RICHARD PATMORE
J. ELLISON
C. WIRE
H. T. WIRE
Witnesses.
P.S.—This took place in March last, 1812.
The peace of this poor lad’s mind however is completely destroyed, so
fatally has the event preyed upon him;—so far so as to fill the bosom of
his aged father with such a spirit of indignation and revenge, that he
actually came up to London with a full determination to be the death of
him who had thus ruined the peace of his beloved son, while the mother’s
mind was not less distracted than that of the father. In consequence of
this, the father entered J. Church’s meeting house, with two loaded
pistols, one in each pocket; but under the excess of agitation, he
fainted away, and was carried out of the place.
The following will cast some light on the preceding:
_Colchester_, _September_ 16, 1812.
SIR—Last evening I had an interview with Clark’s father, who wishes
him to comply with your wishes. I mentioned to him respecting
Church’s conduct, and I find the last night to be the worst.
Likewise that he would have committed the act had not Clark prevented
him. The particulars I told you when in London, but find them worse
than what I described to you. They are not able to be at any
expence; but if the Gentlemen wish to prosecute, and to pay Clark’s
expences up to London, &c. he will have no objection to come when you
please to send. I need only say, I wish you to inform the Gentlemen,
and give me a line.
I am, dear, Sir, yours, &c.
C. WIRE.
The following is a narrative which Cook has given of his acquaintance
with _Parson Church_; and which was taken down from his own dictation by
Mr. E— B—:
In May, 1810, I was in company with Mr. Yardley and another young man
by the name of Ponder. I found after that the said Ponder was a
drummer in the Guards; I called at a house in the London Road, where
I saw Mr. Church the first time in my life: there was at this house
about twelve or fourteen altogether, drinking gin, and Mr. Church
handed me a glass of the same, which I took; Church behaved very
polite to me, and said what a fine fellow I was; he pressed me very
much to stop and get tea with them, for he said he would call and see
me when I was settled in the house in Vere-street. I stopped a
little while, and was about to leave them, when Church said I should
not go before I had tea, and flung down a dollar; and a man, by the
name of Gaiscoin, took the money and went for the tea and other
things, but I would not stay: Church came out of the room with me,
and walked with me as far as the turnpike; there he met another
gentleman, which I never saw before, and I went on and left him for
that time; I think it was six or eight days. I went to live at the
Swan, and saw Church again; he came about three o’clock in the
afternoon, and Mr. Yardley accosted him, “Parson, what! are you come
to see the chapel?” He said “Yes, and to preach too.” Church asked
me how I was; I said I was not very well: he asked me why I went away
in that shy manner; I told him he was a stranger to me, and I did not
like to be intruding on strange people: he said I was shy—he did not
know what to make of me; he also pressed me very much to take a walk
with him, but I declined it: he said I must go, but I still declined,
and did not go with him: he staid some time, and joined the company
in the back parlour—persons by the name of Miss Fox and Miss Kitty
Cambrick was among them, and the Queen of Bohemia. As Mr. C. was
going away, he came to the bar and spoke to me, and said I must take
something to drink, which I did, and he paid for it, and left the
house for that time, in a few days he called again, in the afternoon,
and there was not many people there; he asked if Yardley was at home;
I said he was not: he said he was very sorry for it: I asked him what
he wanted; he said he came on purpose for me to take a walk with him,
but I did not go: he said he would wait until Yardley came in.
Church said I should do him a great favour if I would take a walk
with him; I would not go—he still pressed me very much to go: I said
I would if he would wait till I had cleaned myself: he waited more
than two hours for me; I went to sleep because I would not go with
him; and in the mean time he waited so long that he was tired; he
sent the waiter to call me, which he did, and said the Parson wanted
me, and had been waiting two hours for me; I said, let him wait, for
I should not come; he returned, and said if I would but speak to him,
he should go away happy: I found I could not get rid of him—I went
down stairs; he said, well, sir, I hope your nap has done you good; I
said, I don’t know, don’t bother me. He said I was very cross to
him; I told him there was other men without me; if he wanted to
preach, not to preach to me about crossness. He said, well, if that
was the case, he was very sorry he had offended me; I told him he had
not offended me nor pleased me; but as I was not well, the less any
one talked to me the better I liked it; he said, if I was but friends
with him, and shake hands with him, he should go away happy. Mr.
