PRETERNATURAL NOISES.—1716–1717.
From the earliest times, men have believed in apparitions, or
preternatural appearances of spirits. The Jews, in the days of Moses,
were commanded not to suffer a witch to live. The Greeks and the Romans
had their demons or genii. In the days of Christ there were demoniacs.
Origen conceived that souls tainted by flagrant crimes were either
confined in a species of limbo, or attached to particular spots, where
within certain limits, they might ramble about at pleasure. Popery, from
the first, countenanced and fostered the doctrines of witchcraft and
demonology, its priests strengthening their dominion by practising
conjurations, and its monks fabricating legends suited to the prevailing
taste. Martin Luther believed as firmly in diabolical apparitions as the
most illiterate monk in the Popish Church, which he laboured to destroy.
And, in more recent times, men like Dr Henry More, Andrew Baxter, and
Joseph Glanvil, (all contemporaneous with Samuel Wesley,) wrote most
learnedly to prove that the doctrine of apparitions is deducible from
the nature of the soul, the testimony of Scripture, and the evidence of
fact. On the other hand, most elaborate works against the doctrine were
published, about the same period, by the celebrated Thomasius, and by Dr
Balthasar Bekker. Down to the sixteenth century, in Europe, witchcraft
universally prevailed; and even as late as the middle of the seventeenth
century it maintained its ground with considerable firmness. In England,
the belief in witchcraft was supported by the royal authority of James
I., was countenanced by Lord Bacon, and was generally adopted among the
people; and there was only one writer, Reginald Scot, who was hardy
enough to write against it. Supposed witches were weighed against the
Church Bible, which, if the accused persons were guilty, would
preponderate. They were placed in the middle of a room cross-legged,
bound with cords, and sitting on a stool; were kept without food and
sleep for four-and-twenty hours, and were watched all the while to see
the witch’s imps, in the shape of flies and spiders, come to suck her
breasts. They were made to repeat the Lord’s prayer, because no witch
could repeat it without omitting some of its sentences. A witch could
not weep more than three tears, and that only out of the left eye. After
binding the right thumb to the left toe, and the right toe to the left
thumb, the supposed witch was thrown into a river, and, unless she sank,
she was proved guilty; because, according to the infallible teaching of
King James, having renounced her baptism by water, the water renounced
her. By such trials as these, and by the accusations of children, old
women, and fools, thousands of unhappy persons were condemned for
witchcraft, and were burnt to death. Without questioning the reality of
such a thing as witchcraft, it cannot be denied that the witnesses, by
whose evidence supposed witches were condemned, were, in most cases,
either weak enthusiasts or downright villains; and that the confessions
ascribed to the witches themselves were, in many instances, the effects
of a disordered imagination, produced by cruel treatment and excessive
watchings.
There can be little doubt that, from early life, Samuel Wesley was a
believer in the doctrine of apparitions. In vol. i. of the _Athenian
Oracle_, (p. 185,) it is assumed that the soul, after its separation
from the body, may again be clothed with some sort of aerial, fiery, or
cloudy vehicle, and be visible to our senses; and instances are given of
apparitions at Puddle Dock, London, and at the Grange, in Lancashire. In
another article of the same volume, (p. 289,) it is said—“That spirits
have sometimes really appeared to mortals is, amongst all sober men,
beyond controversy;” and Luke xxiv. 37 is quoted in support of such a
theory. In a third article, vol. i. p. 296, ten apparition cases are
related, and the writer concludes thus:—“The next step to the
disbelieving such things is the denial of the soul’s existence out of
the body; and, if that be admitted, farewell all moral virtues and the
expectation of rewards and punishments hereafter.” Again, page 153, it
is argued that there is no nation or language in which there is not some
word expressive of the idea of witchcraft, and that, if witches had not
really existed, it was an absurd thing for Almighty God to make a law
commanding them to be put to death. Many other articles of a like
character may be found in the other volumes of the same work, proving,
beyond a doubt, that, at the commencement of his ministerial life,
Samuel Wesley believed in witches and in ghosts. We must now proceed to
give, in as condensed a form as possible, the account of the old Jeffrey
apparition at Epworth Parsonage. For the preservation of that account we
are indebted to the Rev. Samuel Badcock, and for its publication to Dr
Priestley.
