It was now that the Missionary Committee were enabled to secure the
Centenary Hall, the present headquarters of the Missionary Society.
The remaining sums were given to other useful purposes.
Methodism in 1839 in all its branches [Footnote] reckoned more than
1,400,000 members, with 6,080 itinerant preachers and 350
missionaries; 50,000 pupils were instructed in the mission schools,
and there were upwards of 70,000 communicants and at least 200,000
hearers of the gospel in Methodist mission chapels. In England alone
the Wesleyan Methodists owned 3,000 chapels, and had many other
preaching places; there were 3,300 Sunday schools, 341,000 scholars,
and 4,000 local preachers. These figures, when, compared with those
given at the end of our sketch, will furnish some idea of the
numerical advance of Methodism throughout the world during the
Queen's reign.
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