Virtue and Vanity: Continuing Story of Desire and Duty (22 page)

The aristocratic government was perplexed by these brave Methodist pastors. On one hand they wanted to brand them revolutionaries and ban them; but, learning of their strong loyalty oaths to the king, found no basis to legally persecute them. Eventually, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, unions were legalized and role of the pastors working in unions faded away.

Because of their hard work to improve the conditions of the poor, prison reform and health care (the Methodists were the first to open free health clinics in England), the famous French historian, Halevy, credits the Methodists with preventing the gruesome French revolution from being duplicated in England (see discussion in Desire and Duty).

In Cooper’s notes on England, which range from 1828-1836, he fully expects that a dramatic revolution would also occur in England due to the great unrest and social injustice (from the viewpoint of an American democrat).

Two quotes from British newspapers in 1831 and 1834–

“distress and starvation now existing among great numbers of the working classes are due to the land being held in the hands of a few, instead of being cultivated for the benefit of the community at large.”

“
high
rents, high tithes, high tolls, high usury (interest rate), high profits and low wages amongst working people are the cause of their poverty.” (
Wearmouth
, Working Class, 168)

Works Cited

Cooper, James
Fenimore
.
Geanings
in Europe: France. State University of New York Press: Albany, 1981.

Cooper, James
Fenimore
.
Gleaning in Europe: England.
State
Univeristy
of New York Press: Albany, 1979.

Halevy,
Elie
.
A History of the English People in 1815.
Routledge
and
Kegan
Paul Ltd: London, 1987.

Pinkney
, David.
The French Revolution of 1830.
Princeton University Press: New Jersey, 1972.

Taylor, Archer. English Riddles from Oral Tradition. Octagon Books: New York, 1977.

Wearmouth
, Robert. Methodism and the Common People of the Eighteenth Century. Epworth Press: London, 1945.

Wearmouth
, Robert. Methodism and the Working-Class Movements in England: 1800-1850. Augustus Kelley Publishers: Clifton, 1972.

Willms
, Johannes. Paris: Capital of Europe. Holmes and Meier: New York, 1997.

Woodforde
, James.
The Diary of a Country Parson.
Folio Society: London, 1992.

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