“Dear Son,—Yours of the 11th inst. has made me pretty quiet in reference to my dedication, as indeed my heart was never violently set upon it, or I hope on anything else in this world. I find it stuck where I always boded it would, as in the words of your brother in yours, when you waited on him with my letter and addressed him on the occasion. ‘The short answer I received was this, it was utterly impossible to obtain leave on my account; you had the misfortune to be my father; and I had a long bill against M——n.’
“I guess at the particulars, that you have let your wit too loose against some favourites; which is often more highly resented, and harder to be pardoned, than if you had done it against greater persons. It seems, then, that original sin goes sometimes upwards as well as downwards; and we must suffer for our offspring. Though, notwithstanding this disappointment, I shall never think it ‘a misfortune to have been your father.’ I am sensible it would avail little for me to plead, in proof of my loyalty, the having written and printed the first thing that appeared in defence of the government after the accession of King William and Queen Mary to the crown, (which was an answer to a speech without doors;) and that I wrote a great many little pieces more, both in prose and verse, with the same view; and that I ever had the most tender affection and the deepest veneration for my sovereign and the royal family; on which account (it is no secret to you, though it is to most others,) I have undergone the most sensible pains and inconveniences of my whole life, and that for a great many years together; and yet have still, I thank God, retained my integrity firm and immovable, till I have conquered at the last.
“I must confess, I had the pardonable vanity (when I had dedicated two books before to two of our English queens, Queen Mary and Queen Anne) to desire to inscribe a third, which has cost me ten times as much labour as all the rest, to her gracious Majesty Queen Caroline, who, I have heard, is an encourager of learning. And this work, I am sure, needs a royal encouragement, whether or no it may deserve it. Neither would I yet despair of it, had I any friend who would fairly represent that and me to her Majesty. Be that as it pleaseth Him in whose hands are the hearts of all the princes upon earth; and who turneth them whithersoever He pleases.
“If we have not subscriptions enough for the cuts, as proposed, we must be content to lower our sails again, and to have only the maps, the picture of Job, which I must have at the beginning, and some few others.
“The family, I thank God, is all well, as is your affectionate father, Samuel Wesley”[298]
As the following letter, likewise to his son Samuel, refers to the same Dissertations, we insert it here, though a few months out of its chronological order. Samuel Wesley, jun., had recently interred his only son:—
“Dear Son,—Yes, this is a thunderbolt indeed to your whole family; but especially to me, who am not now likely to see any of my name, in the third generation, (though Job did in the fourth,) to stand before God. However, this is a new demonstration to me that there must be a hereafter. I trust God will support you both under this heavy and unspeakable affliction. But when and how did he die? and where is his epitaph? Though, if sending this now will be too much refricare vulnus, I will stay longer for it.
“And now for your letter of May 27. The sum is,
“1. As to the placing the Dissertations. As you say, the prolegomena are something aguish; though that and all the rest I leave (as often before) to your judgment, for my memory is near gone; neither have I the papers in any order by me.
“2. The ‘Poetica Descriptio Monstri,’ I think, would come in most naturally after all the Dissertations of the Behemoth and Leviathan; but you, having the whole before you, will be the most proper judge.
“3. Do with the ‘De Carmine Pastoritio’ as you please.
“4. ‘Periplus Rubri Maris’ comes with the geography, when Mr Hoole has finished it.
“5. I remember no extracts but that from the ‘Catena,’ which is 616 folio pages; but I think I have got the main of it into thirty quartos, which I finished yesterday, though there is no haste in sending it, for I design it for the appendix.
