1733

To his Mother [1]

February 15, 1733.

DEAR MOTHER,--I am glad to hear that my father continues recovering, though it can be but very slowly, considering how his strength is exhausted. 'Tis well if this time spring does not betray him into a relapse, by tempting him out before his health is confirmed.

Of poor Becky my sister Molly says not one word, so I presume she is as she was; and hope I may make the same inference as to you--viz. that you are only half tired to death.

The more I think of the reason you gave me at Epworth for speaking little upon religious subjects, the less it satisfies me. ' We shall all be of your mind when we are of your age.' But who will assure us that we shall ever be of that age Or suppose we should, is it not better to be of that mind sooner Is not a right faith of use at thirty as well as at sixty and are not the actions that flow from a right faith as rewardable now as then I trust they are, and do therefore earnestly desire that, whatever general or particular rules of life your own reflection and experience have suggested to you, I may be tried whether I will conform to them or no. If I do not, the blame lights on me. At this season especially I would not neglect any help for mortifying the flesh and the lusts thereof, for throwing off the affections of the earthly Adam, and putting on the image of the heavenly. If I am to be surrounded with the snares of flesh and blood yet many years, will you not give me the best advices to break through them that you can If I, as well as you, am soon to be laid in the balance, so much the rather assist me, that I may not be found wanting.

You observed when I was with you that I was very indifferent as to having or not having Epworth living. I was, indeed, utterly unable to determine either way; and that for this reason: I knew if I could stand my ground here and approve myself a faithful minister of our blessed Jesus, by honor and dishonor, through evil report and good report, then there was not a place under heaven like this for improvement in every good work. But whether I can stem the torrent which I saw then, but see now much more, rolling down from all sides upon me, that I know not. True, there is One who can yet either command the great water-flood that it shall not come nigh me, or make way for His redeemed to pass through. But then something must be done on my part; and should He give me even that most equitable condition, ' according to thy faith be it unto thee,' yet how shall I fulfill it Why, He will look to that too; my father and you helping together in your prayers, that our faith fail us not.

--I am, dear mother,

Your dutiful and affectionate Son.

From Richard Morgan to John Wesley

March 10, 1733.

DEAR SIR,--I am favored with yours of the 28th past, and am very sorry to find by it that anything has happened to give you any uneasiness. I give you my word and honor that I never read or showed your letter to me of October last to any mortal, but laid it up safe, and have it so still; neither did I communicate to any one the contents of my letter to my poor son which you make mention of: so that they must have come to be known by some other means in England. I have indeed taken occasion to a very few, with whom I had some discourse formerly on the subject of those reports then spread abroad of my son and his associates, to vindicate him and them from those aspersions from the several hints and accounts you was so kind to furnish me with in your epistle, but never produced the letter itself. I am sure that both you and your learned friends in England are much better judges how to manage the pamphlet you mention than I can pretend to be; and am the more at a loss to give any opinion concerning it, because I am not able to collect from your letter whether it is intended as a satire or vindication. I am apt to believe that you are so kind as to be under some concern lest, if this pamphlet should fall into my way, it might give me some trouble. [ An octavo pamphlet of 30 pages: 'The Oxford Methodists: Being an Account of some Young Gentlemen in that City, in Derision so called; setting forth their Rise and Designs, &c.' By a gentleman who sought an interview with them and defended them against the attack in Fogg's Weekly Journal of Dec. 9, 1732. The pamphlet appeared in Feb. 1733. See Tyerman's Wesley, i. 85-8; Green's Anti-Methodist Publications, No. 1.] But pray let no such thought disturb you, for you fully satisfied me before in everything: nothing that your adversaries can say or write can alter my good opinion both of you and your actions. I am really sorry that your good designs should be so misrepresented and misconstrued: I hope in time they may meet with due rewards in this world; I am sure they will in the next.

I wrote to your brother (the business follows)--If ever it lies in my power to oblige either him or you, I shall most cheerfully do it; for I am with great sincerity his, and, dear sir,

Your very affectionate humble servant, RICHARD MORGAN.

To his Father

June 13, 1733.

