“Honoured Sir,—I am at length, I thank God, slowly recovering from a long illness, during which there have been few days or nights but my heart has been working hard for Georgia, and for my townsman, John Lyndal. It is in answer to the favour of yours, and of his last, that I write these to both. I am extremely concerned lest an inundation of ruin should break in upon your colony, and destroy that, as it has almost done some others. But I have some better hopes, because I hear you do not design to plant it with canes, but with some more innocent, and I hope, as profitable produce, any of which, whether mulberries or saffron, I should be glad to hear were begun in Georgia. I confess I cannot expect God’s blessing, even on the greatest industry, without true piety and the fear of God. I had always so dear a love for your colony that if it had been but ten years ago, I would gladly have devoted the remainder of my life and labours to that place, and think I might before this time have conquered the language without which little can be done among the natives, if the Bishop of London would have done me the honour to have sent me thither, as perhaps he then might, but that is now over. However, I can still reach them with my prayers, which I am sure will never be wanting.
“My letter to Mr Lyndal relates to his own particular affairs here in the country; for though his effects are not large, they ought by no means to be neglected, and I have given him the best advice I am able; but if your wisdom should think otherwise, I desire the letter may be sunk, or else go forward to him by the next opportunity.
“With all the thanks I am capable of, I remember your kindness to my son, formerly of Westminster, to myself, and to my parishioner Lyndal; and am, with the truest respect and gratitude, your honour’s most obliged and most humble servant,
The following is the letter to Mr Lyndal:—
LyndalLyndal,—I have not been a little concerned for the unsettledness of your affairs at Wroot. I have somewhat above £10 of yours in my hands, and think the best and the honestest way you could do, would be to pay that money, as far as it will go, towards the interest of what your father had taken up upon his estate while he was living. Mr Epworth has brought me a letter from his mother, wherein she says there was a bond of £10, and a note of £20, as I remember, due to Mr Epworth’s father. She desired you would pay off the £10 with interest, and they would stay for the £20. I told him that could not be done, because there was so little money amongst us all, and therefore I thought the fairest and wisest way was to divide the money I had in my hand, to pay the interest proportionally as far as it would go.
“As for your estate, which is in the tenure of Robert Brumby, I suppose about £5 or £6 a year, I think it would be best for you to fix two or three trustees, and make him yearly accountable to them. If you like it, I will be one of them myself as long as I live; my son, Whitelamb, would be another; and we think we could persuade Mr Romley, the schoolmaster, to be the third, who so well understands the whole matter.
“I find your father owed your uncle, John Barrow, £4, 10s., and Goody Stephenson £5. John Barrow is willing to take it when you can pay him, without interest, and so should Stephenson, too, but only she is poor, and therefore I will give her five shillings on your account, if you think fit. Let me hear from you as soon as you can after the receipt of this.
“And now I have some little inquiries to make of your new country. Whether any of our ministers understand their language, and can preach to them without an interpreter? Whether they speak the same language with those Indians who are near them, of Saltsburg and Carolina; or of those of New England, who, I know, have the Bible translated into their language? Whether your Indians have the Lord’s Prayer in their own language? which, if they have, I desire you would send me a copy in your next. In all which, especially in loving God and your neighbour, you would exceedingly oblige, your sincere friend,
These two letters to Oglethorpe and Lyndal were written six days after the burial of Mrs Whitelamb, Mr Wesley’s daughter.[321] Poor Whitelamb was exceedingly distressed by his sad bereavement, and, in the depth of his grief, wished to go to Georgia. Hence the following letter to Oglethorpe, which was written exactly a month after the former one:—
“Dear Sir,—I cannot express how much I am obliged by your last kind and instructive letter concerning the affairs of Georgia. I could not read it over without sighing, when I again reflected on my own age and infirmities, which made such an expedition utterly impracticable for me. Yet my mind worked hard about it; and it is not impossible but Providence may have directed me to such an expedient as may prove more serviceable to your colony than I should ever have been.
