Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

The causes of her rapid rise to distinction are not far to seek. Her wonderful talent for conversation at once proved an attraction to both men and women. But she was not merely a fluent talker, never at a loss for a word, a phrase or a metaphor; had this been her crowning recommendation, Dr. Johnson's long-standing friendship would never have been gained. Her talk was always sensible--the outcome of a well-furnished, retentive mind. Her judgment was sound, her discrimination delicate, and her grasp of fundamental truths consistently firm. She did not accommodate her opinions to meet the exigencies of different coteries, nor was she addicted to compromise. She was equally at ease in discussing the merits of _Rasselas_ with Dr. Johnson, the curiosities of art with Lord Orford, Roman history with Gibbon, and the state of the Church with Bishop Porteus. Not that she pretended equality of learning with such men, but she had just sufficient knowledge of various subjects to provoke a conversation, and enough cleverness to sustain it by "drawing out" the scholar who might be seated at her side. But this was not all. Her conversation sparkled with wit and repartee. "The mind laughed," says her friend Zachary Macaulay, "not the muscles; the countenance sparkled, but it was with an ethereal flame: everything was oxygen gas and intellectual champagne: and the eye, which her sisters called 'diamond,' and which the painters complained they could not put upon canvas, often gave signal by its coruscation, as the same sort of eye did in her friend Mr. Wilberforce, that something was forthcoming which in a less amiable and religiously disciplined mind might have been very pretty satire, but which glanced off innoxiously in the shape of epigrammatic playfulness."

Her genial disposition and good temper disarmed difference of opinion of anything harsh or unpleasant, and formed another credential for the prominence she attained in society. The absence of all artificiality in sentiment and manners, when contrasted with the straining after effect acquired by fashionably-bred ladies, also added to her attractions in the eyes of thoughtful men.

But whilst to these causes may be attributed her rapid rise into favour, it was undoubtedly owing to her unswerving and unassuming piety that she retained for so long the respect, confidence, and affection of varied orders of mind in London society.

At first she appears to have done little to enforce religious teaching amongst her acquaintances. Her moral and religious principles were known by the firm stand she took against common incentives to dissipation and irreligion--such as card-playing and Sunday entertainments--against the introduction of questionable topics, unseemly language, and vacuous frivolity into conversation. Her religious influence, thus far, was almost a silent or negative one; but it had its effect on others, and laid the foundation of that direct searching and far-reaching influence, which, under the Divine blessing, she wielded in later years.

Her interest in young people was notably illustrated by her efforts to foster the intellectual tastes of Lord Macaulay when a lad. She supplied him with standard books, which formed the nucleus of an excellent library, and advised him in his studies. To the child of six she thus writes:--"Though you are a little boy now, you will one day, if it please God, be a man; but long before you are a man I hope you will be a scholar[1]."

[Footnote 1: See _Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay_, by George Otto Trevelyan, M.P., vol. 1. pp. 35, 36]

When Hannah More began to produce books her reputation rose to literary fame. In 1775 she wrote a romantic poem, entitled _Sir Eldred of the Bouer_, with which was published another poem, written earlier, _The Bleeding Rock_. In the first the element of religion was not forgotten; and both works met with a flattering reception. Though, as we have seen, a woman of high Christian tone, with what we should consider strange inconsistency, she both wrote plays, which were acted, and attended the theatre herself.

In 1777 her tragedy, _Percy_, was brought out at Covent Garden Theatre. One of the results of this venture was a shower of invitations to the author of the play from a new circle of titled and distinguished people. The play was afterwards translated into German, and performed at Vienna with notable success.

On the death of Garrick in 1779, Hannah More broke off attendance at the theatre. Garrick's widow sought relief and solace in Hannah's company, and for many years a close friendship was kept up between the two ladies, although there could be but little intercourse on religious matters, Mrs. Garrick being a Roman Catholic. Before the actor's death Miss More had completed another play, _The Fatal Falsehood_, which was afterwards performed, and which elicited almost as much applause as _Percy_.

Miss More's experience of fashionable life had now lasted about six years. As her fame increased, her taste for society declined. The constant round of dinner-parties, conversation-parties, and assemblies of intellect and wealth, though at first full of attraction to one of her disposition, had begun to lose its charm. Her depth of character and her recognition of the claims of religion demanded a more satisfactory mode of spending her time and utilising her talents. For the next five years we find her often the guest of Mrs. Garrick, but gradually detaching herself from fashionable circles, studying theology, history, and science, writing poems, and engaged in other literary work.

Her chief literary work during this period consisted of _Sacred Dramas--Moses in the Bulrushes, David and Goliath, Belshazzar_, and _Daniel_. She was prompted to this undertaking by a desire to provide, not plays for the stage, but a substitute for some of the pernicious literature of the day which fell into the hands of young people, and also to afford instruction in the common facts of Scripture, The gross ignorance of the Bible amongst fashionable people astonished her one day, when Sir Joshua Reynolds told her that on showing his picture of Samuel to some great patrons they asked him who Samuel was? The work answered the purpose for which it was intended, and passed through nineteen editions, receiving high commendation from Bishop Lowth and others. Her poem _Sensibility_ was also included in this successful volume.

