I don't know how many of the large regular congregation packing the galleries at Rusholme Road became members of the church, because no records remain. Becoming a member was a serious matter
- when James Griffin first knew the chapel, there was a membership of 28; a year later it had increased to 36 people drawn from "a few wealthy families and a few others well-to-do, though not wealthy, with only a very few persons besides of a poorer class" – it was then that he began the informal afternoon services
- we know that Alice Hopkinson was in the congregation and that her children were to become members – we don't know if she became a member herself.
We know the membership process that James Griffin followed, because of his account of two young people, Henry and Fanny Burnett
- the Burnetts had attended a service almost by chance, on seeing the chapel lights and the people going in. After a few months of increasing involvement, they approached Mr Griffin about becoming members
- in those days, applying for membership was slow and protracted, involving serious conversation with the minister and much deliberation. All young ministers naturally wanted to increase their membership, but Mr Griffin "was aware of the serious injury that might be done to souls and to the character of the Church by hasty and incautious admissions, and was anxious to avoid it"
- successful applicants were received into the church at special meetings held on a Saturday evening. The congregation loved these meetings because
- Elder and younger believers often felt their spiritual comfort and strength renewed. The deacons, the Sunday school teachers, and other workers in the vineyard, found fresh stimulus to their gratitude, faith and zeal, as the letters of the candidates were read by the pastor, and the brethren gave their testimony respecting them
I think when Mr Griffin wrote to John Hopkinson with these questions (which are quoted by Ellen Ewing in John and Alice Hopkinson, as one of "the earliest papers concerning John"), it may well be a prompt for the letter to be read at such a meeting:
(1) Will you please state what you perceive in your feelings and sentiments that lead you to suppose a work of grace has begun in your soul?
(2) Can you mention by what means that work appears to have commenced and carried on in your mind?
(3) How do you expect to find acceptance before God as a sinner?
(4) You will oblige me, my dear young friend, by answering these enquiries freely in the form of a letter. And the Lord and Saviour guide and bless you.
As there aren't any records from Rusholme Road, but there is a lucky survival in Northallerton Archives from the Silver Street Congregational Chapel in Whitby, I'll quote this letter in full.
It was written by the 24 year old Mrs Sarah Buchannan of Lythe, near Whitby, who was applying for membership in 1808. (She was my 4 x great-grandmother). It's a story like The Dairyman's Daughter – we have no reason to think she is writing of anything more than a girlhood spent thinking of little worldly pleasures like dress and fun. I have altered the punctuation slightly so as to make it more readable:
Sirs,
For 24 years I lived in a state of sin and wickedness although often reproved yet I did not see the misery of it until going with some friends to hear Mr Arundell preach he observed that he saw such a beauty in religion that he would not change if he was shown there was no hereafter
This somewhat alarmed me as I always thought it the gloomiest thing in life.
I pondered this is my mind for some time and one Sunday evening after leaving my companions and sitting alone I began to think in what an unprofitable manner we had spent the day in regard to [our] Poor Soul[s]
No sooner had the thought ceased in my mind than it pleased God to open my eyes to see myself in such a dreadful state my sins all rushing in upon me so that I began to despair of ever finding mercy for I was terrified day and night that I had committed the unpardonable sin and when I prayed I thought I only provoked God in short I was so tormented in my mind that I thought hell itself could not be worse and was often tempted to take away my own life
But it pleased God he spared me a little longer and continuing in prayer to God to keep me from this evil it often came to my mind my grace is sufficient for others 2 Cor.12.9 And being in great distress of mind one day sat down to read and open'd in the 7th chapter of Matthew and reading the 7th he saith "ask and it shall be given you, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you for every one that asketh receiveth."
This was a comfortable passage to me as I was brought so low, so that I thought that if the Lord would spare me to recover that I would never sin again
But I had no sooner recovered than I fell away again as bad as ever and it is a mercy that I was ever called again
But the Lord opened my eyes again to see that I could do nothing of myself so that I may say that it is grace alone that made me seek so for God and not of myself so that I have ever enabled to rest my salvation in the merits of Christ and no further trust in any works of my own and it has been my supreme wish for to become a member of your church and to be united with the people of God I have ventured to ask admission.
Sarah Buchannan
So we can see that, if Alice wished to become a member, she would not need to be precise about her sins in her public letter, but we can assume that she would have told her whole story to her pastor.
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