THE LAST TWENTY YEARS—1714–1735.
Samuel Wesley was born two years after the restoration of Charles II. He
lived throughout the reigns of Charles, of James II., of William III.,
and Queen Mary, of Queen Anne, and of George I., and during the first
eight years of the reign of George II. This covers a period of English
history which, in thrilling interest and importance, is not surpassed by
any other period within the compass of English annals.
Queen Anne died in the year 1714, and her death led to the immediate
accession of George, Electoral Prince of Hanover, the great-grandson of
James I. After reigning thirteen years, he was succeeded, in 1727, by
his son, George II.
The last twenty years of Mr Wesley’s life were full of great events.
Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Oxford, and the Duke of Ormond, were all
impeached of high crimes and misdemeanours; Oxford was committed to the
Tower; Bolingbroke and Ormond escaped to France, and there intrigued for
the restoration of the Stuarts. The Earl of Mar erected the standard of
James, the Pretender, son of James II., at Braemar, in Scotland, and the
three Earls of Hume, Wigtown, and Kinnoul, Lord Deskford, and others,
were arrested and laid fast in Edinburgh Castle. Mr Forster and the Earl
of Derwentwater raised an insurrection in Northumberland, and proclaimed
the Pretender, at Warkworth, with sound of trumpet. The insurgents
marched to Preston, in Lancashire, where they relinquished their arms,
and Forster, Derwentwater, and many other persons of distinction, were
taken prisoners. The gaols of the north were filled with non-juring
Protestants, High Church divines, Popish priests and monks, Jacobite
squires, Highland chiefs, and Lowland lairds. Not a few of these were
shot in heaps, and the rest, above five hundred, were left to starve of
hunger and of cold. Meanwhile, the Pretender himself landed at
Peterhead, made his public entry into Dundee, held a council at Perth,
and ordered the burning of all the towns, villages, corn, and forage
between Perth and Stirling,—an order which was too terribly carried into
execution, the poor inhabitants, women and children, the aged and the
infirm, being exposed to the extremities of the season in one of the
coldest winters that had been known for many generations. Numbers of the
poor sufferers perished of cold and hunger, and mothers, with their
infants at the breast, were found dead among drifts of snow. The
Pretender ultimately made a cowardly escape to France, and the Earl of
Derwentwater, and many others, were, executed for high treason.
In the meantime, George I. quarrelled with his son, the Prince of Wales,
about the christening of a baby, upon which his Royal Highness, being
arrested and ordered to quit St James’s Palace, fixed his residence at
Leicester House, which became the resort of the disaffected of all
classes, and the centre of an increasing turmoil and intrigue.
The South Sea Company Bill was passed by Parliament, and the whole
nation became intoxicated with percentages, dividends, and transfers.
The stock suddenly rose from 130 to above 1000 per cent. Bubble
companies sprang up round the mighty original like mushrooms round a
rotten tree, and prospectuses were issued for making salt water fresh,
for extracting silver out of lead, for importing asses from Spain to
improve the breed of mules, for fatting hogs, for a wheel for perpetual
motion, and for a thousand other things besides. ’Change Alley was
crammed from morning till night with dukes, lords, country squires,
parsons, Dissenting ministers, brokers, and jobbers, and men of every
possible colour and description. Even the Prince of Wales became a
governor of a Welsh Copper Company, and made a gambling profit by the
illegal transaction of not less than £40,000. The bubbles soon burst.
The South Sea stock, which sold in August at 1000, in September sunk
below 300, and in November fell down to 135. Terrible excitement
followed; disgraceful facts were published, and thousands of persons
beggared. One of the political results was a change of government.
Sunderland had to resign the premiership, and Robert Walpole, Earl of
Oxford, the high Tory, and one of the friends of Sacheverell, became
prime minister, and, despite incessant attacks from political enemies of
the most splendid talents, retained the high office for two and twenty
years.
About the same time, the Polish wife of the Pretender gave birth to a
son at Rome, in the presence of seven cardinals. The child, at a most
royal christening, received the name of Charles Edward, and the event
was proclaimed by the Jacobites in all parts of the United Kingdom. New
plots against King George, and in favour of the Pretender and his infant
child, were concocted, Bishop Atterbury being the chief of the
intriguers. Atterbury and his friends engaged to get possession of the
Tower, the Bank, and the Exchequer, and to proclaim King James III.,
simultaneously, in different parts of the country. The scheme exploded,
and Lord North, Lord Orrery, and the Duke of Norfolk were arrested.
Atterbury was brought before the Privy Council, and was committed to the
Tower. The High Church party cried aloud against the sacrilegious arrest
of a bishop. The clergy in London and Westminster offered public prayer
for him. Alexander Pope, his bosom friend, was among Atterbury’s
witnesses. The bishop was deprived of his bishopric, and banished from
his country. He at once threw himself into the service of the Pretender,
and became his confidential agent, first at Brussels, and afterwards at
Paris. He died in exile in 1731.
George I. died of apoplexy, in 1727, whilst travelling with one of his
mistresses, the Duchess of Kendal, to Hanover. At the time, the little,
beggared, and vagabond court of the Pretender was distracted with all
kinds of intrigues, jealousies, and animosities. Atterbury continued to
cabal with priests, monks, and mistresses. James wished to make one more
effort to obtain the throne of his fathers, but Atterbury could afford
him no encouragement, and the scheme was dropped until it was revived by
his son, Charles Edward, in 1745.
The principal ecclesiastical events which occurred during the decline of
Mr Wesley’s life, were the censure pronounced by the Lower House of
Convocation, in 1714, upon Dr Samuel Clark’s famous book, entitled, “The
Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity;” and the bitter and long-continued
controversy arising out of Bishop Hoadley’s “Preservative against the
Principles and Practices of the Nonjurors,” in the course of which
Sherlock, Potter, and Hare took a prominent position, and not fewer than
about seventy different publications were produced.