“As for the ‘Testimonia Arianorum’ περί του Λογου, it happens well that I have a pretty good copy, though not so perfect as that which is lost, and will get Mr Horberry to transcribe it as soon as he returns from Oxford; though I think it will not come in till towards the latter end of the work, as must your collation at the very end, only before the appendix;[299] and I shall begin to revise it to-morrow. Blessing on you and yours, from your loving father, Samuel Wesley.”[300]
Mr Wesley was a strict disciplinarian, not only in his family, but in his parish. According to the canonical law of the Church of England, churchwardens took an oath to bring to justice all who “offended their brethren by adultery, whoredom, incest, drunkenness, swearing, ribaldry, usury, or any other uncleanness or wickedness of life,” (Canon 109.) And when churchwardens violated their oaths by neglecting their duty, it then became imperative that the clergyman of the parish should present to his ordinary, the appointed judge of ecclesiastical causes, all the crimes and persons which he thought needed reformation. (Canon 113.) If the accused person was found guilty of adultery, or incontinency, the punishment usually inflicted was to do a public penance in the parish church, or in the market-place, when the offender, or offenders, stood in a white sheet, bare-legged and bare-headed, and made an open confession of their crime in a prescribed form of words. The judge, however, had authority, after the penance had been enjoined, to permit a commutation of it, by the criminal paying a sum of money for pious uses in satisfaction thereof. These remarks will help the reader to a better understanding of the following letters:—
“Mr Terry,—On account of our old friendship, I beg your advice as to the greatest parochial difficulty I have met with since my residence here.
“I have two couples of sinners at present upon my hands—the first very lean; the latter very fat; and I hope your courts will manage them both very well when they are blended together.
“The lean ones are Benjamin Becket, a widower, and Elizabeth Locker, a widow. Though they had not much less than half-a-score of children between them before, yet he has ventured to increase the number by getting a chopping bastard on her. She had weekly relief from the town; and he was prevented doing the same by being made sexton last year. They continue both unmarried. What aggravates his crime is, that, some years since, he did public penance here for ante-matrimonial fornication with his first wife. He and the widow are now desirous to do penance for this crime; and the fellow would undergo even a third penance by marrying her. I am desirous that their punishment should be as exemplary as their crime; and that both of them may perform their penance at three churches of the Isle;—my own at Epworth, at Haxey, and at Belton. I will see the court charges defrayed, which I hope will be as moderate as possible, because most of it is like to come out of my own pocket, and because the second couple will make amends.
“Their names are, Mr Aaron Man, one of the most substantial yeomen in my parish, reckoned worth about £100 a-year; a married man, with five grown-up children. He has long haunted a widow here of a character scarce better than his own. Her name is Sarah Brumby, with whom he has been seen both day and night, till at last she proved with child, and told several persons, who are ready to witness it, that he was the father of it. Notwithstanding this, he is so impudent and cunning that nobody doubts but he will do all he can to baffle justice, and even prevail upon Brumby to retract her confession, and lay it upon some other. He threatens any one who says he is the father, to put him into the spiritual court, or bring an action against him.
“Your advice, what steps to take in order to bring these criminals to public justice, would be very obliging and serviceable to me, and to the best of my parish. Our opinion is, that, being guarded with his impenetrable brass, he will obstinately deny the fact; and, when he is presented, will refuse public penance. Perhaps he might be willing to commute, though we are inclined to believe that he would stand an excommunication, which we know he does not value, though a capias carried to an outlawry, we believe, would make him bend.
“I would not willingly be baffled in this matter, because I look upon the whole exercise of discipline, in my parish, in a great measure to depend upon this event.—I am, my most worthy friend, your entire friend and servant, Samuel Wesley.”
The next letter, written six weeks afterwards, relates the steps which Mr Wesley took in this curious business. It was addressed “To the Worshipful Mr Chancellor Newell, at Lincoln:”—
“Sir,—I received yours, together with the order of penance for Benjamin Becket and Elizabeth (then) Locker; and have got them both to perform it at Epworth and Haxey, on the days appointed; but the woman, being weakly, was so disordered by standing with her naked feet, that the women, and even a midwife, assured me that she would hazard her life if she went to perform it the third time at Belton in the same manner.
“I could therefore do no more than send the man thither at the day appointed, who performed it the third time, according to order, as is certified by myself, Mr Hoole, Mr Morrice, and our churchwardens, on the instrument you sent us; which is ready to be returned at the visitation, or when you please. If you don’t think it proper to remit the woman’s doing penance the third time, which I entreat that you would, I shall, upon your order in a letter, oblige her to perform it to the full extent. She appeared the modestest w—— that I have met with on such an occasion, and is now an honest married wife, for I married them last Friday.
“As soon as this case was over, I fell at my second couple, having prepared the way by my addresses to a justice of the peace; and by disposing some of the best of my parishioners to join with me, on account of the charge that this illegitimate child of Sarah Brumby might bring upon the parish.”
