Wesley Corpus

To Richard Morgan Date: December 17, 1733. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1733) Author: John Wesley --- SIR,--The bank-note sent by Mr. Huey was exchanged today. I have paid Mr. Lasher 11 17s. 6d. of the 50 (and the 9 in my brother's hands), the Bursar 24 for caution-money, and 40s. the usual fee for his admission into the common-room. Mr. Morgan usually rises about six, and has not yet been wanting in diligence. He seldom goes out of college unless upon business or to walk for his health, which I would willingly persuade him to do every day. He loses no time at taverns or coffee-houses, and avoids as much as possible idle company, which every gentleman here will soon be pestered with if he has not some show of resolution. Some evenings every week he spends in the common-room, and others with my brother and me. Of his being admitted into our Society (if it deserves so honorable a title) there is no danger. All those gentlemen whom I have the happiness to converse with two or three times a week upon a religious account would oppose me to the utmost should I attempt to introduce among them at those important hours one of whose prudence I had had so short a trial and who was so little experienced in piety and charity. Several of the points you mention deserve a fuller consideration than I have leisure to give them. I shall ever own myself extremely obliged for the freedom with which you mention them, and have endeavored to answer you with the same freedom, which I am persuaded will not be disagreeable to you. That my dear friend, now with God, was much disordered in his understanding. I had often observed long before he left England. That he was likewise sincerely religious, all observed; but whoever had seen his behavior in the successive stages of his illness might as easily have mistaken darkness for light as his madness for his religion. They were not only different, but opposite too; one counteracting the other from its beginning. I cannot better describe his religion than in the words of the person who wrote his elegy: Mild, sweet, serene, and tender was her mood, Nor grave with sternness, nor with lightness free! Against example resolutely good, Fervent in zeal and warm in charity!