answered in the negative." f So the church, which was the earliest
seat of Scoto-Irish Christianity, was turned into a public-house
! We know we are
* " Forty years in a Moorland Parish."
t " Slingsby and Slingsby Castle," by Eev. A. St. Clair Brooke.