Wesley Corpus

To Ebenezer Blackwell Date: EPWORTH, April 16, 1752. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1752) Author: John Wesley --- 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.