| William Haslam has the unique testimony of being converted
in the midst of one of his own sermons! Haslam, born in 1817, began
his ministry after graduating from Durham University in 1841, in the
diocese of Exeter. After a brief curacy he became vicar at Baldhu
church where the congregation were predominantly revivalist Methodists.
The retelling of their conversion experiences drove him to seek counsel
from a nearby vicar by the name of Robert Aitken, who persuaded him
of the absolute necessity of conversion.
It was on his return to his home church that he preached a sermon
on the subject of conversion during which he obtained an assurance
of salvation himself! The immediate results were so evident that
a Methodist local preacher in the congregation shouted out, ‘The
Parson is converted!’ This was in 1851.
Thereafter Haslam adopted the Methodist revivalistic approach and
saw local revivals in a number of his parishes over the next few
years.
This book records his work up to the end of his ministry in Hayle,
Cornwall in 1861.
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