Note 54 — REV. BENJAMIN INGHAM, THE YORKSHIRE EVANGELIST.

Salmon was one of the Oxford Methodists. In 1779, Wesley wrote: “Fifty years ago Mr. Matthew Salmon was one of our little company at Oxford, and was then, both in person, in natural temper, and in piety, one of the loveliest young men I knew.” (Wesley’s Journal.) Like Clayton, Mr. Salmon became alienated from the Methodists. In 1748, he published the “Foreigner’s Companion through the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge,” which contained the following:—“The times of the day the University go to this church, are ten in the morning, and two in the afternoon, on Sundays and holidays, the sermon usually lasting about half an hour. But, when I happened to be at Oxford, in 1742, Mr. Wesley, the Methodist, of Christ Church, entertained his audience two hours; and, having insulted and abused all degrees, from the highest to the lowest, was, in a manner, hissed out of the pulpit by the lads.”

The preacher on this occasion was Charles Wesley, and the two hours’ sermon, was his well-known Discourse, before the University of Oxford, on “Awake thou that sleepest,” etc. (Eph. v. 14). On reading Salmon’s unbrotherly attack, Charles Wesley remarked: “And high time for the lads to do so, if the historian said true; but, unfortunately for him, I measured the time by my watch, and it was within the hour; I abused neither high nor low, as my sermon, in print, will show: neither was I hissed out of the pulpit, or treated with the least incivility, either by young or old. What, then, shall I say to my old high church friend whom I once so much admired? I must rank him among the apocryphal writers, such as the judicious Dr. Mather, the wary Bishop Burnet, and the most modest Mr. Oldmixon.” (C. Wesley’s Journal, vol. ii., p. 71.)

A nephew of Mr. Salmon’s, and some other branches of his family, afterwards became Methodists, at Nantwich and in the neighbourhood. Miss Salmon was an intimate friend of Elizabeth Ritchie and Hester Ann Rogers. Joseph Whittingham Salmon, the nephew, entertained Wesley at Nantwich, in 1779. In 1785, he preached, and published a sermon on the death of his wife, with the title, “The Robes of the Saints washed in the Blood of the Lamb: being the Substance of a Funeral Discourse, preached at the Barker Street Chapel, Nantwich, on Occasion of the Death of Mrs. Salmon.” 8vo, 39 pages. And, in 1796, he gave to the world a book of poetry, entitled, “Moral Reflections in Verse, begun in Hawkstone Park,” etc. 8vo, 264 pages.

Matthew Salmon, the Oxford Methodist, will be occasionally mentioned in succeeding pages.