York, England, was founded by the Romans in 71 AD, at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss. Although this town eventually failed, its location was selected for later cooperative human attempts at settlement which prospered. Mostly, York became central to a coastal trading market. The rivers were deep enough to support heavily-laden merchant vessels. As an inland port, York hosted ever-growing markets for agricultural farm products, meats, breads, ales, wine, wool, as well as tailored clothing, cobbled shoes, ship repair, and a bank that could swap out coinage so that the traders could use that instead of pure barter to swamp out goods in trade.
Sharon Ann Haynes was a 5'4" cornflower blue-eyed flaxen blond and an extrovert, both diligent and dutiful. She was not the eldest of the four children in her family of six, but on most matters, and especially on religious ones, she was the pacesetter. Her family was the single family to be selected from the city of York itself. Outwardly, Sharon Ann was agreeable, trusting, and modest. Those qualities she skillfully used to get at the truth in whomever or whatever subject that she sought truth. When she was satisfied with herself and that all about her was right with the Lord, she became visibly happy, and she shared her joy freely. Within her borough of the city of York, she was known and quite popular. At age sixteen, Sharon Ann Haynes was sought by boys her age and older. She liked that. She was not concerned that two of her friends were betrothed. Still, Sharon Ann had begun to narrow her range of choice for a mate to three worthy boys from York. One, in particular, made her giddy with excitement whenever she saw him. Sharon Ann Haynes enjoyed being sixteen and female in 1737.
"What?"
Robert Haynes, her father, brought the news to his family that the church had offered them an opportunity. He told his wife, Sherrilee, and their family that they might move to America! Robert was taken aback by the family's lukewarm response. None of them had paid much attention to the colonies. Going there would require breaking familial ties in England, and this was central to their concerns. He told them that this was early news and that they had not been selected. He could not agree to go if selected, unless his employer (he was a manager of a warehouse for the British East India Company) approved.
"Yet, I was told," he added, "that my being in the employ of the India Company will be a factor in the decision process." It was true. Reverend Whitefield selected, and Archbishop Blackburne approved the Haynes family to go. It was Blackburne who represented the interests of the church and the crown, plus he had influence on the India Company, which was yet another organizational leg that steadied the throne of England. A week later, when Robert talked to his family about it, he told them that they were selected. The most vocal member of his family had no words. Sharon Ann was in shock.
America, to her, was a wild place where backward Englishmen clashed with barbarians over property. There, people died by the score from malnutrition, disease, heat, cold, and overwork. It was the sort of place that one went to when it was a better choice to live there than in England. Never had she thought of leaving England. Sharon Ann was happy where she lived, and she was recognized to be a rising star in the constellation of Christians who lived in York. Still, on this subject, her heart was in turmoil. She did not want to do this thing, but she sensed that she should listen carefully. It crossed her mind that this might be God's will for her to leave England and a test of her faith. The news was upsetting, and Sharon Ann was afraid until she recalled scripture, the story of how Jesus feared God's will for him and how he prayed to his heavenly father to take away the bitter cup of destiny placed before him. Sharon Ann prayed too, but not for the test to pass. Rather, she prayed for the strength to withstand it.
Reverend Whitefield, who was barely twenty-two years old, was wiser than Archbishop Blackburne supposed. He knew that powerful men came to him when they had a mind to use him for their purpose. After exchanging letters with the Archbishop of York and causing the archbishop to believe that he had achieved his objectives as Whitefield's expense, the young Methodist readied himself to meet face-to-face with the powerful church official so that he might divine how to get the Lord's work done in a harmonious way.
"You believe that so much of us will leave England that the rest will not make a difference," Whitefield suggested to the archbishop after he had endured an hour of verbal sparring and two cups of exceptionally fine Chinese tea. "But, suppose that you are wrong about that. What is your plan if we Methodists should surpass the number of Anglicans?"
"The day that it happens will be long after the day of my passing," was the reply.
"And if that is not the case,” Whitefield said, “what then?"
Whitefield had a purpose of his own. He brought up the subject of glebe land, land given by the crown to the local Anglican Churches and their preachers. He told the archbishop that he intended for his Methodists to go out from the cities, soon after they were settled in the colonies. They would reach everyone who could not travel to the town church. He expected Methodist societies to have glebe land in order to form churches of their own in the countryside. If they did not get it, they would have no choice but to fall back on the existing resources - the Anglican Church properties.
"Give some thought to this," Whitefield suggested. "Those who accept and practice the method now are of the Anglican Church. We are one people who worship God differently. Outsiders will accept the method too, and they will not share the strong kinship. It is inevitable that there will be a parting, as inevitable as two wives unable to live under the same roof with one man."
Quietly, the archbishop laughed at the thought. The analogy did not fit well. The thing that was upon them was not as two wives. It was two roads leading to the same end: Jesus. He did agree that a split, should it come to that, would be best planned and amicable rather than sudden and painful. The Anglican Church was invested in every city and county of England as well as in most towns of the colonies. It was the crown that had made the investment. Risk would be high for any churchman who might suggest to the king to divest in the Anglican Church, or to invest in a competitor to it. Still, Blackburne put some thought into the idea of shaping the Methodists, then sending them on their way amicably.
"Perhaps we should view these Methodists as our children," he mused after George Whitefield departed. "One wants his children to do well. We care for them and want them to come back for a visit now and then after they are grown." He let that thought go, passing it off as whimsy.
Blackburne recalled a recent warning that the Virginia Royal Governor had sent to the King and Parliament about his concerns, concerns of sedition among many of the colonists. The king had shared the warning with Blackburne and with the Archbishop of Canterbury since he felt that it applied to the Anglican Church. The Royal Governor of Virginia was aware of hushed talk about rebellion, and it was coming from well-placed and well-heeled citizens as well as from the poor. The root of dissatisfaction was more of a business concern, a tax, but it had festered into a general sense of outrage at having been taxed without having a voice (no say on the matter). It was the Molasses Act of March 1733 of four years ago that was at the root of it. Parliament enacted it, and the King signed it into law. A sixpence tax was placed on any gallon of molasses imported to the colonies from any non-British island in the Caribbean. The collection points were at American colonial ports. The idea behind it was to make the colonials to stop buying non-British molasses, not to tax them. The actual reason for the tax was that there was a trade connection with the British India Company for the home country molasses used to make a myriad of products that benefited the crown, including rum.
The rub with the colonists, according to the Virginia Royal Governor, was that Parliament, a representative body that drew its roots back to the signing of the Magna Carta by King John, did not represent them. Interestingly, only 30 years earlier (in 1707) the Scottish version of Parliament combined with the English Parliament so that the new British Empire Parliament would represent the combined peoples. However, the same thought did not apply to either the American or the Indian colonies or to the Caribbean islands that Britain ruled.
"The people avoid the tax any way they can and feel justified to do it," The governor advised his king. "If one of our revenue cutters catches them, the culprits are hauled into court to stand before me. I tell you they are most indignant and defiant."
Archbishop Blackburne wondered how many of these defiant citizens inhabited the colonial Anglican Churches. If the churches themselves were becoming divided by the introduction of the new method of worship, did that not make the church fertile ground for rebellious thought to take root?
