The training of the ministry was neglected,
and the young ministers had to educate themselves. Though Wesley
approved the idea of a seminary for his preachers, it was only three
years before the Queen's accession that the first Theological
Institution was opened at Hoxton. The Centenary Fund provided for one
such institution at Richmond, and another at Didsbury. The Headingley
branch was opened in 1868, and the Birmingham branch, built with part
of the Thanksgiving Fund, in 1881. Our ministers are now far better
trained than were the old Methodist preachers, and, taking them as a
whole, they do not come short of their predecessors in any necessary
qualification for their work.
[Illustration: Kingswood School, Bath.]
Their culture must not be judged by the scantiness of their literary
production. The empress Catherine once said to a French _savant_, "My
dear philosopher, it is not so easy to write on human flesh as on
paper." Much more difficult is the task of our ministers, whose
religious, social, and financial work leaves them little of that
learned leisure enjoyed by Anglican divines, who by their masterly
works have made the entire Christian Church their debtor.
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