A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE cipline vainly exercised to check the spread of Nonconformity. Names are entered of those buried ' without Christian burial ' for being ' schis- matics, and despisers of church discipline ' ; Quakers and Anabaptists are ' hurl'd into a grave.' l The Declaration of Indulgence of 1672 only revealed the extent of a mischief which it was too late to help or hinder. The Baptist congregation of Bedford was one of the first in the kingdom to apply for a licence to hold its meetings ; it was granted on 25 July 1672. 2 Bunyan had already taken out his preaching licence as a ' congregationall parson, being of that p'swasion ' in May, and was using it at Leicester in October of the same year. 3 The Baptists of Luton claim to have erected a meeting house at the same time. 4 All kinds of Nonconformity have been well represented in the county ever since. It is not so easy to get any satisfactory details to show what the churches of this period offered as a counter attraction to the fervid preachings of the new sects. At Toddington there is an interesting record of briefs, copied at the end of one of the parish registers, dating from 1 66 1 to 1668, which not only shows clearly that there was a weekly Eucharist, but also that the parishioners were encouraged to give alms to the necessities of many of the poor and suffering besides those of their own parish. 8 It is however to be feared that this was an ex- ceptional case ; the visitations of Bishops Gardiner and Wake show very plainly that a quarterly Communion was the common custom of the whole diocese very soon after the Restoration. 6 The prevailing order at Luton early in the eighteenth century — four Eucharists a year, two ser- vices on Sunday, and a catechising in Lent 7 — represents what was then the average conception of a parson's duty towards his parish. At the same time it must not be forgotten that at this time considerable efforts were made in many places to beautify the chancels, and to enrich the churches with handsome plate, as at Ampthill, Harrold B and elsewhere ; and that several charities were endowed, in the form of schools, almshouses, and doles of bread to the poor at the end of the church services. 9 But it cannot be a matter of great surprise that the various sects gained ground steadily. In 1744 a Moravian congregation was founded at Bedford ; and the autocratic behaviour of the ' chief labourer,' and the squabbles that arose on the building of the chapel, were one of the chief causes of John Wesley's final break with that body. He visited them in 1750, and 1 Registers of Dunton and Toddington quoted in Beds N. and Q. 2 Ibid. i. 240. 3 Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 440. 4 Non-Parochial Registers and Records in custody of the Registrar-General, 1859 ; printed in Beds N. and Q. ii. 199-201. 6 History of Toddington, by the Rev. F. A. Adams. The collections were for churches and parishes all over the kingdom ; several for the sick of the plague in 1665 ; one for the ' captives of Algiers.' S.P.C.K. Diocesan History of Lincoln, pp. 317-33. 7 Luton Church, by the Rev. H. Cobbe, p. 230. 8 Beds N. and Q. p. 219 ; Beds Archteol. and Archit. Soe. X. xlviii. 9 Cobbc's Luton Church, p. 238. 344
