Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/373

MR. WESLEY'S TRUST DEED. 337 converted into, and now is, part of the meeting-house com- monly called the Methodist Meeting-house." The situation of this house is well known. It stood on the left side descending Tower Street (viz., south side), opposite the modern Bible Christian Chapel. We suggest that, inas- much as Mr. Frost had not objected to the use of this building as a meeting-house, it may have been applied to that use soon after 175 5 ; that it may have been the place where the fortnightly sermon was delivered in 1760, and that it was the " too small room " in which Wesley himself had preached in 1766. The purchasers of 1789 were James Palmer, John Paul, John Bray, Henry Essery, John Clode Hender, Richard Williams, and William Pearse ; and it was conveyed to them upon trust to permit and suffer John Wesley, late of Lincoln's College, Oxford, clerk, and such other person or persons as he should appoint, to have the full use of the premises, in order that the said Wesley, and such other persons as he appointed, might therein preach and expound God's holy word ; and, after Wesley's decease, upon trust for ever to permit such persons as should be appointed at the "yearly conference of the people called Methodists," to have the said premises for the purpose aforesaid. Im- mediately after this conveyance, the meeting-house was reconstructed, and this was the " new house " which Wesley consecrated by his presence one hundred years ago. Wesley died on the 28th March, 1791, aged nearly eighty- eight years. He had by deed, dated 28th February, 1784, and enrolled in Chancery 9th March, 1784, declared that tenements conveyed either to himself or to trustees " for the people called Methodists" should be held subject to the general direction of the yearly conference of such people ; and he carefully prescribed the mode of convening that conference, and of perpetuating its succession. Less than two years before his decease Wesley thus Z