and to diminish the honour of his Lord and Master; and Le Clerc had more wit than learning, and less faith than either. Judge Hale was strong, pious, and nervous; Nelson genteel, zealous, and instructive; Leslie, against the Jews and Deists, was demonstrative; Kettlewell, wonderfully pious and devout; and Hickes's Letters against the Papists unanswerable. Among his old friends, the Dissenters, Mr Wesley mentions Richard Baxter, whom he had heard preach, and whose practical writings, as well as sermons, had a strange fire and pathos; Dr Annesley, a man of great piety and of very good learning; Charnock, diffuse and lax, but very good; Howe, close, strong, and metaphysical; Alsop, merry and witty; Bates, polite and polished; Williams, orthodox and possessed of good sense, especially that of getting money; Calamy, whose style is not amiss; Bradbury, who is fire and feather; Burgess, who had more sense than he made use of; Shower, polite; Cruso, unhappy; Owen, a gentleman and a scholar; Matthew Henry, commended for his laborious work on the Old Testament; and Clarkson, Tillotson's tutor, who knew more about the Fathers than all the Dissenters put together. After going through this long list of authors, with whose writings he was himself more or less acquainted, Mr Wesley takes up the fifth section of his pamphlet-viz., Preaching; and says here "he ought to blush for pretending to give rules for that wherein he was never master, but it is far easier to direct than it is to practise." First, he advises his curate to prepare a course of sermons on all the principles of religion, so as to comprise, as near as may be, the whole body of divinity. He then proceeds to say "I sincerely hate what some call a fine sermon, with just nothing in it. I cannot for my life help thinking that it is very like our fashionable poetry-a mere polite nothing." He recommends that the divisions of a sermon be not too long, or too many; that its illustrations be proper and lively, its proofs close and pointed, its motives strong and cogent, and its inferences and application natural, and yet laboured with all the force of sacred eloquence. He also recommends a prudent, occasional mixture of controversial sermons against papists, sectaries, and heretics; and that the curate, instead of reading his sermons, should repeat them from memory. He advises him to preach suitable sermons in every year, on November 5th, January 30th, May 29th, and August 1st. In reference to "Catechising," he says, the curate will have assistance from the pious and careful schoolmaster, in whose house he will live. He thinks that catechising had much to do with the speedy and wide propagation of the Reformed religion, and has little hope that the Church of England will maintain its position if this be neglected. He expresses the opinion that catechising should not be confined to the season of Lent only, but should be practised at evening service on all Sundays and holidays; and that when the children have been made perfect in the ordinary church catechism, they should be taught some larger one. He himself had adopted this plan, using, as his second catechism, that published by Bishop Beveridge. As to the administration of the Sacraments, he hopes that the curate will succeed in doing what he had never been able to do himself-viz., getting the godfathers and godmothers at baptisms to repeat the responses. The greatest struggle of his ministerial life at Epworth, had been to prevail with the people to bring their children to church for public baptism, and their wives to be churched. In many instances, parents deferred the baptism of their children so long that they brought such monsters of menchildren to the font as were almost enough to break his arms while holding them, and whose manful voices were enough to disturb and alarm the whole congregation. This was an evil which ought to be set right. The Lord's Supper was administered in Epworth Church once a month, and a collection made, at which Mr Wesley, for the sake of example, always gave something himself. This sacrament money, when entered in the church book, was kept in the box appointed for it, with three canonical locks and keys, one of the keys being held by the rector; three-fourths of the money were paid for the children at the charity school, and the remainder put into the bank for such poor sick people as had no constant relief from the parish, and who came to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The enforcement of Discipline was not the least difficult task. He requests that the curate will direct the churchwardens to enforce the ninetieth canon, and diligently see that all the parishioners resort to church, and not stay idling in the churchyard or porch; and that he keep the churchwardens themselves from the alehouse during divine service. He states that he had always brought to public penance anti-nuptial and no-nuptial fornicators. He advises that there be no disputations with Dissenters, for