A poem, _The Bas Bleu, or Conversation_, written in a lively and facetious strain, owed its origin to the mistakes of a foreigner who gave the literal designation of the _Bas-Bleu_ to a party of friends who had been humorously called the "Blue Stockings."

At the King's request a manuscript copy of the poem was sent to him; and Dr. Johnson went so far in his praise of the effusion as to say that there was no name in poetry that might not be glad to own it. A little later Miss More wrote _Florio_, a poem describing the occupation of a young man of fashion, and his final escape from a life of pleasure to one of usefulness.

By the death of Dr. Johnson in 1784, Miss More lost the best friend she ever had in London. She had been with the Doctor at his last communion at St. Clement's Church, and saw too plainly his altered condition. Bound to each other by strong intellectual and stronger religious sympathies, the separation caused a void in Miss More's life which was never afterwards filled. Theirs was a friendship born at first sight. For more than ten years it grew and flourished, with mutual benefit and happiness to the stern moralist and his promising _protégé_. Whilst the rugged common-sense and sound literary judgments of the Doctor imparted increasing accuracy and insight to his friend's views of the world and of literature, it was the sparkle, freshness, and wit of Miss More's conversation, and her light-heartedness of character, that often dispelled the clouds of depression from the mental horizon of her sage and trusty adviser, and smoothed the rough edges of his outspoken opinions. In religion, it was probably the Doctor's uncompromising fidelity to first principles, and to a fearless practice of truth, that helped to fortify his "dear child," as he called Miss More, in maintaining her integrity amidst the bewildering voices and garish scenes of Vanity Fair.

IV.

COWSLIP GREEN.

About the time of Dr. Johnson's death, in 1784, Hannah More became the possessor of a rural spot, called Cowslip Green, some ten miles from Bristol. Here she built herself a cottage, intending to make it her place of retirement for a large portion of each year. In the cultivation of her garden she found leisure for reflection as well as an opportunity to pursue a favourite occupation.

The inroads which death had made in her circle of intimate friends, a growing dissatisfaction with the enjoyments of London life, and especially a keener sense of her responsibility, as a professed Christian, than she had hitherto experienced, led to a close self-examination, and to a scrutiny of the real motives of her life.

The result of this testing process showed itself in various ways. During occasional visits to London and attendance at parties she lost no opportunity of enforcing the truths of religion. Her silent witnessing was now exchanged for active exertion. The manners and practices of people who were amongst her most effusive admirers sometimes met with her indignant rebuke. Ladies of title, society beauties, and leaders of fashion, who were unapproachable by other religious influences, she urged in private to consider their spiritual interests. The method she adopted was not, usually, to start religious topics, but "to extract from common subjects some useful and awful truth, and to counteract the mischief of a popular sentiment by one drawn from religion." Perhaps a message which John Wesley once sent to her through a sister may have weighed considerably in deterring her from an entire severance from the fashionable world. "Tell her to live in the world; _there_ is the sphere of her usefulness; they will not let _us_ come nigh them."

Not content with personal and private reproof, advice, and entreaty, she now devoted her pen to the denunciation of folly and vice in high places. In her work, _Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society_, whilst protesting against prevalent irreligious practices and habits of dissipation, which even good people sanctioned, she sought to arouse a sensitive regard for mutual responsibility as set forth in the New Testament.

In 1788 the slave trade formed a burning question in Parliament. Miss More, intensely aroused by the descriptions presented of the horrible traffic, found vent for her feelings in a poem on the subject. About the same time a close friendship began with Wilberforce, which lasted to the end of life.

A yet more important friendship commenced at this period--one that was destined to work a powerful influence on Miss More's life. The Rev. John Newton, one of the leaders amongst the evangelical clergy, held the incumbency of St. Mary Woolnoth. Attendance on his ministry led to a correspondence and a deep friendship. John Newton was precisely the kind of man whom Hannah More needed to assist her in spiritual progress, and to direct her steps into paths of settled peace. Her letters to Mr. Newton, stating her difficulties and seeking counsel, breathe the spirit of the humble and sincere scholar of Christ. Her willingness to obey the Master whom she professed to serve, and her earnest desire to be brought into closer relations with God, although checked, had never been stifled by the claims of intellect or by the attractions of the world. From this time the work of the Holy Spirit in deepening her love for the Saviour became more and more prominent. Turning for a time from Christian work amongst the rich, Miss More now devoted her efforts to the improvement of the moral and religious condition of the poor.

About ten miles from Cowslip Green was the picturesque village of Cheddar, the population of which was sunk in ignorance and depravity. The incumbent lived at Oxford, and the curate at Wells, twelve miles off. There was but one service a week, and no pastoral visitation whatever. There were thirteen parishes in the neighbourhood without even a resident curate. Drunkenness and utter inefficiency prevailed to a terrible extent amongst the clergy in this district; whilst education was a question that never troubled either the clergy or the people.

At Cheddar Hannah and her sister Patty opened a school; and in a short time nearly 300 children attended regularly. The sisters had to combat strong prejudices amongst the farmers. By dint of much persuasion and flattery the opposing forces were at length won over, even to hearty concurrence.

Masters and mistresses were procured for teaching reading, seeing, knitting, and spinning, and giving religious instruction on Sundays. A second school was shortly opened in an adjoining parish, the vicarage-house, which had remained uninhabited for a hundred years, having been put into repair for the purpose.