The social, moral, and religious condition of the country was still far
from satisfactory. Gentlemen wore tie-wigs, and, instead of swords,
carried large oak sticks, with great heads and ugly faces carved
thereon; while ladies, when walking out of doors, wore masks, hooped
petticoats, and scarlet cloaks. Places of political resort, called
mug-houses, were established in all parts of London, where citizens and
tradesmen attacked the Tories with such bitterness, under the double
inspiration of ale and patriotism, that at length the mug-houses had to
be suppressed by Act of Parliament. Royal mistresses were maintained at
court, as a state appendage, and thereby public immorality was kept in
countenance. The mercantile classes grew in wealth, and all who were of
any respectability had the title of _esquire_ appended to their names,
so that Steele complains that England had now become a nation of
esquires. The streets of London were still, for the most part, unpaved,
and the kennels on both sides were usually choked up with all sorts of
garbage. Pickpockets were numerous, and purses, snuff-boxes, and watches
disappeared with a facility incomprehensible to the owners. The
metropolis could boast of not more than a thousand lamps, which were
kept burning only till midnight, and that for only one-half of the year.
Prize fights were frequent, the gladiators, who mangled themselves with
swords and daggers for the amusement of the crowd, subsisting upon the
subscription purses and the admittance fees. In the country, the
monotonous toils of the peasantry were enlivened chiefly by wakes and
fairs, thronged with puppet shows, pedlars’ stalls, raffling tables, and
drinking booths. Among the favourite competitions at fairs, were
grinning matches, in which the candidates grinned most hideously through
a horse’s collar; and trials in whistling, where the person who could
whistle through a whole tune without being put out by the drolleries of
a merry-Andrew that were played off before him, was the victor. At
Christmas, trials of yawning for a Cheshire cheese took place at
midnight, and he who gave the widest and most natural yawn, so as to set
the whole company agape in sympathy, carried off the cheese in triumph.
Young damsels, anxious to know something of their future husbands, were
directed to run until they were out of breath, as soon as they heard the
first notes of the cuckoo, after which, on pulling off their shoes, they
would find in them a hair of the same colour as that of their future
mates. On May-day, a girl had only to bring home a snail, and lay it
upon the ashes of the hearth, and, in crawling about, the reptile would
mark the initial letter of her true love’s name. It is true, that the
belief in antique rites like these was fast departing, but still such
spells were practised in many a peasant’s hut and farmer’s home long
after Mr Wesley’s death.
Towards the end of the reign of George I. the wages of a farm bailiff
were not above £6 a year; and of other farm-servants, from £2 10s. to
£5. The wages of female servants were from thirty to fifty shillings
yearly. Masons, carpenters, and plumbers received a shilling a day
without meat, or sixpence a day with it. Wheat sold for about five
shillings a bushel, but the great bulk of the people were too poor to
purchase it. Even families that were reputed rich used not more than a
peck of wheat a year, and that was used at Christmas. Bread loaves and
pie crusts were made of barley-meal, and puddings and dumplings, made of
oatmeal and suet, were a common dish at rural entertainments. The price
of beef and mutton was about 2½d. per pound, of butter, about 5d., and
of Cheshire cheese, about 3d.[235]
-----
Footnote 235:
Knight’s _History of England_.
-----
The period which we are now sketching had a fair average of men of
genius and learning. Wake was Archbishop of Canterbury. Kennett, an
intense student, presided over the diocese of Peterborough. Edmund
Gibson, a man of great natural abilities, filled the see of London. John
Potter, the son of a Yorkshire linen-draper, worked his way up to the
primacy. Hoadley, the Bishop of Winchester, was described as the
greatest Dissenter that ever wore a mitre. William Sherlock was writing
his celebrated “Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus.”
Daniel Waterland was defending the doctrine of the Trinity against the
attacks of Samuel Clarke, and the truth of revealed religion against
Tindal, the infidel. Bishop Butler was composing his “Analogy of
Religion.” Warburton was equiping himself for a diocese, and for the
writing of his “Divine Legation.” Dean Prideaux was composing his
“Connexion of the Old and New Testaments.” Bishop Lowth was busy with
his invaluable works on Hebrew poetry, &c. Thomas Stackhouse was
preparing his “History of the Bible.” George Lavington was developing
the talents which he afterwards employed in writing “The Enthusiasm of
the Papists and Methodists Compared,” and William Law, the well-known
author of the “Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life,” had abandoned
the pulpit, and become tutor to Edward Gibbon, the father of the great
historian.
Among Dissenters, Edmund Calamy was preaching and writing almost
unceasingly. Isaac Watts was an inmate of Abney House, and was composing
hymns which have been sung by myriads. Nathaniel Lardner was completing
his “Credibility of the Gospel History.” Samuel Chandler was lecturing
at the Old Jewry Chapel. Philip Doddridge had opened his Dissenting
Academy at Northampton. Daniel Neal was publishing his “History of the
Puritans;” and John Leland was answering Tindal’s “Christianity as Old
as the Creation.”
