DR. CLIFFORD ON METHODISM

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 136099, 25 April 1908, Page 13

DR. CLIFFORD ON METHODISM

The Her. Dr. Clifford,-the eminent Baptist minister, has just been giving •o an interviewer his impressions of thp English Wesleyan Methodist Church, noting tho important changes he haa in Methodism during his fifty years' ministry in London and his travels up and down the oountry. ''The most interesting and encouraging change that I see," he said, "is Methodism's approximation in ideals and sympathies to the ideals and sympathies of the Free Churches generally As compared with the condition of 1# things fifty years ago, tho disposition <~. lor thorough fraternising, in the most ; frank and cordial fashion with the old- ~ - er Churches that are separated from

the State is a most notable and. pleasing fact. I can remember very well when the barriers between Wesleyan. Methodists and Baptists, for example, in the villages in which I was roared, seemed insurmountable. There was scarcely more fraternisation between them than between the Anglican Church and the Baptists—and that was none. But now. as I go about, I find, I won't say in every case, but in the majority of cases, that the WeaLeyan. Methodists are as hearty and thoroughgoing in their devotion to what I may describe as the Protestant conceptions oT liberty, justice, progress and freedom from State interference in connection with matters of religion as tho most thorough-paced Baptists or Independents." "To what do you attribute tho change, Doctor?"

"So far cs I can observe, very largely to tho fact that t'he Oxford Movement has developed in «the villages of England an amount of ridiculous and pathetic, as well as painful tyranny over all Ch.ristia.ne who are not identified with Anglicanism. One of the first to point out that the changed attitude would have to bo ta-kon was Gervaso Smith, whom I regard as Morlcy Punshon's peer in papulaJ-rty and influence." "Any other change, Doctor?" "Yrs. Tho next was that effected under the guidanoe and inspiration, very largely, of Hugh Price Hughes— that of turning the attention of Me'ihodism to tho .solution of th© social problems of the time, of which ho had a great mastery. There is no doubt he was the foremost man in -ccompiishing that revolution. Tho modern Central Mission is simply the machine for the execution of Hughes's purposo of bringing Christianity into force as an effective instnmient for the removal of industrial and social miseries. And it is a machine in the prosperity of which I rejoice exceedingly."