The Bishop’s letter arrived in due time.  In it his lordship said, that he “always had entertained a great esteem for me and my obedience to authority, and highly commended me for postponing or giving up my service at the above town.”  As he did not say a single word of prohibition, I immediately wrote to the mayor to expect me on the following Tuesday, “For the Bishop had not forbidden me,” and I also wrote to the vicar to the same effect.  Large bills, with large letters on them, announced that “the Rev. William Haslam will positively preach in the Temperance Hall at three o’clock on Tuesday next.”

The churchwardens of the parish were requested to attend the meeting, and protest, on behalf of the vicar, and also to present the archdeacon’s monition.  They stood beside me all the time, and after the service was concluded they showed me the archidiaconal instrument, with a great seal appended to it.  They said that they “dared not stop that preaching,” and so they took their monition back.

This gave rise to a long correspondence in the newspapers, some taking part on my side, and some against me.  Thus the question was ventilated, and finally concluded, by a letter from some one, who said, “The Bishop of Exeter is one of the greatest ecclesiastical lawyers we have, and if he cannot stop Mr. Haslam, the question is settled; for be sure his lordship has all the will to stop this preaching, and would do so if he had the power.”

From that time I never hesitated to preach the Gospel in any parish or diocese where I was invited.  So few of the clergy asked me, that I was obliged to go out in spite of them, or, at any rate, without asking their consent, and in consequence of this, I am afraid I became obnoxious to many of my clerical brethren.  Since then things are much changed.  The Earl of Shaftesbury has succeeded in getting an Act passed through both Houses of Parliament, to settle the question about such services.  Now any clergyman may preach in Exeter Hall, or any other public non-ecclesiastical building, without consulting the vicar of the parish.  Besides this, a general disposition has arisen amongst the clergy, from one end of the land to the other, to have “missions,” so that there is no need to work independently of clergymen, but with them, and very cheering it is to be thus employed.  It was not pleasant to witness the scowl and the frown, nor to get the cold shoulder.  Thank God, times are changed now; but I must needs tell of some of the scenes I was in, and the opposition I had to encounter, during the years that are gone by.

CHAPTER 16

Opposition, 1853.