Belonging to other classes of distinguished men living at this period,
are Sir Isaac Newton, who, in 1727, was buried with great magnificence
in Westminster Abbey; Edmund Halley, who was Newton’s highly respected
friend; Sir Hans Sloane, who succeeded Newton as the President of the
Royal Society; Nicholas Saunderson, the son of a Yorkshire exciseman,
blind from infancy, and yet one of the most illustrious mathematical
professors that the University of Cambridge ever had; William Emerson,
who, with a dirty wig half off his head, his shirt buttoned behind, and
inexpressibles that disdained the aid of braces, wrote books connected
with almost every branch of the science of mathematics; Richard Bentley,
the son of a Yorkshire blacksmith, who rose to the high office of Regius
Professor of Divinity, and of whom Stillingfleet remarked, that “had he
but the gift of humility, he would be the most remarkable man in
Europe;” Sir Richard Steele, Joseph Addison, Alexander Pope, John Gay,
James Thomson, Matthew Prior, and William Congreve, may all be mentioned
in a cluster; Edward Young, whose “Night Thoughts” have immortalised his
memory; but who was a poet of high distinction long before they were
thought about, having, in 1728, received from Wharton for his satire
entitled “The Universal Passion,” the enormous sum of £3000; Samuel
Johnson, who, at the time of Samuel Wesley’s death, was writing his
first work for the press, “Lobo’s Voyage to Abyssinia;” Allan Ramsay,
who was revolving in his mind the thoughts and charms of his “Gentle
Shepherd;” Edward Cave, the son of a shoemaker, who was now meditating
how to carry into effect his long cherished-scheme of the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_; William Croft, who was revelling among his musical
compositions; Handel, who, in his enormous white wig, was putting
together his unrivalled oratorios; Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was painting
heads to ready-made bodies with inconceivable rapidity; Dahl,
Richardson, Jervas, and others, who were clothing their portraits with
loose drapery, the costume of no age or nation whatever; Hogarth, who
was rising to the zenith of his fame; and Roubiliac, whose chisel was
giving to the marble a vitality which almost breathed.
These are a few of the distinguished men who flourished during the last
twenty years of Samuel Wesley’s life; and among them he himself was not
the least eminent. It was during this period that he prepared and wrote
the greatest work that proceeded from his prolific pen, entitled
“Dissertationes in Librum Jobi—Autore, Samuele Wesley, Rectore de
Epworth in Dioecesi Lincolniensi.” The work is a large-sized folio of
more than 600 pages, of good paper, and beautifully printed. It is
written in Latin, intermixed with innumerable Hebrew and Greek
quotations.
Mr Wesley was employed upon this remarkable work for more than five and
twenty years. It was first begun previous to the burning of his
parsonage, in 1709. He had carefully read the book of Job, first in the
Hebrew text, and secondly in that of the Greek Septuagint. These he
collated together, making, as he proceeded, the notes and observations
that occurred to him. He then procured Walton’s great Polyglott Bible,
containing the Sacred Text in the Hebrew and Greek languages; the
Pentateuch in Samaritan; the Psalms and the New Testament in Syriac,
Arabic, Chaldaic, and Ethiopic; the four Gospels in Persic; together
with the Septuagint and Vulgate versions of both Testaments. Collating
what he had already done with the versions of the book of Job in
Walton’s Polyglott, he greatly increased his notes and observations. He
had proceeded thus far, when the fire of 1709 broke out, and every leaf
of his Polyglott and of his collections on Job were utterly destroyed.
He procured another Polyglott and recommenced his studies. The Hebrew
text was read over again and again. The Alexandrian and Vatican editions
of the Septuagint were diligently compared. All the variations in the
Chaldee, Arabic, and Syriac versions, with the principal critics, as
exhibited in Pool’s “Synopsis,” together with all the fragments of
Origen’s “Hexapla,” were carefully collated. Tindal’s and the Bishop’s
Bible were compared. All the commentators within his reach were
consulted. Pliny, Salmasius, Mercator, Jerome, Eusebius, Strabo,
Diodorus Siculus, Luitsius, Sanson, Purchas, Hakluyt, De la Valle,
Pentinger, Bochart, Calmet, Pineda, Spanheim, Hyde, Bunting, Greaves,
Sandys, Usher, Lloyd, Marshall, Reyland, and Maundrell, were all laid
under contribution to his work. Accompanied by his son John, he visited,
in 1733, the library of Lord Milton at Wentworth House, and acknowledges
that without the kindness of his lordship, the work would have come into
the world mutilated, or would have perished as an abortion. While at
Wentworth House, their stay was prolonged over the Sabbath, and John
Wesley occupied the pulpit of Wentworth Church to the no small
gratification of the parishioners.[236]
-----
Footnote 236:
Clarke’s _Wesley Family_, vol. i. p. 327, and Everett’s _Methodism in
Sheffield_, p. 7.
-----
Mr Wesley also received assistance from Maurice Johnson, Esq., who was a
distinguished antiquarian, and the founder of the Gentleman’s Society at
Spalding, of which many of the greatest men in the nation, including Sir
Isaac Newton, Alexander Pope, Sir Hans Sloane, and Samuel Wesley, were
members. Johnson was born at Spalding, was a student of the Inner
Temple, London, married early a lineal descendant of Sir Thomas Gresham,
had twenty-six children, and was the possessor of a fine collection of
plants and medals. He was held in high esteem for the frankness and
benevolence of his character, and was always ready to communicate the
results of his literary researches to all who applied to him for
information.[237] He contributed one of the maps to Mr Wesley’s “Book of
Job;” and also one of the dissertations on “Job’s Jurisprudence.”[238]
-----
Footnote 237:
Nicholl’s _Literary Anecdotes_.
Footnote 238:
Clarke’s _Wesley Family_, and Nicholl’s _Literary Anecdotes_, vol. iv.
p. 548.
-----
Assistance was also received from Roger Gale, Esq.,[239] a gentleman who
was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; possessed a considerable
estate at Scruton, Yorkshire, was Member of Parliament for
Northallerton, the first Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries,
and was considered one of the most learned men of his age. He died at
Scruton, in 1744, universally esteemed, and left all his MSS. and Roman
coins to his alma mater, Cambridge University.[240]
-----
Footnote 239:
Nicholl’s _Ibid._
Footnote 240:
Chambers’s _Biographical Dictionary_.
-----
Mr Wesley was further assisted by his three sons, Samuel, John, and
Charles, who did everything in the work that dutiful sons should do for
an aged parent.
During the last few years of his life, Mr Wesley suffered most painfully
from the gout and palsy, and hence found it necessary to employ an
amanuensis. Two gentlemen who were employed in this capacity, in writing
the “Dissertations on the Book of Job,” were John Romley and John
Whitelamb.
