"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' Tepi TOU Aoyou, 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 ;* and I shall begin to revise it to-morrow. Blessing on you and yours, from your loving father, SAMUEL WESLEY." +

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 churehwardens 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 bareheaded, 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:-

The "Testimonia Arianorum," and the Appendix, mentioned in this letter, were not published. It is evident that Samuel Wesley, jun., had the completion of the "Dissertations on the Book of Job."

+ Clarke's Wesley Family.

"EPWORTH, Dec. 30, 1730. "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-ascore 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 : "—

"EPWORTH, Feb. 15, 1731.

"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 :

"EPWORTH, Feb. 3, 1732.

"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, "SAMUEL WESLEY."

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; Clarke's Wesley Family.