A Serious Conversation, By Way of Letters Between a Gentleman...
"You Still Persevere in Encouraging a Set of Imposters..." [Methodists]. [Marten, John]. [Haselden, James]. A Serious Conversation, By Way of Letters Between a Gentleman Brought up to the Law, And a Methodist Both of the Parish of Wigan. 8 pp. [1789?] Octavo (6-1/4" x 3-3/4"). Disbound, leaves nearly separated. Moderate toning, lower right corners folded. Rare. $350. * Only edition. Four letters relating to a dispute in Upholland, Lancashire in February of 1788. (The British Library assigns the work a provisional date of 1789.) John Marten, the titular gentleman, strenuously objected to local woman Mary Tomison's use of her home for Methodist meetings, and informed her that he would burn her house down if the meetings did not desist. In his letters, Marten characterizes the meetings as "altogether unlawful, a scandal to religion and unacceptable to the All-wise Being of the universe" and Methodists in general as "wolves in sheeps cloathing" and "a pest of hypocrites to impose on the ignorant and credulous." The measured and spiritual replies are from James Haselden, Tomison's brother who had apparently recently returned from a stint as a soldier. The work concludes with a traditional Methodist hymn. Though complete as presented here, A Serious Conversation may once have been part of a larger work that does not survive; all copies we could locate are catalogued as individual titles. OCLC and Library Hub locate 2 copies of this rare item (British Library, Oxford Brookes University). Not in the English Short-Title Catalogue or the British Museum Catalogue. Field, "Anti-Methodist Publications of the Eighteenth Century: A Supplemental Bibliography," Wesley and Methodist Studies 6 (2014) 178.
Price: $350.00
Book number 74237