“The thing is thus:—There is a young man, who has been with me a pretty many years, and assisted me in my work on Job; after which I sent him to Oxford, to my son, John Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln College, who took care of his education, where he behaved himself very well, and improved in piety and learning. Having got him into deacon’s orders, I sent for him down, and he was my curate in my absence in London; when I resigned my small living of Wroot to him, and he was instituted and inducted there. I likewise consented to his marrying one of my daughters, there having been a long and intimate friendship between them. But neither he nor I were so happy as to have them live long together; for she died in child-bed of her first child. He was so inconsolable at her loss, that I was afraid he would soon have followed her; to prevent which, I desired his company here at my own house, that he might have some amusement and business, by assisting me in my cure during my illness.
“It was then, sir, I just received the favour of yours, and let him see it for his diversion; more especially, because John Lyndal and he had been fellow-parishioners and school-fellows at Wroot, and had no little kindness one for the other. I made no great reflection on the thing at first; but, soon after, I found he had thought often upon it, was very desirous to go to Georgia himself, and wrote the enclosed letter to me on the subject. As I knew not of any person more proper for such an undertaking, I thought the least I could do was to send the letter to your honour, who would be so very proper a judge of the affair; and, if you approve, I shall not be wanting in my addresses to my Lord Bishop of London, or any other, since I expect to be in London myself at spring, to forward the matter, as far as it will go.
“As for his character, I shall take it upon myself to say, that he is a good scholar, a sound Christian, and a good liver. He has a very happy memory, especially for languages, and a judgment and intelligence not inferior. My eldest son at Tiverton has some knowledge of him, concerning whom I have writ to him since your last to me. My two others, his tutor at Lincoln, and my third of Christ Church, have been long and intimately acquainted with him; and I doubt not but they will give him, at least, as just a character as I have done.
“And here I shall drop the matter, till I have the honour of hearing again from you, and shall either drop it or prosecute it, as appears most proper to your maturer judgment; ever remaining, your honour’s most sincere, and most obliged friend and servant, Samuel Wesley.”[322]
These are remarkable and important letters, and doubtless served as links, in the chain of cause and effect, which led to the selection of John and Charles Wesley for the mission in Georgia. The missionary spirit was a passion in the Wesley family, when Christian missions to the heathen scarce existed. John Wesley, after being ejected from his church living, in 1662, longed to go as a missionary, first to Surinam, and afterwards to Maryland. Samuel Wesley, his son, when a young man of between thirty and forty years of age, formed a magnificent scheme to go as a missionary to India, China, and Abyssinia; and, in the last year of his life, most feelingly laments that he was not young enough to go to Georgia. His sons, John and Charles, now at Oxford, caught his spirit, and, within twelve months after the date of the last letter, actually went. John Whitelamb, his son-in-law, wished to go; but, for some unknown reason, was kept at home.
As already stated, Oglethorpe went to Georgia in 1733, with a number of released debtors, who were the first settlers in the colony. These were joined by a number of persecuted Protestants, who had been driven from Salzburg, a city of Bavaria, by the archbishop of the place. On October 14, 1735, six months after Samuel Wesley’s death, Oglethorpe re-embarked for Georgia, with five hundred and seventy adventurers, among whom were one hundred and thirty Highlanders, and one hundred and seventy Germans, of whom a considerable number were Moravians.[323] The trustees of the colony requested John Wesley and some of his friends to accompany the emigrants. Wesley consulted his widowed mother. Her answer was: “Had I twenty sons, I should rejoice they were all so well employed, though I should never see them more.”[324] The thing was settled, and away Wesley went, his brother Charles, and their Oxford friends, Benjamin Ingham and Charles Delamotte, going with him.
Samuel Wesley strongly wished his son John to be his successor at Epworth; but John, four months before his father’s death, decisively declined the proposal. He was resolved to remain at Oxford, because he imagined he could be holier at Oxford than he could be anywhere else. The rector died, and then his son changed his mind, and set out on the very mission upon which his father had set his heart, and to be engaged in which he would, if he had been ten years younger, have gladly relinquished Epworth Church. The following letter refers to John Wesley’s final refusal of his father’s proposition. It was written to Samuel Wesley, jun., four months previous to Mr Wesley’s decease:—
“Dear Son,—Having pretty many things to write to you, and those of no small moment; and being for the most part confined to my house by pain and weakness, so that I have not yet ventured to church on a Sunday, I have just now sat down to try if I can reduce my thoughts into any tolerable order. Though I can write but few lines in a day, yet being under my own hand, they may not be the less acceptable to you.
