The Home Rebuilt

THE Rector of Epworth was not a man to do things by halves, and, even if he had been, the repair or rebuilding of a parsonage is a matter that comes under the notice of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and must be done in what they consider a suitable style. Queen Anne's reign was an era when red brick was generally used for all new buildings of any pretensions, if we may go by the quaint, substantial houses that in many English cities date from her time.

The foundations of the old abode were dug up, and bricks were used for the walls instead of the former lath and plaster. The house was probably not more commodious than its predecessor, it would have been a work of supererogation to have made it so ; but the old parsonage, with its five bays, had contained ample accommodation for a large family, and the new one was quite equal to it. There were three stories ; that is to say, dining-room, parlour, study, and domestic offices on the ground floor, bed-rooms above, and a large garret or loft over all. The house still stands, and when a few months ago its walls were stripped for the purpose of being repapered, behold ! there came to light, in one room, in Mrs. Wesley's own handwriting, the names, ages, and measurements of height of all the children alive when the family took possession of the new house. Doubtless those who had been away were much grown, and it was a matter of natural parental interest to see exactly their respective heights. Many fathers and mothers have taken such measures of their boys and girls, and delighted in comparing notes of their stature at various ages.

Fruit trees were planted to run over the front and back of the new parsonage ; mulberry, cherry, and pear-trees in the garden, and walnuts in the adjoining field or croft. This was indeed planting for posterity ! The re-building seems to have been completed within the year, and cost four hundred pounds, a terrible sum of money for a poor clergyman who had no fireinsurance company to help him. Then the children were collected, and the mother once more resumed her daily work of teaching them. It was not all such plain sailing as before they had been scattered abroad ; she found many bad habits to correct, and, besides, the discipline of home was broken through, and its bonds had to be tightened and perhaps somewhat strained. Then it was that she began the custom of singing a hymn or psalm before beginning lessons in the morning or after leaving them off in the afternoon ; and then, too, she appears to have used, as text-books for religious instruction, the expositions of the principles of revealed religion, and of the being and perfections of God, which she had written for her eldest son soon after he went to Westminster, and those of the Apostle's Creed and Ten Commandments, which she had prepared during the year of comparative leisure ishe spent in lodgings while the parsonage was being rebuilt.

The Rector was away during a great part of the first year spent by his wife and family in the new house. His busy brain was never allowed to rust or vegetate, and he was, of course, glad to earn whatever he could by his pen.

Events of considerable political importance were taking place in London during 1709, and, from various causes, the Duke of Marlborough was losing his popularity. The nation was getting tired of the war with France, which Dean Swift declared had cost "six millions of supplies and almost fifty millions of debt"; and Marlborough, who had long been in the position of a "Tory man bringing in Whig measures," as Lord Beaconsfield puts it, was accused of continuing the struggle with Louis Quatorze for his own enrichment and aggrandisement. The Tories regarded him as a traitor to his party, and aggravated every little incident that could strengthen their own power. Dr. Henry Sacheverell, rector of St. Saviour, Southwark, was a popular and prominent High Church clergyman of the day, narrow-minded and violent, especially against Dissenters. At the summer assizes at Derby he preached a very exciting sermon before the judges, and on the 5th of November, in St. Paul's Cathedral, he declaimed in a most inflammatory manner against toleration and the Dissenters, who were evidently his pet aversion ; declared that the Church was in danger from avowed enemies and false friends ; and altogether raised such a commotion that his sermons, which were published under the protection of the Lord Mayor -and were widely circulated, were complained of to the House of Commons as containing positions contrary to the principles of the Revolution, the Government, and the Protestant succession. The two sermons, which contained a great deal of abuse of prominent personages, were voted scandalous and seditious libels; and Dr. Sacheverell, being brought to the bar of the House, acknowledged the authorship of them, and was committed to the custody of the deputy usher of the black rod, bail being refused at first, but afterwards allowed. The trial came on in Westminster Hall on the 27th of February, 1710, and lasted three weeks, Queen Anne coming every day in a sedan-chair as a spectator, and the populace thronging the hall and its approaches, and behaving as though Sacheverell were a saint and martyr. The excitement was so great that it culminated in a riot, during which a good deal of mischief was done, in consequence of which some ringleaders were arrested and, afterwards, tried for high treason. The Queen, in her heart, favoured the Doctor; her chaplains extolled him as the champion of the Church ; and when his counsel had finished the defence, he himself rose and delivered a speech, in which he solemnly justified his intentions towards Her Majesty and her Government, and spoke in most respectful terms of the Revolution and the Protestant succession. He maintained the doctrine of nonresistance in all circumstances as a maxim of the Church of England, and by many touches of pathos endeavoured to excite the compassion of the audience. That this speech was the composition of the Rector of Epworth seems to have been universally recognised in Lincolnshire, and, in after years, John Wesley declared positively that his father was its author. Probably he was paid, in some shape or form, for preparing it, although, perhaps, like an old war-horse, he scented the battle from afar and did his share of the fighting gratuitously.

