The Methodistical way: Revivalism and popular resistance to the Wesleyan Church discipline in the Stanstead Circuit, Lower Canada, 1821-52

This essay examines the dynamic between the British Wesleyan missionaries and the American-origin population of the Stanstead Circuit within Lower Canada's Eastern Townships. It finds that early revivals were followed by years of slow church growth and stagnation as the missionaries were unable, or unwilling, to develop the lay leadership network that was a central feature of the Methodist system. By the middle of the 19th century, attempts to impose the church discipline on the local population had made relatively little progress in the face of the Rebellions of 1837-38, the Millerite religious revival, the incursion of radical Methodist splinter groups, and ongoing popular resistance to an externally dictated denominational exclusivism that posed a threat to local community bonds.

The Wesleyans, The ‘Romanists’ and the Education Act Of 1870

The Wesleyan Church in the second half of the nineteenth century exhibited a high degree of anti-Catholicism, a phenomenon which had intensified with the ‘Romanising’ influence of the Tractarian movement in the Church of England. To many Wesleyans Roman and Anglo-Catholicism seemed synonymous and the battleground of faith was to be elementary education. The conflict began earlier in the century. When in 1848 Roman Catholic schools made application to the government for grants similar to those offered to the Wesleyans there was an immediate split in Wesleyan ranks. At the Conference in Hull in 1848 Beaumont, Osborn and William Bunting attacked their leadership. They claimed that Methodists should not accept grants in common with Catholics. Jabez Bunting, the primary Wesleyan spokesman of his age, was however rather less critical of the Roman Catholic Church than he had been previously and clearly advocated the continuation of the grant:

Joshua Harold Burn, 6 March 1892 - 13 July 1981

Joshua Harold Burn was born on 6 March 1892 in Barnard Castle, County Durham . He was fond of his birth place and was greatly interested in the history of the ancient town which had grown up around the castle, built by Bernard de Baliol (or Balliol) in the 12th century . Burn lived there until he went to Cambridge in 1909. He was the only child of John George Burn (1857-1932) and Mary Josephine Howson (1859-1937), who came fro m the Wycliffe family. Burn knew little about his father’s ancestry. However, he remembered his grandfather, Joshua Burn, vividly: ‘He must have been about 5 feet 10 or 11 inches. He was always upright in carriage and wore a black frock coat and trousers with a tall hat. He was an active member of the Wesleyan Church and for many years was a local preacher. At that time the villages surrounding Barnard Castle constituted a circuit and every chapel was visited every Sunday either by the Superintendent or the Second Minister or by a local preacher.’