OTHER OXFORD METHODISTS. (continued 2)

Wesley wrote to the miserable delinquent the following long, faithful, and Christian letter, in which “the several steps, whereby he fell from his steadfastness” are enumerated.

“London, December 22, 1747.

“Dear Brother,—1. When you were at Oxford with me, fourteen or fifteen years ago, you were holy and unblamable in all manner of conversation. I greatly rejoiced in the grace of God, which was given unto you, which was often a blessing to my own soul. Yet, even then, you had frequently starts of thought, which were not of God, though they at first appeared so to be. But you were humble and teachable: you were easily convinced, and those imaginations vanished away.

“2. More than twelve years ago, you told me, God had revealed it to you, that you should marry my youngest sister. I was much surprised, being well assured that you were able to receive our Lord’s saying, (so you had continually testified,) and to be an ‘eunuch for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.’ But, you vehemently affirmed, the thing was of God; you were certain it was His will. God had made it plain to you, that, you must marry, and, that, she was the very person. You asked, and gained her consent, and fixed the circumstances relating thereto.

“3. Hence, I date your fall. Here were several faults in one. You leaned altogether to your own understanding, not consulting either me, who was then the guide of your soul, or the parents of your intended wife, till you had settled the whole affair. And while you followed the voice of nature, you said it was the voice of God.

“4. In a few days, you had a counter revelation, that, you were not to marry her, but her sister. This last error was far worse than the first. But, you were now quite above conviction. So, in spite of her poor, astonished parent, of her brothers, of all your vows and promises, you shortly after jilted the younger, and married the elder sister. The other, who had honoured you as an angel from heaven, and still loved you much too well, (for you had stolen her heart from the God of her youth,) refused to be comforted. She fell into a lingering illness, which terminated in her death. And doth not her blood still cry unto God from the earth? Surely it is upon your head.

“5. Till this time, you were a pattern of lowliness, meekness, seriousness, and continual advertence to the presence of God; and, above all, of self-denial of every kind, and of suffering all things with joyfulness. But there was now a worm at the root of the gourd. Yet, it did not presently wither away; but, for two years or more, after your marriage, you behaved nearly the same as before.

“Then anger and surliness began to appear, particularly toward your wife. But it was not long before you were sensible of this, and you seemed to have conquered it.

“6. You went up to London ten years ago. After this, you began to speak on any head; not with your usual diffidence and self-abasement, but with a kind of confidence in your own judgment, and an air of self-sufficiency. A natural consequence was, the treating with more sharpness and contempt those who opposed either your judgment or practice.

“7. You came to live at London. You then, for a season, appeared to gain ground again. You acted in concert with my brother and me; heard our advice, and sometimes followed it. But, this continued only till you contracted a fresh acquaintance with some of the Brethren of Fetter Lane. Henceforward, you were quite shut up to us; we had no manner of influence over you. You were more and more prejudiced against us, and would receive nothing which we said.

“8. About six years ago, you removed to Salisbury, and began a society there. For a year or two, you went with them to church and sacrament, and simply preached faith working by love. God was with you, and they increased both in number, and in the knowledge and love of God.

“About four years since, you broke off all friendship with us. You would not so much as make use of our hymns, either in public or private; but laid them quite aside, and took the German Hymn-book in their stead.

“You would not willingly suffer any of your people to read anything which we wrote. You angrily caught one of my sermons out of your servant’s hand, saying, you would have no such books read in your house. In much the same manner, you spoke to Mrs. Whitemarsh, when you found her reading one of the “Appeals.” So that, as far as in you lay, you fixed a great gulf between us and you, which remains to this day, notwithstanding a few steps lately made towards a re-union.

“About the same time, you left off going to church, as well as to the sacrament. Your followers very soon trod in your steps; and, not content with neglecting the ordinances of God, they began, after your example, to despise them, and all that continued to use them, speaking with equal contempt of the public service, of private prayer, of baptism, and of the Lord’s Supper.

“From this time, also, you began to espouse and teach many uncommon opinions: as, that, there is no resurrection of the body; that, there is no general judgment to come; and, that, there is no hell, no worm that never dieth, no fire that never shall be quenched.

“9. Your seriousness and advertence to the presence of God, now, declined daily. You could talk on anything or nothing, just as others did. You could break a jest, or laugh at it heartily; and, as for fasting, abstinence, and self-denial, you, with the Moravians, trampled it under foot.”