During 1790 Miss More published a volume entitled, _An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World_. The book was quickly bought up, and within two years reached a fifth edition. The prevailing indifference to vital religion, the corruptions of society, the decline of domestic piety, and the absence of religion from the education of the upper classes were the themes treated by the writer with unsparing candour and convincing force.

Encouraged by her success at Cheddar, Miss More, with her sister Patty, went further afield, and selected two mining villages on the top of the Mendip Hills as the next scene of her labours. The difficulties here were even greater than those at Cheddar. The neighbourhood was so bad, we are told, that no constable would venture to execute his office there. Friends warned the Misses More that their lives would be in danger if they persisted in their project. The people imagined that the sisters had come to make money by kidnapping their children for slaves.

Undaunted by obstacles and perils, the workers persevered, until in no less than ten parishes schools were commenced, which, before long, were attended by 1200 children. In every parish the acquiescence of the incumbent was first obtained before proceeding to open a school. At the evening meetings, to which adults were invited, a simple sermon was read by one of the sisters, and also a printed prayer and a psalm. Few mistresses could be found who had not owed their religious impressions to Wesleyan influence; and thus Hannah More was subsequently, though mistakenly, thought to be a Methodist. Although influenced by the Methodist revival, she always considered and professed herself to be a member of the Episcopal Church.

Whilst immersed in her village work, she was earnestly solicited to write a popular tract that might help to counteract the baneful influence of Jacobin and infidel publications, and infamous ballads, which were now scattered broadcast over England. She declined the task, doubtful of her efficiency to produce a pamphlet equal to the occasion. On second thoughts, however, she tried her powers in secret, and issued anonymously a lively dialogue called _Village Politics_, by "Will Chip." The success was phenomenal. Friends ignorant of the authorship sent her copies by every post within three or four days of publication, begging her to distribute the pamphlet as widely as possible. In a short time copies were to be found in all parts of the kingdom. Hundreds of thousands were circulated in London. Such was the enthusiasm that private persons printed large editions at their own expense, whilst the Government sent off quantities to Scotland and Ireland. At last the secret came out; and the author was deluged with congratulations and thanks. Some persons of sound judgment declared that _Village Politic_ had essentially contributed, under Providence, to prevent a revolution, whilst others went so far as to allege that Miss More had "wielded at will the fierce democratie of England, and stemmed the tide of misguided opinion."

A little later Miss More wrote another pamphlet, by way of reply to the atheistical speech of Dupont to the National Convention, and devoted the profits, amounting to £240, towards the relief of the French emigrant clergy.

In 1794, or early in 1795, she commenced the issue of tracts. This was a form of literary work not much used in those days. The founders of the Religious Tract Society, realising the value of this kind of work, but considering that Miss More's tracts needed supplementing with some which should in every case contain the simple communication of the Gospel, began in 1799 to undertake the dissemination of religious knowledge. Sunday schools, through the energy of Mr. Raikes, were rising in various parts of the country; the poorer classes were learning to read; and nothing in the shape of cheap literature was provided to meet their new craving, except mischievous broadsheets and worthless doggerel. Hannah More set to work to supply something healthy to amuse, instruct, and edify the new order of readers. She produced regularly every month for three years, three tracts--simple, pithy, vivacious, consisting of stories, ballads, homilies, and prayers. She was sometimes assisted by one of her sisters and two or three friends; but the burden of the work, including heavy correspondence with local committees in almost every district of England, fell upon her shoulders. In order to issue the brochures at a cheap rate and to undersell pernicious publications, she found it necessary to raise a subscription. Her appeal met with a liberal response; and very shortly the lively tracts, with a rough woodcut on the title-page, came by thousands from the printer's hands. In the first year no less than two millions were sold. Amongst the tracts were _The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, Black Giles the Poacher, History of Mr. Fantom, The Two Shoemakers, History of Tom White the Postilion, The Strait Gate and the Broad Way;_ and amongst the ballads _Turning the Carpet, King Dionysius and Squire Damocles, The Honest Miller of Gloucestershire, The Gin-Shop, or A Peep into a Prison_.

It would be difficult to over-estimate both the direct and secondary value of the Cheap Repository Tracts. Their beneficial influence must have been incalculable; and for this reason they should be placed amongst the greatest and best work of Hannah More's useful life.

By 1798 Miss More had withdrawn almost entirely from London society, contenting herself with a yearly visit of two months, which she divided between Mrs. Garrick, Bishop Porteus, Lord Teignmouth, and one or two others. Her schools occupied the best part of her time; but frequent attacks of illness often interfered with her duties.

In 1799 her active pen was at work again. Her third ethical publication, _Strictures on Female Education_, came out, forming yet another counterblast to the corrupt systems in vogue amongst the wealthy classes.

It would have been marvellous had Miss More escaped persecution in her work amongst rural populations. Combating prejudices, introducing unheard-of innovations, adopting plans which rumour stated were deeply tainted with Methodism (and therefore bad, according to clerical and general opinion in those days), she had to encounter at last a pitiless storm of hostility. This violent and prolonged attack, whilst it showed to what infamous lengths the tongues of slander, envy, and bigotry could go in attempting to destroy a noble woman's reputation, tested to the utmost Hannah More's fine qualities of Christian forbearance and courage.

