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JAMES HUTTO N. *

FETTER-LANE, between Fleet-street and Holborn, in London, has suffered the loss of respectability since its houses were the residences of city merchants, or officials connected with the legal courts. It has long been chiefly resigned to small shopkeepers, clustering together among the dense population who inhabit the minor alleys and lanes, which branch off almost at every second house on each side, through the haunts of compositors and pressmen, allured to that district by the attraction of law printing, if not by the memory of Dr. Johnson and his friends. Modern improvements afford some hope that the worst days of Fetter-lane have passed; but in its darkest period more than one building, employed for specific purposes, preserved a calm dignity amid the over-crowding and pressure around them. The Moravian Brethren have always had their central station in Fetterlane. The external appearance of their house does not vary much from that of other old houses in the same line of street. A stranger in search of their chapel might have some difficulty in discover ing the entrance, through a long passage in the front house. The chapel itself occupies a considerable space of ground, and might accommodate a large congregation. The attendance is not now numerous, and the services are not apparently attractive to the immediate neighbours of the Moravians. The chapel has its male and female side in the area, like a Jewish synagogue,-only in the latter females are placed in the galleries, and concealed by screens—or like some of the Methodist, and others of the Puseyite, chapels or churches in England. The brethren and sisters of the Moravians will not believe us; and yet we may assure them that the arrangement is objectionable. Surely a husband and wife, a father and his daughter, brothers and sisters, may sit together in places of public worship, as in their homes at domestic worship. The division thus made seems unscriptural. He who placed mankind in families did not say that families might not together worship in the house "where prayer is wont to be made." The Moravian chapel resembles, in other respects, the ordinary meeting-houses of Dissenters, and the lessons taught do not exhibit any difference from those of a thousand similar buildings. The peculiar views of the brethren, and of their sisters, are not brought forward with any of the zeal of propagandism. The sect has, therefore, decreased rather than increased, during latter years. They were distinguished in former times by the zeal wherewith all their strength was directed. The brethren and their sisters bad each places assigned to them in the great struggle

with public error and ignorance. Each congrega. tion was divided into bands, and the latter were not formed upon their geographical, but their social, position. Married men and married women, widows and widowers, unmarried brethren and unmarried sisters, had each their bands, or choirs, or classes for it is difficult to learn precisely how the several terms were used. The gregarious character of this people also gave a tone to their history-for they dwelt together in villages. They always honoured education, and to the present day certain of their communities pursue the duties of instructors in a missionary spirit. Their settle ments or villages are now, as they were of old time, distinguished by industry, neatness, plenty. and thrift. They had in these respects something of the Quaker characteristics. Like the followers or friends of George Fox, they adopted also a peculiar kind of phraseology. Like them they belonged to the peace-at-any-price party. Like them they were active missionaries to barbarous and heathen men. They carried their opinions to most inhospitable regions. For the sake of the Gospel they abandoned civilisation, and commenced to form it anew from the roughest materials. They had and have an episcopal organisation consistent with lay teaching, and the exercise of considerable power by the sisters and the lay-brethren in the affairs of the churches or communities, and in their discipline. Their ecclesiastical pursuits were mixed with secular proceedings; and as prosperity did not always attend their speculations, general sufferings, borne cheerfully, clouded sometimes their walk through the wilderness. They have been supposed to entertain the idea of community of goods by those who judged by appearances only, and whose judgment in this respect was erroneous. Their religious teaching was considered evangelical, but towards Armenians and Calvinists-to the followers of Wesley and of Whitfield alike—they had a cold corner in their warm hearts. This marble nook, we regret to say, was reciprocrated, for all men are fallible. Their organisation, borrowed partly from Episcopacy and partly from Presbyterianism, with additions and novelties unknown to either, rather pleased the followers of both systems. Their dwellings and villages were scrupulously clean and neat-alike in Britain, in Ireland, and in Russia, where they found encouragement and a refuge.