We have no information of Romley’s origin, except that he studied
divinity under Samuel Wesley; graduated at Lincoln College, Oxford; and
was for a time Mr Wesley’s curate. He was a member of the Gentleman’s
Society at Spalding; and, in 1730, presented to that society an “Account
of the Manors, Villages, Seats, and Church of Althorp, in
Lincolnshire.”[241] It is also stated, in Nicholl’s “Literary
Anecdotes,” that he was schoolmaster at Wroote. Seven years after Mr
Wesley’s death, he was curate of Epworth, and refused to allow John
Wesley either to read the prayers or to preach in Epworth church, and,
in Wesley’s presence, delivered a florid and oratorical sermon on
enthusiasts, which led Wesley to preach the same evening on his father’s
tombstone to such a congregation as Epworth had never seen.[242] Seven
months afterwards, John Wesley preached again on the same sacred spot,
and, on asking Romley’s permission to receive the sacrament, received as
an answer, “Tell Mr Wesley I shall not give _him_ the sacrament, for he
is not _fit_.”[243] In August 1744, he was again at Epworth, and heard
Romley preach two sermons so “exquisitely bitter and totally false” as
he had never heard before. In May 1745, when he was again present,
Romley’s “sermon, from beginning to end, was another railing
accusation.”[244] Three years after this, Romley had lost his “soft,
smooth, tuneful voice, without hope of recovery, and spoke in a manner
so shocking to hear that it was impossible for him to make himself heard
by one quarter of his congregation.”[245] He also became a tippler, and
was sometimes “so drunk that he could scarce stand or speak.”[246] In
1751, he became mad, and had to be confined. During the first week of
his confinement, he was for constraining every one that came near him to
kneel down and pray; and frequently cried out, “You will be lost, you
will be damned, unless you know your sins are pardoned.” Two or three
weeks afterwards he died.[247] Such was one of the men who helped Samuel
Wesley in the preparation of his great work, “Dissertationes in Librum
Jobi.”
-----
Footnote 241:
Clarke’s _Wesley Family_ and Nicholl’s _Literary Anecdotes_, vol. vi.
p. 110.
Footnote 242:
Wesley’s _Works_, vol. i. p. 354.
Footnote 243:
_Ibid._, p. 384.
Footnote 244:
_Ibid._, p. 465.
Footnote 245:
_Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 99.
Footnote 246:
_Ibid._, vol. viii. p. 29.
Footnote 247:
Wesley’s _Works_, vol. ii. p. 221.
-----
The other amanuensis was John Whitelamb, who was born in the
neighbourhood of Wroote, and received the rudiments of his education at
an endowed school, established there in 1706, in accordance with the
will of Mr Travers, who bequeathed three hundred and seventy-nine acres
of land for the support of schools at Wroote, Hatfield, and Thorne. The
school was placed under the care of Romley, who recommended Whitelamb to
the notice of Mr Wesley as a lad of promising abilities. Mr Wesley took
Whitelamb to his house at Epworth, where he became his amanuensis in
place of Romley, and, for four years, was employed in transcribing his
“Dissertations on the Book of Job;” and in designing the illustrations
for it, several of which were engraved with his own hand.
Under the care of the Rector of Epworth, young Whitelamb obtained a
sufficient knowledge of Latin and Greek to enter the university; and at
the expense, chiefly, of Mr Wesley’s family, he was maintained at
Lincoln College, Oxford, where he obtained his education gratis under Mr
John Wesley, then a fellow of that seat of learning. In a letter to his
father, dated “June 11, 1731,” John Wesley says: “John Whitelamb reads
one English, one Latin, and one Greek book alternately; and never
meddles with a new one in any of the languages till he has ended the old
one. If he goes on as he has begun, I dare take upon me to say, that, by
the time he has been here four or five years, there will not be such a
one of his standing in Lincoln College, perhaps not in the University of
Oxford.”[248]
-----
Footnote 248:
_Ibid._, vol. xii. p. 6.
-----
Mrs Wesley used to call Whitelamb “poor starveling Johnny,” and no
wonder; for John Wesley writing to his brother, Samuel, a few months
after the date just given, says; “John Whitelamb wants a gown much, and
I am not rich enough to buy him one at present,”[249] and he then states
his purpose to use his influence among his friends to beg the money
requisite to make the purchase.
-----
Footnote 249:
_Ibid._, p. 22.
-----
In 1733, Whitelamb became Samuel Wesley’s curate, and was married to his
daughter, Mary. In one short year he became a widower, and was so
overwhelmed with grief that he wished to get away from the scene of his
sorrows, and to embark in the contemplated mission to Georgia.
On the 6th of June 1742, John Wesley, being refused the use of the
Epworth church, preached standing upon his father’s tombstone.
Whitelamb, who was then the rector at Wroote, was one of his
congregation, and, five days after, wrote him a most touching letter. He
says: “I saw you at Epworth. Fain would I have spoken to you, but that I
am quite at a loss how to address you. Your way of thinking is so
extraordinary that your presence creates awe, as if you were an
inhabitant of another world. I retain the highest veneration and
affection for you. The sight of you moves me strangely. My heart
overflows with gratitude. I feel, in a high degree, all that tenderness
and yearning of bowels with which I am affected towards every branch of
Mr Wesley’s family. I cannot refrain from tears, when I reflect this is
the man who at Oxford was more than a father to me.
“I am quite forgot. None of the family ever honours me with a line! Have
I been ungrateful? I appeal to sister Patty; I appeal to Mr Ellison
whether I have or no. I have been passionate, fickle, a fool; but I hope
I shall never be ungrateful.
“Dear sir, is it in my power to serve or to oblige you in any way? Glad
I should be that you should make use of me. God open all our eyes and
lead us into truth, whatever it be.
“JOHN WHITELAMB.”[250]
-----
Footnote 250:
_Methodist Magazine_, 1778, p. 183.