The effects of my last journey, [The Diary for May 1733 says, 'Journey to Epworth 1.0.6.' He spent Sunday with his friend Clayton in Manchester, and then went on to Epworth.] I believe, will make me more cautious of staying any time from Oxford for the future; at least, till I have no pupils to take care of, which probably will be within a year or two. One of my young gentlemen told me at my return that he was more and more afraid of singularity; another, that he had read an excellent piece of Mr. Locke's;[ 2 John Locke (1632-1704) His nephew, Lord Chancellor King, had a decisive influence on Wesley's ecclesiastical views (see letter of Dec. 30, 1745, p. 54). The piece referred to is that on' Authority '(Essay, folio ed. p. 341): ‘The wrong measure or probability which keeps in ignorance or error more people than all the other together is the giving up our assent to the common received opinions, either. of our friends or party, neighborhood or country.’] which had convinced him of the mischief of regarding authority. Both of them agreed that the observing of Wednesday as a fast was an unnecessary singularity; the Catholic Church (that is, the majority of it) having long since repealed by contrary custom the injunction she formerly gave concerning it. [Robert Nelson, the Nonjuror (1656-1715), whose Festivals and Fasts was much commended in the Holy Club, says of the 'ancient Christians': ' Their weekly fasts were kept on Wednesdays and Fridays, because on the one our Lord was betrayed and on the other crucified. These fasts were called their stations, from the military word of keeping their guard, as Tertullian observes.' See letter of Jan. 13, 1735.] A third, who could not yield to this argument, has been convinced by a fever and Dr. Frewin. [Richard Frewin (1681-1761), of Christ Church, physician. and Camden Professor of Ancient History, 1727, See letter of Jan. 14, 1734.] Our seven-and-twenty communicants at St. Mary's were on Monday shrunk to five; and the day before, the last of Mr. Clayton's pupils who continued with us informed me that he did not design to meet us any more.

My ill success, as they call it, seems to be what has frightened every one away from a falling house. On Sunday I was considering the matter a little more nearly; and imagined that all the ill consequences of my singularity were reducible to three--diminution of fortune, loss of friends and of reputation. As to my fortune, I well know, though perhaps others do not, that I could not have borne a larger than I have; and as for that most plausible excuse for desiring it, ' While I have so little, I cannot do the good I would,' I ask, Can you do the good God would have you do It is enough ! Look no farther. For friends, they were either trifling or serious: if triflers, fare them well -- a noble escape; if serious, those who are more serious are left, whom the others would rather have opposed than forwarded in the service they have done and still do us. If it be said, ' But these may leave you too; for they are no firmer than the others were ': first, I doubt that fact; but, next, suppose they should, we hope then they would only teach us a nobler and harder lesson than they have done hitherto--' It is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in man.' And as for reputation, though it be a glorious instrument of advancing our Master's service, yet there is a better than that--a clean heart, a single eye, a soul full of God! A fair exchange, if by the loss of reputation we can purchase the lowest degree of purity of heart 1 We beg my mother and you would not cease to work together with us, that, whatever we lose, we may gain this; and that, having tasted of this good gift, we may count all things else but dung and dross in comparison of it.

To his Mother

August 17, 1753,

The thing that gives offence here is the being singular with regard to time, expense, and company. This is evident beyond exception, from the case of Mr. Smith, [William Smith, Fellow of Lincoln, and apparently one of the Oxford Methodists. On Aug. L x732, Clayton wrote to Wesley (who was then in London, where he was elected a member of the S.P.C.K., and visited William Law at Puthey) that since he had left Oxford no one had attacked Smith and himself. ' I have gone every day to Lincoln, big with expectations to hear of some mighty attack made upon Mr. Smith; but, I thank God, I have always been disappointed: for not one of the Fellows has once so much as tried to shake him or to convert him from the right way, &c.' After his return from Georgia, at Oxford on Feb. 11, 1737, Charles Wesley (see his Journal, i. 68) exhorts 'poor languid Smith' to resume all his rules of holy living.] one of our Fellows, who no sooner began to husband his time, to retrench unnecessary expenses, and to avoid his irreligious acquaintance, but he was set upon, by not only all those acquaintance, but many others too, as if he had entered into a conspiracy to cut all their throats; though to this day he has not advised any single person, unless in a word or two and by accident, to act as he did in any of those instances.

