Wesley Corpus

When you mentioned, first your apprehension that you could manage the Kingswood School, and then your thoughts concerning Nancy Smith, [Mr. Smith was an apothecary at Bristol (Journal, iii. 254). Did Whitehead marry his daughter] it seemed to me that there might be a providential connexion between the one and the other--though not to the exclusion of James Hindmarsh: that I never thought of. Good will follow from the disagreement of Brother Proctor and Palmer. I should be apt to believe a dying woman. Be zealous! Be watchful!--I am Your affectionate friend and brother. To Mrs. Bennis [15] DUBLIN, July 24, 1769. MY DEAR SISTER,--If the reading over your papers has no other effect, this it certainly has--it makes me love you abundantly better than I did before: I have now a more intimate knowledge of you; I enter more into your spirit, your tempers and hopes and fears and desires, all which tends to endear you to me. It is plain one of your constant enemies, and the most dangerous of all, is evil reasoning. Accordingly the thing which you chiefly want is Christian simplicity. Brother Bourke [The Assistant at Limerick.] and you should carefully watch over each other in that respect, and let each deal faithfully with the other; let there be no reserve between you; encourage one another also to pray for and expect the continual and direct witness of the Spirit. They are by no means the best part of our preachers in any sense who doubt of this. I know but of one who had experienced the work that doubted concerning the witness-- namely, James Oddie [See letter of March 29, 1766.]; and I am afraid that for some time he has experienced neither the one nor the other. Two of your written books I send back by that lovely woman Jenny Moore [Mrs. Moore, of Augher. She received these safely after some delay. See Crookshank's Methodism in Ireland, i. 200.]; the third I must borrow a little longer. My dear friend, remember Your affectionate brother. To Ann Bolton [16] LEEDS, July 30, 1769.