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Return to Methodists name list from "Methodism in the Channel Islands" by R.D. Moore (1952)
Pages 75-77
PERSECUTION had diminished but hostility had not ceased—especially in Jersey. It took many forms, including anonymous letters in the Gazette de Jersey. The Methodist attitude to Sunday Militia drill was one of the objects of attack. In view of the order of George the Third the authorities could only submit, but rancour was all the greater. In 1811 Jean Falla, an officer, was reduced to the ranks for refusing to take part in Sunday drill.
So when gangs of ruffians interfered with worship, molested the preachers, broke windows of Chapels, and damaged the property of the Methodists, they could do so with impunity. At St Peter's the preachers complained to the head of the police and were told: 'I am quite willing to protect you on condition that you promise to give up your meetings.’
This state of things (of which innumerable instances are on record) continued for many years. The Methodists may have believed they were contending for their own liberty of conscience and of worship—their patient fidelity was in reality securing these for the whole community. They were detested because they insisted, in the name of their Master, in proclaiming (and living by) nobler standards of conduct. They were in fact raising the levels of convention and conduct throughout all society. Even if the community blindly resented it—as it ever does—rightness and decency, with their inherent strength of truth, slowly won the victories of moral progress—as they have ever done—in spite of Lord Hategood and his jury. It is part of the fight for life: of God's everlasting conflict with ignorance and death.
The wonder of it is that so much could be achieved with such imperfect instruments. But even the work of God has always been subject to that handicap.
The English preacher in the Channel Islands were not all cultured and educated men, but at least they had access to the abundant literature Wesley had published. They were in constant touch with the conversations and instructions of the Annual Conference. Their triennial term of service had taken them into many areas of the country and varieties of society, and thus broadened their experience and outlook.
The French preachers had none of these advantages. They were born in the Islands and—unless they became missionaries—had to spend their lives there. Ignorance of English usually precluded their appointment to English stations and shut them off from Wesley's Bookroom and from English literature. They were equally shut off by years of war from whatever might have helped them (which was little enough) in the French language.
As a result, they and their Societies grew up in a little world of their own. The preachers were ill-paid and lived in poverty and intellectual limitation. The saving factor was that they counted not their own lives dear to them, but were for the most part utterly devoted to the Lord who had redeemed them. In the long run, as we shall see, this was not enough. Spiritual development (and the consequent victory of God) works by inviolable laws. Wherever they are imperfectly obeyed—whether ignorantly or wilfully—the results are impaired.
Sunday-schools had been established in England for more than a generation before they began in the Islands. The first (in English) was founded in Guernsey in 1808. In 1814, the second was begun in St Helier and was at first bilingual. Gradually their importance began to be realized and they were slowly extended in association with other Chapels.
It would not be possible within the limitations of this record to include an account of the erection of each building, romantic as some of them are. Yet the mere list of them in chronological order is, to the discerning, a history in itself.