It is true, indeed, that 'the devil hates offensive war most '; and that whoever tries to rescue more than his own soul from his hands, will have more enemies and meet with greater opposition than if he was content with 'having his own life for a prey.' That I try to do this is likewise certain; but I cannot say whether I 'rigorously impose any observances on others ' till I know what that phrase means. What I do is this: when I am entrusted with a person who is first to understand and practice, and then to teach, the law of Christ, I endeavor, by an intermixture of reading and conversation, to show him what that law is--that is, to renounce all insubordinate love of the world, and to love and obey God with all his strength. When he appears seriously sensible of this, I propose to him the means God hath commanded him to use in order to that end; and, a week, or a month, or a year after, as the state of his soul seems to require it, the several prudential means recommended by wise and good men. As to the times, order, measure, and manner wherein these are to be proposed, I depend upon the Holy Spirit to direct me, in and by my own experience and reflection, joined to the advices of my religious friends here and elsewhere. Only two rules it is my principle to observe in all cases: first, to begin, continue, and end all my advices in the spirit of meekness, as knowing that' the wrath ' or severity' of man worketh not the righteousness of God '; and, secondly, to add to meekness longsuffering, in pursuance of a rule which I fixed long since--never to give up any one till I have tried him at least ten years. How long hath God had pity on thee

If the wise and good will believe those falsehoods which the bad invent, because I endeavour to save myself and my friends from them, then I shall lose my reputation, even among them, for, though not perhaps good, yet the best actions I ever did in my life. This is the very case. I try to act as my Lord commands: ill men say all manner of evil of me, and good men believe them. There is a way, and there is but one, of making my peace: God forbid I should ever take it! I have as many pupils as I need, and as many friends; when more are better for me, I shall have more. If I have no more pupils after these are gone from me, I shall then be glad of a curacy near you: if I have, I shall take it as a signal that I am to remain here. Whether here or there, my desire is to know and feel that I am nothing, that I have nothing, and that I can do nothing. For whenever I am empty of myself, then know I of a surety that neither friends nor foes, nor any creature, can hinder me from being 'filled with all the fullness of God.' Let not my father's or your prayers be ever slack in behalf of

Your affectionate Son.

From Richard Morgan to Charles Wesley [2]

September 6, 1733.

DEAR SIR,--Having demonstration of yours and your brother's sincerity and friendship, I desire your consulting together and to give me your opinion in this nice point. I make no doubt but you have heard from my dear son Will that I have one other, now my only son. It is now three years and a quarter since he left school, having been then fit to enter the University, and at least as good a scholar as his brother was when he went to Oxford. I then purchased an office for him in the Law, which diverted me from sending him to the University. I fear he has read but very little of Greek or Latin since, and that he has forgot a great deal of what he had learned at school; but I don't think his parts very bad. He was nineteen years of age last July, and is very lusty of his age, I believe 5 foot xo inches high. He has been somewhat gay and gone sometimes to plays and balls, but addicted to no vice. He has often wished rather to have been put forward in his learning than to stick to an office; which, if practicable, I am now inclined to indulge him .in. Then pray be so kind as to give me yours and your brother's opinion, whether in two years he may attain to a tolerable knowledge of the Latin and Logic and what other learning you think proper to qualify him for the study of the Law, that he may then commence in the Inns of Court; whether you would advise to enter him a Commoner or Gentleman Commoner, and what may be the expense of maintaining him decently in either quality. If it be advisable to put him in this new way of life, you may be sure I can think of no other for his tutor but yourself.

I am heartily glad to hear of the recovery of the good old gentleman your father, to whom and your good brother pray my best respects; and believe me to be,

Most sincerely and affectionately yours, RICHARD MORGAN.

Pray don't delay favoring me with your answer about my son. The more I think of this new scheme, the fender I am of it, and therefore would lose no more time. Be so kind as to look out for proper chambers for him, at least as good (if to be had) as those his brother had, the rent to commence from next Michaelmas; for I don't despair of his being with you by that time if you advise it, and will send Mr. Lasher's money by him when I know how much it is: and pray write immediately to Bristol to stop sending off the books, and order them back to Oxford. My Lord Primate being now in the country, I don't care to wait for his franking this, the postage of which I will order to be repaid you. Pray let me know if you be yet in Holy Orders, [Charles Wesley was ordained deacon on Sept. 21, and priest Sept. 29, 1735.] or if not when you expect to be, that I may not mistake in addressing to you.

From Richard Morgan to Charles Wesley

October 20, 1733.