The present century has not favoured the Moravian brethren. Their numbers have probably decreased, and it seems certain that they have not increased.

James Hutton, who may be considered a founder

* "Memoirs of James Hutton; Comprising the Annals of His Life, and Connexion with the United Brethren," By Daniel Bénham. London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co. 1 vol., pp. 639,

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of the Moravians in England, was a bookseller, who served his apprenticeship at the west end of St. Paul's churchyard, with Mr. William Inuys. When his apprenticeship expired, he commenced business at the "Bible and Sun," a little to the westward of Temple Bar. His father had been educated at Eton and Cambridge for the Established Church, but, being unable to take the oath, he kept a boarding house for boys who attended Westminster School, with the view, doubtless, of assisting them in their studies; and he also seems to have been engaged in literary employment, and, in 1730, was occupied in editing some Greek translations. James Hutton, the subject of this memoir, was born in 1715. His biographer shows that by his maternal descent he was related to Sir Isaac Newton, while his father's family were descended from the Huttons of Penrith, in Cumberland, and Gooseborough, in Yorkshire-but, by going back far enough, we should all get into a very respectable ancestral connexion.

The elder Mr. Hutton is described as "a devout and pious man ;" and, from his son's statement, it appears that there were religious societies in those days before the commencement of Methodism, whose members assembled together for religious conversation. They were probably fragments from Puritan England, for the period is described as an intellectual and spiritual winter of religion. The younger Mr. Hutton spoke ill of them :

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In his narrative of the awakening in England, Hutton relates concerning the religious societies-with which he himself had been connected, his father holding one in his own house, that they had so settled down into lifelessness, that the majority of their members were altogether slumbering or dead souls, who cared for nothing but their comfort in this world, and, as they had once joined this connection

they were willing to continue in this respectable pastime on Sunday evenings, by which, at small expense, they could enjoy the pleasure, and fancy themselves better than the rest of the world who did not do the like.

During a visit to Oxford, Hutton was introduced to Charles and John Wesley; and he subsequently renewed the acquaintance when they visited London, for their brother Samuel lived next door to his father's house in Westminster. The two brothers Wesley were at the time preparing to proceed upon their mission to Georgia, then one of our colonies in North America, and Hutton was to accompany them, but his apprenticeship had not expired, and he was obliged to remain in London. The intention was not permanent, for in less than twelvemonths his apprenticeship was finished, and Hutton was in business, under the sign of "The Bible and the Sun," in the twenty-first year of his age.

We have not space to enter in detail upon the history of this eminent member of the trade during the last century; although, as the first man of a new sect in this country, he deserves notice. Mr. Hutton was evidently a conscientious We do not even know how he managed to live, for he rejected the publication of any opinions contrary to his own views. He considered him

man.

self the responsible editor of all the books in which he was concerned. The division of the trade into publishers of different classes of books, is extremely convenient; but few of the present publishers would cheerfully hold themselves liable for all the contents of their books-and fewer still would reject a good order because some paragraph contained a slight difference from their opinions.

John Amos Cominius is supposed to have been the first Moravian teacher who reached Great Britain. He visited London in 1641, and resided here for a short time; but he made no progress towards the formation of a separate communion, and had no desire to accomplish that object. The English Established Church recognised the Moravian brethren as a perfectly organised church, and offered them assistance at the commencement of the last century. Count Zinzendorf having adopted the Moravian opinions, acted upon them, and with vigour. He applied to the Government of this country for a grant of land, with the view of accomplishing his object "to send several families of his own subjects to America, and hoping some day to go there himself." He stipulated for religious liberty; and the connexion of the Moravians with our colonies commenced in this manner at that time. General Oglethorpe, who was then governor of Georgia, favoured the views of the Moravians, and they were grateful for his favour, and in all his future troubles at home stood by him to the end. Spangenberg was the president of the small community sent out by Zinzendorf to Georgia. They settled in June, 1735, on the river, and near the town of Savannah. We know little of their descendants now, and we presume that they have not been able to resist the slave pressure in that state, but have conformed themselves to the general manners in that particular.