Mr Wesley then proceeds to narrate the proceedings which took place before the magistrate. Sarah Brumby confessed that her child was illegitimate, but refused to tell who was its father. A witness, “one Mary Jackson, who had been guilty of fornication herself, and had then a bastard of about six feet high, had told Wesley that she had heard Brumby say that Aaron Man was the father, but when brought before the magistrate to give evidence, she denied all that she had said. Two other witnesses, however, Elizabeth Piers, and Elizabeth Dawson, the midwife, declared that they had heard Brumby frequently declare that the father of the child was Aaron Man.” Mr Wesley then concludes his letter thus:—
“This is the evidence we have got. If we may ground a presentment on these proofs, in the taking which we have exactly followed the direction you were so kind to prescribe us, I believe I shall be able to induce my churchwardens to present both Aaron Man and Sarah Brumby, as soon as you will be so good as to teach us how we may proceed,—I am, honoured sir, your very obliged humble servant, Samuel Wesley.”
Mr Wesley pursued this strange business during the whole of the year 1731. It appears that the churchwardens, William Watkins and Richard Samson, had neglected to present Aaron Man and Sarah Brumby for prosecution; and that Mr Chancellor Newell had threatened to proceed against them for such neglect of duty. Meanwhile, another case had sprung up. Some years before, Eliza Hurst had been delivered of an illegitimate child, but refused to name the father. The Epworth churchwarden, for the time being, presented her, but no prosecution followed. Mr Wesley often wrote to the officials respecting her, but without effect. At length the woman came to him, and earnestly desired she might perform penance for her offence, whenever the court should order it. Wesley informed the Chancellor of this, and here the matter stuck. Since then, Hurst had cohabited with Thomas Thew, and was likely to have another child. She had wished to marry Thew, but Mr Wesley refused to perform the ceremony, until she had done penance for her former fault. It so happened, however, that there was “a strolling villain in the parish, called John England, and he coupled them together in a hemp-kiln, on Saturday, January 22, 1732, they having confessed to him their fornication, and he having absolved them for it.”
In consequence of all this, Wesley found himself in an unpleasant position, and wrote to Chancellor Newell a complaining letter, dated “February 2, 1732,” and which he concluded by subscribing himself, “Your much aggrieved friend and servant, Samuel Wesley.”
On the day following, he wrote to the Bishop of Lincoln:—
“My Lord,—I received the high honour and favour of your lordship’s, dated Bugden, Christmas-eve. I ever thought it my duty, since I have been the minister of any parish, to present those persons who were obnoxious in it, if the churchwardens neglected it, unless where the criminal was so sturdy, and so wealthy, as that I was morally certain I could not do it, without my own great inconvenience or ruin, in which cases God does not require it of me.”
He then refers to the case of Aaron and Brumby, and his unfaithful churchwardens, and asks—
“What must I do with the two churchwardens, if they offer themselves to receive the sacrament? Ought I not to repel them from it, being satisfied in my own mind that they are notoriously perjured, and have thereby given great scandal to the congregation? One of them, Richard Samson, offered himself at the communion at Christmas, but I sent my clerk to desire him privately to withdraw, because I had written to your lordship about his case, and had not received your directions.
“Begging your lordship’s blessing, and a line of answer, I remain, your lordship’s ever devoted and most humble servant,
These are curious letters, and are inserted here, not as a vindication of public penances, but simply to show Samuel Wesley’s stern fidelity. They furnish a sketch of ecclesiastical discipline in the Church of England, at the time that Samuel Wesley’s sons, John and Charles, were beginning their Methodist career at Oxford University. John Wesley tried to enforce the same sort of church discipline in Georgia; and all clergymen are bound, by their engagements, to do as Wesley did, that is, act according to the canons of their Church. Canon-law might need revision; no doubt it did; but, because Samuel Wesley had bound himself to observe these ecclesiastical decrees, he was far too conscientious a man to treat them as though they did not exist. His stern, perhaps unwise, fidelity, often brought him into trouble; but, in the midst of all, his “rejoicing was this, the testimony of his conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, he had his conversation in the world.”
