Wesley Corpus

18. You assert, seventhly, that I am ‘myself as fond of riches as the most worldly clergyman’ (page 21). ‘Two thousand pence a week! a fine yearly revenue from assurance and salvation tickets!’ (page 8). I answer: (1) What do you mean by ‘assurance and salvation tickets’ Is not the very expression a mixture of nonsense and blasphemy (2) How strangely did you under-rate my revenue when you wrote in the person of George Fisher! You then allowed me only an hundred pounds a year, What is this to two thousand pence a week (3) ‘There is not a clergyman,’ you say, ‘who would not willingly exchange his livings for your yearly penny contributions’ (page 21). And no wonder: for, according to a late computation, they amount to no less every year than eight hundred eighty-six thousand pounds, besides some odd shillings and pence; in comparison of which the revenue of his Grace of Armagh or of Canterbury is a very trifle. And yet, sir, so great is my regard for you and my gratitude for your late services that, if you will only resign your curacy of Christ's Church, I will make over to you my whole revenue in Ireland. 19. But ‘the honor’ I gain, you think, is even ‘greater than the profit.’ Alas, sir, I have not generosity enough to relish it! I was always of Juvenal's mind, -- Gloria quantalibet, quid erit, si gloria tanrum est[ Satires, vii. 81: ‘What is glory without profit too’] And especially while there are so many drawbacks, so many dead flies in the pot of ointment. Sheer honor might taste tolerably well; but there is gall with the honey, and less of the honey than the gall. Pray, sir, what think you Have I more honor or dishonor Do more people praise or blame me How is it in Cork nay (to go no farther) among your own little circle of acquaintance Where you hear one commend, do not ten cry out, ‘Away with such a fellow from the earth’ Above all, I do not love honor with dry blows. I do not find it will cure broken bones. But perhaps you may think I glory in these. Oh how should I have gloried, then, if your good friends at Dant's Bridge had burnt my person instead of my effigy!