V.

BARLEY WOOD, CLOSING YEAES AND DEATH.

In 1802 Miss More removed from Cowslip Green to a house which she had built at Barley Wood, about a mile distant. Soon afterwards her sisters, having disposed of their house at Bath, came to live with her. For the next twenty years, or more, friends from all parts sought her society, and strangers of all ages and of all ranks came for advice, sympathy, and help. Her immense correspondence occupied a very large portion of her time. There was scarcely a person at all prominent in the religious world who was not brought into association with her.

Miss More's prolonged life did not close until 1833, when she had arrived at her eighty-ninth year. The thirty-one years that remained to her after quitting Cowslip Green was as full of work and usefulness as the previous part of her life. It will be impossible within the space now left to do more than indicate the chief events of this period, which was not remarkable for any fresh departure either in educational or religious work. Miss More had already marked out for herself two distinct and definite lines of usefulness--the education of the poor, and the improvement of morals and religion amongst the rich. By her active exertion and by her busy pen she continued to pursue these two lines of work down to the year of her death. It must be remembered that she was a martyr during these latter years to long attacks of illness, one of which almost completely prostrated her for two years; and when upwards of seventy she was unable to leave the house for more than seven years. At this period she stated that she had never been free from pain for long together since she was ten years old. Such physical hindrances render her persistent activity and the great work she accomplished all the more remarkable. When not entirely incapacitated she still worked with her pen, attended to business connected with her schools, and received visitors in the sick room. It used to be said amongst her friends that when she was laid aside they always expected a new book from her.

In 1805 she published _Hints towards forming the Character of a Young Princess_. It was undertaken, at the request of a bishop, with reference to the education of the Princess Charlotte.

In 1809 her religious novel, _Coelebs in Search of a Wife_, issued anonymously, roused universal attention. In twelve months as many editions came out; and during the author's lifetime thirty editions of a thousand copies each were printed in America. This was followed shortly by _Practical Piety_, which soon ran to the tenth edition, and which brought the author to the end of her life numerous gratifying testimonies of its results. As a sequel to this work, _Christian Morals_ was published in 1812, and was also widely circulated. Three years later, when the author had entered her seventieth year, she wrote an _Essay on the Character and Writings of St. Paul_, in two volumes, which, notwithstanding absorbing political events, was received with the same eagerness which greeted her former works. _Moral Sketches of Prevailing Opinions and Manners, Foreign and Domestic_, was published in 1819, being chiefly directed against the rage for copying French customs and manners. At the age of eighty-two she collected from her later works her _Thoughts on Prayer_ and re-issued them in a little volume, with a short preface. This was her last literary effort. She said to a friend that the only remarkable thing which belonged to her as an author was that she had written eleven volumes after the age of sixty.

Between 1813 and 1818 her four sisters died. The last to go was Martha, Hannah's trusty helpmeet and lieutenant in all her benevolent schemes, and her tender consoler in many a season of sickness. Soon after this event Miss More's long illness of seven years occurred. Unable to give proper supervision to her servants, she was victimised in household matters in various ways. Extravagance and misconduct at length gave rise to scandal; and at the representation of friends Miss More reluctantly decided to break up her establishment, and remove to another and smaller residence at Clifton. It was with a sad heart that she left her charming dwelling; and as she glanced back into the beautiful garden, with its shady bowers, she exclaimed, "I am driven, like Eve, out of Paradise; but not, like Eve, by angels."

She lived five and a half years at Clifton, tranquilly waiting for the end, and attending, as far as failing strength would permit, to the distribution of her charities, the work of her schools and the entertainment of friends.

Almost to the last she retained unimpaired the use of her faculties. The intellectual vivacity of early days often reappeared. During one of her illnesses some one remarked, in allusion to the struggle of the remnant of sin in a person recently awakened to the truth, "The old man dies hard!" "The old woman dies hard!" exclaimed the invalid. At eighty-three she said, "I have too many petty cares at that age when the grasshopper is a burden. I have _many_ grasshoppers, and seem to have less time and more labour than ever."

Her last days were spent almost entirely in prayer, invoking blessings on those around her and on the village work which lay so near her heart. She said to a friend during her last illness, "To go to heaven, think what _that_ is! to go to my Saviour who died that I might live! Lord, humble me, subdue every evil temper in me. May we meet in a robe of glory! Through Christ's merits alone can we be saved... Lord, I believe--I _do_ believe with all the powers of my weak, sinful heart. Lord Jesus, look down upon me from Thy holy habitation; strengthen my faith, and quicken me in my preparation. Support me in that trying hour when I most need it! It is a glorious thing to die!" No vanity or self-praise on the ground of her life's labours ever found a place in her thoughts. Some one began to speak of her good deeds. "Talk not so vainly," she exclaimed; "I utterly cast them from me, and fall low at the foot of the cross." She sank gradually, and without pain, and on September 7, 1833, quietly passed away.

There are few thoughtful students who will hesitate to rank Hannah More with the leading religious and educational reformers of the eighteenth century. In essential matters she was a kindred spirit with Whitfield, Wesley, Raikes, and others, and worked, in the way marked out for her by God, for the regeneration of her country.