During the year 1731, Samuel Wesley met with a most serious accident. Mrs Wesley gives a graphic account of it in the following letter to her son John:—[302]
“Dear Jacky,—The particulars of your father’s fall are as follows:—On Friday, June 4th, I, your sister Martha, and our maid, were going in our waggon to see the ground we hire of Mrs Knight, at Low Millwood. He sat in a chair at one end of the waggon, I in another at the other end, Matty between us, and the maid behind me. Just before we reached the close, going down a small hill, the horses took into a gallop; and out flew your father and his chair. The maid seeing the horses run, hung all her weight on my chair, and kept me from keeping him company. She cried out to William to stop the horses, and that her master was killed. The fellow leaped out of the seat, and stayed the horses, then ran to Mr Wesley, but, ere he got to him, two neighbours, who were providentially met together, raised his head, upon which he had pitched, and held him backward, by which means he began to respire; for it is certain, by the blackness in his face, that he had never drawn breath from the time of his fall till they helped him up. By this time, I was got to him, asked him how he did, and persuaded him to drink a little ale, for we had brought a bottle with us. He looked prodigiously wild, but began to speak, and told me he ailed nothing. I informed him of his fall. He said he ‘knew nothing of any fall. He was as well as ever he was in his life.’ We bound up his head, which was very much bruised, and helped him into the waggon again, and set him at the bottom of it, while I supported his head between my hands, and the man led the horses softly home. I sent presently for Mr Harper, who took a good quantity of blood from him; and then he began to feel pain in several parts, particularly in his side and shoulder. He had a very ill night, but, on Saturday morning, Mr Harper came again to him, dressed his head, and gave him something which much abated the pain in his side. We repeated the dose at bed-time, and, on Sunday, he preached twice, and gave the sacrament, which was too much for him to do; but nobody could dissuade him from it. On Monday he was ill, and slept almost all day. On Tuesday the gout came; but, with two or three nights taking Bateman, it went off again, and he has since been better than could be expected. We thought at first the waggon had gone over him; but it only went over his gown sleeve, and the nails took a little skin off his knuckles, but did him no further hurt.”
Mr Wesley was now in his sixty-ninth year, and the effects of such an accident, of course, were serious and lasting. He had held the Epworth living for about five-and-thirty years; but being now, to a great extent, disabled, he proposed to resign it, if his son Samuel could use sufficient influence to be appointed his successor. The Wroot Rectory he had held not longer than about seven years, and, as John Whitelamb had recently become his curate, and had married his daughter Mary, he applied to the Lord Chancellor to have that living transferred to him. The following letters refer to these intended resignations, and to other matters:—
“Dear Son Samuel,—For several reasons, I have earnestly desired, especially in and since my last sickness, that you might succeed me in Epworth, in order to which I am willing and determined to resign the living, provided you could make an interest to have it in my room.
“My first and best reason for it is, because I am persuaded you would serve God and his people here better than I have done. Though, thanks be to God, after near forty years labour among them, they grow better, I having had above one hundred at my last sacrament, whereas I have had less than twenty formerly.
“My second reason relates to yourself. You have been a father to your brothers and sisters, especially to the former, who have cost you great sums in their education, both before and since they went to the University. Neither have you stopped here, but have showed your pity to your mother and me in a very liberal manner, wherein your wife joined with you, when you did not overmuch abound yourselves, and have even done noble charities to my children’s children. Now, what should I be if I did not endeavour to make you easy to the utmost of my power, especially when I know that neither of you have your health in London?
“My third reason is from honest interest; I mean, that of our family. You know our circumstances. As for your aged and infirm mother, as soon as I drop, she must turn out, unless you succeed me; which, if you do, and she survives me, I know you will immediately take her then to your own house, or rather continue her there, where your wife and you will nourish her, till we meet again in heaven, and you will be a guide and stay to the rest of the family.
