Wesley Corpus

To Ebenezer Blackwell Date: EPWORTH, April 16, 1752. DEAR SIR, After taking a round of between three and four hundred miles, we came hither yesterday in the afternoon. Mrs. Wesley and her daughter left London with him on March 15, and visited Birmingham, Manchester, and Birstall on the way to Epworth. See Journal, iv. 12-19. My wife is at least as well as when we left London: the more she travels the better she bears it. It gives us yet another proof that whatever God calls us to He will fit us for; so that we have no need to take thought for the morrow. Let the morrow take thought for the things of itself. I was at first a little afraid she would not so well understand the behavior of a Yorkshire mob; but there has been no trial: even the Methodists are now at peace throughout the kingdom. It is well if they bear this so well as they did war. I have seen more make shipwreck of the faith in a calm than in a storm. We are apt in sunshiny weather to fie down and sleep; and who can tell what may be done before we awake You was so kind as to say (if I did not misunderstand you) that you had placed the name of Richard Ellison among those who were to have a share of the money disposed of by Mr. Butterfield. Richard Ellison who married Wesley's sister Susanna had lost his property, and appealed to Wesley, who interested Blackwell in the case. See Stevenson's Wesley Family, pp. 283-4; and letter of July 3, 1751. Last night he called upon me. I find all his cows are dead, and all his horses but one; and all his meadow-land has been under water these two years (which is occasioned by the neglect of the Commissioners of the Sewers, who ought to keep the drains open): so that he has very little left to subsist on. Therefore the smallest relief could never be more seasonable than at this time.