Badcock was born about the year 1750, and, at the age of nineteen,
became the minister of one of the most considerable Dissenting
congregations in Devonshire. On his removal from Barnstaple, he was
elected minister at South Moulton. He now turned his attention to
literature, and became a correspondent of the London and monthly
reviews, and of the chief London magazines. About three years before his
death, which occurred in 1788, he renounced the Dissenting ministry, and
was ordained a priest of the Established Church.[216]
-----
Footnote 216:
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1788.
-----
This man, by means of Mrs Earle, the daughter of Samuel Wesley, jun.,
became possessed of a large mass of Wesley MSS., some of which he
published in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, and in other publications of
that period. The rest he gave to his friend Dr Priestley. These included
a “copy of Mr Wesley’s Diary,” and copies of letters written by his
daughters to the absent members of the family, all in the hand-writing
of Mr Samuel Wesley, jun. This MS. was lent by Priestley to a friend,
and for a time was lost; but at length it was restored, and, in 1791,
was published.[217] Priestley, in his preface, says, “This is perhaps
the best authenticated, and the best told story of the kind, that is
anywhere extant.” The account, as published in detail by Dr Priestley,
fills forty-seven octavo pages, but every material fact will be found in
the condensed statement now subjoined.
-----
Footnote 217:
_Ibid._, 1785, p. 411.
-----
The preternatural noises at Epworth parsonage were first heard by Mrs
Wesley. This was on the evening of a day when her son Samuel had come
home from Westminster School, and, with considerable sharpness, had
quarrelled with his sister Susannah. At the time, Mrs Wesley was in her
bedroom, and heard a clattering of doors and windows, and then several
distinct knocks, three by three. This, however, gave her no anxiety;
and, though ever after, similar noises were invariably heard previous to
the occurrence of any family misfortune, yet Mrs Wesley, and, indeed,
the family as a whole, seemed to have attached no importance to such
disturbances until the close of the year 1716. Then the noises became
alarming, and the following is an account of them from that period:—
On the first of December 1716, Nanny Marshall, the maid-servant, heard,
at the dining-room door, something which sounded like the groans of a
dying man, and which made her hair stand on end. This was in the
day-time, and, at night, Miss Susannah and Miss Anne Wesley, whilst
sitting in the dining-room, heard something rush on the outside of the
doors that opened into the garden, then three loud knocks, immediately
after other three, and, in half a minute, the same number above their
heads. A night or two after, Emilia came down stairs, at ten o’clock, to
wind up the timepiece and lock the doors, as usual, and, as she was
doing so, she heard, under the staircase, a sound as if some bottles
there had all been dashed to pieces; but, when she looked, all was safe.
She also heard a noise, like a person throwing down a vast coal in the
middle of the front kitchen; but when she and Susannah went to see what
it was, the dog was fast asleep, and nothing out of order. Emilia now
went to bed, but Mehetabel, who always waited for her father to leave
his study and to retire to rest, was sitting on the lowest step of the
garret stairs, when there came down the stairs behind her, something
like a man in a loose night-gown trailing after him, which made her fly
to Emilia in the nursery. After this, the man-servant, whose dormitory
was the garret, heard some one rattling by his side, and then walking up
and down the stairs, gabbling like a turkey-cock. Noises, also, were
heard in the nursery, and all the other chambers, knocking first at the
foot of the beds, and then behind them.
At length the four young ladies, Emilia, Susannah, Mehetabel, and Anne,
the youngest of whom was fourteen years of age, and the eldest
twenty-four, told their father and mother of the noises they had heard.
The father smiled, and gave no answer; but, appearing to think it was a
trick played by themselves, or by their lovers, he afterwards took care
to see them all in bed before he went to bed himself. The mother said
she believed that the noise was made by rats; and sent for a horn to
frighten them away. At last, on December 21st, the noises were heard not
only by the young ladies, but by their parents. Nine distinct and loud
knocks startled them in the room adjoining that in which they were
sleeping. The rector thought, or was pleased to say, it might be some
one outside the house, and expressed a hope that his stout mastiff might
rid them of the disturber of their peace. Next night, however, he heard
six knocks more; and two days after, at seven in the morning, Emilia
brought her mother into the nursery, where she heard noises under the
bed, and then at the head of it. She knocked, and it answered her. She
looked beneath the bed, and thought she saw something run from thence in
the shape of a badger, and apparently take refuge under Emilia’s
petticoats. The next night but one, Mr Wesley and his wife were awaked,
shortly after midnight, by noises so violent that it was in vain to
think of sleep while they continued. They went into every chamber; and,
generally, as they entered one room, the noise was heard in the room
behind them. Proceeding to the lower part of the house, they heard a
clashing among the bottles, and then another distinct sound, as if a
peck of money were poured out at Mrs Wesley’s waist, and ran jingling
down her night-gown to her feet. Going through the hall into the
kitchen, the mastiff came whining towards them, and seemed almost
paralysed with fear. They still heard it rattle and thunder in every
room above and behind them except the study, where, up to the present,
it had never entered.
