Sing a new song

As with many other movements of God, the Primitive Methodist movement was characterised by song. They used music and song effectively, especially in the open-air. It was standard practice for an open-air preacher and his (or her) supporters to approach a market-place, singing as they went. Their singing soon attracted a crowd.

The most popular hymn was by Hugh Bourne and William Sanders, which was enormously popular for marches and camp meetings.

Hark! the gospel news is sounding,
Christ has suffered on the tree;
Streams of mercy are abounding,
Grace for all is rich and free.
Now poor sinner, Now poor sinner,
Come to Him who died for thee.

Listen to the tune here.

Why should the devil have all the best tunes?

Like William Booth of the Salvation Army, the Primitive Methodists did not see why the devil should have all the best tunes.

When the Primitive Methodists came to Manchester, in the 1820s, it was common to hear lewd or ribald songs sung in the streets, especially on Sundays. The Primitive Methodists used to pick up the most effective tunes they heard, and put them to their hymns. At their open-air tent meetings, young people were attracted to what was happening, thinking they were singing a favourite song.

They may have been disappointed initially, but many were affected by the hymn whose words went to the heart.

In this way the words of a gospel hymn displaced the words of lewd songs. Why, indeed, should the devil have all the best tunes?

See also Steve Addison's post Why should the devil have all the best tunes?

The procession

East Bridgford is near to Nottingham in the UK. In the pioneering days of the Primitive Methodist movement, a woman by the name of Dinah Maul promoted a regular Sunday evening procession of believers round her village. Dinah was a woman of good sense, and a forceful personality.

At the head of the procession, it was usual practice to get a convert from the previous week to walk with them. Dinah and the preacher led the procession. The new convert would walk between them. He was often a drunk who had happened to stray into the Sunday service. Now, he walked with tears streaming down his face and hands held high.

The procession passed by the pubs in the village, where the publicans' wives watched with a mixture of sympathy and amazement. There they observed, first hand, the radical change in men whose lives were formerly characterised by alcohol fuelled anger and rage.

How about that for a discipleship training method?

How to move a chapel in one easy lesson

The year 1862 was noteworthy for a feat in chapel moving. In 1860, a site was purchased at Melton, in Suffolk for a chapel by the Primitive Methodists. The site was next to a villa occupied by a barrister.

A few months after the completion of the building, the villa owner brought an action against the trustees for alleged interference with his light. The trial was heard and went against the trustees.

At this point a Mr. H. Collins suggested that the chapel should be moved in one piece. This strange suggestion was soon taken up seriously. Additional land was bought, and, by an ingenious process Collins and his brother, as engineers, moved the chapel.

A Great “Moving Day” was announced, and hundreds gathered to witness the operation.

The chapel was moved, in all some twenty feet eight inches, without a window-pane being cracked, or the building suffering the slightest damage.

It was a triumph of mechanics over bigotry.

Abridged from "The Origin and History of the Primitive Methodist Church", Volume II, p246-247

Mission to Australia and New Zealand

In 1842 the prospect of sending Primitive Methodist missionaries to Australia and New Zealand from England, seemed impossible. How could a movement of poor, working class people raise the considerable sum of money needed?

Then, someone had an inspirational thought: ask 70,000 Sunday school children to fund missionaries to Australia, at one penny each for a year.

This idea led to the means of a funding a mission to New Zealand. A missionary meeting at Cramlington in the North Shields Circuit suggested that the Sunday School teachers take responsibility for sending a missionary to New Zealand. The idea was taken up with enthusiasm.

“We approve of the suggestion concerning each Sunday school teacher raising the sum of one shilling, during the ensuing year, to aid in missionary labours in New Zealand.”

In August 1844, Robert Ward and his family landed at New Plymouth. He arrived as “a stranger amongst strangers uninvited and unexpected”. Six weeks later Joseph Long and John Wilson arrived in Adelaide as the first missionaries to Australia.

How the Primitive Methodists got their name

Thursday February 13th 1812

We called a meeting and made plans for the next Quarter and made some other regulations ... In particular we took the name of the Society of the Primitive Methodists.

Copy of entry in Hugh Bourne's journal, printed in Origin and History of the Primitive Methodist Church, Vol I, p133.

The name “Primitive Methodist” seems rather quaint to our modern ears. The word “primitive” usually conveys a negative impression – that of being prehistoric, out-of-date or archaic. That is not what is intended. For more details see What’s in a name? Why “Primitive” Methodism?

Richard Dawkins shares the message of the Gospel

That God, the all powerful creator of the universe couldn’t think of a better way to forgive humanity’s sins than to have himself put on earth, tortured and executed in atonement for the sins of humanity? What kind of a horrible, depraved notion is that?

Richard Dawkins

Atheist evangelist Richard Dawkins shares the message of Easter with the Australian people via the Q&A program. Dawkins knows the gospel, but rejects it as “horrible and depraved.” I mean what sort of God would suffer and die for the sins of the world?

From the transcript of the program:

RICHARD DAWKINS: The New Testament – you believe, if you believe in the New Testament, that God, the all powerful creator of the universe couldn’t think of a better way to forgive humanity’s sins than to have himself put on earth, tortured and executed in atonement for the sins of humanity? What kind of a horrible, depraved notion is that?

. . . . That’s why Christ came to earth, in order to atone for humanity’s sins. If it’s extreme, it’s not me that’s being extreme, it’s the new testament that’s being extreme.

TONY JONES: No, well, I’m going to jump in here, because is that not a story of sacrifice and therefore has something admirable attached to it which is the opposite of what you suggested?

RICHARD DAWKINS: Do you think it’s admirable? You think it’s admirable that God actually had himself tortured for the sins of humanity?

TONY JONES: That is the Christian view obviously.

RICHARD DAWKINS: That is the Christian view. If you think that’s admirable, you can keep it.

Out of the mouths of babes and atheists . . .

(This is a re-post of the original on Steve Addison's blog)