“There are a few things more which may seem to be tolerable reasons to me for desiring you to be my successor. I have been at very great and uncommon expense on this living. I have rebuilt from the ground the parsonage barn and dovecote; leaded, and planked, and roofed, a great part of my chancel; rebuilt the parsonage house twice when it had been burnt, the first time one wing, the second time down to the ground, wherein I lost all my books and MSS., a considerable sum of money, all our linen, wearing apparel, and household stuff, except a little old iron, my wife and I being scorched with the flames, and all of us very narrowly escaping with life. This, by God’s help, I built again, digging up the old foundations, and laying new ones. It cost me above £400, little or nothing of the old materials being left; besides the cost of new furniture from top to bottom, for we had now very little more than what Adam and Eve had when they first set up housekeeping. I then planted the two fronts of my house with wall fruit the second time, as I had done the front of the previous house, for the former all perished by the fire. I have set mulberries in my garden, which bear plentifully, as also cherries, pears, &c., and, in the adjoining croft, walnuts, and am planting more every day. And this I solemnly declare, not with any manner of view that any of mine should enjoy any fruit of my labour, when I have so long outlived all my friends; but my prospect was for some unknown person, that I might do what became me, and leave the living better than I found it.
“And yet, I might own, I could not help wishing, that all my care and charge might not be utterly lost to my family, but that some of them might be the better for it, though I despaired of it, till, some time since, the best of my parishioners pressed me earnestly to try if I could do anything in it.
“All I can do is to resign it to you, which I am ready frankly and gladly to do, scorning to make any conditions, for I know you better.
“I commend this affair, and you and yours, to God, as becomes your affectionate father, Samuel Wesley.”[303]
Samuel Wesley, jun., declined his father’s offer; and, as we shall soon see, the same proposal was afterwards made to John. Meanwhile, the venerable rector still kept plodding at his work on the Book of Job. To the Rev. Mr Piggot, Vicar of Doncaster, he wrote respecting this, and respecting his late serious accident, as follows:—
“Dear Sir,—Many thanks for your civil letter. I cannot wonder that any should think long of Job’s coming out, though it is common in books of this nature, especially when the author is absent from the press, and there are so many cuts and maps in it, as must be in mine. However, I owe it to my subscribers, and indeed to myself, to give some farther account of this matter.
“Now, if Job’s friends have need of patience, at seeing him lie so long on the dunghill, or, which is much the same, the printing-house, how much more has Job himself need of it, who is sensible his reputation suffers more and more by the delay of it; though, if he himself had died, as he was lately in a very fair way to it, having been as good as given over by three physicians, there would have been no manner of doubt to any one who knows the character of my son at Westminster, that every subscriber would have had his book.
“But I cannot be satisfied with this though I have lost the use of one hand in the service; yet, I thank God, non deficit altera, and I begin to put it to school this day to learn to write, in order to help its lame brother. And when it can write legibly, I design, if it please God, to go to London myself this summer, to push on the editing, by helping to correct the press both in text and maps, and to frame the indexes, more than which I cannot do.
“Very many have forgot their large promises to assist me in it, so that I hardly expect to receive £100 clear for all my ten years’ pains and labours; but if you will be so kind as to communicate this to any of my subscribers, who may fall in your way, it may perhaps give some satisfaction to them, while it will be but a piece of justice to your most obliged friend and brother,
Mr Wesley was naturally a humane man, and was always on the alert where benevolence was needed. The following letter is illustrative of this trait in his character:—
“Epworth, March 27, 1733.
“Mr Porter,—Dorothy Whitehead, widow, lately died here, leaving four small children, and all in her house not sufficient to bury her, as you will see by the oath of her executor added to the will; for a will she would have to dispose of a few roods of land, lest her children should fall out about it. The bearer, Simon Thew, who is her brother, consented to be her executor, that he might take care of her children. I gave him the oath, as you will see, as strictly as I could, and am satisfied it is all exactly true. They were so poor that I forgave them what was due for it, and so did even my clerk for the burial. If there be any little matter due for the probate of the will, I entreat and believe you will be as low as possible; wherein you know your charity will be acceptable to God, and will much oblige, your ready friend,
As intimated in a previous letter, Mr Wesley went to London towards the end of the year 1733. Whilst there, he addressed the following letter “to the Lord Chancellor, for John Whitelamb, now curate of Epworth”:—
“Westminster, Jan. 14, 1734.