Yardley said he never see such a fellow as I was, for I had affronted
every body that came to the house. I then shook hands with the
Parson, for at that time I did not know his name. He shook hands
with me, and we had something to drink, and Mr. Church paid for it
and went away. I never saw him until I came out of Newgate; I was
talking to Mr. and Mrs. Holloway, and telling them there was a Parson
somewhere about St. George’s Fields, but his name I did not know. He
asked me if I should know him if I saw him, I said I should; by that
I went to the Chapel and saw Mr. Church, and then I asked the people
what was the Parson’s name; they told me his name was Church. I said
he ought to be ashamed of himself to preach there, a *** and rascal,
and left the place, and went home in the greatest pains I ever felt
in my life, and was resolved to see him, which I did the next day,
and give him one of the hand-bills; and the manner he received me,
was like a young man would his sweetheart;—I begun my conversation:
Well, Sir, I suppose you do not know me? He said he did not. I said
my name was Cook, that kept the Swan, in Vere-street. He said he
thought so, but was not sure: he said, why did I not call before and
shake hands with a-body. I told him I did not know where he lived,
nor I did not know his name until I went to the chapel and found him
out. He told me not to make it known that he ever came to my house,
for he and Rowland Hill had daggers drawn, and that he should be
obliged to indite Hill to clear up his character, and for God’s sake
do not expose me.—(_Here the narrative breaks off_.)
There are various other documents which are too voluminous to notice at
present. The point to direct the attention of the public is, the
extraordinary circumstance of a man continuing to exercise the functions
of a christian pastor up to the present time, with such heavy imputations
as these hanging over his head. He knew that the whole neighbourhood
rung with accusations; he knew that some hundreds of publications
containing charges so severe, that any statements compared to them, “were
lenity and compassion,” have been sold in St. George’s-fields.
The reader may probably have some curiosity to know what sort of a
preacher this person is. I have gone to hear him; and I pity his poor
deluded followers. He does indeed deliver himself in a full, clear,
articulate tone of voice; but to criticise his style, or analyse the
_substance_ of his discourse, would be a fruitless labour: it would be
like dissecting a cobweb. Unmeaning rhapsodies, and unconnected
sentences, through which the faintest gleam of morality is not to be
traced, must, from their evanescent nature, set the powers of
recollection at defiance; they even escape from the lash of one’s
contempt. In his countenance there is none of that dignified mildness,
none of that subdued expression of piety which one often observes in
Christian preachers whose habits of life are conformable to their
precepts. His manner is forward and imposing; and his eyes are
continually employed in staring at some person among his auditors. {11}
The following Character is given of Church by Mr. George Gee and his
wife, who live in the New Cut, Lambeth Marsh.
“Mr. Church the Minister lodged at our house a year and a half, and
left last year at Lady-day.
“We were in hopes that we were about to have a godly praying minister
in our house, and to be sure, the first night he had somewhat like
prayer, and that and once afterwards, were the only times he ever
went to family prayer in our house. Nor could they have any prayer,
as he would be frequently out almost all hours of the night, and
would lie in bed till ten o’clock in the morning. Several times he
and his wife would have skirmishings and fightings between
themselves, while their children would be left to run about the
streets out of school hours, and allowed to keep company with
children that would swear in our hearing most shockingly. His
children were always left to be very dirty, and would be sent
sometimes three or four times in the morning for spirituous liquors
of all sorts; as for reading good books or even the Bible, he scarce
ever thought of it, but would spend a deal of his time in loose and
vain talk, in walking about, and in fawning on young men, that was
his chief delight.
“Sundays and working days were all alike to them, for they would send
out to buy liquors and whatever else they wanted, on Sundays as well
as other days.
“The house would be frequently more like a play-house (I might say a
bawdy house) than a minister’s house, where a set of young people
would come, and behave more indecently than ought to be mentioned.
