Editor's Introductory Notes: 1767

[1] Many features of the previous three years are prominent in this period. If possible, Wesley was burdened more than ever by the care of all the Churches. He tells his brother on December 17, 1768, with something like a sigh, 'I have no time for Handel or Avison now.' But he made time to guide Joseph Benson in his reading at Kingswood, little thinking that he was preparing an editor of high capacity for his beloved Magazine, That was still unborn but Benson was evidently destined to be one of Wesley's most influential and powerful preachers.

[2] John Ellis was in Lincolnshire East. His sermons were 'generally accompanied with a divine power to the hearts of the people.' Rankin was Assistant in Lincolnshire West, where Ellis is given as his colleague in the Minutes of 1767. He suffered much fever and ague during the winter of 1766-7, and probably needed the help of Ellis. See Atmore's Memorial, pp. 118-20; Wesley's Veterans, vi. 162.

[3] Wesley says in his Journal, March 5, 1767: 'I at length obliged Dr. Dodd by entering into the lists with him. The letter I wrote (though not published till two or three weeks after) was as follows.' Dodd had attacked Wesley's doctrine of Christian Perfection in the Christian Magazine, of which he was editor. See Works, viii. 339-47; Green's Bibliography, No. 34; and letter of November 30, 1774, to Miss March.

[4] On March 4 Wesley 'dined at a friend's with Mr. Whitefield, still breathing nothing but love.' On the 20th, the day Whitefield reopened Lady Huntingdon's enlarged chapel at Brighthelmstone, he 'rode on through more storms to Liverpool'; but finding no ship to carry his horses, set out for Portpatrick on the 23rd. See Journal, V. 196, 201; Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon, i. 379; and for Richard Moss, the letter of January 16, 1756.

[5] Wesley was not disappointed. He crossed from Donaghadee on July 29, and, after visiting Glasgow and Edinburgh, reached Newcastle on August 6. On the 11th he settled with Miss Lewen's father some disputed matters as to her will. He agreed to pay the legacies on the 2nd of November; and we relinquished the residue of the estate. See Journal, v. 224-7; and letter of August 27.

[6] Many searching words about personal and family religion are in the 1766 Minutes. Richard Bourke was at Athlone. Wesley buried him on February 15, 1778; 'a more unblameable character I have hardly known.' See Journal, vi. 180; Minutes, 1778, John Dillon was at Cork. He was born in the Army, received His Majesty's pay at fourteen, fought at Dettingen and Fontenoy, became a preacher in 1765, and died at Dublin on May 11, 1770. See Atmore's Memorial, pp. 105-8; Crookshank's Methodism in Ireland, i. 235-6.

[7] The letter to which this is an answer is addressed to Jeoffry Wagstaffe, Esq., at the Mercury in Parliament Street, and signed Peter Traffick, who says: 'I am a man who carry on a considerable share of trade in this city.' He and his wife 'were remarkably a happy, industrious couple,' and 'might have been still blest, were it not for a cursed gospel gossip, a neighbour of ours, who seduced my wife, as the serpent did Eve, to go with her one evening to a Swaddling meetinghouse; when she came home, she did nothing but rave of the sanctity of those good people (as she called them) and of the heavenly man who preached.' The husband had forbidden her to go any more to the meetings, and had brought the curate of the parish to see her, but with no good result.

[8] Mrs. Bennis wrote on July 15: 'Your late visit [in May] to this city proved a great blessing to my soul; your word was accompanied with power, and enabled me more clearly to see the work of God on my heart, yet I cannot say I am satisfied.'