John and Charles Wesley formed an acquaintance with Count Zinzendorf, and even visited the settlements of the brethren in Germany. They were probably the means of introducing James Hutton, the publisher, to the Count. He made more progress with the Moravians, went to Germany also, and became one of the brethren. Before that date, however, and in 1738, Mrs. Hutton wrote to the Rev. Samuel Wesley at Tiverton, Devon, a note of complaint regarding his brothers, who were ruining themselves and her son by fanatcism, in her opinion. The correspondence is very singular. Mrs. Hutton writes concerning the meetings in her own house :

It would be a great charity to many other honest, wellmeaning, simple souls, as well as to my children, if you could either confine or convert Mr. John when he is with you. For after his behaviour on Sunday, the 28th May, when you hear it, you will think him not a quite right

man.

Without acquainting Mr. Hutton with any of his notions Blackall's, which he had been reading in his study to a great or designs, when Mr. Hutton had ended a sermon of Bishop number of people, Mr. John got up and told the people, that five days before he was not a Christian, and this he was so

THE WESLEYS.

well assured of as that not five days before he was not in that room, and the way for them all to be Christians was to believe, and own that they were not now Christians. Mr.

Hutton was much surprised at this unexpected injudicious

speech, but only said, "Have a care Mr. Wesley, how you dispose of the benefits received by the two sacraments." I not being in the study when this speech was made, had heard nothing of it when he came into the parlour to supper, where were my two children, two or three others of his deluded followers, two or three ladies who board with me, and two or three gentlemen of Mr. John's acquaintance, though not got into his new notions.

He made the same wild speech again, to which I made answer, "If you was not a Christian ever since I knew you, you must be a great hypocrite, for you made us all believe you was one."

Mr. Hutton, jun., appears not to have been more deeply impressed with the serious duties of a publisher than his father and his mother. Mrs. Hutton says that "Mr. John (Wesley) has abridged the life of one Halyburton, a Presbyterian teacher in Scotland. My son had designed to print it, to show the experiences of that holy man of indwelling, etc. Mr. Hutton and I have forbid our son being concerned in handing such books into the world." The old lady was evidently a staunch Church woman, who could only speak of "Presbyterian teachers," and thought it necessary to forbid the publication of their works by her son. Mr. Samuel Wesley disliked the conduct of his brothers, and eleven days after the date of Mrs. . Hutton's letter, he replied in a long epistle from which we take one extract :

I wish the canting fellows had never had any followers among us, who talk of indwellings, experiences, getting into Christ, &c., &c., as I remember assurances used to make a great noise, which were carried to such a height that (as far as nonsense can be understood) they rose to fruition, in utter defiance of Christian hope, since the question is unanswerable-what a man hath, why doth he yet hope for? But I will believe none, without a miracle, who shall pretend to be wrapped up into the third Heaven.

I hope your son does not think it as plainly revealed that he shall print an enthusiastic book, as it is, that he shall obey his father and his mother.

The course of post was not, however, so long then between Tiverton, Devon, and London as the moderns might suppose, for on the 20th of June the good old lady was at her pen again, labouring to stop Methodism by the aid of the clergyman at Tiverton, just as some older women now hope to stop political progress by the assistance of the member for Tiverton.

Mrs. Hutton suffered disappointment; and her successors will also lose their toil. Mrs. Hutton had even then little or no hope of recovering John; but as he had gone to Germany, she expected that Samuel might convert Charles.

Now your brother John is gone, who is my son's Pope. It may please God, if you will give yourself some trouble to try, he may hear some reason from you. If you could bring your brother Charles back, it would be a great step towards the re-conversion of my poor son. Your two brothers are men of great parts and learning; my son is good-humoured, and very undesigning, and sincerely honest, but of weak judgment-so fitted for any delusion. It would be the greatest charity you ever did, and your charity, of all kinds,

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is very extensive. If you can undeceive your brother Charles and my son, it would put a stop to this wildfire.

