Still, it is certainly somewhat beyond a woman’s sphere to order Christian ministers about thus:  ’Now, Wren, I charge you to be faithful, and to deliver a faithful message in all the congregations.’  ‘My lady,’ said Wren, ’they will not bear it.’  She rejoined, ’I will stand by you.’[767] On another occasion she happened to have two young ministers in her house, ’when it occurred to her that one of them should preach.  Notice was accordingly sent round that on such an evening there would be preaching before the door.  At the appointed time a great many people had collected together, which the young men, seeing, inquired what it meant.  Her ladyship said, “As I have two preachers in my house, one of you must preach to the people.”  In reply, they said that they had never preached publicly, and wished to be excused.  Shipman was ready, Matthews diffident.  Lady Huntingdon, therefore, judged it best for Mr. Shipman to make the first attempt.  While he hesitated she put a Bible into his hand, insisting upon his appearing before the people, and either telling them that he was afraid to trust in God, or to do the best he could.  On the servant’s opening the door, her ladyship thrust him out with her blessing, “The Lord be with you—­do the best you can."’[768] At Trevecca—­a college which she founded and supported solely at her own expense—­her will was law.  ‘Trevecca,’ wrote John Wesley,[769] ’is much more to Lady Huntingdon than Kingswood is to me. I mixes with everything.  It is my college, my masters, my students!’ When the unhappy Calvinistic controversy broke out in 1770, Lady Huntingdon proclaimed that whoever did not wholly disavow the Minutes should quit her college; and she fully acted up to her proclamation.[770] Fletcher’s resignation was accepted, and Benson, the able head-master, was removed.  John Wesley himself was no longer suffered to preach in any of her pulpits.

Her commands, however, were not always obeyed.  Thus, for instance, we find Berridge good-naturedly rallying her on a peremptory summons he had received to ‘supply’ her chapel at Brighton.  ’You threaten me, madam, like a pope, not like a mother in Israel, when you declare roundly that God will scourge me if I do not come; but I know your ladyship’s good meaning, and this menace was not despised.  It made me slow in resolving.  Whilst I was looking towards the sea, partly drawn thither with the hope of doing good, and partly driven by your Vatican Bull, I found nothing but thorns in my way,’ &c.[771] On a similar occasion the same good man writes to her with that execrably bad taste for which he was even more conspicuous than Whitefield:  ’Jesus has been whispering to me of late that I cannot keep myself nor the flock committed to me; but has not hinted a word as yet that I do wrong in keeping to my fold.  And my instructions, you know, must come from the Lamb, not from the Lamb’s wife, though she is a tight woman.’  John Wesley plainly told her that, though he loved her well, it could not continue if it depended upon his seeing with her eyes.  Rowland Hill rebelled against her authority.