ed, though hesitatingly, upon an ex parte statement, | resolving to prevent separation to the best of his and under views not fully manifested. When, how- power, but leaving that issue in higher hands. ever, those were disclosed, John recoiled; and his Still, however, the affection of the brothers remained brother, by a partial secession from the work, left unimpaired. the whole care of it upon his hands. Mr. Charles Wesley had indeed, some time before this, rather hastily interposed to prevent the marriage of his brother with a very pious and respectable woman, Mrs. Grace Murray, to whom he was attached, and that probably under the influence of a little family pride, as she was not in an elevated rank of life; and this affair, in which there appears to have been somewhat of treachery, although no doubt well intended, had for the first time interrupted their harmony. But it is not at all likely that any feeling of resentment remained in the mind of John; and indeed the commission of visitation, with which Charles had been invested, was a sufficient proof that confidence had been restored. The true reason of the difference was, that the one wished to contract the work, from fear of the probable consequence of separation from the church; the other pursued his course of enlarging and extending it,

Mr. Charles Wesley and Mr. Whitefield got the lady hastily married to Mr. Bennett, one of the preachers, whilst his brother was at a distance, probably not being himself aware, any more than she, of the strength of his attachment. The following extract from one of Mr. Wesley's unpublished letters shows, however, that he deeply felt it:-"The sons of Zeruiah were too strong for me. The whole world fought against me, but, above all, my own familiar friend. Then was the word fulfilled, Son of man, behold, I take from thee the desire of thine eyes at a stroke, yet shalt thou not lament, neither shall thy tears run down.' The fatal, irrecoverable stroke was struck on Thursday last. Yesterday I saw my friend, (that was,) and him to whom she is sacrificed. But why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?"" The following passages, from a letter of the venerable vicar of Shoreham to Mr. Charles, intimate how much he sympathised with Mr. John Wesley on the occasion, and how anxious he was to prevent a breach between the brothers, which this, certainly unbrotherly act, the only one into which Charles seems to have been betrayed, was near producing. The letter dated, Shoreham, 1749:-"Yours came this day to hand. I leave you to guess how such news must affect a person whose very soul is one with yours, and our friend. Let me conjure you to soothe his sorrows. Pour nothing but oil and wine into his wounds. Indulge no views, no designs, out what tend to the honor of God, the promoting the kingdom of his dear Son, and the healing of our wounded friend. How would the Philistines rejoice could they hear that Saul and Jonathan were in danger from their own swords!"

I have seen an explanation of Mr. Charles Wesley's conduct in this affair by the late Miss Wesley; but as the matter occurred before her birth, I have much doubt as to her perfect knowledge of the circumstances, so that I shall not fully state it. She lays the fault chiefly on the lady's want of explicitness; states that she had formed a previous, but concealed, attachment to Mr. Bennett; and that Mr. Charles having discovered this, he hastened the marriage. Whatever the ostensible reason might be, it was no doubt eagerly seized by Mr. Charles Wesley as an occasion of breaking off a match, which he appears some time before to have interfered with, influenced, it is most probable, by the consideration of Mrs. Murray's inferior rank. From this feeling Mr. John Wesley was much more exempt, as the following anecdote, found in one of Miss Wesley's letters, indicates in a way very creditable to his amiable temper:-"My brother Charles had an attachment in early youth to an amiable girl of inferior birth; this was much opposed by my mother and her family, who mentioned it with concern to my uncle. Finding from my father that this was the chief objection, my uncle only replied, "Then there is no family blood? I hear the girl is good; but of no family.' 'Nor fortune either,' said my mother. He made no reply; but sent my brother a sum of money as a wedding present; and I believe sincerely regretted that he was ultimately crossed in his inclination.

In the year 1751, as Mr. Wesley was still resolved to marry, believing that his usefulness would be thereby promoted, he took to wife Mrs. Vizelle, a widow lady of independent fortune. She was a woman of a cultivated understanding, as her remaining letters testify; and that she appeared to Mr. Wesley to possess every other qualification, which promised to increase both his usefulness and happiness, we may conclude from his having made choice of her as his companion. We must suppose, also, that as he never intended to relax his labors, and adopt a more settled mode of life, this matter also was fully understood, and agreed to before marriage. But whatever good qualities Mrs. Wesley might appear to have, they were at length wholly swallowed up in the fierce passion of jealousy. For some time she travelled with him; but becoming weary of this, and not being able to bind him down to a more domestic life, this passion increased. The violence of her temper broke out also against Mr. Charles Wesley and his wife. This arose from very trifling circumstances, magnified into personal slights; and various unpleasant scenes are mentioned in Mr. Charles Wesley's unpublished letters, and described with a sprightliness which, whilst it shows that he was unconscious of having given her any just cause of offence, equally indicates the absence of sympathy. Perhaps this had been worn out by the long continuance of her caustic attacks upon him and his family, both by word and by letter. Certainly Mr. Charles Wesley must have felt her to be an annoying correspondent, if we may judge from some of her letters still preserved, and in which, singular as it may appear, she zealously contends for her husband's superiority, and is indignant that he should be wearing himself out with excessive labor, whilst Charles was remaining at home in ease. Dr. Southey has candidly and justly stated the matter betweeen her and her persecuted husband:

-

"Had Mrs. Wesley been capable of understanding her husband's character, she could not possibly have been jealous; but the spirit of jealousy possessed her, and drove her to the most unwarrantable actions. It is said that she frequently travelled a hundred miles for the purpose of watching, from a window, who was in the carriage with him when he entered a town. She searched his pockets, opened his letters, put his letters and papers into the hands of his enemies, in hopes that they might be made use of to blast his character, and sometimes laid violent hands upon him, and tore his hair. She frequently left his house, and, upon his earnest entreaties returned again; till, after having thus disquieted twenty years of his life, as far as it was possible for any domestic vexations to disquiet a man whose life was passed in loco-motion, she seized on part of his journals, and many other papers, which were never restored, and departed, leaving word that she never intended to return. He simply states the fact in his journal, saying that he knew not what the cause had been; and he briefly adds, Non cam reliqui, non dimisi, non revocabo; 'I did not forsake her, I did not dismiss her, I will not recall her.'"*

The worst part of Mrs. Wesley's conduct, and which only the supposition of a degree of insanity, excited by jealousy, can palliate, was that she interpolated several letters, which she had intercepted, so as to make them bear a bad construction: and as Mr. Wesley had always maintained a large correspondence with all classes of persons, and among others with pious females, in some of whose letters

* Southey's Life.

60

LIFE OF REV. JOHN WESLEY.

A school at Kingswood, near Bristol, for the chil Lore were strong expressions of Christian affection, she availed herself of this means of defaming him. dren of the poor, had been long built; but that neighSome of these she read to different persons in pri-borhood was also fixed upon by Mr. Wesley for an invate, and especially to Mr. Wesley's opponents and stitution, in which the sons of the preachers, and those enemies, adding extempore passages in the same of the richer Methodists, should receive at once the tone of voice, but taking care not to allow the letters best education, and the most efficient religious trainthemselves to be read by the auditors; and in one ing. It was opened in June, 1748, and he published or two instances she published interpolated or forged soon after a "Short Account" of the institution, letters in the public prints. How he conducted him- with the plan of education adopted, particularly for self amidst these vexations, the following passages, those who were to remain so long in it as to go "Whoever carefully goes through this course will in a letter from Miss Wesley to a friend, written a through a course of academical learning; and adds. little before her death, will show. They are at once important as explanatory of the kind of annoyance be a better scholar than nine in ten of the graduates to which this unhappy marriage subjected her uncle, at Oxford and Cambridge." In this great and good in time to be confined to the sons of the preachers, and as containing an anecdote strongly illustrative design he grasped at too much; and the school came of his character:and ceased, as at first, to receive boarders. Indeed, from the increase of the preachers' families, the school was rapidly filled, and required enlargement at different times; and finally, it was necessary to establish a second school at Woodhouse Grove, in Yorkshire. The circumstance of the preachers being so much from home, and removing every one or two years from their circuits, rendered an institution of this kind imperative; and, as it necessarily grew out of the system of itinerancy, it was cheerfully and liberally, though often inadequately, supported by private subscriptions, and a public annual collection throughout all the congregations. The most gratifying moral results have followed; and a useful and religious education has been secured to the sons years, having afforded undeniable proofs of genuine of the preachers, many of whom, especially of late conversion, and of a divine call to public labors in the church of Christ, have been admitted into the ministry, and are among its highest ornaments, or its brightest hopes. It is however to be regretted, that the original plan of Mr. Wesley, to found an institution for the connection at large, which should unite the advantages of a school and a college, has not been resumed in later and more favorable times. Various circumstances, at that early period, militated against the success of this excellent project, which have gradually disappeared; and if in that infant state of the cause, Mr. Wesley wisely thought that Methodism should provide for all its wants, religious and educational, within itself, much more incumbent is it to do so now. Many of the sons of our friends, for want of such a provision, have been