“I shall throw what I have a mind you shall know, under three heads—1. What most immediately concerns our own family. 2. Dick Ellison, the wen of my family, and his poor insects that are sucking me to death. 3. J. Whitelamb;—and, perhaps, in a postscript, a little of my own personal affairs, and of the poor.
“1. Of our family. Your brother John has at last writ me, ‘that it is now his unalterable resolution not to accept of Epworth living, if he could have it;’ and the reason he gives for it in these words:—‘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 am assured, I can most promote holiness in others. But I am equally assured there is no place under heaven so fit for my improvement as Oxford. Therefore,’ &c.
“Thus stands his argument. Though I am no more fond of the gripping and wrangling distemper than I am of Mr Harper’s[325] boluses and clysters, (for age would again have rest,) I sat myself down to try if I could unravel his sophisms, and hardly one of his assertions appeared to me to be universally true. I think the main of my answer was, that he seemed to mistake the end of academical studies, which were chiefly preparatory, in order to qualify men to instruct others.
“He thinks there is no place so fit for his improvement as Oxford. As to many sorts of useful knowledge, it may be nearly true; but surely there need be a knowledge, too, of men and things (which has not been thought the most attainable in a cloister) as well as of books, or else we shall find ourselves of much less use in the world.
“But the best and greatest improvement is in solid piety and religion, which (in Oxford) is handy to be got, or promoted, by being hung up in Socrates’ basket. But allowing that austerity and mortification may either be a means of promoting holiness, or, in some degree, a part of it, why may not a man exercise these in his own house as strictly as in any college, in any university in Europe, and, perhaps, with less censure and observation? Neither can I understand the meaning or drift of being thus ever learning, and never coming to a due proficiency in the knowledge and practice of the truth, so as to be able commendably to instruct others in it.
“Thus far I have written with my own hand, both to you and your brother, for many days together; but I am now so heartily tired that I must, contrary to my resolution, get my son Whitelamb to transcribe and finish it. I have done what I could, with such a shattered head and body, to satisfy the scruples which your brother has raised against my proposal, from conscience and duty; but if your way of thinking be the same with mine, especially after you have read and weighed what follows, you will be able to convince him in a much clearer and stronger manner.
“The remaining considerations I offered to him were for the most part such as follow:—I urged, among other things, the great precariousness of my own health, and the sensible decay of my strength, so that he would hardly know me if he saw me now; the deplorable state in which I should leave your mother and the family, and the loss of near forty years’ honest labour in this place, where I could expect no other, but that the field which I have been so long sowing with good seed, and the vineyard, which I have planted with no ignoble vine, must be soon rooted up, and the fences of it broken down,—for I am morally satisfied, if your brothers both slight it, Mr P—— will be my successor.
“I hinted at one thing, which I mentioned in my letter to your brother, whereon I depend more than upon all my own simple reasoning; and that is, earnest prayer to Him who smiles at the strongest resolutions of mortals, and can, in a moment, change or demolish them; who alone can bend the inflexible sinew, and order the irregular wills of us simple men to His own glory, and to our happiness. While the anchor holds, I despair of nothing, but firmly believe that He who is best will do what is best, whether we earnestly will it or will it not. There I rest the whole matter, and leave it with Him, to whom I have committed all my concerns, without exception and without reserve, for soul and body, estate and family, time and eternity.[326]
“2. As to the second part of my letter concerning R. Ellison,[327] I have charity crammed down my throat every day, and sometimes his company at meals, which you will believe as pleasant to me as all my physic. But this is beyond the reach of all my little prudence, and therefore I find I must leave it as I have done, in some good measure before, to Him who orders all things.
“3. The third part of my letter is in relation to my son Whitelamb, and is of almost as great concern as the former, and on some accounts perhaps greater.[328] You will find the whole affair contained in a letter I lately sent to Mr Oglethorpe, and in my son Whitelamb’s to myself. The letters are so full, that they have exhausted what we had to say on that subject; and nothing at present need or can be added. I desire you therefore to weigh the whole with the utmost impartiality; and, if you are of the same mind with myself and your mother, who entirely approves of the design, that you would yourself write to Mr Oglethorpe, as I promised you would, and send him your thoughts, and use your good offices about it.