On December 26th, a little before ten at night, it began knocking in the
kitchen, then seemed to be at the bed’s foot, then under the bed, and at
last at the head of it. Mr Wesley went down stairs and knocked with his
stick against the kitchen’s joists, and it answered him as often as he
knocked. He went up stairs, and he found it still thumping, sometimes
under the bed, and sometimes at the bed’s head. All the children were
awake and trembling with fear. He asked it what it was, and why it
disturbed innocent children and did not come to him in his study, if it
had anything to say to him; but the only response was a knock on the
outside of the house, with which the disturbance of the night was ended.
The next night the noises were as boisterous as ever; and, the night
after, when the Rev. Mr Hoole, of Haxsey, was with them, the knocking
again began upstairs, and then in the rooms below. The two clergymen
went into the kitchen, and then the sound was in the room above. They
went up the narrow stairs, and then heard as it were the rustling of a
silk night gown. Quickly it was in the nursery, at the bed’s head,
knocking three by three. Mr Wesley, observing that the children, though
asleep, were sweating and trembling, became angry, and, pulling out a
pistol, was about to fire at the place whence the sounds proceeded; but
Mr Hoole caught him by the arm and said, “Sir, if this is something
preternatural you cannot hurt _it_ by firing your pistol, but you may
give it power to hurt _you_.” He then put aside his pistol, and went
close to the place where the sounds were issuing and said, “Thou deaf
and dumb devil, why dost thou frighten children that cannot answer thee?
Come to _me_ in my study that am a man.” Instantly it knocked _his_
knock, (the particular knock he always used at his own gate and door,)
as if it would shiver the board in pieces, and away it went.[218]
-----
Footnote 218:
_Methodist Magazine_, 1784, p. 608.
-----
Up to this time, there had been no disturbance in Mr Wesley’s study; but
the next evening, as he opened the door, it was thrust back with such
violence as well nigh threw him down, and presently there was a
knocking, first on one side, then on the other. His daughter Ann was in
the room adjoining and he went to her, and, as the noise still
continued, he adjured it to speak, but in vain. He then said, “Spirits
love darkness; put out the candle and perhaps it will speak.” Anne did
so, and he repeated his adjuration, but still there was only knocking,
and no articulate sound. He then said to his daughter, “Nancy, two
Christians are an over-match for a devil; go down stairs, and it may be,
when I am left alone, it will have courage enough to speak.” When she
was gone the thought occurred to him that something might have happened
to his son Samuel, and he said, “If thou art the spirit of my son
Samuel, I pray knock three knocks, and no more.” Immediately all was
silence, and the rest of the night passed away in quietude.[219]
-----
Footnote 219:
_Ibid._, p. 654.
-----
From this time until January 24, 1717, a period of twenty-seven days,
the house was quiet; but on this day, in the morning, while at family
prayers, the family heard the usual knocks at the prayer for King
George; and at night the knocks were more distinct, both in the prayer
for the king and for the prince, and were accompanied with a thundering
thump at the _Amen_. Between nine and ten o’clock, while Robert Brown
was sitting by himself at the back kitchen fire, something came out of
the copper hole like a rabbit, and turned five times swiftly round.
Robert ran after it with the tongs, but, to Robert’s terrible dismay, it
vanished.
On the day after, January 25, Mr Wesley shortened the family prayers in
the morning, omitting the confession, the absolution, and the prayers
for the king and prince, and observed that whenever he did this there
was no knocking; but whenever he used the name of King George it seemed
a signal for the knocking to commence. This made Wesley so angry that he
resolved to say three prayers for the royal family, instead of two.
Emilia often heard something like the quick winding up of a jack at the
corner of her room. When Mrs Wesley stamped on the floor it answered
her; and when little Kezzia, only six years old, did the same, three
loud and hollow knocks were the immediate response. On one occasion,
when the man-servant went into the dining-room, something like a badger,
without a head, was sitting by the fire, and ran past him through the
hall. He followed with a candle and searched, but nothing could be
found. On another occasion, to Mr Wesley’s no small amazement, his
trencher began dancing on the table where the family were dining.