With regard to her books, she believed they would be little read after her death. To a considerable extent her judgment has been verified. Her writings were a continual seed-sowing, which later workers fertilised, and brought to maturity.

They were republished in eleven volumes in 1830. Besides the prominence given to their religious or moral purpose, most of them are remarkable for sustained fervour, persuasiveness of tone, and practical common sense. We give a few extracts from some of the principal works, to illustrate Hannah More's methods of appealing to the conscience and awakening spiritual concern.

"There are two things of which a wise man will be scrupulously careful--his conscience and his credit. Happily, they are almost inseparable concomitants; they are commonly kept or lost together; the same things which wound the one usually giving a blow to the other; yet it must be confessed, that conscience and a mere worldly credit are not, in all instances, allowed to subsist together....

"Between a wounded conscience and a wounded credit, there is the same difference as between a crime and a calamity. Of two inevitable evils, religion instructs us to submit to that which is inferior and involuntary. As much as reputation exceeds every worldly good, so much, and far more, is conscience to be consulted before credit--if credit that can be called, which is derived from the acclamations of a mob, whether composed of 'the great vulgar or the small'"--_Christian Morals_ (chapter xxiv.).

"One cause, therefore, of the dulness of many Christians in prayer, is their slight acquaintance with the sacred volume. They hear it periodically, they read it occasionally, they are contented to know it historically, to consider it superficially; but they do not endeavour to get their minds imbued with its spirit. If they store their memory with its facts, they do not impress their hearts with its truths. They do not regard it as the nutriment on which their spiritual life and growth depend. They do not pray over it; they do not consider all its doctrines as of practical application; they do not cultivate that spiritual discernment which alone can enable them judiciously to appropriate its promises, and apply its denunciations to their own actual case. They do not use it as an unerring line, to ascertain their own rectitude, or detect their own obliquities."

* * * * *

"The discrepancies between our prayers and our practice do not end here. How frequently are we solemnly imploring of God that 'His kingdom may come,' while we are doing nothing to promote His kingdom of grace here, and consequently His kingdom of glory hereafter."

* * * * *

"Prayer draws all the Christian graces into its focus. It draws Charity, followed by her lovely train, her forbearance with faults, her forgiveness of injuries, her pity for errors, her compassion for want. It draws Repentance, with her holy sorrows, her pious resolutions, her self-distrust. It attracts Faith, with her elevated eye,--Hope, with her grasped anchor,--Beneficence, with her open hand,--Zeal, looking far and wide to serve,--Humility, with introverted eye, looking at home. Prayer, by quickening these graces in the heart warms them into life, fits them for service, and dismisses each to it appropriate practice. Cordial prayer is mental virtue; Christian virtue is spiritual action."--_The Spirit of Prayer_ (chapters iii., viii., and xi.).

"If good we plant not, vice will fill the place,
And rankest weeds the richest soils deface.
Learn how ungoverned thoughts the mind pervert,
And to disease all nourishment convert.
Ah! happy she, whose wisdom learns to find
A healthful fancy, and a well-trained mind.
A sick man's wildest dreams less wild are found
Than the day-visions of a mind unsound.
Disordered phantasies indulged too much.
Like harpies, always taint whate'er they touch.
Fly soothing Solitude! fly vain Desire!
Fly such soft verse as fans the dang'rous fire!
Seek action; 'tis the scene which virtue loves;
The vig'rous sun not only shines, but moves.
From sickly thoughts with quick abhorrence start,
And rule the fancy if you'd rule the heart:
By active goodness, by laborious schemes,
Subdue wild visions and delusive dreams.
No earthly good a Christian's views should bound,
For ever rising should his aims be found.
Leave that fictitious good your fancy feigns,
For scenes where real bliss eternal reigns:
Look to that region of immortal joys,
Where fear disturbs not, nor possession cloys;
Beyond what Fancy forms of rosy bowers,
Or blooming chaplets of unfading flowers;
Fairer than o'er imagination drew,
Or poet's warmest visions ever knew.
Press eager onward to these blissful plains,
Where life eternal, joy perpetual reigns."

_The Search after Happiness_.

HENRY JOHNSON.

SUSANNA WESLEY.

I.

PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION.

The mother of John Wesley was the daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley, an eminent minister of the Church of England at the period of the great Civil War. He resigned his charge, being one of the two thousand who, after the Restoration, declared for Nonconformity, and preached their farewell sermons in the Established Church, on the 17th of August, 1662. He found his sphere in the meeting-house of Little St. Helen's, Bishopsgate.

Dr. Annesley's second wife, the mother of Susanna, was a woman of eminent piety, and beloved of all who knew her. "How many children has Dr. Annseley?" was a question asked of the eminent Puritan preacher Manton, who had just been officiating at the baptism of one of the number. "I believe it is two dozen, or a quarter of a hundred," he replied. Such was the family into which the mother of the Wesleys was born on the 20th of January, 1669. Of this crowded household, the majority were daughters, and Susanna was the youngest of these. In her own Journals, which form the only account of her childhood, we read of several instances of her "preservation from accidents," and once from a "violent death." The method of her education is not clearly stated, but "the tree is known by its fruits." There is evidence that it was sound and liberal, and up to the best standard of the day in any rank of society. French and music were evidently among her attainments, while in her letters and treatises there are abundant tokens that logic and philosophy were also held in effective possession and use. She tells us that which might have been expected when she says that she "was early initiated and instructed in the first principles of the Christian religion;" and in after days we find her giving to her son a rule which had proved to be a blessing to her own girlhood--"Never to spend more time in any matter of mere recreation in one day, than I spend in private religious duties."