Having proved himself so good a spokesman for his party, the clergy of the diocese once more chose him as their representative in Convocation; so he journeyed to London in November 1710, ill as he could afford it, and did so seven . winters successively, while his family at home were in want of clothes, food, and, in fact, of all the necessaries of life. Mrs. Wesley suffered a great deal from weakness, and possibly from the damp inevitable in a house inhabited before it was properly seasoned; and, according to her daughter Emilia, from insufficient nourishment and clothing. No doubt the husband and father hoped that, being1 in London, he should find literary employment, and he might reasonably have looked for some pecuniary help from the party he so zealously served.

In spite of weakness and weariness the mother struggled on, and, in proportion as her family's little comforts in this world decreased, her anxiety for their happiness in a future state grew and strengthened. In Mr. Wesley's absence Emilia, probably rummaging in his study for a book to read, met with the account of a Danish mission to Tranquebar, written by the two devoted and saintly men who had worked in it. Missions were then uncommon, and the story brought with it the thrill of a new interest, and diverted the mother's thoughts from her own surroundings. Emilia, who was a good reader — her brother John said the best he had ever heard, when the book happened to be Milton's poems — read it aloud, and Mrs. Wesley herself told her husband how it affected her.

" Soon after you went to London," she wrote to him, " Emilia found in your study the account of the Danish missionaries, which, having never seen, I desired her to read to me. I was never, I think, more affected with anything than with the relation of their travels, and was exceedingly pleased with the noble design they were engaged in. Their labours refreshed my soul beyond measure, and I could not forbear spending a good part of that evening in praising and adoring the Divine goodness for inspiring those good men with such ardent zeal for His glory. For some days I could think and speak of little else. It then came into my mind — though I am not a man nor a minister of the Gospel, yet if I were inspired with a true zeal for His glory, and really desired the salvation of souls — I might do more than I do. I thought I might live in a more exemplary manner, I might pray more for the people, and speak with more warmth to those with whom I have opportunity of conversing. However, I resolved to begin with my own children, and accordingly I proposed and observed the following method : I take such a proportion of time as I can best spare every night to discourse with each child by itself, on something that relates to its principal (personal ?) concerns. On Monday I talk with Molly, on Tuesday with Hetty, Wednesday with Nancy, Thursday with Jacky, Friday with Patty, Saturday with Charles; and with Emily and Sukey together on Sunday/' The result of her conversations with " Jacky " is recorded in her Private Meditations under the heading " Son John," and dated May 17th, 1711. So deeply were the child's religious feelings worked upon that his father allowed him to become a communicant when only eight years old ; but the wisdom of thus exciting a boy into precocious devotion at a time when nature intends him to be simply a healthy young animal, may be questioned. In this instance the reaction set in soon after he left home for school, and from the age of eleven to that of twenty-two he appears to have been like other youths, and neither to have made any special profession of religion, nor to have contemplated going into the Church.

