"EPWORTH, Jan. 29, 1730. "DEAR CHARLES,-I had your last with your brother's, and you may easily guess whether I were not pleased with it, both on your account and my own. You have a double advantage by your pupils, which will soon bring you more if you will improve it, as I firmly hope you will, in taking the utmost care to form their minds to piety as well as learning. As for yourself, between logic, grammar, and mathematics, be idle* if you can; and I give my blessing to the bishop for having tied you a little faster, by obliging you to rub up your Arabic. A fixed and constant method will make all both easy and delightful to you. But for all that you must find time every day for walking, which you know you may do with advantage to your pupils; and a little more robust exercise, now and then, will do you no harm.

"You are now launched fairly, Charles; hold up your head, and swim like a man; and when you cuff the wave beneath you, say to it, much as another hero did

'Carolum vehis, et Caroli fortunam.'

But always keep your eye above the pole-star. And so God send you a good voyage through the troublesome sea of life! which is the hearty prayer of, your loving father,

"SAMUEL WESLEY." +

Immediately after John Wesley's return to Oxford, in Nov. 1729, he and his brother Charles and two more students began to meet together, three or four evenings every week, for the purpose of reading the classics. One of the students was Mr Morgan, who, during the summer following, called at Oxford Gaol, to see a man condemned for the murder of his wife. He urged the two Wesleys to join him in his visits to the prison and to the poor, and, at last, on the 24th of August 1730, they yielded; but, fearful that they might be doing wrong, before they fully committed themselves to this work of visiting, they wrote asking the advice of their venerable father. Part of his answer, dated September 21, 1730, was as follows:

"And now, as to your own designs and employments, what can

Charles had been idle. He says, "My first year at college I lost in diver sions; the next I set myself to study.”—MOORE's Life of Wesley, vol. i. p. 153. t Clarke's Wesley Family.

I say less of them than valde probo: and that I have the highest reason to bless God that He has given me two sons together at Oxford, to whom He has given grace and courage to turn the war against the world and the devil, which is the best way to conquer them. They have but one more enemy to combat with, the flesh; which, if they take care to subdue, by fasting and prayer, there will be no more for them to do but to proceed steadily in the same course, and expect the crown which fadeth not away. You have reason to bless God, as I do, that you have so fast a friend as Mr M.,* who, I see, in the most difficult service, is ready to break the ice for you. You do not know of how much good that poor wretch who killed his wife has been the providential occasion. I think I must adopt Mr M. to be my son, together with you and your brother Charles; and when I have such a ternion to prosecute that war, wherein I am now miles emeritus, I shall not be afraid when they speak with their enemies in the gate.

"I am afraid lest the main objection you make against going on in the business with the prisoners, may secretly proceed from flesh and blood. Go on, then, in God's name, in the path to which your Saviour has directed you, and that track wherein your father has gone before you! For when I was an undergraduate at Oxford, I visited those in the castle there, and reflect on it with great satisfaction to this day. Walk as prudently as you can, though not fearfully, and my heart and prayers are with you.

"Your first regular step is, to consult with him (if any such there be) who has a jurisdiction over the prisoners; and the next is, to obtain the direction and approbation of your bishop. This is Monday morning, at which time I shall never forget you. If it be possible, I should be glad to see you all three here in the fine end of summer. But if I cannot have that satisfaction, I am sure I can reach you every day, though you were in the Indies. Accordingly, to Him who is everywhere I now heartily commit you, as being your most affectionate and joyful father,

"SAMUEL WESLEY."

Samuel Wesley thus gave an impulse to the first Methodist movement. In pursuance of his directions, his son John obtained the consent of the Bishop of Oxford to visit the prisoners, and

* Mr Morgan.

to preach to them once a month. These proceedings were soon known in the university, and John Wesley and his friends became a common topic of collegiate mirth, and were jeeringly designated "The Holy Club." John again consulted his father, and was answered as follows:

"December 1, 1730.

"This day I received yours; and this evening, in the course of our reading, I thought I found an answer that would be more proper than any I myself could dictate. Great is my glorying of you: I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful.' (2 Cor. vii. 4.) What would you be? Would you be angels? I question whether a mortal can arrive to a greater degree of perfection than steadily to do good, and for that very reason patiently and meekly to suffer evil. For my part, on the present view of your actions and designs, my daily prayers are that God would keep you humble; and then, I am sure that if you continue to suffer for righteousness' sake,' though it be but in a lower degree, 'the Spirit of glory and of God' shall, in some good measure, 'rest upon you.' Be never weary of well-doing; never look back; for you know the prize and the crown are before you; though I can scarce think so meanly of you, as that you would be discouraged with 'the crackling of thorns under a pot.' Be not high-minded, but fear. Preserve an equal temper of mind, under whatever treatment you meet with from a not very just or well-natured world. Bear no more sail than is necessary, but steer steady. The less you value yourselves for these unfashionable duties, the more all good and wise men will value you, if they see your actions are of a piece; or, which is infinitely more, He by whom actions and intentions are weighed will both accept, esteem, and reward you.*

"I hear my son John has the honour of being styled the 'Father of the Holy Club:' if it be so, I must be the grandfather of it; and I need not say that I had rather any of my sons should be so dignified and distinguished than to have the title of His Holiness." +

Who can tell the influence which such a letter had in urging John Wesley and his little band of Methodists to proceed in their new career?

Samuel Wesley, though paralysed in his right hand, was busily Wesley's Works, vol. i. p. 8. † Moore's Life of Wesley, vol. i. p. 171.

engaged in completing his "Dissertation on the Book of Job." He wished to dedicate his work to Queen Caroline, and wrote to both his sons, Samuel and John, relative to the proper mode of proceeding. John, however, was now stigmatized as the "Father of the Holy Club," and Samuel had given offence in high quarters by his poetical satires on the cabinet and their friends, and hence, for the present, it was found impracticable to obtain the queen's permission. The following letter refers to this. It was addressed to Samuel::

"EPWORTH, Dec. 17, 1730.

"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 Mn.'

"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."*

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 :

"June 18, 1731.

"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.