“And now, as to my minute affairs, I doubt not but you will, as you gave me hopes when you went into Devon, improve your interest among the gentlemen, your friends, and get me some more subscribers, as likewise an account whether there be any prospect yet remaining of obtaining any favour from the Duke of Newcastle, in relation to the affair.[329]—Yours,
The last letter we shall introduce is a review of his life, and therefore an appropriate conclusion of the present chapter.
It has been already mentioned that Mr Wesley had a brother, named Matthew,Jwho practised as a physician in London. There does not appear to have been much intimacy between the two brothers; but, after the fire at Epworth in 1709, Matthew took to his house his brother’s two children, Hetty and Susan; and afterwards in 1720, he, in a similar manner, took Patty, who lived in his house for twelve years, and to whom, on her marriage, he gave a dowry of £500. Matthew Wesley was a man of considerable wealth; but he had obtained it by unwearied diligence, and by the utmost economy. He knew next to nothing of the troubles of a family, and was ill-qualified to judge of family expenses.
In 1731, accompanied by his man-servant, he started from London to Epworth on a visit to his brother. He travelled under a feigned name, and intended to take his brother by surprise; but his man not being so taciturn as himself, the secret oozed out, and the family were prepared for his coming. The first day after his arrival he spoke little to the children, being employed in observing their behaviour, so that he might know how he ought to like them. He was strangely scandalised at the poor furniture of the parsonage, and at the meanness of the children’s clothing, and wondered what his brother had done with all his income. He always behaved himself decently at family prayers, and, when Mr Wesley was absent, said grace before and after meat. On his return to London, he wrote a severe and caustic letter to his brother, accusing him of bad economy, and of not making provision for his large family. Part of this strange epistle was as follows:—
“The same record which assures us an infidel cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, also asserts, in the consequence, that a worse than infidel can never do it. It likewise describes the character of such a one: ‘He provides not for his own, especially for those of his own house.’
“You have a numerous offspring; you have had a long time a plentiful estate, and have made no provision for those of your own house, who can have nothing in view at your exit but distress. This I think a black account; let the cause be folly, or vanity, or ungovernable appetites. I hope Providence has restored you again to give you time to settle this balance, which shocks me to think of. To this end, I must advise you to be frequent in your perusal of Father Beveridge on Repentance, and Dr Tillotson on Restitution; for it is not saying Lord, Lord, will bring us to the kingdom of heaven, but doing justice to all our fellow-creatures; and not a poetical imagination that we do so. A serious consideration of these things, and suitable actions, I doubt not, will qualify you to meet me where sorrow shall be no more, which is the highest hope and expectation of yours,
This is an unjust, unfeeling, disreputable letter, and it is certainly surprising that Mehetabel Wesley, when her uncle died six years after, should have so eulogised his character as she did, in her elegy, published in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1737. He might be a man of much learning and information, a good judge and lover of poetry, and clever in his profession; but the above epistle makes one doubt that he was “a man of truly benevolent mind,” and prepares one to receive Patty Wesley’s statement respecting him, written a year before the time of his Epworth visit, viz., that he was not converted, nor what he ought to be.[332] He seems to have been highly esteemed for his professional ability and services; but a stranger to pure, earnest, heartfelt godliness. He treated John Wesley’s mission to Georgia with ridicule, and told Charles that, “if the French had any remarkably dull fellow among them, they sent him to convert the Indians.” Charles says he checked and silenced his uncle’s art and eloquence by repeating the lines of his brother:—
A few months before his death, Samuel Wesley replied to his brother’s accusations, in a long letter, twenty lines of which were written by himself, about one-half of it by Mrs Wesley, and the remainder by his son John, who acted as his amanuenses. The letter, which is without date, is written in a serio-jocose style, and is headed “John o’ Styles’ Apology against the imputation of his ill husbandry.” A friend is represented as reading Matthew Wesley’s letter to his brother, John o’ Styles, and as reporting the brother’s answer to the charges brought against him. The pretended narrator says:—
“When I had read this to my friend John o’ Styles, I was a little surprised that he did not fall into flouncing and bouncing, as I have too often seen him do on far less provocation, which I ascribed to a fit of sickness he had lately had, and which I hope may have brought him to something of a better mind. He stood calm and composed for a minute or two, and then desired he might peruse the letter, adding, that if the matter of fact therein were true, and not aggravated or misrepresented, he was obliged in conscience to acknowledge it, and ask pardon at least of his family, if he could make them no other satisfaction. If it were not true, he owed that justice to himself and his family, to clear himself of so vile an imputation. After he had read it over he said he did not think it necessary to enter into a detail of the history of his whole life, from sixteen to upwards of seventy; but he would make some general observations on those general accusations which have been brought against him, and then would add some balance of his incomes and expenses ever since he entered on the stage of life.