There is no doubt that from the time of settling down in the new rectory and gathering together of her flock, Mrs. Wesley and her husband, when at home, concentrated their attention on John's education, that he might start fairly and be a credit to himself and them on entering a public school. He was a disputatious youngster, given to very cool deliberation and much argument. One of his biographers says that if asked between meals whether he would take a piece of bread or fruit he would answer, with cool unconcern, "I thank you, I will think of it" ; but this is somewhat at variance with the mother's accepted rule that no child was permitted to eat anything between meals. His impetuous father was on one occasion so far provoked with the boy that he exclaimed: " Child, you think to carry everything by dint of argument ; but you will find how little is ever done in the world by close reasoning." This characteristic love of argument, which always makes a child trying to teach and manage, is further illustrated by Mr. Wesley's jocosely affectionate remark to his wife : " I profess, sweetheart, I think our Jack would not attend to the most pressing necessities of nature, unless he could give a reason for it."

But whatever else Mrs. Wesley found to occupy her, she still made time to write to her eldest son, even if the letter were short ; and there is one epistle, dated soon after the re-assembling of the family, which exhibits the only sign of petulance observable in her correspondence : — "Epworth, April 7th, 1710. ~"DEAR SAMMY, " I thought I should have heard from you ere now, but I find you do not think of me as I do of you. Indeed, I believe you would be very easy were you never to hear from me more ; but I cannot be satisfied, myself, without writing sometimes, though not so often as I would.

" I have sent you a letter which I sent to your sister Sukey at Gainsborough, which I would have you read and copy it, if you have time. [This was probably the exposition of the Apostles' Creed previously mentioned.] "When I have my leisure, I think I cannot be better employed than in writing something that may be useful to my children ; and though I know there are abundance of good books wherein these subjects are more fully and accurately treated of than I can pretend to write, yet I am willing to think that my children will somewhat regard what I do for them, though the performance be mean, since they know it comes from their mother, who is, perhaps, more concerned for their eternal happiness than anyone in the world. As you had my youth and vigour employed in your service, so I hope you will not despise the little I can do in my declining years ; but will for my sake carefully read these papers over, if it be but to put you on a more worthy performance of your own.

" SUSANNA WESLEY."

During the ensuing summer Samuel, then" twenty years of age, and a scholar of whom Westminster was justly proud, attracted the attention of Dr. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, and prebend of Westminster, who had himself been a distinguished Westminster scholar in his youth. He was old, and had a kindly feeling for the boy whose grandfather had been his own college friend, and whose father had received ordination at his hands. He took him down to his country house as reader. Samuel did not appreciate his new position, and even complained of it to his father, calling the Bishop " an unfriendly friend/' His first patron soon died, and was succeeded in the see of Rochester by Dr. Atterbury, Dean of Westminster, who took quite as much interest in Samuel as his predecessor had done, and won his affection and partisanship so thoroughly that they endured throughout life, undiminished by the circumstances which ultimately led to the Bishop's exile. This prelate, when at Oxford, had been at Christ Church; and it was by his advice and persuasion that Samuel Wesley entered himself a student at that college in 1711. His father and mother must have been more than mortal if they had not felt some amount of pride in the boy, who had thus won the friendship of two men who were ripe scholars as well as high dignitaries of the Church. There is, however, no trace of exultation on either side, and early in December Samuel wrote to his mother a letter beginning "Dear Mother," instead of the formal " Madam " of the period. This seems to have touched her, and added warmth to the epistle which the gravity of so great an impending change as leaving school and going to Oxford called forth :— " Thursday, December 28th, 1710. DEAR SAMMY, " I am much better pleased with the beginning of your letter than with what you used to send me, for I do not love distance or ceremony ; there is more of love and tenderness in the name of mother than in all the complimentary titles in the world.

" I intend to write to your father about your coming down, but yet it would not be amiss for you tospeak of it too. Perhaps our united desires may sooner prevail upon him to grant our request, though I do not think he will be averse from it at all."

This is the only time that Mrs. Wesley, in her brave acceptance of the inevitable, alludes to a desire to see the beloved son from whom she had been so long separated.

