Wesley Corpus

TREES ENT ne ee t f i 96 REV. J. WESLEY’S JOURNAL. TAug. 1738 “ When I was about twenty-six, I was pressed in spirit to exhort and mstruct my brethren. Accordingly, many of them met at my house, to read, pray, and sing psalms. They usually came about ten or eleven, and stayed till one or two in the morning. When Christian David came to us, we were much quickened and comforted, and our number greatly increased. We were undisturbed for two years. But then the Papists were informed of our meeting. Immediately search was made. All our books were seized, and we were ordered to appear before the consistory. I was examined many times; was imprisoned, released, and imprisoned again, five times in one year. At last I was adjudged to pay fifty rix-dollars, and suffer a year’s imprisonment. But upon a re-hearing, the sentence was changed, and I was ordered to be sent to the galleys. Before this sentence was executed, I escaped out of prison, and came to Sorau in Silesia. Many of our brethren followed me; and here for near ten years I taught the children in the Orphan house. I soon sent for my wife and children. But the magistrates had just then ordered, that the wives and children of all those who had fled should be taken into safe custody. The night before this order was to be executed, she escaped, and came to Sorau. “Soon after, some of my brethren who had been there pressed me much to remove to Hernhuth: Christian David, in particular, by whose continued importunity I was at length brought to resolve upon it. But all my brethren at Sorau were still as strongly against it as I myself had formerly been. For a whole year I was struggling to break from them, or to persuade them to go too. And it cost me more pains to get from Sorau, than it had done to leave Moravia.