when he first came to Epworth he had practised this, but his opponents always outfaced and outlunged him, and, at the end, they were just where they were at the beginning. Mr Wesley then concludes by saying, that he had spent some. weeks in writing "this tedious and most unfashionable letter;" and adds, "Go on in the way of duty. I hope there will be no dispute between us, but who shall run fastest and fairest; and if I am distanced, I will limp after you as fast as I can with such a weight." Such are the salient points and facts in Mr Wesley's letter to a young clergyman. John Wesley acted upon some of its advices in Georgia with respect to visiting and catechising, and strongly urged the same upon his first itinerants; and George Whitefield acknowledged, in 1737, that the letter had been of service to himself.* Thus did Mr Wesley labour to benefit the church and to bless mankind. Meanwhile, as usual, he was struggling with embarrassments, and with no ordinary trials. Mrs Wesley, in 1721, states that she was rarely in health, and Mr Wesley began to suffer from the infirmities of age. Emily had been compelled to become a teacher in a boarding-school; Sukey had been married to a man little better than a fiend; other children were at home, wanting neither industry nor capacity for business; but the parents could do nothing for them. The eldest daughter was absent, the second ruined, and all the rest in great distress. The parsonage was not half furnished, nor the family half clothed, but amid all, the venerable man was patient, and his wife loving. "Did I not know," she writes, "that Almighty wisdom hath views and ends in fixing the bounds of our habitation, which are out of our ken, I should think it a thousand pities that a man of his brightness, and rare endowments of learning and useful knowledge, in relation to the Church of God, should be confined to an obscure corner of the country, where his talents are buried, and he determined to a way of life for which he is not so well qualified as I could wish." In the midst of all this, he obtained, in 1726, the small rectory of Wroot, about five miles from Epworth, and here he sometimes resided, but this added but little to his domestic comforts, as the Methodist Magazine, 1798, p. 35. 1 profits barely covered the expenses of serving it. Even as late as 1821, the number of houses in the parish were not more than fifty-four, and contained a population of only two hundred and eighty-five. The church, in the days of Wesley, was a small brick building, having, however, some ancient sepulchral monuments. The parsonage-house was covered with a roof of thatch, the country round about was little better than a swamp, and the inhabitants are thus described by the gifted pen of Mehetabel Wesley in lines addressed to her sister Emilia : "Fortune has fixed thee in a place Debarred of wisdom, wit, and grace- Oh what a lamp is hid, 'midst such a sordid race!" § Mr Wesley wished his son, John, to become his curate at Wroot, and, for a time, he officiated in that capacity; but, in 1729, he was obliged to relinquish his duties there, in order to fulfil the office of Moderator of Lincoln College, Oxford. || • Mr Kirk says the living of Wroot is now worth £400 a year with residence. + Stonehouse's History of Axholme. + Ibid. § Clarke's Wesley Family. Moore's Life of Wesley, vol. i. p. 149. CHAPTER XIX. LETTERS-1725-1735. IT has often been said that, generally speaking, there is nothing which develops a man's character so much as his own private letters to his friends. Hitherto we have made sparing use of Mr Wesley's correspondence, and hence, that the reader may have an opportunity, by means of such a test, to form his own opinion respecting this venerable man, we devote this chapter entirely to his "letters." All the letters inserted here were written within the last eleven years of his eventful life,-many of them have been previously published; but, with respect to others, this is the first time that they have been submitted to the public eye. A few notes may be useful; but, with this exception, the chapter will consist entirely of letters. The chapter is long, but the writer flatters himself that the reader will thank him for it. TO HIS SON JOHN. “WROOT, Jan. 26, 1724-5. "DEAR SON,-I am so well pleased with your decent behaviour, or, at least, with your letters, that I hope I shall have no occasion to remember some things that are past. Since you have now, for some time, bit upon the bridle, I will take care hereafter to put a little honey upon it as oft as I am able; but then it shall be of my own mere motion, as the last £5 was; for I will bear no rival in my kingdom. "I did not forget you, neither Dr M.;* but have moved that * Probably Dr Morley, Rector of Lincoln College. John Wesley, at this time, was embarrassed for want of money. Three weeks before, his father had sent him £5, and had promised further kindness. (MS. letter; see also Wesley's Works, vol. xii. p. 16.) |