The thoroughness of her own "private religious duties" is shown by the fact that in the year 1700 she made a resolution to spend one hour morning and evening in private devotion. This practice she kept up through life as far as circumstances would admit.

II.

THEOLOGICAL STUDIES.

Soon we find Susanna Wesley studying the works of Jeremy Taylor, of the early Puritan Divines, and the immortal Bunyan, till at length her vigour of intellect and enterprise in reading led her into danger. By reading Arian and Socinian authors of the period, her faith was shaken. This, however, was not to be for long, and the manner of her recall was marked by interesting circumstances.

It is at this juncture that Samuel Wesley, her future husband, first appears in the story as the friend of her soul. This young student, seven years her senior, had himself made "proof" of Socinianism. In the course of some literary work, he had been specially well paid for the translation of Socinian writings from the Latin; but his strong mind revolted from their principles, the task was resigned, and his faith became more firmly rooted in Christ as the eternal Son of God. In this frame of mind Mr. Wesley met Susanna Annesley, and by God's help, succeeded in accomplishing her complete extrication from the meshes of doctrinal error and distress.

It can be gathered from her writings, about this time, that the salutary change proceeded not out of complaisance to the lover, but by reception of a fulness of light from heaven. Clearness, zeal, and love mark her _Meditations and Disquisitions on the Holy Trinity; the Godhead and Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ; the Personality and Work of the Holy Spirit_.

Another epoch in the girlhood of this remarkable young lady was the engagement, somewhat previously, of her mind in the controversy between the Church and Nonconformity. Here she had ample opportunity of being well-informed, for her father's house was the resort of many able men on both sides of the question. The result was that, with all due respect toward her beloved parent, she, renounced his ecclesiastical views and attached herself to the Established Church. "I was educated among the Dissenters," she writes, "and because there was something remarkable in my leaving them at so early an age, not being full thirteen, I had drawn up an account of the whole transaction, under which I had included the main of the controversy between them and the Established Church as far as it had come to my knowledge." Clearly, Susanna Wesley is not to be considered as having merely accepted the ecclesiastical situation, turning "Churchwoman" by marriage.

III.

MARRIAGE.

Dr. Annesley's daughters were remarkable for their personal beauty, and from all accounts it would seem that the subject of this narrative shared this "dower." She was of average stature and slight frame.

"Some time, late in 1689 or early in 1690," Susanna Annesley was married to Samuel Wesley. Mr. Wesley was at that time a curate at a salary of £30 a year, and with his newly-wedded wife, took lodgings in London till the autumn of 1690, when he received the living of South Ormsby, in Lincolnshire, through the presentation of the Marquis of Normanby.

While exercising, in his pastoral duties, a diligence and faithfulness such as to put him for the most part above censure, the young husband toiled hard in literary work for the support of his household, and by various publications of a theological character in verse and prose--at one time a metrical _Life of Christ_, at another a treatise on _The Hebrew Points_, and chiefly by articles in Dunton's _Athenian Oracle_--he earned the means of keeping his family at least above distress.

About the close of 1696 Samuel Wesley was presented to the parish of Epworth--a place destined to be irrevocably associated with his name. This promotion is said to have been awarded him by special desire of the Queen, to whom he had dedicated his _Metrical and Illustrated Life of Christ_.

IV.

EPWORTH.

Mr. and Mrs. Wesley, with their family of four children--one son and three daughters, the youngest of these being an infant in arms--duly took possession of their new sphere. The promotion proved to be a hard parish and a humble abode. The landowners were comparatively poor, and of small culture in mind or morals. The people were proportionately subject to hardships in their mode of life, and were rude and even "savage" in character, as events were soon to prove.

There were seven rooms in the straw-roofed parsonage requiring new furniture, which had to be procured with borrowed money--a beginning of things that formed a grievous burden for many a day. The trade of the place consisted chiefly in the dressing of flax, which was extensively grown in the fields of the river-island of Axholme, in-which the village of Epworth stood, with its population of two thousand. The parsonage shared in this trade; but misfortunes soon came thickly.

A fire broke out (not the one that has become so celebrated) in 1702, and destroyed a third part of the house. Mrs. Wesley and the children were in the study when the alarm was raised, and "the mother, taking two of them in her arms, rushed through the smoke and flame;" another was with difficulty saved, and happily none were lost. A year later the rector's whole crop of flax was consumed.

The famous fire took place in 1709. According to Mrs. Wesley's account--"When we opened the street door, the strong north-east wind drove the flames in with such violence that none could stand against them. But some of our children got out through the windows, the rest through a little door into the garden. I was not in a condition to climb up to the windows, neither could I get to the garden door. I endeavoured three times to force my passage through the street door, but was as often driven back by the fury of the flames. In this distress I besought our blessed Saviour for help, and then waded through the fire, as I was, which did me no further harm than a little scorching my hands and my face." The sequel is of undying interest to the Church and the world. One sweet child, six years of age, had been left sleeping upstairs: the father made frantic attempts to reach him by the burning staircase, but in vain, and finally fell on his knees in the passage, solemnly committing the child's soul to God.