DEAR SIR,--Yours and your brother's favors of the 14th September I received, and most greatly esteem the candor, generosity, and apparent integrity of both of you. I readily acquiesce under your opinions, and I expect that my son will sail to-morrow to make the best of his way to Oxford. My dear son Will's books, &c., arrived here, which were reshipped to-day, [See previous letter and that of Sept. 5, 1732.] with a few more books and necessaries, for Bristol, with directions to forward them to your brother at Lincoln College.

Young lawyers and other gentlemen here have persuaded my son that he should be pointed at and slighted if entered a Commoner at his age and stature. I have reasoned with him of the liberties and inconveniences that Gentlemen Commoners are exposed to. In answer he has given me the greatest assurances that the station shall have no bad influence on him, but that he will be as conformable to all the rules and discipline of the College as if he were a servitor; that he is only desirous to enter a Gentleman Commoner in order to have a little superiority of his contemporaries, that he may not be slighted or despised by them. Therefore I am willing to comply with his desires, and desire he may be entered a Gentleman Commoner of Lincoln under my good friend your brother's tuition. I have not communicated this my resolution to my son, but told him that I would submit it entirely to Mr. Wesley in what quality to admit him, chiefly that he may think himself under obligations to his tutor for gratifying him in his desires and be the more influenced by his admonitions. He goes as well rigged and with as great a quantity of all sorts of apparel as I believe a Gentleman Commoner need be furnished with, so that I think he will have occasion to buy but little for a year or two to come.

You are pleased to say you have 9 5s. 9d. in your hands towards paying Mr. Lasher's debt of 20 17s. 6d. You observe that there is some expense unknown, and still to be charged, for entering the boxes at the custom-house. I shall send 50 by my son, out of which please to make up Mr. Lasher's sum and the custom-house expenses; the remainder, after his traveling charges, is to be deposited with his tutor for the necessary uses. He will be so kind as to let me know all further necessary payments and allowances, which shall punctually be answered. I shall not value the quantum, so that it be for my son's benefit and advantage.

I omitted acquainting you with one infirmity of his, that he has a bad sight. I can't call it the near sight, but a dull optic; so that he will require a good print and the use of glasses in his private reading. He is happy in an extraordinary memory, and people flatter me that his parts are good. He makes the largest promises of diligence, &c., whether Commoner or Gentleman Commoner.

I have resolved to pay his tutor 10 guineas a year, and I beg that a proper chamber may be provided for him against his coming. I shall write by myself to your brother, to whom this is designed in conjunction with you. A thousand thanks to you and your good brother from

Your most obliged and most affectionate

RICHARD MORGAN.

From Richard Morgan to John Wesley [3]

DUBLIN, November 22, 1733.

REVEREND SIR, -- I had the favor of yours, and am very thankful for your care and tenderness about my son, who I am sure will observe your advice and directions in everything. 11y concern about my only son brings the misfortunes of my other son fresh into my mind, and obliges me now to impart to you, and only to you, what I have hitherto concealed from all men as far as it could be kept secret.

After he had spent about six weeks with me in Dublin, and the physicians having agreed that the air at Oxford was better for his health than the Irish air, when I was obliged to take a journey with my Lord Primate into his diocese, my dear son was to set out on his journey to England the same day, which he accordingly did. He rode an easy pad, and was to make easy journeys through part of this kingdom to see some relations in the way, and to take shipping at Cork, from which there is a short passage to Bristol, and from thence the journey not great to Oxford.

He traveled twelve miles the first day, attended by that careful servant that was with him at Oxford. The servant observed him to act and talk lightly and incoherently that day. He slept little or none at night, but often cried out that the house was on fire, and used other wild expressions.

The second day he grew worse, and threw his bridle over the horse's head, and would neither guide him himself nor let the man guide him, whom he charged to stay behind, saying that God would guide him. The horse turned about, went in side-roads, and went to a disused quarry filled with water to drink, where my poor child fell off, and had then like to have been lost, the servant not daring to do but as he bid him, whom he often beat and struck. The servant then, finding him deprived of all understanding and outrageous, by great art and management brought him back to Dublin.

Two of our most eminent physicians and the Surgeon-General were brought to attend him; an express was sent after me, with whom I hastened back to town. He was put into a room [up] two pair of stairs and the sashes nailed down; yet he found an opportunity to run to one of the windows, tore it down, though nailed, and was more than half out, before he could be catched, but was happily saved. He was raving mad, and three men set over him to watch him and hold, and by the direction of the physicians he was threatened with ropes and chains, which were produced to him and rattled.

