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times in condescension to the whims of others, when he had ceased to attach any importance to it, and must have perceived the exceeding inconvenience of the practice. One of the charges which the virulent Toplady brought against him was, that of having immersed a certain Lydia Sheppard, in a bathing tub, in a cheesemonger's cellar in Spitalfields, and holding her so long under water, while he deliberately pronounced the words of administration, that she was almost insensible when she was taken out. The story was related on her own authority, which probably was not the best in the world. But Wesley's course of life brought him into contact with persons under every disease of mind, and in all the intermediate stages between madness and roguery. Crazy people, indeed, found their way to him as commonly as they used to do to court, though with less mischievous intention. They generally went in a spirit of pure kindness, to enlighten him, and correct his errors.

Two ignorant dreamers, while the French prophets had a party in this country, called upon him at the Foundry, saying, they were sent from God to inform him, that very shortly he should be born'd again; and they added, that they would stay in the house till it was done, unless he turned them out. Wesley knew how to deal with such prophets as these; he assured them that he would not turn them out, showed them into the Society room, and left them to themselves. "It was tolerably cold," he says, "and they had neither meat nor drink." There, however, they sate from morning till evening, then quietly walked off, and troubled him with their company no more.

A woman came to him one day, with a message from the Lord, she said, to tell him he was laying up treasures on earth, taking his ease, and minding only eating and drinking. "I told her," says he, "God knew me better; and, if he had sent her, it would have been with a more proper message." The idle notion, that he was enriching himself, prevailed among persons who might easily have known bet

ter. He received a letter from the Board of Excise, telling him the commissioners could not doubt but that he had plate, for which he had neglected to make an entry, and requiring him immediately to make a proper return. His answer was, "Sir, I have two silver tea-spoons at London, and two at Bristol: this is all the plate which I have at present; and I shall not buy any more, while so many round me want bread.”

In the beginning of his career, Wesley perceived that there was more danger of the growth of infidelity than of superstition; and this opinion was confirmed by his after-experience. He discovered, in the beautiful vale of Lorton, that Deism had found its way into the heart of the Cumbrian mountains; and near Manchester he found, what he had never heard of in England, a whole clan of infidel peasants, who had been scoffed and argued out of their belief, by the vulgar ribaldry and impudent ignorance of an ale-house keeper. Of the persons whom he met with in this unhappy state of mind, some were contented to live without God in the world, and be as the beasts that perish, as if they had succeeded in annihilating their diviner part. But others confessed the misery of wandering in doubt and darkOne who, having been a zealous Romanist, had cast off Popery and Christianity together, said to him, "I know there is a God, and I believe him to be the soul of all, the anima mundi; if he be not rather, as I sometimes think, the To Пav the whole compages of body and spirit every where diffused. But further than this I know not; all is dark; my thought is lost. Whence I came, I know not; nor what, nor why, I am; nor whither I am going. But this I know, I am unhappy; I am weary of life; I wish it were at an end."

ness.

For men in this pitiable state Wesley was an excellent physician, and he had not unfrequently the satisfaction of knowing, that his advice was not given in vain. He himself had gone through this stage of doubt in early life, and has described the perplexity of his mind with great force and feeling.

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"After carefully heaping up," he says, "the strongest arguments which I could find either in ancient or modern authors, for the very being of a God, and (which is nearly connected with it) the existence of an invisible world, I have wandered up and down musing with myself, what if all these things which I see around me, this earth and heaven, this universal frame, have existed from eternity? What if that melancholy supposition of the old poet be the real case?

Οιη περ φύλλων γενεη τοιηδε και ανδρων.