“My Lord,—The small rectory of Wroot, in the diocese and county of Lincoln, adjoining to the Isle of Axholme, is in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, and more than seven years since was conferred on Samuel Wesley, rector of Epworth. It lies in our low levels, and is often overflowed. During the four or five years that I have had it, the people have lost the fruits of the earth to that degree that it has hardly brought me in £50 per annum, omnibus annis; and some years not enough to pay my curate there his salary of £30 a-year. This living, by your lordship’s permission and favour, I would gladly resign to one Mr John Whitelamb, born in the neighbourhood of Wroot, where his father and grandfather lived, when I took him from among the scholars of a charity school, (founded by one Mr Travers, an attorney,) brought him to my house, and educated him there, where he was my amanuensis for four years, in transcribing my ‘Dissertations on the Book of Job,’ now well advanced in the press; and was employed in drawing my maps and figures for it, as well as we could by the light of nature. After this, I sent him to Oxford to my son, John Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln College, under whom he made such proficiency, that he was, the last summer, admitted by the Bishop of Oxford into deacon’s orders, and placed my curate in Epworth, while I came up to town to expedite the printing of my book.
“Since I was here, I gave consent to his marrying one of my seven daughters, and they are married accordingly; and though I can spare little more with her, yet I would gladly give them a little glebe land at Wroot, where I am sure they will not want springs of water. But they love the place, though I can get nobody else to reside on it.
“If I do not flatter myself, he is indeed a valuable person, of uncommon brightness, learning, piety, and indefatigable industry, always loyal to the king, zealous for the Church, and friendly to our Dissenting brethren; and for the truth of this character I will be answerable to God and man.
“If, therefore, your lordship will grant me the favour to let me resign the living unto him, and please to confer it on him, I shall always remain, your lordship’s most bounden, most grateful, and most obedient servant,
In the Gentleman’s Magazine for February 1734, p. 108, the following announcement is made, in the list of ecclesiastical preferments:—“Mr Whitelamb to the rectory of Wroot, Lincolnshire.”
Mr Wesley’s two sons, John and Charles, were still at Oxford, and, with the other members of “the Holy Club,” were receiving the sacrament once a week, were practising the fasts of the English Church, visiting prisoners in the gaol, and the destitute in the city, and were abridging themselves of all the superfluities, and of many of the conveniences of life, for the purpose of relieving the distress with which they met. In December 1731, Samuel Wesley visited his two sons at Oxford, to see for himself the good they were doing, and to obtain direct information respecting their temper and spirit. In a letter to his wife, he says he “was well paid both for his expense and labour by their shining piety.” During the course of the ensuing summer, in 1732, John Wesley made two visits to Epworth; and two others in January and in June 1733. His father’s health had been seriously affected ever since his sad accident in June 1731; and as Samuel Wesley, jun., had declined to become his father’s successor at Epworth, the same proposal was now made to John,[307] and a long correspondence followed, which lasted till the end of 1734.[308] In a long letter to his father, written at this period, John Wesley assigns his reasons for declining the proposal. At Oxford he always had at hand half a dozen friends like-minded with himself; he was free from idle and trifling visitors, except once a month when he invited some of the students to breakfast with him; he was free from cares, and had the opportunity of attending public prayer twice a day; he could be holier and usefuller at Oxford than anywhere else; and the care of two thousand souls at Epworth was a greater weight than he had ability to bear.
His father replied to many of these objections in the following letter:—
“Dear Son,—Your only argument is this: ‘The question is not whether I could do more good to others there or here, but whether I could do more good to myself; seeing wherever I can be most holy myself, there I can most promote holiness in others. But I can improve myself more at Oxford than at any other place.’
“To this I answer—
“1. It is not dear self but the glory of God, and the different degrees of promoting it, which should be our main consideration in the choice of any course of life.
“2. Supposing you could be more holy yourself at Oxford, how does it follow that you could more promote holiness in others there than elsewhere? Have you found many instances of it, after so many years hard pains and labour? Further, I dare say, you are more modest and just than to say, there are no holier men than you at Oxford; and yet it is possible they may not have promoted holiness more than you have done; as I doubt not but you might have done it much more, had you taken the right method. For there is a particular turn of mind for these matters—great prudence as well as great fervour.
“3. I cannot allow austerity or fasting, considered by themselves, to be proper acts of holiness, nor am I for a solitary life. God made us for a social life; we are not to bury our talents; we are to let our light shine before men, and that not barely through the chinks of a bushel, for fear the wind should blow it out. The design of lighting it was, that it might give light to all that went into the house of God. And to this academical studies are only preparatory.