Several nights the latch of his bed-room door was lifted; and one night,
when the latch of the back kitchen-door was often lifted, Emilia went
and held it fast, but it was still lifted up and the door pushed
violently against her, though nothing was to be seen outside. Thrice Mr
Wesley was pushed by an invisible power, once against the corner of his
desk, a second time against the door of the matted chamber, and a third
time against the frame of his study door. He often spoke to it to tell
him what it was, but never heard any articulate voice, and only once or
twice two or three feeble squeaks. As a rule, as soon as the noises
began the wind rose, and whistled loudly round the house. It commonly
commenced the disturbance at the corner of the nursery ceiling, and,
before it came into any room, the latches were frequently lifted up, the
windows clattered, and whatever iron or brass was about the chamber rung
and jarred exceedingly. Very often the sound seemed to be in the air in
the middle of a room. Though it often seemed to rattle down the pewter,
to clap the doors, draw the curtains, and kick Robert Brown’s shoes
about, yet nothing was moved except the latches; unless once, when the
nursery-door was thrown open. It is also a remarkable circumstance that
the noise never came by day till Mrs Wesley ordered the blowing of the
horn; ever after that it almost invariably happened that whenever any
member of the family went from one room into another, the latch of the
room they went to was lifted up before they touched it. It also never
came into Mr Wesley’s study until he talked to it so sharply, and called
it a deaf and dumb devil. Mrs Wesley desired it not to disturb her from
five to six o’clock in the morning; and, from that time, no noise was
heard in her chamber from five till she came down stairs, nor at any
other time when she was employed in devotion.
The man-servant, Robert Brown, who slept in the garret, was often so
frightened, that he ran down stairs, almost naked, not daring to stay
alone to put on his clothes; and the maid-servant, Nanny Marshall,
seemed more affrighted than anybody else. Once, when Mary Wesley was by
herself in the dining-room, the door seemed to open, and some one
entered in a night-gown trailing upon the ground, went leisurely around
her, and vanished. A few nights after, Mr Wesley ordered her to light
him to his study, and just as he unlocked the door, the latch was lifted
for him. When Anne Wesley came into her chamber in the day-time, it
commonly walked after her from room to room, and followed her from one
side of the bed to the other. When five or six of them were sitting in
the nursery together, a cradle seemed to be violently rocked in the room
above, though no cradle existed there. One night, when Anne was sitting
on the press bed, playing at cards with some of her sisters, the bed was
lifted up. She at once leaped down, exclaiming, “Surely old Jeffrey
would not run away with _her_.” At her sisters’ persuasion, she again
sat down, when the bed was again lifted up, a considerable height,
several times successively. The servant-maid, after churning, on one
occasion, took her butter into the dairy, and had no sooner done so than
she heard a knocking on the shelf, first above and then below. She took
a candle and made diligent search, but finding nothing, threw down
butter, tray, and all, and ran away for her very life. Robin Brown, one
night, resolved to be a match for “old Jeffrey,” and took the large
household dog to bed with him; but, despite the dog, the latch began to
jar as usual, the turkey-cock to gobble, and the boots and shoes to
clatter; until the dog, as much frightened as Robin was, crept into bed
to him, and commenced such a howling and barking, that the whole family
were alarmed. On another occasion, Robin was grinding corn in the
garrets, and happening to stop a little, the handle of the mill began to
turn with the utmost swiftness. Robin said, “Nothing vexed him, but that
the mill was empty. If corn had been in it, old Jeffrey might have
grinded his heart out for him; he would never have disturbed him.”
At length, the family became so accustomed to the noises, that they
scarce regarded them. At nights, when the tapping at their beds began,
the young ladies would say, “Jeffrey is coming: it is time to sleep;”
and, in the day-time, when the noise was heard, little Kezzy, six years
old, would run up stairs, and pursue it from room to room, saying, she
wished for no better fun. Several gentlemen and clergymen advised Mr
Wesley to quit the house; but his invariable answer was, “No; let the
devil flee from _me_; I will never flee from _him_.”[220]
-----
Footnote 220:
_Methodist Magazine_, 1784, p. 656.
-----
About the middle of February 1717, there seems to have been a cessation
of those unearthly noises; hence Mr Wesley wrote to his son Samuel as
follows:—
_Feb. 11, 1716–7._
“DEAR SAM.,—As for the noises, &c., in our family, I thank God, we are
now all quiet. There were some surprising circumstances in that
affair. Your mother has not written you a third part of it. When I see
you here, you shall see the whole account, which I wrote down. It
would make a glorious penny book for Jack Dunton; but, while I live, I
am not ambitious for anything of that nature. I think that is all, but
blessings from—your loving father, SAM. WESLEY.”