" I am heartily glad that you have already received, and that you design again to receive, the Holy Sacrament; for there is nothing more proper or effectual for the strengthening and refreshing the mind than the frequent partaking of that blessed ordinance.

" You complain that you are unstable and inconstant in the ways of virtue. Alas ! what Christian is not so too? I am sure that I, above all others, am most unfit to advise in such a case ; yet, since I cannot but speak something, since I love you as my own soul, I will endeavour to do as well as I can ; and perhaps while I write I may learn, and by instructing you I may teach myself.

"I am sorry that you lie under a necessity of conversing with those that are none of the best ; but we must take the world as we find it, since it is a.

happiness permitted to a very few to choose their company. Yet, lest the comparing yourself with others that are worse may be an occasion of your falling into too much vanity, you would do well sometimes to entertain such thoughts as these : ' Though I know my own birth and education, and am conscious of having had great advantages, yet how little do I know of the circumstances of others. Perhaps their parents were vicious, or did not take early care of their minds, to instil the principles of virtue into their tender years ; but suffered them to follow their own inclinations till it was too late to reclaim them. Am I sure that they have had as many offers of grace, as many and strong impulses of the Holy Spirit, as I have had ? Do they sin against as clear conviction as I do? Or are the vows of God upon them as upon me ? Were they so solemnly devoted to Him at their birth as I was ? ' You have had the example of a father who served God from his youth, arid though I cannot commend my own to you, for it is too bad to be imitated, yet surely earnest prayers for many years, and some little good advice, have not been wanting. " But if, after all, self-love should incline you to partiality in your own case, seriously consider your own many feelings, which the world cannot take notice of because they were so private, and if still, upon comparison, you seem better than others are, then ask yourself who it is that makes you to differ ; and let God have all the praise, since of ourselves we can do nothing. It is He that worketh in us both to will and to do of His own good pleasure; and if, at any time, you have vainly ascribed the glory of any good performance to yourself, humble yourself for it before God, and give Him the glory of His grace for the future.

" I am straitened for paper and time, therefore must conclude. God Almighty bless you and preserve you from all evil. Adieu.

" SUSANNA WESLEY."

Much of this letter has been omitted on account of its being exclusively a theological dissertation. Indeed, in none of Mrs. Wesley's epistles is religion presented in a less attractive aspect, for she represents God as a hard master dealing out strict retribution to all who diverge from the straight and exceedingly narrow path of righteousness. She would surely have been a happier woman if her mental attitude had been that of the German divine whose evening prayer, after many hours of labour in his Master's service, was, " Lord, all is as ever between me and thee," before he lay down to his peaceful and well-earned slumber.

There are only one or two hints of what took place at Epworth during the years 1811 and 1812. Mrs. Wesley must have employed a great deal of her leisure in writing a manuscript containing sixty quarto pages, entitled ' ' A Religious Conference between Mother and Emilia/' on the outside of which were the texts, " I write unto you, little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be found in you," and " ' May what is sown in weakness be raised in power.' Written for the use of my children, 1711-12."

In the spring of April 1712, while Mr. Wesley was away in London, five of the children had small-pox, which was then a far more terrible scourge than in our own day. The mother's hands must have been very full ; but she seems never to have caught the infection, although the family was visited by it at least on one other occasion. She wrote to her absent husband: "Jack bore his disease bravely, like a man, and indeed a Christian, without any complaint." It is probable either that they had the complaint in a mild form, or that some very effectual means were taken to prevent any permanent traces being left ; for all the family had the reputation of being good-looking, and no mention is made by anyone, nor is there any lingering tradition, of their being marked. It may be said, perhaps, that in the absence of inoculation or vaccination this disfigurement was too common to excite any remark ; but it must be remembered that Charles Wesley's wife had the small-pox in 1753, when she lived at Bristol, and, although she lay down a really handsome young woman of six-and -twenty, she rose up from that bed of sickness so disfigured as to become almost proverbial for plainness throughout the rest of her life.