Wesley Corpus

From what motive a man should invent and publish all over England (for I have heard this in various places) an whole train of absolute, notorious falsehoods, I cannot at all imagine. On the contrary, I declare to all the world, (1) that Elizabeth Hobson was an eminently pious woman, that she lived and died without the least blemish of any kind, without the least stain upon her character; (2) that the relation could not possibly have been her own invention, as there were many witnesses to several parts of it, as Mr. Parker, the two attorneys whom she employed, Miss Hesmer, and many others; and (3) that I myself am fully persuaded that every circumstance of it is literally and punctually true. I know that those who fashionably deny the existence of spirits are hugely disgusted at accounts of this kind. I know that they incessantly labor to spread this disgust among those that are of a better mind, because if one of these accounts be admitted their whole system falls to the ground. But whoever is pleased or displeased, I must testify what I believe to be the truth. Indeed, I never myself saw the appearance of an unbodied spirit; and I never saw the commission of a murder. Yet upon the testimony of unexceptionable witnesses, I can firmly believe both one and the other. To William Robarts [9] FROME, September 12, 1782. I was much concerned when I saw you last; and as ‘life for delays no time will give,’ especially my life, which is far spent, I take the first opportunity of speaking once for all. You are in a large way of business, wherein I suppose you dear one (if not two or three) hundred a year. Over and above that you have an estate which, if you gave above thirty years' purchase, is an hundred a year. You have neither son nor daughter; and yet you cannot afford sixpence a month for the Magazine! Nay, you could not afford to give a guinea in a pressing case, viz. at the instance of an old tried friend!