4. You are sensible what figures those make who stay in the university till they are superannuated. I cannot think drowsiness promotes holiness. How commonly do they drone away life, either in a college or in a country parsonage, where they can only give God the snuffs of them, having nothing of life or vigour left to make them useful in the world.
“5. We are not to fix our eye on one single point of duty, but to take in the complicated view of all the circumstances in every state of life that offers. Thus in the case before us, put all circumstances together. If you are not indifferent whether the labours of an aged father, for above forty years in God’s vineyard, be lost, and the fences of it trodden down and destroyed; if you consider that Mr M—— must in all probability succeed me if you do not, and that the prospect of that mighty Nimrod’s coming hither shocks my soul, and is in a fair way of bringing down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave; if you have any care for our family, which must be dismally shattered as soon as I am dropt; if you reflect on the dear love and longing which this poor people have for you, you may perhaps alter your mind, and bend your will to His, who has promised, if in all our ways we acknowledge Him, He will direct our paths.”[309]
A large portion of the correspondence on this momentous business was carried on during Samuel Wesley’s sojourn in London, at the commencement of the year 1734. On the 30th of March, John Brown set out from Epworth to London, to accompany the venerable rector to his home.[310] On his arrival, he wrote as follows to Dr Reynolds, Bishop of Lincoln:—
“My Lord,—I thank God I got well home, and found all well here. My son-in-law, Mr Whitelamb, is gone with his wife to reside at Wroot, and takes true pains among the people. He designs to be inducted immediately after visitation.
“At my return to Epworth, looking a little among my people, I found there were two strangers come hither, both of which I have discovered to be Papists, though they come to church, and I have hopes of making one or both of them good members of the Church of England.”[311]
Mr Wesley was always brimful of benevolence, and, as soon as he was at home again, he showed it. Hence the following characteristic letter:—
“Mr Stephenson,—As soon as I heard from John Brown that your kinswoman Stephenson had writ to you for her son Timothy, and that you had desired her to send for him up, I spoke to several of my best parishioners, Mr John Maw, Mr Barnard, and others, that we might be as kind to him as we have been to others, who have been put apprentices at the public charge, which could be done but meanly at £5, though his mother should be able to provide a few shoes and stockings besides for him. I went twice, on your account and his, to a public meeting at the church, before I had seen the mother or the boy, but the highest sum we could bring our people to, in order to make a man of him, was no more than £3, which I knew was far short of the requisite amount. On Sunday last I went and talked to Mr John Maw and Mr Barnard, and we resolved to make up the rest by a private contribution among ourselves. The next day, I sent for the lad and his mother to my house, and accordingly they came. I found he was a lad of spirit, and that he would please you. I encouraged them both, and told his mother that she might depend on £5, besides what she herself could do to set him out. This was all that I could do for him, and if herein I have been over-officious I hope you will, at least, excuse it from your obliged friend, Samuel Wesley.”[312]
At this period, General Oglethorpe had become a man of mark in England. After finishing his education at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he was appointed secretary and aide-de-camp to Prince Eugene, under whom he acted at the famous siege of Belgrade. While on the Continent, a prince of Wirtemberg, with whom he was at table, took up a glass of wine, and threw a portion of its contents into his face. “That’s a good joke, my prince,” said young Oglethorpe, smiling, “but we do it much better in England;” and so saying he dashed a glass full of wine at his Serene Highness in return. Returning to England about 1722, Oglethorpe became member of the House of Commons for Haslemere, which he represented in five successive parliaments, from 1722 to 1754. In 1729, having found a friend suffering most barbarous treatment in the Fleet Prison, and taking the precedence of John Howard, he called the attention of the House of Commons to the fact, and was appointed chairman of a committee to examine into the state of prisons, where cruelties of the most revolting description had long been practised. About the same period, some charitable person bequeathed to Oglethorpe and others a large some of money in trust, to procure the discharge of poor debtors; and Oglethorpe, soon afterwards, obtained a grant of £10,000 from government, and also a very liberal public subscription, to enable the liberated insolvents to emigrate to Georgia. He proceeded to that country at the head of such a body of settlers about the year 1733, and returned to England in 1734, bringing with him some Indian chiefs, who were presented to the king.
