A HISTORY OF LEICESTERSHIRE savings 88 * to endow a lecture on the doctrine and discipline of the church, especially on ' the duty of the people to attend to the instruction of the minister whom the bishop of the diocese should set over them.' SM If there had only been a few more men like him in England there would have been no need of any Methodist revival. The first rallying-place of the Methodists in this county was in the neighbourhood of Donington Park, where different members of the Hastings family had set an example of piety and beneficence ever since the Restoration. The Lady Elizabeth Hastings, who died in 1739, 'a genuine daughter of the Church of England,' 28e and her sisters, Lady Ann and Lady Margaret, were celebrated for their charity and devotion far beyond the circle in which they were brought up ; their brother the earl of Huntingdon was a sincere churchman of the old school, and there was a time when his countess was apparently quite in sympathy with the devotional system in which she had been trained. 287 She became acquainted with John Wesley, however, while she was still living for the most part at Donington, and as early as 1741 wrote to him that his doctrine on Christian perfection was ' the thing she hoped to live and die by.' 888 The death of her sons in 1743, and of her husband three years later, leaving her a widow still in the prime of life, turned her thoughts more exclusively to religion ; and she was no doubt a woman who needed more scope than the Church of her day could provide. Her subsequent career is so well known that there is no need to speak of it here. It is only necessary to say that one of the earliest essays in open- air preaching was made in this neighbourhood by David Taylor, a servant of hers. 28 ' Wesley himself was not at Leicester until 1753, where he found the people serious and attentive, 890 but did not gather a large following : his system does not seem to have been very popular in the county till the end of the century. Thomas Robinson, who came to be curate of St. Martin's, Leicester, in 1774, and was known as a 'Methodist,' was rather what we should now call a churchman of the evangelical school. In his time the name of Methodist was still given to any of the more earnest among the clergy who, though not desiring any separation from the Church, yet in- stituted in their parishes prayer-meetings and extempore preachings, after the manner of those followers of Wesley and Whitfield who had now become in the strict sense dissenters. Robinson served St. Martin's and St. Mary's till 1813, and was a good, hard-working parish priest, a friend of Venn and Romaine and all the leaders of his school ; he did a great deal of much- needed philanthropic work, organizing charitable societies, visiting schools, infirmaries, and prisons. He became a very popular preacher in his later years, and drew large congregations. 891 154 Out of 30 a year, of which 12 to i 8 was paid for board and lodging, he saved enough to bequeath 100 to his own kindred, 100 to the farmer in whose house he had lived, in special gratitude for kindness shown to the infirmities of old age, and 40 to the parish ; though he had latterly had to pay an assistant priest to help him with his work. 186 For the whole account see Nichols, Leic. iv, 975-6. " See Nichols, Leic. ; Trollope, Ch. Plate of Leic. i, 7. A silver flagon and alms dish were given in memory of her to the church of Ashby de la Zouch by Lady Ann. 87 In !73 2 she presented a silver chalice, paten, and flagon to her parish church at Castle Donington, and similar gifts to Osgathorpe. Trollope, Ch. Plate of Leic. i, 15, 22.
- Tyerman, Life of Wesley, i, 341. Ibid. Ibid, ii, 170.
m See E. T. Vaughan, Some Account of Thomas Robinson ; Diet. Nat. Biog. 394
