The Bishop of Exeter presided at a recent meeting to consider the propriety of building a new church at Ivybridge Devon, in lieu of the present one, which is unsuitable for satisfactory restoration or enlargement. On the motion of Lord Blachford who has offered a site and a munificent donation, a resolution in favour of the scheme, which was seconded by the Rev. G W Anstiss, the incumbent, was agreed to. The Guardian reports that, referring to the presence of a gentleman who had built a Wesleyan Chapel in the district, Bishop Temple asked what was there in the life of John Wesley that should make clergymen unwilling to acknowledge that he was a clergyman too! If John Wesley was living and amongst them, he would have been one of the first to come there to advise or to join in with such a work as that. Mr Allen out of his munificence had lately built a place of worship for those who agreed with him. He hoped by-and-by these places of worship would be looked upon not as belonging to the Church or the Wesleyans but to both alike. It might be some way off but the day will come when all would be one and when the people who worshipped in one place would feel that they were not really separated from those who worshipped in the other. Let them do all they could to bring about that day by devotion in the work of their common master. The day would come when all differences would disappear and that they would look back and wonder what it could have been that kept them apart.

Western Times Thursday June 15th 1876