This, however, was far from being the last of old Jeffrey’s tricks. At
the end of March following, it made Mr Wesley’s trencher dance upon the
table;[221] and, on the 31st of that month, after midnight, it opened
the dining-room door, where Emilia and the servant-maid were sitting;
then shut it; and then began to knock as usual.[222] Indeed, thirty-four
years after this, Emilia, who was then Mrs Harper, speaks of still being
visited by old Jeffrey, when she was about to be visited by any new
affliction;[223] and it is reported that even as lately as within the
last few years, the then rector of Epworth and his family were residing
in London, owing to the repetition of the noises first heard a hundred
and fifty years ago in the world-renowned Epworth parsonage.[224]
-----
Footnote 221:
Priestly, p. 139.
Footnote 222:
_Ibid._, p. 140.
Footnote 223:
_See_ Clarke’s _Wesley Family_, vol. i. p. 286.
Footnote 224:
_Wesleyan Times_, March 7, 1864.
-----
But who was old Jeffrey? At first, Mrs Wesley thought it was the spirit
of one of her three sons, Samuel, John, and Charles, then at school in
London and Westminster; then she believed it to be the rioting of rats;
and, finally, she supposed it betokened the death of her brother, Samuel
Annesley, at that time resident in India.
In reply to all this, it may be stated, that the three young Wesleys
lived for many a long year after this; it was impossible for freakish or
frantic rats to perform all the tricks performed by old Jeffrey; and,
finally, the death of Samuel Annesley did not occur until about eight
years after Jeffrey began his disturbances.
Samuel Wesley, jun., made the strictest inquiries, and evidently
believed it to be a spirit, but for what purpose sent he was unable to
conjecture. He writes: “As to my particular opinion concerning the
events foreboded by these noises, I cannot, I must confess, form any. I
think, since it was not permitted to speak, all guesses must be
vain.”[225]
-----
Footnote 225:
_Wesley Family_.
-----
Some have suspected, that it might be all a trick performed by the
servants of the family; but then the noises were _often_ heard by the
family when all the servants were present with them.
Miss Susannah Wesley, and her sisters Emilia, Mary, Mehetabel, and Anne,
seem to have had no doubt that the whole affair was supernatural; and
the youngest of these five sisters was now fourteen years of age, and
therefore able to form something like a correct opinion.
The Rev. Mr Hoole appears to have thought the same, for he prevented Mr
Wesley firing his pistol at the spirit, lest the spirit should thereby
obtain power to retaliate and injure him.
John Wesley believed that it was a messenger of Satan sent to buffet his
father, for the rash vow he made, fifteen years before, and for his
leaving his wife for a twelvemonth, because she refused to pray for King
William.[226] We should not quarrel with Mr Wesley for thinking that old
Jeffrey was a messenger of Satan; but the fact he mentions, on account
of which the messenger was sent, is to a great extent fiction, as we
have already shown; and, even were it true, to assign it as a reason for
the coming of old Jeffrey, is simply silly and absurd.
-----
Footnote 226:
_Methodist Magazine_, 1784, p. 606.
-----
Dr Priestley thinks the whole affair was a trick of the servants,
assisted by some of their neighbours, for the purpose of puzzling the
family, and amusing themselves;[227] but how is such a theory to be
reconciled with the clashing of bottles beneath the stairs, the repeated
appearances of the badger without a head, the sound of the peck of money
poured from Mrs Wesley’s waist, the noises occurring not only at night
but also in the day, the invariable thumping when Mr Wesley prayed for
the king and prince, the dancing of Mr Wesley’s trencher, his being
thrice violently pushed by an unseen power, the fact that the sound
frequently seemed to be in the air in the middle of a room, and that
however much the Wesleys tried to produce an imitation of the sound,
none of them could succeed in doing so. These are difficulties, which
those who adopt Dr Priestley’s opinion are bound satisfactorily to
explain.
-----
Footnote 227:
Priestley’s preface to _Original Letters by John Wesley_, &c., p. 14.
