Editor's Introductory Notes: 1765

[1] Wesley rode on January 12 'to Mr. Downing's, at Ovington, in Essex, about six-and-fifty miles from the Foundery.' The next day he preached in the church in the morning, at Titbury in the afternoon, and in Mr. Downing's house at seven. See letter of April 6, 1761. Charles Wesley endorses this letter, 'B[rother] expelling his witnesses because ordained by J. Jones's ordainer.' For Joseph Sutcliffe's account, which throws a flood of light on Wesley's difficulties with these preachers and his own clergymen friends, see heading to letter of February 27.

[2] In the issue of the St. James's Chronicle for January 12, 1765, appeared a letter from A. P., Oxford, about the ordinations by a Greek bishop. This led J. T. in the issue for January 29-31 to put four questions to Wesley. He adds: 'Suffer me also to call upon the Rev. Mr. T[homas] M[axfield] publicly to justify his conduct in employing as his assistant a cheesemonger, who cannot certainly know whether he is ordained or not.' This is Wesley's answer. See letters of January 11 and February 10 and 27.

[3] Joseph Sutcliffe says that a Conference was held at the Foundery on January 7, 1765. 'Present, Rev. John Wesley, Rev. John Richardson, Rev. Benjamin Colley; John Jones, M.D., John Murlin, John Mager; and Henry Hammond, John Norton, Christian Bromley, James Ward, John Redhall, John Butcher, Robert Clemenson, and Thomas Lee, Stewards. Agreed that James Thwayte, Benjamin Russen, James Satles, Richard Perry, Thomas Bryant, and John Oliver, having acted contrary to the Word of God and the duty they owe to their ministers and their brethren,

1. Can no more be owned as clergymen,

2. Can no more be received as preachers,

3. Nor as members of the Society.'

The six names were exposed in Lloyd's Evening Post. Sutcliffe says the offence was that they had paid five guineas each to the Greek bishop (then in London) for ordination, and that the sentence had been required by the Rev. Messrs. Madan, Romaine, and Shirley. 'Mr. Charles, Dr. Dodd, De Coetlogon (the colleague of Madan at the Lock Chapel), were wise enough to keep back their names.'

After about a month the six brethren asked to be restored to their Plans as local preachers, when Wesley sent them the following reply:

[4] Party spirit was strong in Parliament. 'The Bill for laying a stamp duty in the British Colonies in America' received the Royal Assent by commission on March 22; and Wesley had little hope that any Bill for the relief of Nonconformists would be passed.

[5] John Newton (1725-1807) the slave-trader was ordained deacon in 1764, published the Olney Hymns with Cowper 1779, and became incumbent of St. Mary Woolnoth 1780. His Narrative was issued in 1764, the year he settled at Olney. He replied to Wesley on April 18: 'Mr. Hervey's Letters have not wounded me at all. In my personal regard for you they have made no abatement, in my sentiments in other respects no alteration.' He says that, since he first met Wesley seven years before, he had seen no reason to discard his Calvinistic principles. He defends his own position, criticizes Wesley's teaching as to Perfection, and gives his view of Hervey.

[6] John Erskine, of the Old Greyfriars Church, Edinburgh, had just republished the Eleven Letters from the late Rev. Mr. Hervey to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, with a caustic Preface. The volume 'made a great deal of noise,'and led Wesley to write this letter to him. Erskine asserted that Wesley had concealed his sentiments, and Wesley printed the letter to show that it was simply written 'out of love to him and concern for the cause of God.' See Journal, v. 111-12n; Tyerman's Wesley, ii. 530-1; and letters of October 14, 1757, and May 23, 1768.

[7] Wesley says in his Journal of this date, 'I wrote the following letter to a friend.' It was sent from the house of Alexander Knox, who had invited him to stay with him on the 11th instant, and proved his steadfast supporter. William Bull quotes part of it in his Life of Rev. John Newton, and says that Wesley wrote two more letters, 'controversial, but Christian and conciliatory.' These we have not been able to trace. On November 14, 1760, Newton told Wesley about his preaching in Grimshaw's parsonage in August: 'Methinks here again you are ready to say, Very well, why not go on in the same way' He gives reasons why he could not become an itinerant (see letter in Arminian Magazine, 1780, PP. 441-4). Newton found it difficult to secure ordination.

