Editing Rayner Stephens (section)

==Political agitation==
[[File:Joseph Rayner Stephens blue plaque, Stalybridge Town Hall.JPG|thumb|Joseph Rayner Stephens blue plaque, [[Stalybridge Town Hall]] {{efn|''In lapidary inscriptions, a man is not on oath''  Stephens denied being a Chartist: and not only was he "trained in the ministry", he was a minister of religion for forty years}}]]
He became active in the movement for [[factory reform]] and in the [[opposition to the English Poor Laws#Opposition to the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act|anti-Poor Law]] movement. In both sermons and speeches he denounced the practices of millowners and the intentions of the new Poor Law as un-Christian and hence doomed to end in social upheaval and bloodshed.  Like [[Richard Oastler]] he held Tory views on most issues;{{efn|he, Oastler, [[Michael Thomas Sadler]],  and [[Feargus O'Connor]] were denounced by contemporary Whigs as Tory agitators cynically whipping up discontent on carefully misrepresented issues in order to turn the lower orders against the Whigs: the description "Tory Radicals" would have been rejected by them but is now frequently used as a convenient label}} like Oastler he advised his followers that it was legal to arm themselves and that government would pay more attention to their views if they did.  He and Oastler (who saw the younger man as his natural successor) became associated with the [[Chartism|Chartists]], who also saw the new Poor Law, the rapacity and inhumanity  of employers and the poverty of workers as issues requiring urgent attention, but sought to remedy them by fundamental political change. Whereas Oastler openly opposed the constitutional aspirations of the Chartists, and did not become involved in Chartism, Stephens addressed Chartist meetings<ref>eg seconding a resolution at the monster Kersal Moor meeting in September 1838{{cite news|title=Manchester Demonstration in Favour of Ultra-Radicalism|work=London Standard|date=26 September 1838}}</ref> and was elected a delegate to the National Conference.  However, as he later told his congregation, he was never a Radical, let alone a 'five-point man' : "I would rather walk to London on my bare knees, on sharp flint stones to attend an Anti-poor Law meeting, than be carried to London in a coach and six, pillowed with down to present that petition - the "national petition" to the House of Commons"<ref name=LastSermon/> Nor did his advice to followers to arm themselves indicate any support for 'physical force' Chartism or the overthrow of the existing order by violence or by general strike: "My friends, never put your trust in, and never follow after, men who pretend to be able to manufacture a revolution.  A revolution, a rolling away of the whole from evil to good, from wrong to right, from injustice and oppression to righteousness and equal rule, never yet was manufactured, and never will be manufactured.  God, who teaches you what your rights are, what the blessings He has endowed you withal, will, in his own good time, if that time should come - God will teach your hands to war, and your fingers to fight"<ref name=LastSermon>{{cite news|title=Mr Stephens' Last Sermon|work=Northern Star|date=17 August 1839}}</ref>