Perhaps poor Dunkerley thought it would hardly
look right for him to be accommodated at a public-house with a bed, and
yet take nothing to drink; so he got some gin. The relish for the gin
must have returned upon him with great power when he began to taste it,
for he drank very freely. He drank so much, that the publican himself
began to feel alarmed for him. A short time after he had gone up stairs
to bed, the people of the house heard a noise of an unusual character in
his room, and on going to see what was the matter, they found the
preacher on his knees, in an apoplectic fit, the blood gushing from his
nose and ears. He died the same evening. He died drunk.
It was this man's place that I went to supply. I do not wonder now that
Dunkerley and several other preachers in the New Connexion were
drunkards, when I take into consideration the customs and habits of the
people of the Connexion in those days. I never met with anything in any
society, that I recollect, more at variance with the principles of
Christian temperance, and more likely to lead both preachers and people
into drunkenness and profligacy, than the habits and customs of many of
the members of the New Connexion in the Chester circuit. In the first
place they were all users of intoxicating drinks, and all those that
were in tolerable circumstances regularly kept spirits as well as
milder, weaker kinds of intoxicating drinks in their houses.
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