Even one Sunday morning they made such an uproar, as that they broke
one of the windows, and after that, they would go with him to his
Chapel, and after that he would give the sacrament to such disorderly
people, let their characters be ever so loose.”
“He was always ready to go fast enough out to dinner or supper, where
he could get good eating and drinking; but poor people might send to
him from their sick bed, times and times before he would come to
them. Seeing so much of his inconsistencies and shocking filthiness
in their rooms, (though they always paid the rent,) we were
determined to give them warning to quit our house, and we do think
that a worse man or woman never came into any man’s house before,
especially as Mr. Church pretended to preach the gospel; such
hypocrites are much worse than others, and besides this, we never
heard any man tell lies so fast in all our lives. It is a great
grief to us that ever we went to hear him preach, or suffered him to
stop so long in our house.”
“GEORGE AND FRANCES GEE.”
In addition to the above testimonies, the writer has received a very long
narrative of atrocities committed by JOHN CHURCH while he resided at
Banbury, written by a Minister at that place; but the facts are too
disgusting and shocking to be published.
* * * * *
On the 6th of June 1813, the Grand Jury for the County of Middlesex found
a Bill of Indictment against JOHN CHURCH for his attempt some years ago
on a lad named Webster. Incredible as it may appear, this very man, on
the very evening of the day he was held to bail for trial on the most
horrid charges, given on oath, had the impudence to go into his chapel
and preach to a crowded audience.
At the Middlesex Sessions on Monday the 12th of July 1813, he was tried
and _acquitted_. Indeed, it was never imagined that any other verdict
than one of acquittal would have been given. If the reader looks back to
the proceedings at Union Hall, he will find that this prosecution was
ORDERED by the Magistrates of that Office, and _did not originate_ with
the prosecutor, William Webster, on whom the abominable attempt was
alleged to have been made (now fourteen years ago). The very mention of
the attempt was a mere incidental circumstance arising out of another
proceeding then before the Magistrates. Let the Reader also take notice
of the following sentence:—“The Magistrate observed, that from the length
of time which had elapsed since the offence had been committed, he
thought a Jury would not feel justified in finding him guilty.” This
William Webster, therefore, must be considered, in all respects, as an
unwilling prosecutor. He was supported only by one counsel, then of
young standing (Mr. Adolphus), who had to struggle against two of the
most able advocates (Messrs. Gurney and Alley) in the criminal courts.
It appears also that Webster gave his evidence with embarrassment and
trepidation, and that he suffered himself to fall into some
inconsistencies. With this _solitary_ and confused evidence, and after a
lapse—after a _silence_ of ELEVEN YEARS, was it possible to suppose that
a Jury would have found any man guilty? It must here be observed, that
the decision on this solitary complaint of eleven years standing, does
not in the slightest degree affect any of the numerous accusations of a
more recent date which have been made against John Church.
* * * * *
Several persons have been at a loss to know by what authority this man
presumed to take upon himself the functions of a Minister of the Gospel.
They have asked how could a man so profligate—so notoriously criminal,
come forth to instruct others in religion. The question is natural, and
demands an answer. The practice among Dissenters is, that when any man
feels a strong desire to become a preacher, he communicates the same to
several Ministers, who make strict enquiry into his qualifications as to
piety, learning, morals, &c. and if they find these established on
satisfactory evidence, they then confer on the candidate a sort of
ordination, without which he can have no authority to officiate as a
minister of the Gospel. It seems, that Church did receive some
ordination of this kind at the town of Banbury, in Oxfordshire, from
which place he was driven away for his mal-practices. Since then he has
not been, under the controul, and has acted in defiance of all the
ordinances of the Dissenting Church. He has in fact gone about as a mere
isolated adventurer; and no minister would preach in a pulpit belonging
to him. Yet he continued to preach, in defiance of Christian as well as
moral ordinances, because he could not be silenced by any legal
authority, and because he rejected all ecclesiastical government.
