Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

The paragraphs which have created this unmitigated disgust run as follow: “In the vicinity of my present locality, we may have many of [Tom Paine’s] readers. Infidel clubs and lectures are at work disseminating this poison here. There may be attempts to blink this fact. But if comparatively empty sanctuaries, if sceptical indifference to the blessings of the Christian religion, and if almost invincible ignorance of Gospel truths (!!!) are any criteria, then there must be here (his own italics) some infidel demon moving among the masses, and hurrying them downward to the chambers of eternal death.” (!!!!)… I deny, in toto, that there exists one copy of Paine’s works in this town or neighbourhood, and I defy G.G. to the proof and name of the individual who possesses them! I deny in toto that we have no, or ever had any infidel club throughout the whole of the vale of Cleveland, and I DEFY HIM in this Magazine, or personally, to point his finger to any parish, township, or village, where any such abomination exists or ever existed. Thirdly, with regard to the infidel lectures, I deny, in toto, that any infidel has ever given lectures in this district, (within my own memory at least, and I doubt not before,) or that an avowed atheist would be permitted to give open and public lectures in any portion of eastern or western Langbargh. Depend upon it, the nearest horse-pond, or the stocks, or the pillory would be his immediate doom!

Order the book

Subscribe to the free daily email

To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations:

• ER: East Riding
• GM: Greater Manchester
• NR: North Riding
• NY: North Yorkshire
• SY: South Yorkshire
• WR: West Riding
• WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

Comment

Here‘s the offending piece (G.G. 1847). Who was G.G.?

Something to say? Get in touch

Original

To the Editor of the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine

Sir, – An extraordinary letter having appeared in your Magazine for June, (p. 559,) I have been requested, by many of my neighbours and townsmen, to express to you their surprise and indignation at the monstrous untruths therein contained, and to solicit that you will convey the same to the public, who have been so grossly outraged in this matter.

The paragraphs which have created this unmitigated disgust run as follow: “In the vicinity of my present locality, we may have many of [Tom Paine’s] readers. Infidel clubs and lectures are at work disseminating this poison here. There may be attempts to blink this fact. But if comparatively empty sanctuaries, if sceptical indifference to the blessings of the Christian religion, and if almost invincible ignorance of Gospel truths (!!!) are any criteria, then there must be here (his own italics) some infidel demon moving among the masses, and hurrying them downward to the chambers of eternal death.” (!!!!)

This horrid slander is signed G.G., the initials, no doubt, of a ******** minister, now unfortunately acting as a fire-brand amongst us, and whom I am content to leave to his congregation, for the censures they are about to bring against a Pastor, who has the assurance to accuse men, wiser in their generation than himself, of “invincible ignorance of Gospel truths.”

But there are three important points in this precious epistle, to which I am particularly called upon to allude, and which I am fully prepared to prove are distinct and wilful falsehoods, having no foundation whatever in truth or probability, and which could only have their origin in a brain perverted, depraved, or diseased by fanaticism! I deny, in toto, that there exists one copy of Paine’s works in this town or neighbourhood, and I defy G.G. to the proof and name of the individual who possesses them! I deny in toto that we have no, or ever had any infidel club throughout the whole of the vale of Cleveland, and I DEFY HIM in this Magazine, or personally, to point his finger to any parish, township, or village, where any such abomination exists or ever existed. Thirdly, with regard to the infidel lectures, I deny, in toto, that any infidel has ever given lectures in this district, (within my own memory at least, and I doubt not before,) or that an avowed atheist would be permitted to give open and public lectures in any portion of eastern or western Langbargh. Depend upon it, the nearest horse-pond, or the stocks, or the pillory would be his immediate doom! And can you think it possible, Mr. Editor, that these extraordinarily unjust fabrications can apply to a rural and retired district like this, the fairest and most romantic within the circle of the British Isles; where all classes of the people are thoroughly educated through the agency of the excellent national schools which are open to all; a people, I will add, recorded by the famous historian and antiquary Camden, by travellers and others, as distinguished for their courtesy, cleanliness, and civility of demeanour – and among whom John Wesley, your pious and venerable founder, was proud to spend many of the happiest and most successful days of his heavenly ministry. I will confidently appeal also to your late illustrious president of conference, the Rev. Robert Newton, if there be any foundation in the world for the slanderous inventions of this wolf in sheep’s clothing, this vile traitor in the camp of the faithful! He affirms that the sanctuaries are comparatively empty: and need he wonder at this, when the people are called upon to listen to one capable of concocting such falsehoods as these of his own flock, and of his own congregation. Does he now know that his people must experience feelings of the profoundest disgust and execration, at calumnies so utterly unfounded and unprovoked as these? And I must say, for my own part, I have felt these emotions to the fullest extent, and this, I trust, will prove my apology for some little warmth of expression which may have crept into this epistle.

In conclusion, I feel confident, Sir, that you, as the editor of a public journal, of great learning and respectability, will feel it your duty to publish the whole, or the substance of this communication, and I am sure that by so doing, you will greatly gratify many of your readers, and followers of Wesley, who cannot tolerate that the valley of their birth, and the object of their dearest affections, should be held up to public scorn as a nest of atheists and infidels, a harbourer of clubs for the propagation of infidelity, an arena for atheist lecturers to hold forth their damnable and destructive dogmas; of a people, in fine, whose “sceptical indifference to the blessings of the Christian religion, and almost invincible ignorance of gospel truths, are criteria of some demon, moving among the masses, and hurrying them downward to the chambers of eternal death.

Is this not indeed “horrible, most horrible, most horrible!!!!”

J. WALKER ORD, F.G.S.L., M.C.S.L., M.A.S.L., Author of the History of Cleveland, &c., &c., &c.
Gisborough, June 18, 1847

910 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Atheism (5) ·
• Cleveland, Yorkshire (5) ·
• Guisborough (5) ·
• Langbaurgh East (1) ·
• Langbaurgh West (1) ·
• Methodism (38) ·
• Ord, John Walker (1811-53) (1), Guisborough-born topographer, poet, and journalist ·
• Paine, Thomas (1737-1809) (5), English-born American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary ·
• Wesley, John (1703-91) (21), cleric and leader of a evangelical revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism ·
• Wesleyan Methodist Magazine (3) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 17 May 1828: Joseph Pickles of Wilsden, a Methodist convert, dies, having partially recovered his sight, and helped produce 410 descendants
• 17 July 1844: Tory Radical Joshua Hobson tells Leeds council that Liberal mayor Hamer Stansfield was wrong to prohibit public meetings on the semi-privatised Kirkgate market
• 22 June 1761: John Wesley is troubled by fish at Guisborough
• 9 May 1757: John Wesley rides into Huddersfield in the Wild West Riding
• 13 July 1858: A visit to an alum works near Whitby
• 24 November 1839: Betsy Sawyer, a freed Antiguan slave, and family servant to the Rev. Thomas Murray, dies at Yeadon
• 19 July 1761: John Wesley speaks at the first love-feast at Birstall
• 19 April 1747: The Methodist John Nelson is attacked by an affluent mob while preaching at Heworth Moor and Acomb (York) on Easter Sunday
• 26 June 1794: The editor of the Sheffield Register fires off a final broadside against Georgian despotism, and flees to the continent and thence to the United States
• 1 August 1833: At Kelfield (East Riding), Hannah Beedham fails to fulfil her prophecy of her own death