Wesley’s Letters: Volume Three Illustrations

GEORGE WHITEFIELD Frontispiece

This portrait, in the National Portrait Gallery, was painted by John Wollaston. The close fellowship between Whitefield and the Wesleys influenced the Evangelical Revival on every side, as Wesley showed in the funeral sermon preached on November 18, 1770. It seems probable that this portrait was painted by Wollaston in America, and is therefore a contemporary likeness of special interest.

Judge Francis Hopkinson (1737—1791), the Philadelphia poet, who signed the Declaration of Independence, and wrote in 1778 the humorous Battle of the Kegs, which was as good for the American cause as the winning of a real battle,’ published some laudatory verses in Wollaston’s honor in 1758, who gained a high reputation in Virginia, and painted a portrait of Washington’s mother.

FIRST LETTER TO MRS. WESLEY 64

Wesley had married Mrs. Vazeille on February 18, 1751, this letter was written March 27, 1751. It gives a happy picture of the first days of what proved a disastrous marriage.

MANUSCRIPT PAGES OF WESLEY’S ‘JOURNAL’ 208

The MS. pages of Wesley’s Journal for December 1751 are a unique treasure. They were found in a scrap-book of Mr. William­son Lamplough’s, and fill a gap in the printed Journal. They show that within ten months of their marriage Mrs. Wesley fretted herself almost to death with jealousy of her husband’s friends and fellow-­workers. Wesley had been able to accept it calmly, and when he explained things at large the cloud vanished for a season. The words in shorthand are— ‘My wife, upon a supposition that I did not love her, and that I trusted others more than her, had.”

WESLEY’S RESIGNATION OF HIS FELLOWSHIP 256

Wesley’s letter of Resignation of his Fellowship at Lincoln College calls to mind the debt which he and the Evangelical Revival owed to the College which gave him a home and a vocation before he sailed for Georgia and provided him with a settled income for a quarter of a century.

Edited by Michael Mattei
©2001 Wesley Center for Applied Theology. All rights reserved. No for-profit use of this text is permitted without the express, written consent of the Wesley Center for Applied Theology of Northwest Nazarene College, Nampa, Idaho 83686 USA. Contact the webmaster for permission.