What if the generation of men be exactly parallel with the generation of leaves, if the earth drop its successive inhabitants, just as the tree drops its leaves? What if that saying of a great man be really true, Post mortem nihil est, et ipsa mors nihil.— Death is nothing, and nothing is after death. How am I sure that this is not the case? that I have not followed cunningly-devised fables?' And I have pursued the thought till there was no spirit in me, and I was ready to choose strangling rather than life."*

On the other hand, there could not be a more dangerous counsellor for persons with a certain tendency to derangement, for he seems always to have delighted to believe extraordinary things which he ought to have doubted, and to have encouraged sallies of enthusiasm which he ought to have repressed. Thus, speaking of a lady who exhibited

*Wesley introduced a remarkable passage of this kind in one of his sermons. "The devil," said he, "once infused into my mind a temptation that, perhaps, I did not believe what I was preaching. Well, then,' said I. I will preach it till I do.' But, the devil suggested, what if it should not be true? Still,' I replied, I will preach it, because, whether true or not, it must be pleasing to God, by preparing men better for another world.' But what if there should be no other world?' rejoined the Enemy. I will go on preaching it,' said I, because it is the way to make them better and happier in this." This passage is not in Mr. Wesley's works, but I relate it, with perfect confidence, on the authority of the late Dr. Estlin, of Bristol, who heard him preach the sermon, and whom I will not thus cursorily mention, without an expression of respectful remembrance.

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before him her gift of extempore prayer, he says, "such a prayer I never heard before; it was perfectly an original; odd and unconnected, made up of disjointed fragments, and yet like a flame of fire: every sentence went through my heart, and I believe the heart of every one present. For many months I have found nothing like it. It was good for me to be here." And again, after a second performance, he reasons upon the case, "Is not this an instance of ten thousand, of God's choosing the foolish things of the world to confound the wise? Here is one that has not only a weak natural understanding, but an impetuosity of temper, bordering upon madness. And hence both her sentiments are confused, and her expressions odd and indigested; and yet, notwithstanding this, more of the real power of God attends these uncouth expressions, than the sensible discourses of even good men, who have twenty times her understanding." The wonder would have ceased, if he had reflected upon the state of mind in the recipients.

Here he was the dupe of his own devout emotions, which, in a certain mood, might as well have been excited by the music of an organ, or the warbling of a sky-lark. But he was sometimes imposed upon by relations which were worthy to have figured in the Acta Sanctorum. One of his preachers pretended to go through the whole service of the meeting in his sleep, exhorting, singing, and preaching, and even discoursing with a clergyman, who came in and reasoned with him during his exhibition, and affecting, in the morning, to know nothing of what he had done during the night. And Wesley could believe this, and ask seriously by what principle of philosophy it was to be explained! He believed also that a young woman, having received a strong impulse to call sinners to repentance, was inwardly told, that if she would not do it willingly, she should do it whether she would or not: that from that time she became subject to fits, in which she always imagined herself to be preaching; and that having cried out at last, Lord, I will obey thee, I will call sinners to repen

tance, and begun to preach in consequence, the fits left her. In the history of this remarkable man, nothing is more remarkable than his voracious credulity. He accredited and repeated stories of apparitions, and witchcraft, and possession, so silly, as well as monstrous, that they might have nauseated the coarsest appetite for wonder; this, too, when the belief on his part was purely gratuitous, and no motive can be assigned for it, except the pleasure of believing. The state of mind is more intelligible, which made him ascribe a supernatural importance to the incidents that befel him, whether merely accidental, or produced by any effort of his own. Strong fancy, and strong prepossession, may explain this, without ascribing too much to the sense of his own importance. If he escaped from storms at sea, it appeared to him that the tempest abated, and the waves fell, because his prayers were heard. If he was endangered in travelling, he was persuaded that angels, both evil and good, had a large share in the transaction. "The old murderer," he says, "is restrained from hurting me, but he has power over my horses." A panic seized the people, in a crowded meeting, while he was preaching upon the slave trade: it could not be accounted for, he thought, without supposing some preternatural influence : “ Satan fought, lest his kingdom should be delivered up." If, in riding over the mountains in Westmoreland, he sees rain behind him and before, and yet escapes between the showers, the natural circumstance appears to him to be an especial interference in his favour. Preaching in the open air, he is chilled, and the sun suddenly comes forth to warm him: the heat becomes too powerful, and forthwith a cloud is interposed.So, too, at Durham, when the sun shone with such force upon his head, that he was scarcely able to speak, "I paused a little," he says, "and desired God would provide me a covering, if it was for his glory. In a moment it was done; a cloud covered the which troubled me no more. sun, Ought voluntary humility to conceal this palpable proof, that God still heareth the prayer?" At another time the sun,

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