The value of this thick volume consists in the

incidental glimpses of society in England and elsewhere at the time which come out in the correspondence. James Hutton gave his business into charge of a person in whom he could place confi dence, and visited the Moravian settlement early in 1739.

They took the

His friendship to the Wesleys was not of long duration, aud was succeeded by hard feelings and recollections between them, which also extended to Mr. Whitfield. The leaders of the Methodists were men of greater action than Mr. Hutton and his friends, or men of a different and more popular action. They did not disturb the secular course of life so much as the Moravians. world as they found it; and without asking outward manifestations of inward change in different raiment or any new practice, they sought to change the heart and purpose of society. Therefore they were more successful, because they met more closely the wants of the times. Wesley formed no agreement with the Moravians, but James Hutton was soon associated with them, and he rapidly gained the favour of Count Zinzendorf, to whom we find him writing after his return to England in 1740, in very uncomplimentary terms of the Wesleys :

John

Charles Wesley had determined to go to Germany, but now he will not since he has seen Nowers.* John Wesley has carried Nowers wherever he could, speaking against the brethren. I told Nowers he should smart for speaking against us-I mean the Herrdyk brethren-who are part of my herd. J. W. and C. W., both of them are dangerous snares to many young women; several are in love with them. I wish they were once married to some good sisters, but I would not give them one of my sisters if I had many.

The style of this letter does not impress us favourably towards the writer. The two Wesleys differed from Hutton in opinion, but they were men of an apostolic spirit, great labourers and persevering missionaries, who did not merit from any person the character given to them by Mr. Hutton, either in levity or scandal. We presume that the former was Hutton's error, for he says:-"At Oxford I have seen some good souls : at first they could not be reconciled with layteaching, stillness, &c. . . . About six are in a fine way." In Wales some thousands were stirred up; but here was the difficulty, "they are taught the Calvanistical scheme." As to Hutton's own family, he says "my father and mother are in the same state, or rather in a worse-my sister much worse than ever." One can scarcely wonder at the old people and his sister with their worldy views; being rather worse than better, when we read what was going on. James Hutton was a very young man, and he was going to be married to a foreign girl in Germany, by lot, or order, or selection on the part of his superiors, not so much be

* A brother who had withdrawn from the congregation at Herrnhag.

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cause the young bookseller and publisher needed a wife, as the church required that a married sister should be stationed in London.

In the same year (1740) Hutton went to Germany, where it was considered necessary that he should marry, in order that there might be a sister in Londou, who should attend to the work of the Lord among the females, of whom

some were a remnant of those who were first awakened, and others were new comers. A union was, therefore, proposed between him and a single sister, Louise Brandt, a native of French Switzerland, who, in the year 1739, had joined the congregation of the Brethren. After taking some time to consider, she consented to the proposal, and the marriage took place at Marrenborn on the 3rd July, 1740, Count Zinzendorf performing the ceremony.

We may venture to assure the Moravian brethren that the system of forming marriages, how. ever it may be applicable to their disciplined natures, has not little to do with their stationary position on earth. They cannot expect to increase their numbers while they adopt unattractive rules, and systems that have no connection with the Scriptures. We have no right to go out of them for the cut of a coat, the pronunciation of a word, or the marriage of a wife; or any other transaction; and make it a rule of faith. The marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Hutton was a happy one, in spite of their strange courtship, if the congregation at Fetter-lane would have allowed them to manage their own wardrobes and such like in peace. Thirty-one years, however, after their marriage, at page 491, we find the following passage :—

The improper manner of dressing, which had been the subject of "hearty representation in the present year (1771), not having had the desired effect, there being sisters who did not dress in the plainness and simplicity which the world expects of us," Brother Tranaker was desired to speak in a "tender and hearty manner with sister Hutton, among What effect this produced does not appear, except others." from the following entry, on the 4th of November, which indicates that, for some reason or other, it was justifiable :— "A letter from Brother Hutton, apologising for the uncongregation-like fashion of his wife's gown, was read."