One character peculiar to the person we are speaking of is, that wherever
he has been admitted as a preacher, he has disturbed the religious
system, and upset the order of the place. In Colchester he turned the
whole congregation against their minister, by preaching doctrines tending
to encourage licentiousness and to foster the worst passions. All
persons acquainted with history will recollect, that this mode of healing
the consciences of profligate men was practised by the Romish Church
before the Reformation, and when it flourished in its rankest state of
corruption—when indulgences for sins to be committed, and pardon for sins
past, were openly sold for money. The manner in which the Obelisk
Preacher has conducted the affairs of his chapel bears some resemblance
to this practice; and for the purpose of increasing his revenue, he has
even administered the sacrament to persons when intoxicated!!
However great may be the mass of folly, ignorance, and fanaticism, which
prevail throughout most of the low conventicles of this metropolis, and
however injuriously they may operate on the human mind, their effects are
innocence and virtue, compared to the influence of that guilt which has
so recently been exposed; and it is not too much to observe that the poor
silly visionaries who deal in pictures, in miracles, and monstrous
conceits, are not wilfully or practically vicious, and that they have
_lashed_ themselves into a belief of what they preach; therefore they
cannot drag forward so close upon the heels of Mr. John Church as to hold
out an appearance of their belonging to the same society. After Church
having been held to bail for the purpose of being tried on charges not to
be named among Christians, he ought to have abstained from entering his
pulpit, and shunned the very light, until his character was cleared up to
the satisfaction of his congregation, who ought to have deemed it a
sacrilege to be present while he attempted to promulgate the doctrines of
Christ in a place of divine worship. But one would think there was a
congeniality of sentiment and of _sympathy_ between the pastor and the
flock! Indeed this latter remark is founded upon something more than
conjecture; for a great number of persons who are in the habit of
frequenting his chapel, have taken up the cause of their preacher with a
zeal that cannot easily be accounted for in any way but one. They will
investigate no charge; they reject all evidence.
* * * * *
The following Confessional Letter, from Church, was sent to the great
surprise of the Rev. Mr. L—, two days after the offence had been
committed. It appears that Church was but very slightly known to the
above gentleman, in consequence of some money transactions having passed
between them:—
DEAR SIR—Surely upon the reception of this short note you will say,
ah. _Church_ is like all the rest of the parsons, promise much and
do little, yea nothing: to your note I can only with a pained heart
reply, _I cannot indeed_—I can scarcely write this note, my soul is
too deeply pierced. About eight or nine years ago Dr. Draper left
the church in the Boro’, and God opened Chaple court for me, many
attended and have been blest, now a singular providence but a most
distressing one has occurred to take me shortly from my dear, dear
family and beloved congregation. But God has sent Mr. L— to preach
all the truth to my poor dispersed flock, at least so it appears to
me, and I would do all the good to promote the success of Mr. L— that
my poor people might _not_ be starv’d till I return to them in peace,
which may be many months. My heart is broken, my enemies have ruined
me at last, and I shall never, never surmount it, an unpleasant
affair happening at Vauxhall, is _added_ too, and I must take the
consequences: no arm can help, relieve, or deliver but the Lord’s,
and I feel persuaded the Lord will _not_: judge my feelings if you
can. I shall secretly come and hear you, to get all the good I can
to an heart deprest, disconsolate, and full of woe. O the joy of my
enemies! O the distress of my friends! O my poor heart! Let a sigh
go up to God for me when you can.
Yours in the utmost distress,
J. C.
The following are the remarks of the Gentleman to whom the above Letter
was addressed:—
A self-sent divine and a beloved brother of the Reverend J. Church,
whose name is T. A—, positively declared—(but a few weeks ago) that
the very affectionate _Vere-street_ “Mr. Church kindly put his arms
round my neck and kissed me twice, and asked me politely to sleep
with him.” Lord, what has sin done! However the Reverend brother T.