[8] When Wesley visited Lady Maxwell on April 23, he was glad to find that her mind was not hurt by the Hervey Letters, which had been reprinted in Edinburgh. See letter of April 24.

[9] Wesley dined with James Knox on June 26, 1760, and speaks highly of the family. But when he returned to Sligo on May 1, 1762, their spirit was quite changed, and they treated him as an entire stranger. On May 11, 1765, Alexander Knox, of Londonderry, 'accommodated me with a convenient lodging at his own house,' Wesley wrote. 'So one Mr. Knox is taken away, and another given me in his stead.' At Sligo on May 28 not a few of the hearers showed 'a total want of good sense, of good manners, yea of common decency.' Wesley missed his old friend, and wrote this letter of remonstrance on the night before he left Sligo. The last words of the letter, 'He came to nothing!' do not appear in the Works. See Journal, iv. 394-5, 502; v.115, 127- 8.

[10] Wesley's friend Miss Lewen (whom he first met on May 2, 1764) took him in a chaise from Birmingham to Derby on March 20, 1765. Her niece Margaret Dale was with her. She and her two sisters lived near Newcastle, under Miss Lewen's care. Their father, Edward Dale, of Tunstall, near Sunderland, married Eleanor, youngest of the three daughters of the Rev. John Lawrence, Rector of Bishop's Wearmouth. They had three daughters, Margaret, Mary, and Anne, and a son named Edward. The father died when his boy was an infant and Mary only eleven.

Peggy Dale (who was then twenty) became one of Wesley's most favoured correspondents. Thirty of his letters to her were handed down to her nephew, William Dale. It is said in the Life and Letters of Thomas Pelham Dale: 'It is evident that she would not have parted with these letters in her lifetime, especially to any one so religiously unsympathetic as William Dale must have been. Probably he had them from his father, her brother, not from her.' He came to London in 1780, and afterwards went to push his fortunes in the West Indies. He was never heard of again. The letters came into the hands of his son Thomas, Dean of Rochester, who gave some of them away. The rest are published in the Life and Letters (Nos. 2 and 12 being given in facsimile). Nos. 1, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13 14, 17, 25, 26, 27, 28 (vol. i. 7-26) are missing. For the rediscovered No. 8, see p. 321.

The Register of St. Andrew's, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, for March 4, 1773, gives the marriage of 'Edward Avison and Margaret Dale, spinster'; and on November 23, 1777, her burial appears--'Margaret, widow of Edward Avison, Organist.' The gravestone opposite the south porch reads: 'In memory of Edward Avison and Margaret his wife, who were eminent for piety and primitive simplicity of manners. Having each borne a lingering disease with the most exemplary patience and resignation, they rejoiced in the approach of death, and expired with hopes full of immortality. He died on October 1, 1776, aged twenty-nine; she in November 1777, aged thirty-three.' His younger brother, Charles, succeeded his father, Charles Avison, as organist of St. Nicholas's Church; and his son Charles was afterwards organist there. The grandfather is commemorated in Browning's 'With Charles Avison,' and is still remembered by the piece from one of his concertos, 'Sound the loud timbre!.' Charles Avison's tomb was restored by public subscription in 1890.

A deeply spiritual letter from Molly Dale to Wesley, dated June 18, 1765, is given in the Arminian Magazine, 1783, p. 327; and another, January 1, 1772, was in the possession of Mrs. B. F. Fielding in 1928. She was made leader of a band in 1770 by Peter Jaco, who was Assistant in Newcastle. In May and June 1790 Miss Ritchie visited Newcastle, where, she says, 'I spent some time with Miss Dale, and found sweet fellowship of spirit with her, and freedom among the people, although at first I thought them rather shy and distant.' On July 12 she writes to Mrs. Thornton, of London: 'Dear Miss Dale, whom I believe you know, is a blessed follower of our Lord. She is a person of one business. We are striving to help each other to sink into the life of humble love, that we may rise into the riches of our Saviour's grace; and He condescends to smile upon us.'

