Wesley Corpus

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. To Miss Gretton, At Mr. Derry's, In Grantham, Lincolnshire. To Thomas Rutherford LONDON, February 23, I783. DEAR TOMMY, -- I am glad you have wrote to Brother Blake [Robert Blake. See letters of Feb. 9, 1783, and Dec. 24, 1784 (to Blake).] to go into Ballyconnell Circuit. He has wrote me a very proper letter. If you can bring William West to make any concessions, I am willing to try him again. [West had been admitted on trial in 1782, and was appointed to Enniskillen. He moved from there to Limerick at the next Conference.] I believe the books in Dublin were confused enough; for I doubt Joseph [Joseph Pilmoor was Assistant there. The books were Wesley’s publications, including the Arminian Magazine. He afterwards returned to America. See letter of March 27, 1771.] did not take much better care of them than he did of the people.