Wesley Corpus

In one practice for which you blamed your son, I am only concerned as a friend, not as a partner. That, therefore, I shall consider first. _ Your own account of it was in effect this :--“ He frequently went into poor people’s houses, in the villages about Holt, called their children together, and instructed them in their duty to God, their neighbour, and themselves. He likewise explained to them the necessity of private as well as public prayer, and provided them with such forms as were best suited to their several capacities: and being well apprized how much the success of his endeavours depended on their good will toward him, to win upon their affections, he sometimes distributed among them a little of that money which he had saved from gaming, and the other fashionable expenses of the place.” This is the first charge against him; upon which all that I shall observe is, that 1 will refer it to your own judgment, whether it be fitter to have a place in the catalogue of his faults, or of those virtues for which he is now “numbered among the sons of God.” If all the persons concerned in ‘that ridiculous society, whose follies yor1 have so often heard repeated,” could but give such a proot of their deserving the glorious title* which was once bestowed upon them, they would be contented that their “lives” too should be “counted madness, and their end” thought to be “without honour.” But the truth is their title to holiness stands upon much less stable founda- * The Holy Club. tions ; as you will easily perceive when you know the ground of this wonderful outcry, which it seems England is not wide enough to contain.