“The sum of the libel may be reduced to the following assertions:—1. That John o’ Styles is worse than an infidel, and therefore can never go to heaven; which secondly, he aims at proving, because he provides not for his own house; as notorious instances of which, he adds, in the third place, that in the pursuits of his pleasures he had produced a numerous offspring, and has had a long time a plentiful estate, and great and generous benefactors, but yet has made no provision for those of his own house; which he thinks, in the last place, a black account, let the cause be folly, or vanity, or his own irregular passions.
“Answer.—If God has blessed him with a numerous offspring, he has no reason to be ashamed of them, nor they of him, unless perhaps one of them. Neither does his conscience accuse him that he has made no provision for those of his own house; which general accusation includes them all. But has he none, nay, not above one, two, or three, to whom he has given the best education which England could afford, by God’s blessing on which they live honourably and comfortably in the world? Some of them had already been a considerable help to the others, as well as to himself; and he has no reason to doubt the same of the rest, as soon as God shall enable them to do it. There are many gentlemen’s families in England who, by the same method, provide for their younger children; and he hardly thinks that there are many of greater estates but would be glad to change the best of theirs, or even all their stock, for almost the worst of his.
“Neither is he ashamed in claiming some merit in his having been so happy in breeding them up in his own principles and practices—not only the priests in his family, but all the rest—to a steady opposition and confederacy against all such as are avowed and declared enemies to God and his clergy, and who deny or disbelieve any articles of natural or revealed religion, as well as to such as are open or secret friends to the Great Rebellion, or to any such principles as do but squint towards the same practices; so that he hopes they are all staunch High-Church, and for inviolable passive obedience;[334] from which, if any of them should be so wicked as to degenerate, he cannot tell whether he could prevail with himself to give them his blessing; though, at the same time, he almost equally abhors all servile submission to the greatest and most overgrown tool of State, whose avowed design it is to aggrandise his prince at the expense of the liberties and properties of his freeborn subjects.[335]
“Thus much for John o’ Styles’ ecclesiastical and political creed; and, as he hopes, for those of his family. And as his adversary adds, that ‘at his exit they could have nothing in view but distress, and that it is a black account, let the cause be folly, or vanity, or ungovernable appetites;’ John o’ Styles answered: He has not the least doubt of God’s provision for his family after his decease, if they continue in the way of righteousness. As for his folly, he owns he can hardly demur to the charge; for he fairly acknowledges he never was, nor ever will be, like the children of this world, who are accounted wise in their generation, in doting upon this world, courting this world, and regarding nothing else: not but that he has all his life laboured truly both with his hands, head, and heart, to provide things honest in the sight of all men, to get his own living, and that of those who have been dependents on him.
“As for his vanity, he challenges an instance to be given of any extravagance in any single branch of his expenses through the whole course of his life, either in dress, diet, horses, recreation, or diversion, either in himself or family.
“Now if these, which are the main objections, are wiped off, what becomes of the black account, or of the worse than infidelity which this Severus Frater et Avunculus Puerorum has, in the plenitude of his power, urged, to exclude those, who, for want of equal illumination or equal estates, think or act differently from himself, out of the kingdom of heaven?
“As for the plentiful estates, and great and generous benefactions which he likewise mentions, the person accused answered, that he could never acknowledge as he ought the goodness of God and of his generous benefactors; but hopes he may add, that he had never tasted so much of their kindness if they had not believed him to be an honest man.