Sister Hutton having been the first married woman in that church might have been allowed to choose the cut of her own frock, and select her own milliner, after her thirtieth married year, when we may readily suppose that she was not the gayest of the gay.

During the thirty-one years between the marriage and the rebuke of Mrs. Hutton, her husband having long abandoned his business, had become a class leader and general manager of the Church in London, and had not always or often found peace in the work. His friend, the Count, had purchased a large house and grounds in Chelsea, for the brethren and sisters. Mr. and Mrs. Hutton lived there for a considerable period, and the former appears to have been the trustee of the community's property. He was the diplomatist of the body. All their negotiations with the public men of the day were conducted through him. The volume takes part of its general value from the information continually given in the correspondence, otherwise somewhat heavy, respecting

historical men. Mr. Hutton was a favourite of George III. and of the Queen Charlotte. The king was anxious to hear all the particulars that could be gleaned of Moravian life. He bestowed many immunities and privileges on their missionary settlements in the colonies; but it is only asked for soil to work upon, and liberty to scanty justice to say of the Moravians that they worship God according to their manner in peace.

Their episcopal organisation was favourable to them at court; and they were supported warmly by several dignitaries of the Church. Hutton passed a considerable part of his time in journeying through Germany chiefly, France and Switzerland. He acquired the German and French languages apparently so far as to address meetings of the communities. While at Geneva, in 1756, he intended to have called on Mons. Voltaire; using his relationship to Sir Isaac Newton as the means of breaking the ice; but the Infidel philoso pher was ill in bed, angry with his monkey and wroth with his servants, and the British missionary felt that he would be ill received. He says, in page 317:

"He" (Voltaire), "has bought a house and an estate of a certain kind, and very beautiful, near Geneva and withis its jurisdiction, and lives in great style. I saw three servants in livery, and one dressed as a gentleman, not in livery. He must be rich. If death prevent not, his life will be history."

It has become only a miserable land-mark in history, and few men of equal ability, longing for notoriety, have left feebler tracings on the sands of time than Voltaire. Hutton had an extensive correspondence, and many meetings with another person of unfortunately similar principles, in some respects, to Voltaire. We allude to Dr. Franklin, who was probably the principal promoter of the American revolution. It is supposed that Franklin and Hutton became acquainted commercially in 1739, when they were both engaged in printing the journals and sermons of Mr. Whitfield, but had only formed a personal intimacy in 1757, when Dr. Franklin came to England as an agent for the province of Pennsylvania, which even at that early date repudiated its just debts; for it should not be forgotten, now one hundred years after the event, that the Pennsylvanians were unwilling to pay any part of the expense of being governed. We know that the imposition of taxes, without the consent of the people, through their representatives, was the assigned cause of the rebellion; but it does not appear that these people were willing to tax them selves. At that time, we learn from the correspondence of Hutton that Franklin was not acting always with his brother commissioners. At a long subsequent period, namely, in 1778, and after the war had commenced, Dr. Franklin, writing from Plassy, where he lived as a representative of the revolted party to the French court writing to Mr. David Hartley, says, in his postcript:

An old friend of mine, Mr. Hutton, a chief of the Mornvians, who is often at the Queen's Palace, and is sometimes

HISTORICAL MEMORANDA.

spoken to by the King, was over here lately. to no commission, but urged me much to propose some terms of peace, which I have avoided. He has written to

me since his return, pressing the same thing, and expressing

with some confidence, his opinion that we might have everything short of absolute independence, &c.

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More

He pretended | pressed that his party would be soon defeated,”a strange hope from men who conscientiously sought exemption from military service. space is occupied with the disorderly behaviour of the young people at Fetter-lane, and instructions to females, called even sisters, not to throw down the forms with their hoops as they pass the end, and to walk with short straight steps-than with the great rebellion.