-----
John Wesley did make use of him, for, two days after, he preached twice
in Whitelamb’s church[251]; a circumstance which gave great offence to
the High Church party, and was likely to involve Whitelamb in
considerable trouble at the approaching triennial visitation.[252]
-----
Footnote 251:
Wesley’s _Works_, vol. i. p. 356.
Footnote 252:
_Methodist Magazine_, 1778, p. 185.
-----
John Wesley says that at this time, and for some years after, Whitelamb
did not believe the Christian revelation.[253] I can hardly understand
this, unless it arose out of Whitelamb stating to Charles Wesley that he
looked upon the doctrines preached by himself and his brother “as of ill
consequence,” and that he had great reason to think that, what he calls
“the seal and testimony of the Spirit was, in the generality of their
followers, merely the effect of a heated fancy.”[254] In the same
letter, however, he speaks of John Wesley in the kindest terms, and
says—“He behaved to me truly like himself. I found in him what I have
always experienced heretofore, the gentleman, the friend, the brother,
the Christian.”
-----
Footnote 253:
_Ibid._
Footnote 254:
_Methodist Magazine_, 1778, p. 185.
-----
Whitelamb died in July 1769,[255] and was succeeded by a member of the
Whitelamb family, who was remarkable for his various learning, and
especially for his skill in mathematics.[256]
-----
Footnote 255:
_Ibid._, 1845, p. 151.
Footnote 256:
Clarke’s _Wesley Family_.
-----
In 1844, there was an aged female at Wroote, who remembered John
Whitelamb, and had been a scholar in his school. She described him as a
person of retiring habits, and fond of solitude. She was present when he
was suddenly seized, on his way to perform divine service at the church,
with the illness which shortly terminated in his death; and stated that
his funeral was attended by a considerable number of clergymen, who thus
paid their last tribute of respect to a departed friend.[257] On a small
stone in the churchyard, about two feet long and one foot broad, is the
following inscription:—“In memory of John Whitelamb, Rector of this
Parish thirty-five years. Buried 29th July 1769, aged 62 years. Worthy
of imitation. This at the cost of Francis Wood, Esq., 1772.”[258]
-----
Footnote 257:
_Methodist Magazine_, 1845, p. 151.
Footnote 258:
Stonehouse’s _History of the Isle of Axholme_.
-----
Dr Adam Clarke says Whitelamb was a Deist; and John Wesley says that for
years he did not believe the Christian revelation. As to Dr Clarke’s
assertion, I demur to it _in toto_; and, as to Mr Wesley’s I agree with
Southey in regarding it as a hasty and loose expression, only applicable
to the peculiar—the great and glorious doctrines—which Wesley and his
band of helpers were the means of rescuing from oblivion, and of
propagating throughout the land. Still Wesley always regarded him as a
backslider, and, after his death, exclaimed—“Oh, why did not he die
forty years ago, while he knew in whom he had believed!”[259]
-----
Footnote 259:
Clarke’s _Wesley Family_.
-----
As an apology for these lengthened remarks respecting John Whitelamb,
the reader is reminded that this able man married one of Mr Wesley’s
daughters, and, for four years, acted as his amanuensis in transcribing
his “Dissertations on the Book of Job.”
Mr Wesley’s Dissertations are fifty-three in number, (Dr Adam Clarke, in
mistake, says thirty-five,) and many of them, besides being immensely
learned, are in a high degree interesting and curious. The following is
a list of them:—
1. Whether the Book of Job be a true history or a poetic parable?
2. The Author of the Book.
3. The Dramatic Construction of the Book.
4. The Pastoral Songs, &c., in the Sacred Scriptures.
5. The Elegance and Rhetoric of the Book of Job.
6. Parallels from Homer.
7. The Name, or Names of Job.
8. The Posterity of Joktan.
9. The Posterity of Chanaan.
10. The Phœnician Shepherds.
11. The Nations Overthrown by Chedorlaomer.
12. The Children of Abraham by Hagar.
13. The Five Cities of the Plain.
14. Allusions in the Book of Job to the Fall of Angels and of Man; to
the Antediluvians and the Flood; to the Precepts of Noah and the
Sabbath; to the Destruction of Sodom, &c.
15. The History of Edom.
16. The Red Sea.
17. The Gulf of Persia.
18. Arabia Petræa.
19. The Desert of Arabia.
20. Arabia Felix.
21. The Magi who visited Christ.
22. On Chamo, Cush, and their Posterity.
23. Idumea.
24. The Four Quarters of the Globe.
25. The Children of Job.
26. The Wife of Job.
27. The Friends of Job.
28. The Enemies of Job.
29. The Country of Job.
30. The Time of Job.
31. Job’s Knowledge of the Military Art.
32. Job’s Jurisprudence.
33. Metals, Trees, Herbs, &c.
34. Gems.
35. Calamities of Job not recited in the Prologue of the Book.
36. Constellations and Meteors.
37. Phœnicia.
38. Behemoth and Leviathan.
39. The Origin of Evil.
40. On Idolatry.
41. Sabians and Sabianism.
42. Zoroasteranianism.
43. Poetical Description of Animals.
44. Serpent-worship.
45. Hades.
46. The Magi of the Ancients.
47 Balaam.
48. Parallels from the Sacred Scriptures—the Persians, the Egyptians,
the Greeks, the Romans, and the Saxons.
49. The Mode of Writing among the Ancients.
50. Death and the Resurrection.
51. The Recent Mode of Interpreting Scripture.
52. The Faith of Job and Elihu.
53. Additions of the Septuagint to the end of Job.
Unhappily the whole of these Dissertations are written in Latin, and,
therefore, are never likely to be read except by the lettered few. Who
will undertake to furnish a correct translation of some of them for a
periodical like the _Methodist Magazine_?
