Wesley Corpus

To Ellen Gretton Date: DEPTFORD, February 16, 1783. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1783) Author: John Wesley --- MY DEAR SISTER, -- If you enter into a new state, the first steps you take will be of the utmost importance. Leave nothing to the morrow, but begin exactly as you hope to go on. It might be of use for Mr. Christian and you carefully to read over and consider those Directions to Married Persons which are in the fourth volume of Sermons. [Miss Gretton was about to marry William Christian. See letters of Dec. 31, 1782, and April 25, 1783, to her. For Directions for Married Persons, by William Whateley, which appears in the Christian Library, vol. xxiv, and in an abridged form in the Sermons, see Green’s Bibliography, No. 163.] Whatever family follows those directions will be as a city set upon an hill. I am glad to hear that regular preaching is already begun at Skillington: we have no time to lose. If a few should be awakened there, I doubt not the work will increase, and perhaps you will have a larger sphere of action than ever you had yet. Meantime be faithful in that which is little! -- I am, my dear sister, Your affectionate brother.