In an interjected note, Wesley says,—

In the following paragraphs, I recited to him the things he had done with regard to more than one, or two, or three women, concluding thus:—

“And now you know not that you have done anything amiss! You can eat and drink and be merry! You are every day engaged with variety of company, and frequent the coffee houses! Alas, my brother, what is this? How are you above measure hardened by the deceitfulness of sin? Do you remember the story of Santon Barsisa? I pray God, your last end may not be like his! Oh, how you have grieved the Spirit of God! Return to Him with weeping, fasting, and mourning. You are in the very belly of hell; only the pit hath not shut its mouth upon you. Arise, thou sleeper, and call upon thy God! Perhaps, He may yet be found. Because He still bears with me, I cannot despair for you. But you have not a moment to lose. May God, this instant, strike you to the heart, that you may feel His wrath abiding on you, and have no rest in your bones, by reason of your sin, till all your iniquities are done away.”

“John Wesley.”

What success attended Wesley’s honest letter? Hall had left his wife at the end of October, 1747. Three months afterwards, he had returned to Salisbury; and Wesley, on his way to Bristol, resolved to call on him. He writes:—

“1748. January 26.

“Mr. Hall, having heard I was coming, had given strict orders, that no one should let me in. The inner door he had locked himself, and, I suppose, taken away the key. Yet, when I knocked at the outer gate, which was locked also, William Sims opened the wicket. I walked straight in. A girl stood in the gateway, but turned as soon as she saw me. I followed close at her heels, and went in after her at a back door. I asked the maid, ‘Where is Mr. Hall?’ She said, ‘In the parlour,’ and went in to him. I followed her, and found him sitting with my sister, but he presently rose and went up-stairs. He then sent William Sims down, and bid him, ‘Tell my brother he has no business in my house.’ After a few minutes, I went to a house in the town, and my sister came to me. In about an hour, she returned home; but he sent word to the gate, she might go to the place whence she came. I met a little company, gathered up out of the wreck, both in the evening, and at five in the morning, and exhorted them to go on in the Bible way, and not to be wise above that is written.”

Having thus failed in his attempt to reason with Westley Hall, and having tried to be of use to a mere handful of the best of the faithless man’s followers, Wesley, two days afterwards, went on his way to Bristol.

Things grew worse and worse. Hall’s first female victim was a young woman, employed in his house as a seamstress. Other infidelities followed; until, at length, his much-enduring wife was driven from him. The man became a professed polygamist. Life at home became intolerable to “poor Patty;” and, even when she fled from the husband, who had become a monster and a brute, again and again she and her brothers were harassed by his following her. The following are extracts from her brother Charles’s Journal:—

“1750. August 13.—I met my sister Hall in the churchyard,” (Bristol) “and carried her to the room. I had begun preaching, when Mr. Hall walked up the room, and through the desk, and carried her off with him. I was somewhat disturbed; yet went on.

“August 15.—He came up again, calling me by my name. I fled, and he pursued; but could not find me in my lurking place.

“1751. June 4.—Instead of proceeding in Ezekiel, I expounded” (at Bristol) “Hebrew x. 34: ‘Now the just shall live by faith; but, if he draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.’ I saw the reason with Mr. Hall. He came up toward the desk. Mr. Hamilton stopped him. I gave out a hymn. He sang louder than us all. I spoke sharply of his apostasy, and prayed earnestly for him; desired their prayers for me, lest, after preaching to others, I myself, also, should be a castaway. He walked away, turned back, threatened. The people were all in tears, and agony of prayer.”

There is something horrible in such a scene as this. Westley Hall was “now a settled Deist;”[310] and, yet, here we find him, with stentorian lustiness, and in mockery, singing, in the midst of a disturbed congregation, one of Charles Wesley’s Christian hymns. The man seemed to be abandoned by his God, and left to his own corrupted passions. He is said to have thrown off all restraint, and all regard to decency. He publicly and privately recommended polygamy, as conformable to nature, preached in its defence, and practised as he preached. For years, he lived the life of an adventurer, and a profligate; acting sometimes as a physician, sometimes as priest, or figured away with his sword, cane, and scarlet cloak; assuming any character, according to his humour, or the convenience of the day.[311]

His wife had borne him ten children, nine of whom had been interred at Salisbury. One of them,—Wesley Hall,—still survived, and was being educated at the expense of his uncles, John and Charles. At the age of fourteen, the worse than fatherless boy was seized with small-pox, and died. Dr. Adam Clarke says, he had seen “a folio printed sheet, evidently the publication of Mr. Hall;” entitled, “The Art of Happiness; or, the Right use of Reason: an Epistle to Wesley Hall, Junior.” “The whole,” writes the Doctor, “is a miserable Deistical address, strongly advising his son to follow the dictates of his own nature, as the best way of fulfilling the purposes of his Creator!”

