Stretton, etc. Foremost among these was Arthur Thomey, an Irish merchant, one of Coughlan's first converts, who became a useful local preacher. John Stretton, whose parents were friends of Wesley in Limerick, reached Carbonear in 1770, became a member of one of Coughlan's classes, and boldly carried on the work at Harbor Grace. With his friend Thomey, he made preaching excursions around Trinity Bay and other places, seeing many converted and gathered into classes. John Hoskins, who first heard the Methodists in Bristol, 1746, sailed for Newfoundland in 1775, and while teaching at Old Perlican began singing Wesley's hymns and reading his sermons to the many Englishmen employed in the fisheries. He gathered a class, told his experience, and was soon preaching the glad message of salvation. His ordination being refused by the Propagation Society, though advised by Wesley, he continued his labors, visiting Trinity, Bonavista, Island Cove and other places, often opposed, but successfully gathering classes and building churches. Though Coughlan when he landed in Newfoundland was a Methodist, he had ceased to be one of Wesley's preachers. After his engagement with the Propagation Society he received ordination from the Bishop of London; and though during his first year on the island he labored independently as a Methodist, he was thereafter a minister of the Church of England, but Methodistic in his teaching and practice. On his departure, however, some of his lay workers, with others who arrived, boldly declared themselves Methodists, met in classes, held love-feasts and maintained lay preaching. For so doing they were forbidden the use of some of the churches they had assisted in building. Despite increas ing hostility they zealously stood by the work for some years. To the labors of these men we look as the real commencement of Methodism in Newfoundland, and may therefore date it from their consolidation of the work in 1774-5, when we "drew up rules as like Mr. Wesley's as we could." Some of the laborers had died, others had removed, and the work seemed so beset with difficulties that in 1784 they asked Wesley to send them a minister. Wesley wrote Dr. Coke to visit them or send a preacher. He made the attempt, but failed to reach the island. In 1785 John McGeary was sent by Wesley. NOVA SCOTIA, 1772-1791. By the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, Nova Scotia, then embracing New Brunswick and covering an area of nearly 50,000 square miles, was ceded to Great Britain. No great inducements were offered nor efforts made towards its colonization, but gradually a considerable population, largely French, took possession. As years passed, the predominance of the French and the intrigues of their priests led to rebellion against British rule and resulted in the Acadian expulsion of 1775-sympathetically commemorated by Longfellow. Emigrants from the British Isles and New England colonies were induced to settle upon the vacated lands, ample safeguards having been given for civil and religious freedom. Among the arrivals from England, 1772-75, were some Yorkshire Methodists, one of whom, Charles Dixon, purchased a large tract of land at Sackville; William Wells and his wife built a chapel at Thirsk; William Trueman made his home a centre for the itinerants and the nucleus of a numerous Methodist pos terity; John and William Fawcett settled at Tantramar with sons and daughters-in-law, godly people of the old English stamp; John Newton, the patriarch of Cumberland; Thomas Scurr, esteemed for his piety; William Black, to whose "going from a place where he was much wanted" Wesley objected; William and Mary Chapman, whose memory remains as ointment poured forth; George Oxley, whose humble home became the THE HOME OF WILLIAM TRUEMAN, POINT DE BUTE spiritual birthplace of Nova Scotia's first itinerant, and a few others constituting the original germ-cell of Methodism in those provinces; and to them "belongs the honor of being the first Methodists of the Canadian Dominion." Among these families, meeting for fellowship and prayer, a gracious revival broke out, in 1779, near Amherst. One of the converts was William Black, |