-----
The Rev. W. B. Stonehouse, author of “The History and Topography of the
Isle of Axholme,” accounts for the noises thus: he writes:—“There is a
large garret, which extends over the ceilings of all the rooms below,
and nothing can be more probable than that some piece of machinery was
fixed there, by which all the noises were effected, and which required
to be wound up before the performances began.” This is childish. Who in
Epworth, or the neighbourhood, was able either to devise or to construct
such machinery? How was it introduced? Who set it up? Was it invisible?
Or is it likely that Samuel Wesley visited and examined all the rooms in
the house excepting this?
Dr Adam Clarke believed the thing to be supernatural; and suggests that
it may be accounted for by the following story, which was related by a
respectable person to himself. One night, after the family had gone to
bed, while the maid-servant was finishing her work in the back-kitchen,
she was startled by a noise, looked up, and saw a man working himself
through a trough, which communicated between the sink-stone within and a
cistern without. Astonished and terrified, she seized the cleaver, which
lay on the sink-stone, and struck him on the head; after which she
uttered an awful shriek, and fell senseless on the floor. Mr Wesley
heard the noise, and supposing that the house was beset by robbers,
started out of bed, caught up the fire-irons of his study, and began to
throw them with violence on the stairs, calling out, Tom! Jack! Harry!
as loud as he could bawl, designing, by this means, to scare away the
thieves. Who the man was who received the death-blow from the cleaver,
or who were his accomplices, was never known; but the man was evidently
carried off, as footsteps and marks of blood were traced to a
considerable distance from the house, but not far enough to find out who
the villains were, nor whence they came. Dr A. Clarke fails to tell us
when this tragical event occurred.
Southey says, that he is “as deeply and fully persuaded as John Wesley
was, that the spirits of the departed are sometimes permitted to
manifest themselves;” though he does “not believe in witchcraft, and
very greatly doubts the reality of demoniacal possession.”[228] He also
asserts that many of the circumstances connected with the disturbances
at Epworth parsonage cannot be explained by Dr Priestley’s supposition,
that the whole thing was a trick of the servants and neighbours; neither
“can they be explained by any legerdemain, nor by ventriloquism, nor by
any secret of acoustics.” And, then, having thus come to the conclusion
that the noises were supernatural, he endeavours to account for such
occurrences by saying: “It would be end sufficient, if sometimes one of
those unhappy persons who, looking through the dim glass of infidelity,
see nothing beyond this life, should, from the well-established truth of
one such story, be led to a conclusion that there are more things in
heaven and earth than are dreamt of in their philosophy.”[229]
-----
Footnote 228:
_Wilberforce’s Correspondence_, vol. ii. p. 390.
Footnote 229:
Southey’s _Life of Wesley_.
-----
And, now, though it may seem presumption for one so insignificant as the
writer to express an opinion, after stating the opinions of men like
those already quoted, yet, at the risk of incurring such opprobrium, he
ventures to assert he has thoroughly sifted the whole history, and has
read all that has been written concerning it; and that, though he began
the examination with the strongest prejudice against the theory that the
noises were supernatural, yet, by the force of evidence, which he has
been unable to resist, he has been driven to the conclusion that the
thing was not a trick, but that the noises and other circumstances were
occasioned by the direct and immediate agency of some unseen spirit.
If asked to express an opinion whether the spirit was good or bad, the
writer would say, the latter. “About a year since,” says Emilia Wesley,
“there was a disturbance at a town near us that was undoubtedly
occasioned by witches; and, if so near, why may they not reach us? Then,
my father had, for several Sundays before old Jeffrey came, preached
warmly against consulting those that are called cunning men, which our
people are given to; and it had a particular spite at my father.”[230]
-----
Footnote 230:
Priestley, p. 138.
-----
If asked again, What good end was to be answered by permitting such
supernatural disturbances? the writer answers, that his own opinion
thoroughly coincides with Southey’s, already given. It is worse than
absurd to suppose that God permits such occurrences to happen without
some great purpose to be accomplished; and, for this reason, such
occurrences are extremely rare. Mrs Wesley was of this opinion, as the
following extract, from an unpublished letter to her son John, will
show:—
“WROOTE, _Nov. 1724_.
“DEAR JACK,—The story of Mr B. has afforded me many curious
speculations. I do not doubt the fact, but cannot receive it without
reason why those apparitions should come to us. If they were permitted
to speak to us, and we had strength to bear such converse; if they had
commission to inform us of anything relating to their invisible world,
that would be of any use to us in this; if they could instruct us how
to avoid any danger, or put us in a way of being wiser or better—there
would be sense in it; but to appear for no end that we know of, unless
to frighten people almost out of their wits, seems altogether
unreasonable.”
