Return to my Societe Pages index 

Return to Methodists name list from "Methodism in the Channel Islands" by R.D. Moore (1952)


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

Pages 96-99


Part Six: THE MIDDLE PERIOD


i. Tendencies and Characters

THE RECORD of the period 1800-70 includes three main features: (1) The coming of the newer Methodist movements, (2) The times of Revival. (3) The emergence of notable Methodist characters. The first has already been noted. The second was in no small degree due to the third.

When we begin to review the outstanding names, however, we meet at once the acute difficulty of selection. The biographies of de Quetteville and Adam Clarke introduce us to many influential Methodist worthies of the earlier period. The obituary notices in the Magasin Methodiste provide many more. Some have already found a place in these pages. Among the others the unexpected habit of keeping a journal of their spiritual experiences (for these were in the main uneducated saints) has provided a rich treasury for their successors. There was some danger (as the Rev. W. Toase noted) of the insularity of the work resulting in the undue development of certain characteristics at the expense of others. There was indeed a tendency among the French Methodists (influenced perhaps by certain French devotees) to a 'quietist’ type of mysticism, as many of the earlier hymns bear witness. But Methodist practice carried some corrective to this in the insistent call for active service on the part of all believers—lay as well as ministerial.

So we find, as we might have expected, that those who made the most abiding impression upon their age were not of the type of 'Jeannie' Bisson, whose intensity of devotion attracted Wesley so greatly, as his letters indicate, but those whose faith expressed itself by bearing persecution and in patient service.

NICHOLAS RENOUF was such an one. He lived to be ninety-eight (1767-1865). For seventy-eight years he served the Methodist cause. As a local preacher in the early days he endured the hostility of the mob, and once on leaving a meeting had a rope flung round his neck and was dragged along in the mud. In 1840 he became blind. He still preached as he was able, and gave himself more and more to intercession.

THOMAS W. DOWDNEY was the father-in-law of the Rev. W. Toase and accompanied him on his journeys to France. A local preacher, he retired from business at forty-one and gave the whole of his time for thirty-five years to evangelism throughout the Islands.

JAMES OZANNE was another local preacher of exceptional quality who stood firm through the days of persecution and gave fifty years of priceless service to Guernsey Methodism.

MATTHIEU GALLIENNE was the father and grandfather of Ministers who have left their mark on the history of Methodism in the Islands and in France. He was a lawyer and brought his exceptional gifts to the preaching of the gospel both in English and in French. He followed Elizabeth Arrive in the leadership of the first English Class Meeting formed in Guernsey.

The names of PIERRE HOCART, DAN AUBERT, HIRZEL DOREY, NICHOLAS ROBIN, and NICHOLAS DE GARIS must also be added to the list of those who served Guernsey and Alderney with great distinction.

Jersey also had a roll of honour:

ABRAHAM GIFFARD has already been mentioned. He was one of those who not only 'endured hardship as a good soldier’ and was faithful in his preaching through ignominy and peril, but whose character emerged as gold from the refiner's fire.

JEAN LUCAS, a man of integrity and an original and eloquent preacher, who left behind him a reputation distinguished still more for the quality of his pastoral work.

CHARLES BLAMPIED. Fidelity and unquenchable zeal were the marks of his evangelism. He had endured imprisonment for the Gospel and then proclaimed its liberating power for over fifty years.

JEAN CLIFFORD was a preacher for sixty-five years. He could boast of little in intellectual culture—the gifts he brought to his Master's service were qualities of' character.

ELIE NEEL was the ‘apostle’ who succeeded in establishing Methodism in the parish of St Clement. He made several visits of evangelism to France and was the father of a distinguished French Methodist Minister.

MERRE LESBIREL and PHILIPPE NORMAN were also faithful and welcome preachers who contributed much to the upbuilding of the work.

FRANQOIS GUITON must be named, not only for his work as a preacher, but because without his patient labour no adequate history of Channel Islands Methodism in its earliest days would be possible. He gathered personal memories, many of which would otherwise have been lost, letters and other documents, and recorded them in a volume (published in 1846) to which Le Lievre was greatly indebted. He was both a cultured Christian gentleman and a revivalist of the best type.


2. The Revivals and the Background

Reference has already been made to the religious awakening in Jersey in 1832. Daniel Robin wrote accounts of others that had taken place in 1825 and 1826, and of a still more extensive movement in 1841-2. All these were in Jersey, though they had some influence in the other Islands. They recurred at intervals, and Le Lievre refers to two similar awakenings in Guernsey at later dates.

The middle of the century seems to have been their high-water mark.

It will be instructive to note the background. The middle of the century was a climax in other ways. In the long story of English literature, for example, there has probably never been such a harvest time as in the period 1840-60.

In England, and, indeed, in all Europe, other potent forces were at work. The revolutionary ferment was deepening and spreading: Peterloo, 1819; the Reform Bill, 1832; Tolpuddle, 1834? the Chartist Movement flowing and then disappearing in an illusory ebb; Marx and Engels publishing their Communist Manifesto in 1848. Yet—except for Carlyle—few discerned the signs of the times.

The Church of England was preoccupied with the ecclesiastical egoism of the Tractarian Movement. (The Tracts for the Times were issued from 1833-41) In 1845 Newman went over to the Roman Church, and in 1851 Manning followed him. Meanwhile, Methodism on the mainland was suffering from the growing-pains of democracy. The authoritarian struggle against the inevitable came to a head in 1849-50: a bitter division of forces and an appalling loss of members was the visible result. But the incalculable, and perhaps heavier, loss was in the spiritual leadership of the nation, and indeed of wider communities.

The original sin of pride (‘by that sin fell the angels’), the self-regarding love of power, the hubris that resists the way of the Divine Spirit—these viruses paralysed the Body of Christ at the hour when its greatest opportunity had come.

Methodism in the Channel Islands went on its way through all this time, almost insulated from the upsurgings of England and the mainland of Europe; and excited periodically by its 'revivals'--not, unfortunately, of an enduring type.