A. further adds, “I declined the latter offer, of course,” &c. but
how far this statement may be true respecting his declining the
latter offer, after his allowing that pious brute to kiss him twice,
must be left with the reader to judge for himself, as I am confident
that none but those _unclean birds_, of the _same nest_, would in any
measure wish even the slightest credit to be given to such a filthy
testimony, by such an _effeminate_ character as T. A. Again, this
brother in iniquity, when speaking of another brother, in the same
line of uncleanness, whose name I understand is C—, who is a person
very remarkable for using the words, (when speaking of his darling
Church) “_bless him_,” being informed by his brother A. that brother
Church was about to leave town, in order to evade further inquiries,
the poor thing (_woman-like_) fainted and fell back against a wall;
but his brother A. being near him, kindly took him by the hand and
raised his drooping head (_dear lamb_), who, when he had a little
recovered the shock, they affectionately walked off together, and the
fainting brother took hold of his brother A.’s hand, (“bless him,”)
rubbed it affectionately, and pressed it to his bosom, wishing to
have a further intercourse with him! Marvellous wickedness! may it
not truly be said of such detestable monsters, in human shape, that
God has given them over to vile affections and to all uncleanness,
through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies
between themselves. Burning in their own lust one towards another,
men with men, working that which is unseemly, and receiving in
themselves that recompence of their error which is meet. How truly
awful and equally disgusting that such vile wretches should be
permitted to stand up with a pretence to preach the Gospel, or that
they should even profess to be believers in Jesus, as without all
doubt the sin of which they stand justly charged, was invented by the
arch fiend of Hell, to prevent the appearance of the seed of the
woman, {15} who was to effectually bruize his head. O! my soul, come
not thou into their diabolical secret! I would advise all the true
followers of the meek and lowly Lamb of God, who may hitherto have
been deceived as to the real character of Church and his brothers who
worship with him at the Surrey Tabernacle, in the language of the
Angel to Lot—
“Haste, escape for thy life, tarry not in all the plain.”—See Gen.
xix. 17.
Great credit is due to Mr. Patrick for the perseverance he has manifested
in bringing this hypocritical wretch to justice. Unmindful of the
threats and abuse of a party, and not to be deterred by the heavy
expences attending such a prosecution, he has, at length, finally
triumphed over all the arts and intrigues that had been practised against
his obtaining the desirable end, namely, in tearing off the mask from
this _pretended pious_ preacher, and rendering him amenable to the
offended laws of his country.
It may not be improper to state one of the tricks made use of to throw
the prosecutor off his guard. A limb of the law it appears, of the
_Jewish_ persuasion, _gratuitously_ offered to conduct the prosecution
for the young man; but upon a refusal being given to him, on account of
Mr. HARMER being selected for such purpose, it was ultimately discovered
that this _philanthropic_ Israelite had been exerting himself towards
exculpating Church, with all the ingenuity he was master of in his
defence, from the heinous offence alledged against him. The “law’s
delay” was resorted to, but only to put off the trial till the next
assizes, but the expences materially increased, as a means of deterring
the prosecutor from proceeding. It is however lamentable to observe,
that the charges in bringing such a wretch to justice, should amount to
eighty or ninety pounds!
The wife of Church, upon being made acquainted with his diabolical
propensities, became distracted, and was in a continual state of
intoxication, till death relieved this unfortunate woman from her
troubles. But it appears that since he has been charged with the above
detestable offence, in order (we presume under the mask of hypocrisy,) to
rescue in some degree his character from the public odium with which it
had been marked, induced him to marry a respectable woman, who kept a
seminary for young ladies at Hammersmith. The verdict of “Guilty” had
been scarcely pronounced, when the relatives of the children, with the
greatest promptitude possible, took them all away from the said school.
Notwithstanding the above confessional letter, (see page 14,) for the
authenticity of which we can vouch, having the original in our
possession, on the Sunday after it was sent, he had the audacity and
wickedness to stand up in his pulpit, and endeavour to calumniate his
accusers and assert his own innocence; but this effrontery, it seems, has
at length left him, since the verdict of twelve impartial men have
pronounced him guilty, that on Sunday last (Aug. 17.) he had not the
temerity again to face the numerous audience that had assembled both
within and without the walls of his chapel.
From the acknowledgment of this monster himself, the profits of this
_precious_ recepticle produced him from 1000_l._ to 1200_l._ annually.
* * * * *
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