HUNTINGDON, SELINA, COUNTESS OF, a lady distinguished in the religious history of the century to which she belonged, was born in 1707, and was one of the three daughters and coheirs of Washington Shirley, earl Perrera, the other two being Lady Kihnorey and Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, the lady for whom there is the well known monument in Westmiuster Abbey. Selina, the second daughter, married, In 1728, Theophilus Hastings, earl of Huntingdon, a noble man of retired habits, with whom she appears to have had a very happy life till his sudden death, on the 13th of October 1746, of a fit of apoplexy. She had many children, four of whom died in youth or early manhood.
It was probably these domestic afflictions which disposed this lady to take the course so opposite to that which is generally pursued by the noble and the great. She became deeply religious. It was at the time when the preachers aud founders of Methodism, Wesley and Whitefield, were rousing in the country, by their exciting ministry, a spirit of snore intense devotion than was generally prevalent, and leading men to look more to what are called the distinguishing truths of the Gospel than to its moral teachings, to which the clergy had for some time chiefly attended In their public ministrationa. She found in these doctrine. matter of consolation and delight, and she sought to snake others participate with her In the advantages they were supposed by her to afford.
The doctrine to which she most iodine(' was that of Whitofield, whom she appointed her chaplain, and who adopted the tenets of Calvinism rasher than the doctrine of NVesley, which was Arminian. Whitefield made no attempt to found a separate sect, but when the countess chose to assume a sort of leadership among his followers, and to act herself as the founder of a sect, those who might properly have been called Whitefieldian Methodists came to be known as 'the Countess of Huntiugdon'a Connexion.' The countess had the corn• mend of a considerable income during the forty.four years of her
widowhood, and as her own personal expenses were few, and alto engaged the assistance of other opulent persona, members of her own family or other persons who were wrought upon ae she was, sho was enabled to establish and support a college, at Trove= In Wales, for the education of ministers; to build numerous chapels, and to 'waist in the support of the ministers in them. She died in 1791, and the number of her chapels at the time of her death is stated to have been sixty.four, the principal of which was that at Bath, where, she herself frequently attended. She created a trust fur the management of her college and chapel? after her death. The college was soon after removed to Cheshunt, Herta, where it still flourishes; but her chapels have for the moat part become in doctrine and practice almost identical with those of the Congregational or Independent body, the chief distinction being in the use of a portion at least of the 'Book of Common Prayer,' though where not expressly directed in the trust deed that practice has iu many instances been abandoned. In 1851 there were, according to the Census, 109 chapels belonging to the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion in England and Wales.
Other ladies of the family of Hastings were distinguished for their piety and zeal. Lady Elizabeth Haatings, half-sister to her lord, died in 1739, when Methodism was first beginning to attract very much of the public attention. She made large gifts to religions objects, but she coofined them to the Church, and subjected them to the general regulations of the affairs of that community. Lady Margaret, the own sister of the earl, gave herself in marriage to one of the Methodist preachers, Mr. Ingham. Lady Catherine, another sister, married a clergyman, the Rev. Grauville Wheeler. Of Ferdivando Haatiugs, brother of the earl, who died in 1726, at the age of twenty-seven, there ie an agreeable picture of a pious and amiable person in Wilford'a 'Memorials.'