After the Dissertations, there are nearly two hundred pages occupied
with the Hebrew text of the Book of Job, collated with the Chaldee
Paraphrase, and with the Septuagint in its best editions; and also with
the Syriac and Arabic versions; likewise with the Latin versions of
Castellio, Montanus, St. Ambrose, Junius Tremellius, Piscator, and of
the Zurich divines, together with the English version of Tindal, and the
present authorised version. Every verse of the whole book of Job was
collated in all the versions above-mentioned, and all the variations set
down. This must have been an immense labour. Dr Adam Clarke says—“It is
one of the most complete things of the kind I have ever met with, and
must be invaluable to any man who may wish to read the book of Job
critically.”
The frontispiece of Mr Wesley’s large folio is a portrait of himself in
the character of Job. He is represented as without beard, and without
whiskers; as wearing a small cap; as clothed in a long, loose-flowing
robe; and as sitting in an antique chair with a sceptre in his hand, two
pyramids being placed behind him, and above him the arch and portcullis
of an ancient gate.
The book is also illustrated with a most hideous picture of the five
cities of the plain, probably designed and executed by the untutored
hand of John Whitelamb; two maps of the region of the Red Sea; another
plate, pretending to represent the tombs of Rachel, Dionysius, the
Maccabees, Semiramis, and Herod the Great; two maps of Arabia; a map of
Maundell’s Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem; an illustration of the
Borealis; together with large-sized engravings of the hippopotamus, the
crocodile, and the horse.
In reference to the horse, the following anecdote is worth preserving.
It appears that Lord Oxford had in his possession, what was supposed to
be, the finest Arab horse in existence. His Lordship had already shown
great kindness to Mr Wesley’s son Samuel at Westminster, and, thus
encouraged, the rector wrote, saying he was wishful to illustrate his
Dissertations by an engraving of the Arab horse, and that he had been
told that his lordship’s “Bloody Arab” was the finest animal of that
breed that existed. He adds:—“I have an ambition to get him drawn by the
best artist we can find, and place him as the greatest ornament of my
work. If your lordship has a picture of him I would beg that my engraver
may take a draft from it, or, if not, that my son may have the liberty
to get one drawn from life.”[260]
-----
Footnote 260:
The rector of Epworth was under considerable obligations to Lord
Oxford, as appears from the dedication of his son Samuel’s poems to
that nobleman. He writes:—“Neither obscurity of condition, nor
distance of place, could prevent your lordship from distinguishing and
encouraging a worthy clergyman, my father, in his indefatigable
researches after truth, and his unfashionable studies in divinity;
which, perhaps, might have been left unfinished without that
encouragement.”—_Poems on Several Occasions_, by S. WESLEY, London,
1736.
-----
Samuel Wesley, jun., shared the intimate friendship of this
distinguished statesman, and was a frequent guest at his lordship’s
house; and there can be little doubt that, through him, the father’s
request was granted, especially remembering that Lord Oxford was not
only a great encourager of literature, but the greatest collector, in
his time, of curious books and manuscripts, and that he it was who
formed the nucleus of the celebrated Harleian library, now one of the
richest treasures of the British Museum.
Prefixed to Mr Wesley’s Dissertations is a list of subscribers’ names,
numbering more than three hundred, and including thirty-one nobles,
fifteen bishops, and twenty-two deans and other dignitaries of the
Church. The following are some of the distinguished names in this
illustrious list, given alphabetically:—Earl of Ashburnham, Bishop
Atterbury, Lord Bathurst, Lord Bolingbroke, Duke of Buckinghamshire,
Earl of Burlington, Archbishop of Canterbury, Bishop of London, Earl of
Malton, Earl of Orrery, Earl of Oxford, Alexander Pope, Earl of
Portmore, Sir Hans Sloane, Dean Swift, Lord Tyrconnel, Dr Waterland,
Samuel, John, Charles, and Matthew Wesley, and William Whiston. Such
names are a strong intimation of Mr Wesley’s high repute as a literary
man.
The proposals for publishing the Dissertations were circulated in 1729,
but the book was not ready for the market until about the year 1736,
that being the date of a copy now before us. The work was dedicated by
permission to Queen Caroline, to whom it was presented by John Wesley,
two days before he set sail for Georgia. He says, her Majesty received
it with “many good words and smiles.”[261] Dr Clarke relates that, when
Wesley was introduced into the royal presence, the Queen was romping
with her maids of honour; but she suspended her play, took the book from
his hand, and said, “It is very prettily bound,” and then laid it down
without opening it. He rose up, bowed, walked backward, and withdrew.
The Queen bowed and smiled, and immediately resumed her sport.[262]
-----
Footnote 261:
Priestley’s _Original Letters_, p. 56.
Footnote 262:
Clarke’s _Wesley Family_.
-----
Samuel Badcock, whose friendship for the Wesley family was dubious,
says, Mr Wesley’s Dissertations were “never held in any estimation by
the learned.” John Wesley replied, “I doubt that. The book certainly
contains immense learning, but of a kind which I do not admire.”[263]
-----
Footnote 263:
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1785, p. 246.
-----
Bishop Warburton, of whom Dr Johnson says, “his knowledge was too
multifarious to be always exact,” writing to Bishop Hurd, remarks: “Poor
Job! It was his eternal fate to be persecuted by his friends. His three
comforters passed sentence of condemnation upon him, and he has been
executing _in effigie_ ever since. He was first bound to the stake by a
long _Catena_ of Greek fathers; then tortured by Pineda; then strangled
by Caryll; and afterwards cut up by Wesley, and anatomised by Garnet. He
was ordained, I think, by a fate like that of Prometheus, to lie still
upon his dunghill, and have his brains sucked out by owls.”[264]
-----
Footnote 264:
Nicholl’s _Literary Anecdotes_.
-----
As a set-off to Warburton’s slap-dash wit, we give a letter which
Alexander Pope addressed to Dean Swift in the year 1730:—“This is a
letter extraordinary, to do and say nothing but recommend to you a pious
and good work, and for a good and honest man; moreover, he is about
seventy, and poor, which you might think included in the word ‘honest.’