No doubt of it; and, for that reason, there was unquestionably a great
end to be answered by the supernatural noises at Epworth parsonage.
The Wesley family were foreordained to exercise upon succeeding
generations, and upon mankind at large, an influence, the effects of
which are without a parallel; and, to qualify them for such a work, it
is not surprising that a more than ordinary agency should have been
employed. No man can really be in earnest in converting sinners unless
he has, not merely opinions respecting an unseen world, but a deep and
_felt_ conviction that such a world exists. The minister, without such a
deep and vivid conviction, may perform ministerial functions, but he has
no anxiety about real ministerial success. On the other hand, let the
man _feel_, in his heart and conscience, that there is a heaven, and
that there is a hell, and it becomes impossible for such a man to be
indifferent respecting the souls of his fellow-men. He knows that every
unconverted sinner whom he meets is exposed to danger infinitely more
fearful than any mere earthly danger the mind can contemplate; and hence
you find in him, not merely the polite reproof, the gentle warning, the
Scripture exposition, or the perfunctory discharge of some other
ministerial duty; but you also, find intense earnestness, which is
sometimes considered fanaticism, and almost insanity; and you likewise
very often find efforts used, and expediences employed, in converting
men which shock the refined tastes and delicate sensibilities of many
who are more politely than earnestly religious; and which from men of
another class—the avowedly profane and disbelieving—provoke contempt and
persecution. Yes; and the deeper, and more living and influential,
becomes the man’s conviction of the existence of heaven, of hell, of
angels, of devils, and of the other great certainties of the world to
come—the more impellent becomes his earnestness, and the more excited
and self-sacrificing are his labours to turn men from sin to holiness,
and from the power of Satan unto God.
Let it be granted that this is true, and then there is no difficulty in
perceiving that it was important, in the highest degree, that a man like
John Wesley should have convictions and feelings in reference to the
unseen world far stronger and deeper than those which men, and even
ministers, ordinarily have; and that there is no need to wonder at the
strange, the mysterious, the supernatural events that happened in his
father’s house; inasmuch as the direct tendency of these events was to
create, or strengthen and intensify, the convictions and feelings
already mentioned.
That such an effect was produced we have undoubted evidence. Emilia
Wesley, writing to her brother Samuel at the time, says: “I am so far
from being superstitious, that I was too much inclined to infidelity;
and I therefore heartily rejoice at having such an opportunity of
convincing myself, past doubt or scruple, of the existence of some
beings besides those we see.”[231] This is remarkable language for a
young, educated lady, twenty-four years of age, to use in reference to
ghosts. So far from shuddering at the thought of having heard and seen a
ghost, she heartily rejoices, because the unusual and strange occurrence
had strengthened her Scriptural belief, and convinced her, beyond a
doubt, of an unseen, vast, and eternal world.
-----
Footnote 231:
Priestley’s _Letters_, p. 135.
-----
John Wesley was at the Charter-House School, London, and therefore was
not an eye and an ear witness of the disturbances in his father’s
parsonage; but, of course, he heard of them, and that they produced the
same effect in him which they produced in his sister Emilia, is a fact
which no one can reasonably call in question. If there be one feature
more striking than another in John Wesley’s religious character, it is
his deep-rooted, intense, animated, powerful, impelling conviction of
the dread realities of an unseen world. Without this, Wesley never would
and never could have braved so much opprobrium, endured so much
suffering, and undergone so much toil for the sole and single purpose of
saving souls. This great conviction took possession of the man, he loved
it, he cherished it, he tried to impress it upon all his helpers and
upon all his people; and the result of the whole was the calling into
action an agency, which, for earnestness of feeling, oneness of aim,
enthusiastic faith, pleading prayer, unwearied labour, martyr courage,
and spiritual success, will bear comparison with any agency, which, in
any age, it has pleased the great Head of the Christian Church to call
and use, in saving sinners from the agonies of bottomless perdition.
