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"Methodism in the Channel Islands" by R.D. Moore (1952)

Pages 70-74


The new Constituent Assembly had just been formed; Mirabeau was dead—and conciliation died with him; the Royal Flight had failed, and royalty was now captive; Robespierre was growing in power; it was the decisive turning-point from which the Revolution moved downward to the Reign of Terror.

And it was at this time that Dr Coke offered Methodism to Paris and attempted to establish it there! In consultation with two English professors he rented a room for preaching and advertised their mission in the Press. De Quetteville preached here to thirty-six people, but on the following day, with Dr Coke as preacher, the audience had shrunk to six. He had been negotiating for the purchase of a confiscated church, but 'thanks to the courtesy of the Government agents' was able to cancel this.

The party left Paris, with little hope of return. De Quetteville, writing shortly afterwards to his friend Abraham Bishop, says: 'She is the mother of abominations; she abounds in all kinds of iniquities.’

Meanwhile William Mahy stuck to his task in Normandy, and on the way home to the Islands de Quetteville stayed with him for a month. There were some conversions and small Societies were formed.


7. The Mission to France (b)

The rest of the story can best be introduced in de Quetteville's own words. In a letter to Brackenbury he writes:

After preaching several times on the subject, I told them I could not administer Communion to those who were not willing to give up sin and seek the Lord Jesus Christ, and that I could not tell how they stood with regard to this, except by having a conversation with them one at a time. I fixed an evening for that purpose. The majority declined to be questioned and have left us. About fifty of them submitted and have promised to leave off sin and to seek the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
 
The Lord condescended to visit and to bless my soul in an extraordinary manner, while I was administering Communion to them, and while I was afterwards solemnly exhorting them to cling to the Lord. I do not think I have ever found a greater blessing in any such similar service. I do not think that more than one hundred persons will remain under our ministry. The others are too proud and too hardened. They are the poorest who remain attached to us.
 
At Courseulles, with the exception of eight or ten (amongst whom is one woman seriously converted), all have deserted brother Mahy last March, because he would not administer Communion to them, seeing they were hardened in sin and neglected the means of grace. They have done the same thing at Cresserons while I was there. They will do the same at Fresnes also, if they have not already done so. If we agreed to administer (communion to them, they would continue coming to hear us, but there seems no real hope of doing them good. After one year's work in their midst they are the same. They say that we are too devout, etc. I do not know whether I have done right in wishing to examine them, but I sought counsel of the Lord and acted in the light I received. I felt how insufficient I was for the task which had befallen me, and that troubled me.
 
As regards Caen, there is not, in this town, the least preparation or disposition to receive the Gospel, and I did not feel I had the courage to undertake anything there. I had the same impression during my stay in Paris, and during the time I was in Cherbourg.

After this visit to France it was ten years before de Quetteville returned there. The wars interrupted all communications, even in writing, between the Channel Islands Methodists and the small mission which they had founded in Normandy. Mahy remained there as a brave soldier of the Cross. The Reign of Terror closed places of worship everywhere. Religious meetings, private or public, were interrupted. Many Protestants let them- selves be carried away by the passing current of unbelief.

They who for more than a century had been deprived of all preaching now found that they had too much of it, and that a sermon once in a month or six weeks would be sufficient.

These years brought much anguish to William Mahy, but did not deter him. Repulsed in one locality, he looked elsewhere for other fields of labour. He visited the town of Conde-sur-Noireau, where he received some encouragement, and the surrounding country, known as ‘le Bocage’. There, he found a fairly numerous Protestant population, deprived of ministers. He exercised his ministry there with zeal and had the joy of bringing many souls to the Lord. He attempted also to work at Caen, and he rented a room for preaching, where for some time he held meetings which were fairly well attended by persons, some of whom were Catholics. After fifteen years of labours, mingled with cruel suffering, Mahy fell into a state of deep melancholia which unbalanced his mind. Following lengthy negotiations his friends obtained permission for him to return to his native country, in spite of the war. He died in a Mental Home near Manchester in 1812. His last words were: 'My only hope is in God's mercy.' This narrative has no name more heroic than his to record.


8. Transatlantic Missions

French-speaking missionaries were needed for some of the American stations. Nova Scotia, for which de Quetteville had volunteered, was largely populated by French Canadians. To this new and difficult task in an almost Arctic climate Abraham Bishop of Jersey was sent. He landed at Halifax on 30th August 1791 In addition to the French colonists there were large numbers of black slaves. Bishop ministered to both, and with conspicuous success. The Lt-Governor offered to arrange for him to be episcopally ordained but this he declined. At the beginning of 1793 he was transferred to a very different sphere—the little Island of Grenada in the West Indies. Again Bishop threw himself into his work, without regard to the violent contrast in climate or its effect upon his own health. Again many conversions took place, and on 19th April he writes:

I do not know any place where I believe I could be more in the way of duty than here; though I must acknowledge the great wickedness and dissipation of the people have given me many a heart-sinking moment. It is impossible to express the weight I feel at times on my mind on account of the greatness of the work. I long for the conversion of the poor heathen.

On the 1st May he wrote again to Dr Coke, giving him good news of the state of the work:

Our Society continues to increase. But I feel my poor body is weak, and I need help. In the Name of the Lord I entreat the Conference to send an English Preacher to assist me; I only require his passage to be paid; and hope we shall be able to support him here. If he wants anything to make his situation comfortable he shall be welcome to a share of my small income. I shall expect a Preacher immediately after the Conference, otherwise the work will suffer, and the great labour I am engaged in may shortly bring me to the grave. It is impossible to describe the great weight I feel upon my mind on account of the cause of God. I have no Class Leaders as yet, and am therefore obliged to attend to all myself. The miseries of the people call loudly for help; and when the Lord opens a wide door for the preaching of the Gospel we ought to rush into it with all diligence.

Six weeks after writing this he was down with fever and he died in triumph on the 16th June.

His will, made in London before he left for Nova Scotia, established the 'Bishop Fund', which has continued ever since to be administered for the benefit of Methodism in the Channel Islands.

For some years after the death of Abraham Bishop the Island of Grenada was served by an English missionary. But the need for a French-speaking worker was plain and Dr Coke appealed to the Channel Islands. As a result the Conference of 1799 was able to appoint Francois Jeune (of Jersey) and his wife. He settled at Gouave where the Anglican minister himself was converted and became his intimate friend.

Less than a year after his arrival he was stricken with yellow fever as Bishop had been. His wife wrote; 'He bore his sufferings with perfect submission and even with deep gratitude for the Lord's goodness who gave him grace in abundance. He ended his career the 23rd May 1800. . . . We were not cast down by all our misfortunes and trials. . . . We spent the last night together in singing God's praises.' Such was the unconquerable spirit of those early Methodist missionaries.

When Jasper Winscomb endorsed Cpl Millar's letter asking for a preacher to be sent to Jersey and sent it on to Wesley (December 1783) he wrote: 'It seems to me that if you can send a preacher with a knowledge of French the good that can result will spread beyond these Islands.' Fifteen years afterwards there were 795 members, seven travelling preachers, several Local Preachers, one Chapel in each Island (and a number of other centres of worship and witness), five Ministers had gone into the home work, and three to missions overseas—all of them laying down their lives for their Lord.

Protestantism had come to the Islands from France— and to France went the first Missionary, William Mahy. Methodism had come by way of North America—and back across the Atlantic went Bishop and Jeune. The winds of God blow where they will!