I shall think it a kindness done to myself, if you can propagate Mr
Wesley’s subscription for his Commentary on Job among your divines,
(bishops excepted, of whom there is no hope,) and among such as are
believers, or readers of Scripture. Even the curious may find something
to please them, if they scorn to be edified. It has been the labour of
eight years[265]of this learned man’s life. I call him what he is—a
learned man; and I engage you will approve his prose more than you
formerly could his poetry. Lord Bolingbroke is a favourer of it, and
allows you to do your best to serve an old Tory and a sufferer for the
Church of England, though you are a Whig, as I am.”[266]
-----
Footnote 265:
In reality, it was much more than this.
Footnote 266:
Nicholl’s _Literary Anecdotes_.
-----
Lord Oxford wrote to Swift in the same year, requesting the same favour,
and says: “The person concerned is a worthy, honest man; and by this
work of his he is in hopes to get free of a load of debt which has hung
upon him for some years. This debt of his is not owing to any folly or
extravagance, but to the calamity of his house having been twice burned,
which he was obliged to rebuild; and having but small preferment in the
Church, and a large family of children, he has not been able to
extricate himself out of the difficulties these accidents have brought
upon him. Three sons he has bred up well at Westminster, and they are
excellent scholars. The eldest has been one of the ushers in Westminster
School since the year 1714. He is a man in years, yet hearty and able to
study many hours in a day. This, in short, is the ease of an honest,
poor, worthy clergyman; and I hope you will take him under your
protection. I cannot pretend that my recommendation should have any
weight with you, but as it is joined to and under the wing of Mr Pope.”
We have now passed in review the whole of Mr Wesley’s literary
productions, excepting one. This was “A Letter to a Curate,” originally
written for the use of the brother of the Rev. Mr Hoole of Haxey, who
was about to be ordained, and to become Samuel Wesley’s curate at
Epworth. A year or two after, the manuscript was sent to John Wesley,
who published it shortly after his father’s death, and says, in his
preface, that the reader will “find strong sense and deep experience, in
plain, clear, and unaffected words, and a strain of piety running
through the whole, worthy a soldier of Jesus Christ.” This
considerably-sized pamphlet is now extremely scarce, but the reader may
find a reprint of it in an Appendix to Jackson’s “Life of Charles
Wesley,” vol. ii. p. 500. As the pamphlet throws great light upon Mr
Wesley’s character, displays his immense reading, mentions the leading
men of his times with whom he was personally acquainted, and makes
several statements respecting his own proceedings as a parish priest, we
take the liberty of giving a lengthened outline of its valuable
contents.[267]
-----
Footnote 267:
The editor of Dr Clarke’s _Wesley Family_ has thrown out the hint that
it is not improbable that the “Clergyman’s Vade Mecum” was written by
Samuel Wesley; but I can find no evidence of this. The third edition
of this work, published, in 2 vols., in 1709, is now before me. The
full title of the first volume is, “The Clergyman’s Vade Mecum; or, an
Account of the Ancient and Present Church of England; the Duties and
Rights of the Clergy, and of their Privileges and Hardships;
containing full Directions relating to Ordination, Institution,
Induction, and most of the Difficulties which they commonly meet with
in the Discharge of their Office.” The title of the second volume is,
“The Clergyman’s Vade Mecum, Part II.; containing the Canonical Codes
of the Primitive, Universal, Eastern, and Western Church, down to the
year of our Lord 787. Done from the Original Greek and Latin; omitting
no Canon, Decree, or any part of them that is curious or instructive.
With explanatory Notes, a large Index, and a Preface showing the
usefulness of the work; with some Reflections on Moderate
Nonconformity, and the Rights of the Church.”
-----
The points upon which Mr Wesley gives advice to his young curate are—1.
His general aims and intentions; 2. His converse and demeanour among the
parishioners; 3. His reading the liturgy; 4. His studies; 5. His
preaching and catechising. 6. His administering the sacraments. 7. The
administration of discipline.
In reference to the first, he avers that the end to be aimed at by every
Christian minister is “the glory of God, the edifying of His Church, and
the salvation of immortal souls.” The man who makes the attainment of
worldly dignity any part of his design, falls not far short of the
iniquity of Simon Magus, nor can he expect a much better end. Without
the aim being right, a clergyman’s life would be one of the most
tasteless and wearisome things in the world. “For my own part,” he says,
“I had rather be a porter, or even a pettifogger.” To keep the heart
right in this matter, he recommends his curate to read, once a quarter,
the form of ordination; just as Methodist preachers, some years ago,
were enjoined to read the “Liverpool Minutes.”
As it regards “converse and demeanour,” he strongly advises that, when
parish business calls the minister to a public-house, as it sometimes
may, his stay in such a place should be as brief as possible; and that
when visiting, especially the rich, he should guard himself against the
bottle and against bribes. He recommends him to “visit his whole parish
from house to house, and that even the men and maid-servants; for a good
shepherd knows his sheep by name.” He advises him to take down the name
and age of every person, and to ascertain who can read; who can say
their prayers and catechisms; who have been confirmed; who have received
the communion; who are of age to do it; and who have prayers in their
families. He had attempted this twice or thrice himself during the first
twelve years of his ministry at Epworth; but during the last twelve,
since his house was burned, he had been so much diverted, that, though
he had begun such a systematised visiting, he had not been able to quite
finish it. He recommends the curate to visit the sick, even though not
requested; and to endeavour to suppress the new custom of burying by
candlelight.
With regard to “reading prayers,”[268] he expresses a confident hope
that his curate will do as he has done, viz., read the prayers on every
holiday, Wednesday, and Friday; and, he says, he should be pleased if
this was done also on the eves of holidays. He remarks that there are
but very few who read the Liturgy as it should be read; and that he has
heard a hundred good preachers to one good reader. He says—“I am of
opinion that the prayers, and even the lessons, might be pricked, as are
the psalms and anthems, so as to be read properly and musically.” He
urges his friend to avoid “unequal cadences,” and “incondite whinings;
laying weight where there ought to be none, or omitting it where it is
requisite, like the music of a Quakers’ meeting.” “He must,” he adds,
“avoid a running over the prayers, as if we were in haste to be at the
end of them; and, on the other side, a drawling, canting manner, either
of which will be apt to render the reader, if not the prayers
themselves, contemptible.”