[9] Joseph Townsend, Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Rector of Pewsey, Wiltshire, in whose church Wesley preached on October 2, 1764, had studied in Edinburgh and his fellow student, Dr. Haweis, had married Townsend's sister, Mrs. Wordsworth. Townsend visited Scotland in 1767 on a mission from Lady Huntingdon, and spent two months in Edinburgh, where he preached at five in the morning to crowded congregations. He revisited Edinburgh, where he and De Courcy and Erasmus Middleton preached in Lady Glenorchy's chapel alternately with the Methodist preachers. The incongruity in teaching between the Calvinists and Methodists led Lady Glenorchy to withdraw from Wesley's Society. She wrote to a friend, 'The Methodists charge Mr. De Courcy with having influenced me, and Lady Maxwell in particular is greatly offended with me.' Wesley found the Methodist Society in 1770 reduced from one hundred and sixty to fifty. 'Such is the fruit of a single preacher's staying an whole year in one place! together with the labours of good Mr. Townsend.' See Journal, v. 98, 366; Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon, i. 411 ii. 159; and letter of Aug. 19, 1770.

[10] Miss Bosanquet had lost her father and mother. Mrs. Ryan, to whom Wesley probably refers, was in feeble health: 'I plainly saw she decayed fast.' They were at Bath, where she unexpectedly recovered. Richard Taylor came to London to settle with his creditors, and stayed with Miss Bosanquet at Leytonstone. He advised her to move to Yorkshire. See Moore's Mrs. Fletcher, PP. 69, 72; and letter of December 11, 1768.

[11] In Dale's Life and Letters this is dated 1765, but it is 1767. Wesley had been at Newcastle from August 6 to 12. The letter to her on June 18 shows how he had looked forward to this meeting.

[12] Wesley is here seen behind the scenes in his preacher's courtship. Orpe had been two years an itinerant, and Wesley gives him instructions as to the agreement it would be wise to make with his intended wife. The marriage evidently turned out well. His daughter Mary (Bray) married the Rev. Joseph Brookhouse; and their daughter married T. W. Young, son of the Rev. Robert Young.

[13] The Minutes for 1767 give, 'Glasgow, Dunbar--John Atlay, Thomas Simpson, and Joseph Thompson.' Thompson (see letter of September 23, 1770) had been at Edinburgh with Hilton the previous year, and was with Wesley at Aberdeen on June 8, 1766. Hilton left the Connexion in August 1777 'because he saw the Methodists were a fallen people.' He became a Quaker. See Journal, vi. 168-9 ; letter of October 7, 1773; and for Atlay, May 6, 1774.

[14] Robert Costerdine was born at Flixton in 1726. He became a preacher in 1764, and died in 1812. Wesley put his name in his Deed of Declaration in 1784. The 'A. H.' was Christopher Hopper, to whom Wesley wrote. See Journal, v. 243n; and letter of January 9, 1768.

[15] This may have been a circular letter to the Assistants. The signature alone is Wesley's. See Minutes, 1767: 'Can we make a push toward paying the whole debt I will state the case in writing to the most substantial men in our Society.'

[16] Mrs. Moon wrote from Potto on November 8, 1767: 'I found my heart much enlarged with thankfulness for Mr. Whitefield's coming among us. His conversation was so open and his spirit so full of universal love, that his word was attended with exceeding great power, which caused the rocks to rend and the humble hearts to weep tears of joy. He defended your doctrine and discipline and the people under your care, both in public and in private, with such love and boldness as I never saw before. May the Lord reward his labours with everlasting joy.' See Methodist Magazine, 1798, pp. 45-6; and letter of October 6.

[17] This letter has been mutilated, and only these portions are left.

[18] This was written at the back of a printed circular letter sent out by Wesley on November 30, 1767, concerning the General Debt.

[19] This letter is addressed on the back 'To Mr. Francis Gilbert in Chester,' but in pencil is written 'For Miss G. Wood.' A Short Account of Miss Mary Gilbert, daughter of Nathaniel Gilbert, of Antigua, describes her uncle's removal from Kendal to Chester in 1765. She died there on January 21, 1768, in her seventeenth year. Francis Gilbert, who was ruined by a dishonest clerk in St. John's, came to England and joined the Methodists. He was a zealous preacher and leader. See Bretherton's Methodism in and around Chester, pp. 72-82. Wesley needed rest, which, he said on December 13, 'was not to be had.' The Rev. Vincent Perronet wrote from Shoreham on December 31.

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