The boy, awaking after some bewilderment with the glare that looked to him as daylight, climbed upon a chest at the window, and was seen. Men, rightly guided, did not lose the last chance by waiting for a ladder, but, mounting one upon the other's shoulders, some two or three in this way saved the child, who became the famous John Wesley.

When John had been saved, the father turned to the men who had saved the boy, with the words: "Come, neighbours, let us kneel down; let us give thanks to God; He has given me all my eight children. Let the house go; I am rich enough."

This terrible occurrence was attended by consequences which made the noble Christian mother anxious for her children, in another way. Being now dispersed among various households of the village for sleeping accommodation, the little ones were, for a time, in danger of those evil communications that corrupt good manners. From this the kindness of the few who sheltered them could scarcely defend them, for the malice of the many was great against their parish minister. The grounds of ill-will and persecution were political rather than personal. It is strongly suspected that these fires were, in every instance, the deed of incendiaries. The rector's cattle had been mutilated. The children had curses flung at them in the street, and on occasion of Mr. Wesley's absence at Lincoln to record his vote, many cowardly devices were resorted to by way of alarming the family at all hours of the night. One new-born child had been, owing to Mrs. Wesley's exhaustion and danger, committed to the care of a nurse. This poor woman, losing sleep by the cruel noises purposely raised outside, at last, far in the night, fell into a heavy slumber and "overlaid the child." Cold and dead, they brought it to the poor mother.

It was political spite, also, that was at the bottom of the conduct of a creditor, who caused the rector to be arrested for debt, at the church door, after a baptismal service, and hurried off to Lincoln Castle, "leaving his lambs among so many wolves." In prison Mr. Wesley engaged in an earnest work of evangelising his "brother jail-birds," as he called them; his conduct at this period more than realising the world-renowned picture which Goldsmith has drawn of his incarcerated Vicar of Wakefield. Susanna Wesley now strove to support herself and her children by means of the diary, but, fearing lest her husband should be pining in want, she sent to him her wedding-ring, beseeching him by this to get a little money for his comfort. He returned it with words of tender gratitude, saying that "God would soon provide." Indeed, being by this time regarded as a martyr to his political principles, he was approached by some brethren of the clergy seeking to deliver him, and an arrangement was made, after three months, by which he was liberated.

V.

THE SCHOOL IN THE HOME.

It would appear that, ultimately, the family of Susanna Wesley was almost as numerous as that of her father had been. A singular want of accuracy characterises all the records, but it is safe to say that her children were some eighteen or nineteen in number. Death came often during those years of persecution. John Wesley speaks of the serenity with which his mother "worked among her thirteen children;" but ten was the number of those who were spared to enjoy the blessing of that enlightened, affectionate, and admirable training on her part, which has been so fully recorded, and of which the fruits were witnessed especially in the eminence of her sons Charles and John. She paid the utmost attention to physical training. Punctuality in the hours of sleep was carefully carried out from infancy through the years that followed. The rules regarding food were all admirable, and the younger children were early promoted to a place at the parents' own table. Mrs. Wesley has committed all these matters to writing, and her own words are valuable for their wisdom. "In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer the will. To inform the understanding is a work of time, and must, with children, proceed by slow degrees as they are able to bear it. But the subjecting the will is a thing which must be done at once, and the sooner the better." "Then a child is capable of being governed by the reason and piety of its parents, till its own understanding comes to maturity."

Again she writes: "Cowardice and fear of punishment often lead children into lying," and accordingly, to save her own from temptation, the rule was--"whoever was charged with a fault of which they were guilty, if they would ingenuously confess it and promise to amend should not be beaten." The most careful discrimination was made between inadvertent and deliberate falsehood.

"If they amended, they were never upbraided afterward." Kindly commendation was regularly awarded to obedience evidently done at a sacrifice. "When the thing crossed the child's own inclinations, and when any of them performed an act of obedience, or did any thing with an intention to please, though the performance was not well, yet the obedience and intention were kindly accepted, and the child with sweetness directed how to do better for the future."

Recreation was liberally allowed, and outdoor physical amusements encouraged. "High glee and frolic," so notably appearing in the narrative that, in after days, some writers thought to turn this matter against John Wesley, remarking that he had himself been indulged by his mother at home in amusements which he was now prohibiting to the students under him at college. He made the difference of age and the demands of duty his defence, rather than any difference of principle.

Here, surely, the motherly instinct of this remarkable woman may be of use to-day, in clearing the line of duty in the question of amusements.

"Your arguments against horse-races do certainly conclude against masquerades, balls, plays, operas, and all such light and vain diversions. I will not say it is impossible for a person to have any sense of religion who frequents these; but I never, throughout the course of my long life, knew as much as one serious Christian that did; nor can I see how a lover of God can have any relish for them."

"Take this rule--whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off the relish of spiritual things--in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind--that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself."