The following are the opening lines:—

Declaiming against superstition and bigotry, and, perhaps, shooting a shaft against the boy’s uncles,—the two Wesleys,—the profligate poet writes:—

Love, the universal passion, is eulogized as follows:—

“He concludes,” says Dr. Clarke, “his ungodly advices to his godly son, in these words:—

The date of the death of the last of Hall’s legitimate offspring has not been recorded; but his memory was embalmed, and his father’s gibbeted, by his uncle, Charles Wesley, in a poetical pamphlet, entitled “Funeral Hymns,” published in 1759, pp. 70. The tenth of these hymns is devoted entirely to the son, and is exquisitely beautiful; the eleventh is a withering invective against the apostate father. The following is a copy:—

It would be an odious task to relate all the details of Westley Hall’s sad apostasy. Suffice to say, that he, at length, went off to the West Indies with one of his concubines, lived there with her till she died, and then returned to England, where, professing penitential sorrow, he was cordially received by his incomparable wife, who showed him every Christian attention till his death, which took place at Bristol, on January 3, 1776; some of his last words being, “I have injured an angel! an angel that never reproached me!” Wesley writes:—

“1776, January 2—Tuesday. I set out early” from London, “and came just time enough not to see, but to bury poor Mr. Hall, my brother-in-law, who died on Wednesday morning, I trust, in peace; for God had given him deep repentance. Such another monument of Divine mercy, considering how low he had fallen, and from what height of holiness, I have not seen, no, not in seventy years! I had designed to visit him in the morning; but he did not stay for my coming. It is enough, if, after all his wanderings, we meet again in Abraham’s bosom.”

“Requiescat in pace!” And yet, justice demands that a word more be added. The fact cannot be denied, that, in many instances, the faults of husbands may be traced to the tempers, frailties, and follies of their wives. A bad wife often makes a good husband bad. Was this the fact in the case of Westley Hall? Did the man who, at Oxford, was so pre-eminently holy, become a licentious infidel through the misbehaviour of his wife? This is not a memoir of “Patty” Hall; but to be entirely silent concerning her might create suspicion, that, she was not unblamable in her connubial life. Hence, even at the expense of returning to the dunghill of Westley Hall’s disgusting wickedness, a few more facts must be stated.

Assuming Martha Wesley to have been aware, that, Westley Hall had proposed marriage to her sister Kezziah, and had jilted her, it was a huge, seriously censurable imprudence for her to become his wife; but that being said, there is not another fact to be told against her. What was her behaviour to one of the worst of husbands?

The seduction of the seamstress has been already mentioned. Mrs. Hall knew nothing of her husband’s criminality till the poor girl actually fell in labour. Hall had gone from home; his wife instantly ordered her other servants to call in a doctor. The servants refused. She remonstrated with them on their inhumanity. They completed her surprise by telling her the seamstress was in labour through her criminal connection with their master. The poor wife was terribly wounded; but the life of her husband’s paramour was in danger. The servants refused to stir, and she herself had to bring in a midwife. Her purse contained six pounds. Five of these she gave to a neighbour to look after the adulterous young mother; with the other pound, she went off to seek her worthless husband, who had designedly gone to London; mildly told him what had happened, and actually persuaded him to return to Salisbury as soon as the young woman and her child could be removed to another dwelling.

Another instance must be given. One day, Hall had the shameful inhumanity to bring home one of his illegitimate infants, and to order his wife to take charge of it. Will it be believed, that “Patty” actually brought out her cradle, placed the bastard babe in it, and continued to perform for it all that its helplessness required!

Was the woman demented? or a good-tempered silly fool, without any self-respect, and without the least idea of what was due unto herself? Not so; but just the opposite. As a proof of this, the following may be given:—

While nursing the illegitimate child just mentioned, her own charming boy, Wesley Hall, displeased his father, who had as little government of his temper as of his passions. In a rage, the father thrust his son into a dark closet, and locked him up. The poor boy was terrified to distraction. His mother, with her usual calmness, desired her husband to release the child. He refused. She entreated; but he was resolute. “Sir,” said she, at length thoroughly aroused; “Sir, thank the grace of God, that, while my child is thus cruelly treated, suffering to distraction a punishment he has not merited, I had not turned your babe out of the cradle; but now I demand, that you will immediately unlock the closet and release the child, or, if you refuse, I myself will do it.” The miserable poltroon succumbed, and the little prisoner regained his liberty. There was more in this than female firmness. Caitiff as he was, Hall had exercised the authority of a father, and his wife did her utmost not to set aside that authority; wishing, with true philosophy, that the lips which had pronounced the sentence might pronounce also its repeal. The woman, taking and maintaining this position, was the very opposite of a senseless, insipid household drudge, without either mind or manners, a very slave to some selfish brute who unfortunately rules over her.