He

Dr. Franklin's voice, however, was not for peace. He was tickled by the attentions paid to him at the French Court. If his friend Hutton visited at one Royal palace, he (Franklin) visited at another. Upon the 1st February, 1771, he wrote to Hutton that peace might be made by dropping all your pretensions to govern us." confessed that Britain might "retain all Canada, Nova Scotia, and the Floridas," but recommended that they should throw in those countries, which, he said, "will, otherwise, be some time or other demanded." The Doctor was wrong in his anticipations regarding the Canadas and Nova Scotia. These countries are rising faster than any portion of the Union, and the time may come, and living men may see it, when they will be literally stronger than the Union, because they have no intestine openings for quarrels and weakness.

The real cause for continuing the war is set forth by Dr. Franklin, in a letter to Mr. Hutton, dated 24th March, 1778. The letter ran thus :

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George III. lived to see the French dynasty, whose conduct fanned the civil war in America, driven from their throne, and forced to seek a shelter in his dominions. France, doubtless, gave independence to the United States. The retribution was that revolution which loosened for ever the throne of the Bourbons. It appears that Hutton ceased to visit at the Court at the clo e of the following year. He had mentioned the name of Rodney as a fitting officer to command the fleet in that emergency. Soon after he saw that Rodney was gazetted, and he was afraid to commit again a similar indiscretion. The cause of his fear was a coincidence. Hutton was not the patron of Rodney. The idea is somewhat curious of a Moravian missionary recommending a fighting man for the command of the fleet, and the king taking counsel with a peace-at-any-price man on the subject.

The value of the volume chiefly consists, as we have said, in the casual notices of events and men of the last century. It is curious, for example, to observe as the P.S. of one of Hutton's letters dated 24th August, 1745. "It seems as if the King of Prussia had begun war against the King of Poland." The grand event in British history of that year passes with little notice. On the 23rd of September it was known in London that the Pretender had been proclaimed king at Edinburgh, "and the hope of the brethren was ex

One hundred and ten years ago the crinoline of the day was a hoop. It was a hypocritical article,

but must have been stifter and more troublesome

than the modern substitute. Another little inconsistency occurred among the brethren when, in 1746, they joined as a church in the general day of thanksgiving for the complete overthrow of the Pretender at the battle of Culloden on the 16th of April. They might have joined in a thanksgiving for the restoration of peace: but thanksgiving for a victory by battle, and the overthrow of one army, by persons who deemed war immoral and un-Christian, was a strange forgetfulness of the means in the end.

In the same year the brethren refused admission to one person who wished to join them, because, said Mr. Hutton, "which cannot be while you are a seller of spiritous liquors." At this period even the ministers of the brethren were not exempted from "pressure" to the army,-except by the activity of their friends; and thus we have a landmark of progress established. A century since subjects of the realm were pressed into the army. In 1746 the Huttons lost two of their children by death. From the tenor of Mr. Hutton's will, dated in 1763, it is clear that he had no children then alive, for his property was bequeathed to his wife, and, failing her, to his niece. In 1778 his wife died,-evidently from disease of the heart,— after they had been married for more than thirtyeight years, and becu more happy in that connec tion than people in general would have any reason to anticipate from a similar commencement. Hutton continued his engagements with the Fetterlane congregation, having joined the small choir of widowers; and he survived his wife seventeen years; but for a part of that long period he resided with some "sisters" in the country. His death occurred on the 3rd of May 1795, and he had not quite completed his eightieth year.

Few men succeeded better in impressing the public and statesmen with a conviction of his sincerity. Equally few, commencing life in narrow circumstances, neither desiring nor obtaining wealth, professing opinions with which the multitude had little sympathy, and which, whether they were or were not generally acceptable, could not promote any personal objects on earth,-ever attained greater influence and success in his negociations for "the brethren," or "the community;"

consisting of brethren and sisters; for the latter exercised no small sway in the general affairs of the body. Hutton wrote several of the hymns used by the church in England, although not to

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