Immediately after his arrival,[313] Mr Wesley addressed to him the following letter respecting his “Dissertations on the Book of Job;” and it is possible that this letter was the first of a series of causes, which, in 1735, led John and Charles Wesley to accompany the general to his newly-formed colony:—
“Honoured Sir,—May I be admitted, while such crowds of our nobility and gentry are pouring in their congratulations, to press, with my poor mite of thanks, into the presence of one who so well deserves the title of Universal Benefactor to mankind. It is not only your valuable favours on many occasions to my son, late of Westminster, and to myself, when I was not a little pressed in the world, nor your more extensive and generous charity to the poor prisoners; it is not only this that so much demands my warmest acknowledgments, as your disinterested and immovable attachment to your country, and your raising a new country, or rather a little world of your own, in the midst of almost wild woods and uncultivated deserts, where men may live free and happy, if they are not hindered by their own stupidity and folly, in spite of the unkindness of their brother mortals.
“Neither ought I to forget your singular goodness to my little scholar and parishioner, John Lyndal. Since he went over, I have received some money for him; and it seems necessary that he should make a slip hither into Lincolnshire, if you could spare him for a fortnight or a month, to settle his affairs with his father’s creditors, which I hope he may now nearly do, and then he will have a clear estate left of about £6 a-year, to dispose of as he pleases. I hope he has behaved with such faithfulness and industry, since he has had the honour and happiness of waiting upon you, as not to have forfeited the favour of so good a master.[314]
“I owe you, sir, beside this, some account of my little affairs since the beginning of your expedition. Notwithstanding my own and my son’s violent illness, which held me half a year, and him above a twelvemonth, I have made a shift to get more than three parts in four of Job[315] printed off, and both the printing, paper, and maps hitherto are paid for. My son, John, at Oxford (now his elder brother is gone to Tiverton) takes care of the remainder of the impression in London; and I have an ingenious artist here with me, in my house at Epworth, who is graving and working off the remaining maps and figures for me, so that I hope, if the printer does not hinder me, I shall have the whole ready by next spring, and by God’s leave be in London myself to deliver the books perfect. I print five hundred copies, as in my proposals, whereof I have above three hundred already subscribed for; and among my subscribers, fifteen or sixteen English Bishops, with some of Ireland.
“I have not yet done with my own impertinent nostrums. I thank God I find I creep up hill more than I did formerly, being eased of the weight of four daughters out of seven, as I hope I shall of the fifth in a little longer.
“When Mr Lyndal comes down, I shall trouble you by him with a copy of all the maps and figures which I have yet printed, they costing me no more than the paper since the graving is over.[316]
“If you will please herewith to accept the tender of my most sincere respect and gratitude, you will thereby confer one further obligation on, honoured sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, Samuel Wesley.”[317]
The following letter was written to a friend, and shows his anxiety for the spiritual welfare of all with whom he was acquainted:—
“Dear Friend,—Though I have not been worthy to hear from you, or to have seen any letter of yours since I saw you last, yet I cannot but retain the same warmth of Christian affection for you which I conceived at our first sight and acquaintance, as I believe you did the like for me and mine. Your friend of Queen’s, whom we call Nathaniel, and who brought us the last good news of your health, is gone to his relations in Yorkshire, but promises to return and meet you here, when you and your friends come down to see us at our fair, in August next. If Charles is short of money, pray tell him he is welcome to twenty shillings here to make him easier in his journey. But I think I can tell you of what will please you more; for last Sunday, at the sacrament, it was darted into my mind that it was a pity you and your company, while you are here, should be deprived of the benefit of weekly sacraments which you enjoy where you are at present; and I therefore resolved, if you desire it, while you are here, to have the communion every Sunday; and, lest some of the parish should grumble at it, the offerings of us who communicate will defray the small expense of it. If there be anything else which you can desire, and which is in my power to grant or procure, you are hereby already assured of it. If I could write anything kinder, my dear friend, I would; and I shall see by your acceptance of it, and compliance with it, whether you believe me, your sincere friend, and half-namesake, Samuel Wesley.”[318]
The following letter to General Oglethorpe evinces the intense interest he felt in the colony of Georgia, for which his two sons, John and Charles, embarked eleven months afterwards:—