If “Patty” Wesley,—we are reluctant to call her “Patty” Hall,—erred at all, it was on the side of fidelity to her worthless husband, and of kindness to his wretched mistresses. “How could you give money to your husband’s concubine?” asked her brother Charles. “I knew,” she answered, “that I could obtain what I wanted from many; but she, poor hapless creature, could not. Pity is due to the wicked, the good claim esteem. Besides, I did not act as a woman, but as a Christian.”

Notwithstanding all her bad treatment, this incomparable wife was never heard to speak of her husband but with kindness. Two extracts from her letters will show both her feelings and good sense, under circumstances the most trying to a female mind:—

“Being convinced, that, I cannot possibly oblige you any longer, by anything I can say or do, I have determined to rid you of so useless a burden, as soon as it shall please God to give me an opportunity. If you have so much humanity left for a wife, who has lived so many years with you, as to allow anything toward a maintenance, I will thank you.”

“I conjure you to tell what fatal delusion could make me offend a person whom, of all creatures upon earth, I desired most to please. I shall be exceedingly obliged to you, if you will be so good as to satisfy me in this particular. But, be that as it may, whether you think fit to grant or deny my request, one thing I must inform you of, which is, that, I never can, so long as I am in my senses, wilfully bring any evil upon you. No, death itself does not appear so shocking to me, as endeavouring to lay you under any other obligation than those of conscience and honour. For which reason, I design to put myself again absolutely in your power. If you make a kind use of that power, I shall thank God and you. If not, the time is very short that I can stay on this side the grave; and in the same sentiments that I have lived, I trust, it will be given me to die.”

It is hardly necessary to give further details of this memorable woman. Enough has been said, to show, that, Westley Hall’s infamous behaviour was not owing to the character or conduct of his wife. We only add an extract from a manuscript, now before us, written by her niece, Miss Sarah Wesley, with whom she lived on the most loving and confidential terms. Miss Wesley, daughter of Charles, observes:—

“Dr. Johnson was an early friend of hers; to her my father owed his acquaintance with the Doctor, and I, the honour of his favour. I used to accompany her to Bolt Court, and had the privilege of hearing their discourse.

“Her whole character was eminent for magnanimity and tenderness. When her unfortunate husband contended for the lawfulness of polygamy, and acted on his erroneous principles, in all her expostulations, she never lost her command of language, or gave him a reproachful word.

“She was particularly distinguished with favour, by my grandmother, for her docile and tranquil spirit; and her brothers and sisters nick-named her the patient Grisele. Such was her attachment to my uncle John, that, if she was in any pain or trouble in her infant days, the sight of him would instantly cheer her. I never heard of so strong an affection, which lasted toward him through life. My grandmother once entered the room, where the children were in high glee and frolic, and said, ‘Ah, you will all, one day, be more thoughtful, as you grow in years.’ Martha replied, ‘Shall I be more thoughtful?’ ‘No,’ said her mother. Indeed, by all that I have heard, she was born a philosopher, and preferred her mother’s chamber to sports or recreations, which naturally endeared her to the parent, whom she almost idolized.

“Were I to relate the instances of her kindness to me, I could fill a book. No parent’s love could exceed hers. It was a joyful day whenever I was to spend it with her. Even my brothers looked forward with delightful anticipation, when her weekly visit was to be paid us (for one day of the week was appropriated by my father to receive her). Her conversation so far resembled my uncle’s, that, children idolized her; and her memory, to the last, supplied the place of books. She had the best of our poets by heart; and her mode of giving advice was so gentle, that offence could not be taken. Her compassion and charity to the poor were such, that, my father used to say, it was needless to give anything to Pat for her own comfort; she always gave it away to some beggar, and forgot herself.

“I was with her at her death. Composed and tranquil, she reasoned about every pain, as occasioning it, with the same serenity she would have spoken of common things. She had no disease, but the springs of life were worn out. A little before her departure, she called me to her bedside, and said, ‘You have heard me wish for assurance,’ (of happiness, she meant), ‘I have it now. Shout!’ and died!”

Mrs. Hall was the last survivor of the Wesley family,—her father, mother, brothers, and sisters having all died before her. In the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1791, there is the following obituary notice.

“1791. July 12, in the City Road, in her eighty-fourth year, Mrs. Martha Hall, widow of the Rev. Mr. H., and last surviving sister of the Rev. John and Charles Wesley. She was equally distinguished by piety, understanding, and sweetness of temper. Her sympathy for the wretched, and her bounty, even to the worthless, will eternize her memory in better worlds than this.”

Her remains are interred in the same vault as those of her brother John, in the burial ground of his chapel, in City Road, London.

Our story of the Oxford Methodists is ended.