In his madness he used frequently to say that enthusiasm was his madness, repeated often 'Oh religious madness!' that they had hindered him from being now with God, meaning their hindering him from throwing himself out at the window, and named some other persons and things that I shan't mention; but in his greatest rage never cursed or swore or used any profane expressions. Some have told me since that they looked upon him to be disordered some time before in his head. But God was pleased to take him to Himself in seven days' time, which no doubt the blisterings and severities used by the physicians and surgeon for his recovery precipitated.

These are melancholy reflections, which make me earnestly desire that my surviving son should not go into those over-zealous ways which (as is apprehended) contributed to this great misfortune which finished my other son. I would have him live a sober, virtuous, and religious life, and to go to church and sacrament according to the statutes and customs of his College; but for young people to pretend to be more pure and holy than the rest of mankind is a dangerous experiment. As to charitable subscriptions and contributions, I wholly debar him from making any because he has not one shilling of his own but what I give him; which I appropriate wholly to his maintenance, education, and moderate and inoffensive recreation and pleasures; and I believe as a casuist you will agree with me that it is injustice, and consequently sinful rather than virtue, to apply my money any other way than as I appropriate it. He must leave me to measure out my own charities, and to distribute them in such manner and proportion as I shall think proper.

I hope you will not suspect, from anything I have said, that I intend the least reflection or disrespect to you; for if I did not think very well of you, and had not a great opinion of your conduct and abilities, I should not put my only son under your tuition, which I think is the best proof a man can give of his good esteem and opinion of another.

The tragical account I give you of my poor deceased son, my son Richard can inform you of as well as I; which I charged him to say nothing of at Oxford, but now he may to you, if you think proper to inquire of him about it: and I hope I may be excused for being solicitous to prevent my present son's falling into extremes, which it is thought were so prejudicial to my other.

I sent a bill of 5o by the last post to Mr. James Huey, merchant, in Aldermanbury, London, with directions to transmit the value to you, which I hope is done. I shall begrudge no money that is for my son's benefit and advantage. I would have him live as decently as other gentlemen of his station. I am very desirous that he should keep a regular account, that he may attain to a habit of it, knowing the great use and benefit of accounts to all men. I shall depend upon you letting me know when a further supply will be wanting.

Pray my respects to your brother, and believe me to be,

Your very affectionate and most humble servant,

RICHARD MORGAN.

To Richard Morgan

December 17, 1733.

SIR,--The bank-note sent by Mr. Huey was exchanged today. I have paid Mr. Lasher 11 17s. 6d. of the 50 (and the 9 in my brother's hands), the Bursar 24 for caution-money, and 40s. the usual fee for his admission into the common-room. Mr. Morgan usually rises about six, and has not yet been wanting in diligence. He seldom goes out of college unless upon business or to walk for his health, which I would willingly persuade him to do every day. He loses no time at taverns or coffee-houses, and avoids as much as possible idle company, which every gentleman here will soon be pestered with if he has not some show of resolution. Some evenings every week he spends in the common-room, and others with my brother and me. Of his being admitted into our Society (if it deserves so honorable a title) there is no danger. All those gentlemen whom I have the happiness to converse with two or three times a week upon a religious account would oppose me to the utmost should I attempt to introduce among them at those important hours one of whose prudence I had had so short a trial and who was so little experienced in piety and charity.

Several of the points you mention deserve a fuller consideration than I have leisure to give them. I shall ever own myself extremely obliged for the freedom with which you mention them, and have endeavored to answer you with the same freedom, which I am persuaded will not be disagreeable to you.

That my dear friend, now with God, was much disordered in his understanding. I had often observed long before he left England. That he was likewise sincerely religious, all observed; but whoever had seen his behavior in the successive stages of his illness might as easily have mistaken darkness for light as his madness for his religion. They were not only different, but opposite too; one counteracting the other from its beginning. I cannot better describe his religion than in the words of the person who wrote his elegy:

Mild, sweet, serene, and tender was her mood,

Nor grave with sternness, nor with lightness free!

Against example resolutely good,

Fervent in zeal and warm in charity!

