Note 505 — Chapter XXIII · THE FIRST THREE MONTHS AFTER FLETCHER’S RETURN TO MADELEY. 1781.

The Rev. Cornelius Bayley, at this time one of the Masters of Wesley’s School at Kingswood. Cornelius Bailey was born near Whitchurch, in Shropshire, about the year 1752. He was an excellent Hebrew scholar, and published a Hebrew grammar, which procured him a doctor’s degree from a foreign university. Afterwards, when he took the same degree, D.D., at Cambridge, he delivered a Latin sermon, which was much applauded. As will soon be seen, he became Fletcher’s curate. On leaving Madeley, he went to Manchester, where he became the founder and the minister of St. James’s Church. This is not the place to give a detailed account of this remarkable man. Suffice it to say, he died, in Manchester, on April 2, 1812, his last words being, “O my Saviour! The Lord is with me!” His remains were interred in a vault of his own church; more than forty clergymen attended his funeral; the church was crowded, and more than a thousand of his friends had to stand outside. The Rev. John Crosse, afterwards so well-known in Bradford, preached the funeral sermon. (Christian Observer, 1812, p. 477.)