ny months have elapsed, the same warmth and bitterand, indeed, it is a sad consideration, that, after so maness should remain." This truly venerable and holy Two days before his death, his grand-daughter, Miss man died in 1785, in the ninety-second year of his age. Briggs, who attended him day and night, read to him Some of these letters mutilated, interpolated, or the three last chapters of Isaiah. He then desired her forged by this unhappy woman, have got into differ- to go into the garden, to take a little fresh air. Upon ent hands, and are still preserved. In the papers of the her return, she found him in an ecstacy, with the tears Wesley family, recently collected, there are, how-running down his cheeks, from a deep and lively sense ever, sufficient materials for a full explanation of the whole case in detail; but as Mr. Wesley himself spared it, no one will, I presume, ever farther disturb this unpleasant affair, unless some publication on the part of an enemy, for the sake of gain, or to gratify a party feeling, should render it necessary to defend the character of this holy and unsuspecting

The following passage, in a letter from Mr. Perronet to Mr. Charles Wesley, dated Shoreham, Nov. 3, 1752, shows that Mr. Wesley's matrimonial afflictions must have commenced a very short time after marriage: "I am truly concerned that matters are in so melancholy a situation. I think the unhappy lady is most to be pitied, though the gentleman's case is mournful enough. Their sufferings proceed from widely different causes. His are the visible chastisements of a loving Father. Her's the immediate effects of an angry, bitter spirit;

to him; and which, he believed, would shortly be fulof the glorious things which she had just been reading filled in a still more glorious sense than heretofore. He continued unspeakably happy all that day. On Sunday, his happiness seemed even to increase, till he retired to rest. Miss Briggs then went into the room to see if any thing was wanting; and as she stood at the feet of the and all that belongs to thee! Yea, he will bless thee!" bed, he smiled and said, "God bless thee, my dear child, This he earnestly repeated till she left the room. When she went in the next morning, his happy spirit had re turned to God!

Mr. Perronet, like those great and good men, Messrs Grimshaw and Fletcher, continued steadily attached to Mr. Wesley, and to the Methodists. He received the preachers joyfully, fitted up a room in the parsonage house for their use, and attended their ministry himself at every opportunity. His house was one of the regular places of the Kent circuit, and so continued to the day of his death. All his family were members of the soci ety, and two of his sons preachers

placed in schools where their religious principles have been neglected or perverted; and too often have been taught to ridicule, or to be ashamed of, the religious profession of their fathers.

In 1753, Mr. Wesley visited Scotland a second time, and preached at Glasgow to large congregations. He had gone there on the invitation of that excellent man, Dr. Gillies, minister of the college kirk, who, a few days after he left, wrote to him as follows:-"The singing of hymns here meets with greater opposition than I expected. Serious people are much divided. Those of better understanding and education are silent; but many others are so prejudiced, especially at the singing publicly, that they speak openly against it, and look upon me as led to do a very wrong or sinful thing. I beg your advice, whether to answer them only by continuing in the practice of the thing, with such as have freedom to join, looking to the Lord for a blessing upon his own ordinance: or, if I should publish a sheet of arguments from reason, and Scripture, and the example of the godly. Your experience of the most effectual way of dealing with people's prejudices, makes your advice on this head of the greater importance.

"I bless the Lord for the benefit and comfort of your acquaintance, for your important assistance in my historical collections, and for your edifying conversation and sermons in this place. May our gracious God prosper you wherever you are. O, my dear sir, pray for your brother, that I may be employed in doing something for the advancement of His glory, who has done so much for me, and who is my only hope.”

This prejudice in favor of their own doggerel version of the Psalms of David, generally remains among the Scotch to this day; and even in the Wesleyan societies raised up there, great opposition was at first made to the use of hymns. The Historical Collections of Dr. Gillies, mentioned in his letter, do justice to that revival of religion in this country of which Methodism was the instrument, and gives many valuable accounts of similar revivals, and special effusions of the Holy Spirit upon the churches of Christ, in different ages.

The following extracts from two of Mr. Wesley's letters, written about this time, show how meekly this admirable man could take reproof; and with how patient a temper he could deal with peevish and complaining men.

of malice I have none: however, the prayer is good, and I thank you for it."

The other letter from which I shall give an extract, was written apparently to a gentleman of some rank and influence: "I do not recollect, for I kept no copy of my last, that I charged you with want of humility or meekness. Doubtless these may be found in the most splendid palaces. But did they ever move a man to build a splendid palace ? Upon what motive you did this, I know not; but you are to answer it to God, not to me.

"If your soul is as much alive to God, if your thirst after pardon and holiness is as strong, if you are as dead to the desire of the eye and the pride of life, as you were six or seven years ago, I rejoice; if not, I pray God you may; and then you will know how to value a real friend.