“With my latest breath,” says John Wesley, “will I bear testimony
against giving up to infidels one great proof of the invisible world, I
mean that of witchcraft and apparitions, confirmed by the testimony of
all ages.[232] The English in general, and indeed most of the men of
learning in Europe, have given up all account of witches and apparitions
as mere old wives’ fables. I am sorry for it; and I willingly take this
opportunity of entering my solemn protest against this violent
compliment, which so many that believe the Bible pay to those who do not
believe it. I owe them no such service. I take knowledge, these are at
the bottom of the outcry which has been raised, and with such insolence
spread throughout the nation, in direct opposition not only to the
Bible, but to the suffrage of the wisest and best of men in all ages and
nations. They well know (whether Christians know it or not) that the
giving up of witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible; and they
know on the other hand, that, if but one account of the intercourse of
men with separate spirits be admitted, their whole castle in the
air—Deism, Atheism, Materialism—falls to the ground. I know no reason,
therefore, why we should suffer even this weapon to be wrested out of
our hands. It is true that there are numerous arguments besides this
which abundantly confute their vain imaginations, but we need not be
hooted out of one; neither reason nor religion requires this. One of the
capital objections which I have known urged over and over is, ‘Did you
ever see an apparition yourself?’ No, nor did I ever see a murder; yet I
believe there is such a thing. The testimony of unexceptionable
witnesses fully convinces me both of the one and the other.”[233]
-----
Footnote 232:
Wesley’s _Works_, vol. xiv. p. 276.
Footnote 233:
Wesley’s _Works_, vol. iii. p. 108.
-----
This was the opinion, not of a young enthusiast, but of a scholar, a
Christian, a minister, and an author, now in the sixty-sixth year of his
age. John Wesley has been censured for his credulity; but did he merit
this? I doubt it. Southey says that “he invalidated his own authority by
listening to the most absurd tales with implicit credulity, and
recording them as authenticated facts.”[234]
-----
Footnote 234:
Southey’s _Life of Wesley_.
-----
In reply, I venture to assert that Wesley never contended for anything
but what Southey himself admits in the passage from his writings,
already quoted—viz., that “the spirits of the departed are sometimes
permitted to manifest themselves,” and that the reason why such
apparitions are permitted or ordered, is to convince “those unhappy
persons, who looking through the dim glass of infidelity, see nothing
beyond this life, that there are more things in heaven and earth than
are dreamt of in their philosophy?” This admits all that John Wesley
argued for. Besides, it must be borne in mind, that though John Wesley
inserts not a few “strange accounts” of apparitions, &c., in his
journals and in his magazine, it is not true that he says he believed
them all. He simply relates some as they had been related to himself,
and leaves the reader to form his own opinion. In reference to others,
he boldly expresses a firm belief in their truthfulness, because he had
received them on testimony the most credible; and this, be it observed,
is exactly what Mr Southey does in reference to the “strange accounts”
of the disturbances in the Epworth Parsonage; so that if Wesley, the
Reformer, deserves censure for credulity, Southey, the poet-laureate,
deserves just the same.
The reader will excuse what, perhaps, is deemed a lengthened digression;
but it was impossible, in a life of Samuel Wesley, sen., to pass over
the strange noises in his house, and having related them, it would have
been cowardly in the biographer to have shrunk from expressing an
opinion concerning them. My carefully-formed opinion is, that the noises
were really supernatural, and that the end to be answered was specially
to qualify certain members of the Wesley family for the special work for
which God had fore-ordained them.
This opinion may seem wild and extravagant, but it has not been formed
from prejudice or without research. The examination was commenced with a
persuasion that it would be possible to explain all the accounts of the
Epworth noises on Priestley’s supposition that the whole affair was a
clever trick, performed by Wesley’s servants, or Wesley’s enemies, or by
both united; and, indeed, there was a secret wish in the writer’s heart
that it might be so. With Southey, however, and others, he found this to
be impossible, and hence there was nothing for it but to believe that
the noises were supernatural, and to suggest a reason for their
occurrence. This has been done as fairly and as honestly as the writer
has had ability to do it; and now, expecting to be ridiculed, he
entreats the reader not to skim the matter hastily, but to sift it for
himself, remembering John Wesley’s words:—“If but one account of the
intercourse of men with spirits be admitted, the whole castle in the
air—Deism, Atheism, and Materialism—falls to the ground” at once.
There can be no doubt that ninety-nine ghost stories out of a hundred
are fanatical fabrications, but to say that such things as witchcraft
and apparitions do not exist is, to use the words of Dr Anthony Horneck,
to play more hocus-pocus tricks with the Holy Scriptures than, as it is
alleged, the witch of Endor did in raising the prophet Samuel. In former
times men had a propensity to believe too much, at present the
propensity is to believe too little. To philosophic unbelievers,
witchcraft and apparitions may seem impossible and absurd, but the Bible
establishes the fact that such things have existed; and never gives the
least intimation that they are not again to be permitted.