She fixed the age of five for the teaching to a child the letters of the alphabet; and tells us that in all cases except two, the first day saw the conquest of the alphabet. The birthday festivities over, next morning the child went to the schoolroom of the house, where no one must come into the room from "nine till twelve or from two till five," while the teacher devoted herself entirely to that one pupil. Another feature of the method was the abolition of the study of syllables, and the immediate and usually successful advance into words and sentences, such as the opening verses of the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

"It is almost incredible," said Mrs. Wesley, "what a child may be taught in a quarter of a year." To this period belongs the well-known incident--when one day Mr. Wesley said to his wife while engaged in repeating a lesson to a dull child, "I wonder at your patience: you have told that child twenty times that same thing," and the mother replied--"Had I satisfied myself by mentioning the matter only nineteen times, I should have lost all my labour; you see, it was the twentieth time that crowned the whole."

VI.

THE CHURCH IN THE HOME.

The children at Epworth were well grounded in the observance of Divine worship. We may look in vain in the records of many families for anything so deep and so beautiful as that one thing which is told of them--that before they could kneel or speak the little ones were taught to ask a blessing on their food by appropriate, signs. Repeating, as soon as they were able to articulate, the Lord's Prayer morning and evening, they were encouraged to add sentences of prayers of their own conceiving, petitions for their parents, and requests for things of their own earnest desire. From this period, in each case, the parental eye was already carefully looking forward, to the time when the mind should begin to think for itself; and to help them in this important matter, Mrs. Wesley, remembering her own mental struggles, prepared for her children a book of Divinity, written for their special edification.

In due time, as the children grew a little older, days of the week were allotted to each of them, for special opportunity of conversation with their mother, as distinct from being catechised by her. This was for the purpose of dealing with "doubts and difficulties." Of the well-recorded list of days and names the "Thursday with Jacky," and "Saturday with Charles," will mostly arrest the reader now. These days came to be fondly treasured in the memory of all the children.

Twenty years after John Wesley had left home, it is touching to hear him say---"In many things you have interceded for me and prevailed. Who knows but in this too--a complete renunciation of the world--you may be successful?" "If you can spare me only that little part of Thursday evening which you formerly bestowed upon me in another manner, I doubt not it would be as useful now for correcting my heart, as it was then for forming my judgment."

Yet one more feature of Mrs. Wesley's plan of education was that of the children's appointed conversations with one another, the eldest with the youngest, the second eldest with the next in age, and so on. To this good purpose was devoted the better space available in the rooms of the "New Rectory," built after the fire.

VII.

STRUGGLES WITH POVERTY.

All this work of education, intellectual and spiritual, was conducted under severe pressure of poverty. When Mr. Wesley received the living of Epworth, it cost him fifty pounds to have the great seal affixed to his title, and to remove his family to the place. This unfortunately was but a specimen of the hard conditions under which he held his cure.

Lord Oxford wrote to the celebrated Dean Swift, soliciting his name as a subscriber to Mr. Wesley's book on Job--"The person concerned is a worthy, honest man; and by this work of his, he is in hopes to get free of a load of debt which has hung upon him some years. This debt is not owing to any folly or extravagance of his, but to the calamity of his house having been twice burnt, which he was obliged to rebuild. This is in short the case of an honest, poor, worthy clergyman, and I hope you will take him under your protection."

A wealthy brother of Mr. Wesley professed himself quite "scandalised" at the constant struggles of the family, and did a little for the wiping away of the reproach, but no more. "Tell me, Mrs. Wesley, whether you ever really wanted bread?" said the good Archbishop Sharp one day, by way of preface to a very generous donation on the spot. "My Lord," was the reply, "I will freely own to your grace that, strictly speaking, I never did want bread. But then I had so much care to get it before it was eat, and to pay for it after as has often made it very unpleasant to me. And I think to have bread on such terms is the next degree of wretchedness to having none at all."

"All this, thank God," said Mr. Wesley, "does not in the least sink my wife's spirits. She bears it with a courage which becomes her, and which I expected from her."

Mrs. Wesley's meditations on the matter carry with them an unchanging serenity of mind. "That man whose heart is penetrated with Divine love, and enjoys the manifestations of God's blissful presence, is happy, let his outward condition be what it will. This world, this present state of things, is but for a time. What is now future will be present, as what is already past once was. And then, as Pascal observes, a little earth thrown on our cold head will for ever determine our hopes and condition. Nor will it signify much who personated the prince or the beggar, since, with respect to the exterior, all must stand on the same level after death."

In a very dark hour she writes: "But even in this low ebb of fortune I am not without some kind interval...I adore and praise the unsearchable wisdom and boundless goodness of Almighty God for this dispensation of His providence towards me. For I clearly discern there is more of mercy in this disappointment of my hopes than there would have been in permitting me to enjoy all that I desired, because it hath given me a sight and sense of some sins which I had not before. I would not have imagined I was in the least inclined to idolatry, and covetousness, and want of practical subjection to the will of God.... Again, the furnace of affliction which now seems so hot and terrible to nature, had nothing more than a lambent flame, which was not designed to consume us, but only to purge away our dross, to purify and prepare the mind for its abode among those blessed ones that passed through the same trials before us into the celestial paradise.... How shall we then adore and praise what we cannot here apprehend aright! How will love and joy work in the soul! But I cannot express it; I cannot conceive it."

VIII.

A NEW DEPARTURE.