“Thus much he said in general, but added as to particular instances, he should only add a blank balance, and leave it to any after his death to cast it up according to common equity; and then they would be more proper judges whether he deserved those imputations which are now thrown upon him.
| “Imprimis.—When he first walked to Oxford he had in cash, | £2 | 5 | 0 |
| “He lived there till he took his bachelor’s degree, without any preferment or assistance, except one crown, | 0 | 5 | 0 |
| “By God’s blessing on his own industry he brought to London, | 10 | 15 | 0 |
| “When he came to London he got deacon’s orders and a cure, for which he had, for one year, | 28 | 0 | 0 |
| “In which year, for his board, ordination, and habit, he was indebted £30, which he afterwards paid, | 30 | 0 | 0 |
| “When he went to sea, where he had for one year £70, not paid till two years after his return, | 70 | 0 | 0 |
| “He then got a curacy at £30 per annum for two years, and by his own industry in writing, &c., he made it £60 per annum, | 120 | 0 | 0 |
“He married and had a son; and he and his wife and child boarded for some years in or near London without running into debt.
“He had then a living given him in the country, let for £50 per annum, where he had five children more; in which time, and while he lived in London, he wrote a book, which he dedicated to Queen Mary, who for that reason gave him a living in the country, valued at £200 per annum, where he remained for nearly forty years, and wherein his numerous offspring amounted, with the former, to eighteen or nineteen children.
“Half of his parsonage was first burnt, which he rebuilt: some time after the whole was burnt to the ground, which he rebuilt from the foundations; and it cost him above £400, besides the furniture, none of which was saved, and he was forced to renew it.
“About ten years since, he got a little living adjoining to his former, the profits of which very little more than defrayed the expenses of serving it, and sometimes hardly so much; his whole tithe having been in a manner swept away by inundations, for which the parishioners had a brief, though he thought it not decent for himself to be joined with them in it.
“For the greater part of these last ten years, he has been closely employed in composing a large book, whereby he hoped he might have done some benefit to the world, and in some measure amended his own fortunes. By sticking so close to this, he has broke a pretty strong constitution, and fallen into palsy and gout. Besides this, he has had sickness in his family for most of the years since he was married.
“His greater living seldom cleared above £160 per annum, out of which he allowed £20 per annum to a person who had married one of his daughters. Could we on the whole fix the balance, it would easily appear whether he had been an ill husband, or careless and idle, and taken no care of his family. Let us range on the one side his income, and on the other his expenses while he has been at the top of his fortunes, taking them at the full extent:—
| “His income about £200 per annum for near forty years,[336] | £8000 | 0 | 0 | “Expended in sickness for above forty years, | £—————— | ||
| “Expenses in taking his livings, repairing houses, &c., | 160 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| “Rebuilding part of his house the first time, | 60 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| “Rebuilding the whole house, | 400 | 0 | 0 | ||||
| “Furnishing it, | —————— | ||||||
| “Eight children born and buried, | —————— | ||||||
| “Ten (thank God!) living, brought up, and educated, | —————— | ||||||
| “Most of the daughters put out to a way of living, | —————— | ||||||
| “To three sons for the best education I could get them in England, | —————— | ||||||
| “Attending the convocation three years, | £150 | 0 | 0 | ||||
“Let all this be balanced, and then a guess may be easily made of his sorry management.
“He can struggle with the world, but not with Providence; nor can he resist sicknesses, fires, and inundations.”[337]
Such was one of the last letters that Samuel Wesley ever wrote; or rather, we ought to say dictated, for such were his afflictions and weakness, that nearly the whole of it had to be written by his wife and by his second son, who penned it from his lips. It is an ample refutation of the unnatural charges brought against him by his brother; and scatters to the winds the vague ideas of all those who, in modern times, have been apt to think of Samuel Wesley as being, upon the whole, a good-hearted sort of man; but, at the same time, in some way, a spendthrift, and one who very culpably neglected the interests of his wife and family. All this is unfounded, unjust, and cruel; the result, not of research, but of indolent ignorance, which has too readily taken for granted, that which it ought, first of all, to have examined.