Who ne'er forsook her faith for love of peace,

Nor sought with fire and sword to show her zeal;

Duteous to rulers when they most oppress,

Patient in bearing ill, and doing well. [Description of Divine Religion, from The Battle of the Sexes, stanza xxxv., by his brother Samuel. For 'tender' (line 1) read 'cheerful,' for 'rulers' (line 7) 'princes.' Wesley quotes the last line in the obituary of Robert Swindells (Minutes, x783).]

Directly contrary to every article of this was his madness. It was harsh, sour, cloudy, and severe. It was sometimes extravagantly light and sometimes sternly serious. It undermined his best resolutions by an absurd deference to example. It damped the fervor of his zeal and gradually impaired the warmth of his charity. It had not, indeed, as yet attacked his duteous regard for his superiors, nor drove him to exterminate sin by fire and sword; for when it had so obscured that clear judgment whereon his holiness stood that his very faith and patience began to be in danger, the God whom he served came to his rescue and snatched him from the evil to

Come.

'But though his religion was not the same with his madness, might it not be the cause of it ' I answer, No. 'Tis full as reasonable to believe that light is darkness as that it is the cause of it. We may just as well think that mildness and harshness, sweetness and sternness, gentleness and fury are the same thing, as that the former are the causes of the latter, or have any tendency thereto.

'But he said himself his distemper was religious madness, and who should know better than himself' Who should know the truth better than one out of his senses Why, any one that was in them, especially any one that had observed the several workings of his soul before the corruptible body pressed it down; when his apprehension was unclouded, his' judgment sound, and his reason cool and unimpaired. Then it was that he knew himself and his Master; then he spoke the words of truth and soberness, and justified by those words the wisdom he loved, only not as much as he adorned it by his life.

True it is God was pleased, for the trial both of him and us, to visit him with a grievous illness. As his illness increased his reason declined, and consequently his religion built upon it. Till that melancholy effect of his disease, I challenge all the fools who counted his preceding life madness to point out one extreme he was in of any sort or one instance of his zeal which was not according to knowledge. 'Tis easy for any of them to declaim in general against enthusiasm and carrying things too far, and even to prevail upon an unwary mind, shattered by sickness, to plead guilty to the accusation. But let them come to particulars, and I do hereby undertake to prove that every fact they allege against him is either absolutely false or that it is agreeable to the strictest rules both of piety and Christian prudence.

His fasting (or abstinence rather, for I do not know that he ever fasted one day) I least of all 'except; as being firmly persuaded, from careful and repeated observations, that had he continued it he had been alive to this day. Nor are there wanting as great names for this opinion as any that advised on the contrary, who believe that wine and free diet to one in his circumstances was as sure a recipe as shooting him through the head.

I acknowledge your goodness in having a far better opinion of me than I deserve, or, I trust in God, shall ever desire. I have many things to add when time permits, but one I dare not defer a moment. 'Tis absolutely necessary to guard your surviving son against the least suspicion of my over-great zeal or strictness. You are fully sensible he is in no danger of either. But if he once fancies I am, that fancy will cut me off from all possibility of doing him any substantial service. whatever advice I may have occasion to give with regard to his moral conduct, ' much religion hath made thee mad ' will be a sufficient answer to all. For your sake and his I beg to know (what I should otherwise not think it worth while to bestow one thought upon) any overt acts of my enthusiasm which pass current in Ireland either with the gay or the serious part of the world.

My brother gladly joins with me in acknowledging all your favors both to him and to, good sir,

Your obliged and obedient servant.

Editor's Introductory Notes

[1] Samuel Wesley's strength was failing, and he was anxious about his family and his parish. He wanted his eldest son to succeed him; but he declined to leave his schoolmaster's life, and the father turned to John. The subject was talked over when he was at Epworth in January 1733. He was not sure whether he could stand his ground at Oxford, where his own pupils and those of Clayton were cutting themselves loose from the Methodists. See Tyerman's Samuel Wesley, pp. 417-21; and letter of June 13.

[2] Despite the painful history of his first son, Morgan showed his absolute confidence in John and Charles Wesley's judgment and good sense by committing to John the care of his only-surviving son when he entered Oxford University. These letters of introduction and young Richard Morgan's early impressions are of extraordinary interest.

[3] One of the saddest features of William Morgan's illness was the mental derangement that accompanied it. He played such an important part in the story of Oxford Methodism, that his father's pathetic letter to Wesley must be given at length. See Journal, viii. 263-4.

Edited by Michael Mattei 2000 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.