SAUL-STREET PRIMITIVE METHODIST CHAPEL.

There is nothing very time-worn about Methodism; it is only 140 years old; but during that period its admirers have contrived to split numerous hairs, and have extended very fairly what is known as “the dissidence of dissent.”  The ring of Methodism includes many sections:  it embraces, amongst others, ordinary Wesleyans, Bryanites, New Connectionists, Primitives, United Free Church men, and Independent Methodists.  They can’t all be right; but they think they are; and that is enough.  They have as yet requested nobody to be responsible for them; and weighing that over well, the fairest plan is to let the creed of each alone—­to condemn none, to give all legitimate chance, and permit them to “go on.”  Antique simplicity seems to be the virtue of those whom we have now to describe.  And yet there is nothing very ancient about them.  There is more in the sound than in the name of primitive Methodists.  They are a comparatively young people with a somewhat venerable name.  It was not until 1810 that they were formed into a society.  Originally they were connected with the Wesleyan Methodists; but they disagreed with them in the course of time, and left them eventually.  The immediate cause of separation was, we are informed, a dispute as to the propriety of camp meetings, and the utility of female preaching.  The Wesleyans couldn’t see the wisdom of such meetings nor the fun of such preaching:  probably they thought that people could get as much good as they would reasonably digest in regular chapel gatherings, and that it was quite enough to hear women talk at home without extending the business to pulpits.  The Primitives believed otherwise—­fancied that camp meetings would be productive of much Christian blissfulness, and thought that females had as much right to give pulpit as caudle lectures.  With a chivalry nearly knightly they came to the rescue, and gave woman a free pass into the regions of language and theology.  A third point of difference had reference to the representative character of Wesleyan conferences; but into that question we need not enter.

The first regular quarters of Preston Primitive Methodism were in Friargate, in a yard facing Lune-street—­in a small building there, where a few men with strong lungs and earnest minds had many seasons of rejoicing.  The thermometer afterwards rose; and for some time a building which they erected in Lawson-street, and which is now used as the Weavers’ Institute, was occupied by them.  Often did they get far up the dreamy ladder of religious joy, and many a time did they revel with a rich and deafening delightfulness in the regions of zeal there.  They were determined to “keep the thing warm,” and to let outsiders know that if they were not a large, they were a lively, body.  Primitive Methodism does not profess to be a fine, but an earnest, thing—­not a trimmed-up, lackadaisical arrangement, but a strong,