Anne Dale was married at St. Andrew's Church to John Collinson, of Southwark, had five children, and died in 1812: see heading to letter of May 20, 1769.

[11] George Story, who was appointed Assistant for Cornwall in August, became a gifted and devoted preacher in 1763, and from 1793 to 1808 was connected with the Book-Room as Editor and then as Manager of the Printing once. He died in 1818.

[12] Joseph Hoskins (Hosken), of Cubert, was the wealthy farmer with whom John Haime lived for a time in 1766 as his domestic chaplain. Wesley paid him several visits. But in 1778 he found the venerable man scarce half alive. 'However, he made shift to go in. a chaise to the preaching, and, deaf as he was, to hear almost every word.' He died on March 6, 1780. See Journal, v. 142; vi. 77, 123, 169, 208; and letter of September 16, 1766.

[13] This young preacher was probably Richard Walsh, admitted on trial in August, and stationed in Wiltshire. Richard Henderson the Assistant, was an Irishman who had come to England in 1762. He was a man of piety, good sense, and an amiable disposition, a very acceptable and useful preacher. After his retirement from the itinerancy he kept a private asylum at Hanham, near Bristol. See Journal, vii. 433; Atmore's Memorial, pp. 183-4; and letter of September 8, 1788.

[14] This letter and that of May 30, 1764, show the minute attention which Wesley gave to the life of his members and to the sale of his books. Jane Cooper died in 1762. Wesley called her 'a pattern of all holiness.' He published her Letters in 1764. See Journal, iv. 539; Green's Bibliography, No. 225.

[15] Kershaw was the second preacher at Yarm. He afterwards settled at Gainsborough, where he became famous for his quack medicines. He died at Ashby-de-la-Zouch. His Comment on the Book of Revelation in dialogue form was 'generally esteemed as a masterly performance.' See Atmore's Memorial, p. 237; and letters of February 17, 1759, and March 3, 1776 (to Mrs. Woodhouse).

[16] William Orpe was a yeoman farmer's son at Prestwood, in Staffordshire. He became an itinerant preacher at Leeds in August 1765, after a year on trial; and is said to have been 'one of the best Hebrew linguists of the day.' Wesley's esteem for him appears in the letters of December 14, 1765, and September 18 and December 16, 1766. He advises him as to his marriage on September 2, 1767. Wesley spelt his name 'Orp.'

[17] Wesley reached London on October 24, after a prolonged tour in Cornwall. The first letter to Bishop Lavington appeared in 1750, and the second (Wesley's reply to the Bishop's answer to the first) was issued in 1752. For details as to the registration of Methodist preaching-places, see Simon's John Wesley and the Advance of Methodism, pp. 57-9, 179-80; and also July 19, 1750.

[18] Lady Maxwell continued in this state for two years. Fear and hope alternately prevailed. Her labours for the poor and sick were unceasing, and before her death in 1810 more than eight hundred children had been trained in the school she established in Edinburgh. See Lancaster's Life of Lady Maxwell, p. 23.

[19] Thomas Williams belonged to a respectable Welsh family, and graduated at one of the Universities. He became a Methodist preacher in 1741. Thomas Walsh listened to him with deep and growing interest. He had a pleasing manner, and was a popular preacher, but impatient of control and sadly lacking in moral principle. After he was excluded from the Methodist brotherhood, he received ordination and laboured for some years at High Wycombe. See Crookshank's Methodism in Ireland, i. 25, and index; Atmore's Memorial, pp. 506-7; and heading to letter of August 13, 1747.

Moseley Cheek, Hopper's colleague in Newcastle, was a preacher from 1764 to 1769, and then became minister of St. Stephen's, Salford. Wesley preached at his door at Chepstow on August 31, 1763 (Journal, v. 29).

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