-----
Footnote 268:
In an article in the _Athenian Oracle_, vol. i. p. 459, on the use of
extempore prayer, Samuel Wesley seems to be in favour of a medium
between the use of extempore prayer and a form of prayer. This he
calls “premeditated prayer;” that is, premeditated not in reference to
words but things. At the same time he says—“There are very few who
have command of words enough to express themselves as they ought on
such an occasion, and therefore a _form_ is the safe way.”
-----
Respecting psalmody, he says that, as they cannot, at Epworth, “reach
anthems and cathedral music, they must be content with their present
parochial way of singing.” Indeed, he inclines to think they must also
be content with their “grandsire Sternhold,” for Bishop Beveridge had
declared that the common people could understand the Psalms of Sternhold
better than those of Tate and Brady. Wesley says there may be truth in
this, for the common people “have a strange genius at understanding
nonsense.” He adds that the people at Epworth “did once sing well, and
it cost a pretty deal to teach them.” The singing, however, was now not
so good as formerly, and he hopes his curate will tune them up again by
meeting them at church in the long winter evenings, and by getting the
scholars to sing as they used to do when he first came thither.
Concerning his “studies,” Mr Wesley advises his curate to add to his
knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages a knowledge of the Hebrew,
for that is necessary in order to be a complete divine. He contends
that, while logic, history, law, pharmacy, philosophy, chronology,
geography, mathematics, poetry, music, and other parts of learning, are
to be read and studied, they must all be used as auxiliaries to
divinity. The Bible, however, must be the main subject of a clergyman’s
studies, and this ought always to be read with devotion. The Apocryphal
Books ought not to be neglected, being of great and venerable antiquity,
and some of them referred to by St Paul, and perhaps also by our
Saviour. Mr Wesley then proceeds to enumerate a host of writers whose
works are worthy of being read or otherwise. Tertullian had fire enough,
and Justin and Clemens Alexandrinus sense and learning; but Origen is
worth them and all others put together. Irenæus is learned, acute,
orthodox, zealous, and devout; and St Cyprian is safer than his master
Tertullian; but Lactantius, notwithstanding the purity of his language
and the beauty of his periods, is so novel a Christian, or so rank an
heretic, that he scarce had patience to read him. Socrates and Plato are
almost transcripts of Pythagoras. Tully is worth all the Romans. Seneca
is well worth reading. And thus Samuel Wesley runs through all the
principal writers, Christian and heathen, from the birth of Christ to
the time of the Reformation. He had not read much of Luther; Melancthon
was ingenious and polite; Calvin worthy of being read with caution.
Bucer was pious, learned, and moderate; Bellarmine had all the strength
of the Romanists; Fisher was a great man; Gardiner was far from being
contemptible; Erasmus useful and pleasant; Jewel neat and strong;
Cranmer pious and erudite; but Ridley, among all the Reformers, for
clearness, closeness, strength, and learning, stands pre-eminent.
Chillingworth was one of the best disputants in the world; Grotius was
the prince of commentators, and worth all the rest, though he seems not
always consistent with himself; Hammond was learned, judicious, and
orthodox, if you throw aside his Jerusalem, and Gnostics, and Simon
Magus; Sanderson was a master casuist; Mede has many bright and happy
thoughts; the critics were worth a king’s ransom, and most of them might
be found in Pool’s Synopsis.
Speaking of his own contemporaries, Wesley proceeds to say:—Tillotson
brought the art of preaching near perfection, but Stillingfleet was a
more universal scholar; and yet Archbishop Sharpe was a more popular
pulpit orator than either. Bishop Pearson was a man of almost inimitable
sense, piety, and learning, and his work on the creed ought to be in
every clergyman’s study, though unable to purchase anything else than
the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. Bishop Bull was a strong and
nervous writer; and the sermons of Bishop Beveridge were in themselves a
library. Bishop Spratt was one of the first masters of the English
language. Bishop Burnet, notwithstanding his Scotticisms, had a
prodigious genius, and a body that would bear almost anything, for he
himself had told Wesley that, at one period of his life, his
circumstances were such that, to retrieve them, he lived upon
three-halfpence a day. Bishop Ken made almost all who heard him preach
begin to weep; Bishop Hopkins was judicious and useful; Isaac Barrow
strong, masculine, and noble; Dodwell had piety and learning, but was
overfond of nostrums; Ray, Derham, and Boyle were as useful as
entertaining; Calamy’s, Smalridge’s, and Atterbury’s sermons were
standards; Whitby was learned and laborious, though he had brought his
squirt to quench hell-fire, 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; Cruse, 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 men-children 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.[269]
-----
Footnote 269:
_Methodist Magazine_, 1798, p. 35.
-----
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 profits barely
covered the expenses of serving it.[270] 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.[271] The
church, in the days of Wesley, was a small brick building, having,
however, some ancient sepulchral monuments.[272] 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—
High births and virtue equally they scorn,
As asses dull, on dunghills born;
Impervious as the stones, their heads are found;
Their rage and hatred steadfast as the ground.
With these unpolished wights, thy youthful days
Glide slow and dull, and Nature’s lamp decays:
Oh what a lamp is hid, ’midst such a sordid race!”[273]
-----
Footnote 270:
Mr Kirk says the living of Wroot is now worth £400 a year with
residence.
Footnote 271:
Stonehouse’s _History of Axholme_.
Footnote 272:
_Ibid._
Footnote 273:
Clarke’s _Wesley Family_.
-----
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.[274]
-----
Footnote 274:
Moore’s _Life of Wesley_, vol. i. p. 149.
-----