Wesley Corpus

DEAR SAMMY, - According to the Act of Toleration, - 1. You are required to certify to the Registrar of the Bishop's Court or the Justices the place of your meeting for divine worship. This is all you have to do. You ask nothing at all of the Bishop or Justices. 2. The Registrar or Clerk of the Court is 'required to register the same, and to give a certificate thereof to such persons as shall demand the same; for which there shall be no greater fee or reward taken than sixpence.' I advise you to go once more to the Sessions, and say, 'Gentlemen, we have had advice from London: we desire nothing at all of you; but we demand of your clerk to register this place and to give us a certificate thereof, or to answer the refusal at his peril.' Answer no questions to justices or lawyers but with a bow, and with repeating the words, 'Our business is only with your clerk: we demand of him what the Act requires him to do.' If you judge proper, you may show this to any of the Justices. [Wells was Assistant at Tiverton, to which circuit Exeter belonged.] What I have written, I am ready to defend. PS. - You led the Justices into the mistake by your manner of addressing them. Beware of this for the time to come; you have nothing to ask of them. To Mr. Samuel Wells, At Mr. Gidley's, Officer of Excise, Exeter. To Elizabeth Padbury LONDON, February 10, 1779. MY DEAR BETSY, - A letter from you is always agreeable. I feel a sincere affection for you; so much the more because you are free and unreserved, both when you write and when we converse together. I am glad you think of me when you do not see me. Distance need not be any bar to affection. It is good that you should be tenderly concerned for those of your own household; but so as always to hold that anchor fast, 'Not as I will, but as Thou wilt.' And you have great reason to hope that sooner or later prayer will prevail for them. But the time God has reserved in His own hand, and we know 'His manner and His time are best.'