The Life of Sir William Hartley

It was inevitable that a denomination which had originated in a revivalist movement led by laymen and at the outset drawing its converts from the ranks of the poor and illiterate should be slow in making provision for the proper training of its ministry. For one thing there was the urgent need for workers. The fields were white unto harvest and the primary necessity was that the labourers should be thrust into the field as rapidly as possible. This attitude and policy will never be rightly appreciated by those who have not the sympathetic imagination to envisage the situation as it presented itself to these ardent missioners. They accepted without any shadow of misgiving the current eschatology. The moment of death fixed for ever the fate of the individual. The sharp division between the converted and the unconverted, the sheep and the goats, was not toned down by any mediating devices. The destiny of the unsaved was appalling beyond all conception. Hell was not simply a mental state, it was a place. Nor were its torments limited to the consciousness of irretrievable loss, to the pangs of unavailing remorse, or the scourge of a guilty conscience. Its penalties were those of physical torture by fire, intolerable yet unending. Evangelistic effort was not paralysed by the sense of its futility, which would have been the logical effect of a scheme of election and reprobation. The human will was free, at any moment the sinner might turn from his evil way and live. No labour or sacrifice could be too great to warn and save those who were rushing to their ruin, and the first duty of the Church was to send out its messengers into a sodden and brutal England and with affectionate urgency warn the unsaved to flee from the wrath to come. Delay might mean that souls which could have been won for heaven would be doomed for eternity to horrible suffering in hell. For this task education and a training in the technicalities of theology was less essential than an unshrinking belief in the current evangelical creed, an unwavering faith in "the plan of salvation, " a profound pity for the lost, a sense of desperate urgency, and, of course, the evangelistic gift. So in their thousands their converts streamed into the Kingdom.

But this inevitably created the problem of the spiritual and moral training of these new members of the Society. The meetings were still largely evangelistic in character and the members were expected to support this side of the work. But definite teaching and exposition had to be given to them, and even though this was rudimentary it involved study and preparation. For the most part the preachers were eager for self-improvement and their efforts to make good the deficiencies of early education were often beyond all praise. Out of a salary which was but a meagre pittance they saved money to buy books, they met for study in small groups, they toiled hard to equip themselves for the worthy discharge of a teaching ministry. The emphasis was unavoidably shifted as the congregations consisted more and more of those who had been born into the denomination and not brought into it from outside. Evangelism was still the ruling passion, but the training of the children and of the young people became more and more important. And this accelerated the tendencies which were to result in far more thorough provision for the training of the ministry. It must at this point be explained that when a man was accepted for the ministry, the first four years of his ministerial career were spent on probation. A course of study with an annual examination was prescribed for this period, so that by the time that he was accepted into "full ministry" he had been compelled to pass through a course of study which furnished him with some measure of intellectual equipment. It became clear, however, that definite training was needed before a man entered the ministry, though the system of probation, with its course of four years' study, still remained and has in fact remained till this day. Private enterprise on the part of some of the better qualified ministers effected something; but accommodation had been provided and some training had been given at Elmfield College, a denominational school in York. A college for the training of ministers was opened at Sunderland, and some time later another college was established in Manchester, the tiny nucleus out of which Hartley College has grown. The college at Sunderland was abandoned, and although for a long time there was no necessity for a man to pass through college before he was taken into the ministry, the tendency was developing in the direction of making this the more usual course. The first Principal of the Manchester College was the Rev. James Macpherson, and he remained as a tutor when he was succeeded in the principalship by Dr. Joseph Wood. Mr. Macpherson had given generous help to young ministers in their study, he had been the denominational Editor and the President of Conference, and he did much by his advocacy and his work to make the Manchester College possible.