"With regard to myself, you do well to warn me against 'popularity, a thirst of power and of applause; against envy, producing a seeming contempt for the conveniences or grandeur of this life; against an affected humility; against sparing from myself to give to others, from no other motive than ostentation.' I am not conscious to myself, that this is my case. However, the warning is always friendly; and it is always seasonable, considering how deceit ful my heart is, and how many the enemies that surround me.-What follows I do not understand:'You behold me in the ditch, wherein you helped, though innocently, to cast me, and with a Levitical pity pass by on the other side. He and you, sir, have not any merit, though Providence should permit all these sufferings to work together for my good-I do not comprehend one line of this, and therefore cannot plead either guilty or not guilty Ipresume, they are some that are dependant on me, who, you say, 'keep not the commandments of God; who show a repugnance to serve and obey, who are as full of pride and arrogance, as of filth and nastiness; who do not pay lawful debis, nor comply with civil obligations; who make the waiting on the offices of religion, a plea of sloth and idleness; who, after I had strongly recommended them, did not perform their moral duty, but increased the number of those incumbrances which they forced on you, against your will.'-To this I can only say, 1. I know not whom you mean; I am not certain that I can so much as guess at one of them. 2. Whoever they are, had in a quite different manner. 3. If you will tell me they followed my instructions, they would have acted them by name, I will renounce all fellowship with them.""

In the autumn of 1753, Mr. Wesley was threatened with consumption, brought on by repeated attacks of cold. By the advice of Dr. Fothergill he retired to Lewisham; and here, not knowing how it might please God to dispose of him, and wishing to prevent vile panegyric," in case of death, he

HERE LIETH

"You give," says he, "five reasons why the Rev. Mr. P will come no more amongst us: 1. 'Because we despise the ministers of the church of England.' This I flatly deny. I am answering letters this very post, which bitterly blame me for just the contrary 2. Because so much backbiting and evil speaking is suffered amongst our people.' It is not suffered; all possible means are used, both to pre-wrote his epitaph as follows:vent and remove it. 3. Because I, who have written so much against hoarding up money, have put out seven hundred pounds to interest.' I never put sixpence out to interest since I was born; nor had I ever one hundred pounds together, my own, since I came into the world. 4. 'Because our lay preachers have told many stories of my brother and me.' It they did, I am sorry for them; when I hear the particulars I can answer, and perhaps make those ashamed who believed them. 5. ' Because we did not help a friend in distress.' We did help him as far as we were able. But we might have made his case known to Mr. G- - Lady H—————,' &c. So we did, more than once; but we could not pull money from them, whether they would or no. Therefore these reasons are of no weight. You conclude with praying, that God would remove pride and malice from amongst us.

THE BODY OF JOHN WESLEY,

A BRAND PLUCKED OUT OF THE BURNING;
WHO DIED OF A CONSUMPTION IN THE FIFTY-FIRST
YEAR OF HIS AGE.

NOT LEAVING, AFTER HIS DEBTS ARE PAID,
TEN POUNDS BEHIND HIM:

PRAYING

God be merciful to me an unprofitable servant!.

He ordered; that this, if any inscription, should be placed on his tomb-stone.

During Mr. Wesley's illness, Mr. Whitefield Of pride I have too much: wrote to him in a strain which shows the fulness of

affection which existed between those great and good | ers to speak their minds at large, was, whether we men, notwithstanding their differences of opinion :

66

BRISTOL, Dec. 3, 1753.

"REV. AND VERY DEAR SIR, "If seeing you so weak when leaving London distressed me, the news and prospect of your approaching dissolution hath quite weighed me down. I pity myself and the church, but not you. A radiant throne awaits you, and ere long you will enter into your Master's joy. Yonder he stands with a massy crown, ready to put it on your head, amidst an admiring throng of saints and angels. I, poor I, that have been waiting for my dissolution these nineteen years, must be left behind to grovel here below! Well! this is my comfort: it cannot be long ere chariots will be sent even for worthless me. If prayers can detain them, even you, Rev. and very dear Sir, shall not leave us yet; but if the decree has gone forth, that you must now fall asleep in Jesus, may he kiss your soul away, and give you to die in the embraces of triumphant love! If in the land of the dying, I hope to pay my last respects to you next week. If not, Rev. and very dear Sir, F-a-r-e-w-e-ll; Ego sequar, etsi non passibus æquis. My heart is too big, tears trickie down too fast, and you are, I fear, too weak, for me to enlarge. Underneath you may there be Christ's everlasting arms! I commend you to his never failing mercy, and am,

"Rev. and very dear Sir, "Your most affectionate sympathizing, and afflicted, younger brother in the gospel of our common Lord,

"G. WHITEFIELD." From Lewisham he removed to the Hot Wells near Bristol; and, ever intent upon improving time, began his Notes on the New Testament. For some time after this, he appears to have remained in an invalid state. During his retirement at Paddington he read a work which made a forcible attack upon his prejudices as a churchman; and soon afterwards, another, which still farther shook the deference he had once been disposed to pay to ecclesiastical antiquity.

"In my hours of walking, I read Dr. Calamy's Abridgment of Mr. Baxter's life. What a scene is opened there! In spite of all my prejudices of education, I could not but see, that the poor nonconformists had been used without either justice or mercy; and that many of the protestant bishops of King Charles had neither more religion nor humanity than the popish bishops of Queen Mary."

ought to separate from the church. Whatever was advanced on one side or the other was seriously and calmly considered: and on the third day we were all fully agreed in that general conclusion, that, whether it was lawful or not, it was no ways expe

dient."

Part of the preachers were, without restraint, permitted to speak in favor of a measure which in former conferences would not have been listened to in that the question of lawfulness of separation was the shape of discussion; and the conclusion was, evaded, and the whole matter was reduced to "expediency." Of this conference we have no minutes; but where was Mr. Charles Wesley?* Mr. Charles Perronet and some cthers, for whom Mr. Wesley had great respect, were at this time urging him to make full provision for the spiritual wants of his people, as being in fact in a state of real and hopeless separation from the church; and he did some years afterwards so far relax, as to allow of preaching in church hours under certain circumstances, as, 1. When the minister was wicked; or held pernicious doctrine; 2. When the churches would not contain the population of a town; or where the church was distant. In that case he prescribed reading the psalms and lessons and part of the liturgy. And for this purpose, as well as for the use of the American societies, he published his abridgment of the Common Prayer under the title of the " Sunday Service of the Methodists."

affectionate, and powerful; breathing at once the In 1756 he printed an address to the clergy, plain, spirit of an apostle, and the feeling of a brother. Happy if that call had been heard! He might perhaps be influenced in this by a still lingering hope of a revival of the spirit of zeal and piety among the ministers of the established church; in which case that separation of his people from the church, which he began to foresee as otherwise inevitable, he thought might be prevented; and this he had undoubtedly much at heart. Under the same view it probably was that in 1764 he addressed a circular to all the serious clergy, whom he knew, inviting them to a closer co-operation in promoting the influence of religion in the land, without any sacrifice of opinion, and being still at liberty, as to outward orderto remain "quite regular, or quite irregular, or partly regular and partly irregular." Of the thirty four clergymen addressed, only three returned any answer. This seems to have surprised both him and some of his biographers. The reason is, how"I read Mr. Baxter's history of the councils. It ever, very obvious: Mr. Wesley did not propose to is utterly astonishing, and would be wholly incredi- abandon his plan and his preachers, or to get the ble, but that his vouchers are beyond all exception. latter ordained and settled in curacies, as proposed What a company of execrable wretches have they a few years before by Mr. Walker, of Truro; and been, (one cannot justly give them a milder title, the matter had now obviously gone too far for the who have, almost in every age since St. Cyprian, clergy to attach themselves to Methodism. They taken upon them to govern the church! How has one saw, with perhaps clearer eyes than Mr. Wesley's, council been perpetually cursing another; and deli- that the Methodists could not now be embodied in vering all over to Satan, whether predecessors or the church; and that for them to co-operate directcontemporaries, who did not implicitly receive their ly with him, would only be to partake of his redeterminations, though generally trifling, some-proach, and to put difficulties in their own way, to times false, and frequently unintelligible, or self contradictory! Surely Mahometanism was let loose to reform the Christians! I know not but Constantinople has gained by the change."

During Mr. Wesley's illness, Mr. Charles Wesley went forth to visit the societies, and to supply his brother's place.

In 1755, at the conference held in Leeds, a subject which had been frequently stirring itself, was formally discussed:

"The point on which we desired all the preach

"I shall follow, though not with equal steps."

which they had not the same call. A few clergy-
men, and but a few, still continued to give him, with
fulness of heart, the right hand of fellowship, and to
co-operate in some degree with him. Backward he
extended usefulness was before him.
could not go; but the forward career of still more
From this
time he gave up all hope of a formal connection
with even the pious clergy. "They are," he ob-

* Three years after, Mr. Wesley published twelve reasons against separation, all however of a prudential kind. To these Mr. Charles Wesley added his separate testimony; but as to himself, he adds that he thought it not lawful. Here then was another difference in the viewa of the brothers.