PREFACE.
I have the conviction that due honour has never yet been paid to Samuel Wesley. The praises of his noble wife have been sung loudly and long; and no one acquainted with her character and history, can doubt that Mrs Wesley deserves all the laurels that have been awarded her. While the general public, however, have justly regarded her as a lady of the most eminent abilities, and most exalted piety, they have been in danger of thinking that her husband, though learned, was often foolish; and though pious, was painfully eccentric, stern, and quarrelsome. This is utterly unfounded, and cruelly unjust. I submit, with all due deference to others, that while the Methodists owe an incalculable debt of gratitude to “the mother of the Wesleys,” they owe an equal debt to the honest-hearted father. I trust that the present work contains sufficient evidence of this.
It is also hoped that the following pages will help the reader to a better understanding of the position occupied by Samuel Wesley’s sons, John and Charles; and of the difficulties and discouragements encountered by the illustrious first Methodists.
The “Memoirs of the Wesley Family,” by Dr Clarke, though loosely written, have been of great service in the compilation of the present volume; but a large number of other works have also been consulted. I have carefully examined everything that Mr Wesley published, except perhaps his first political pamphlet; and as that was published anonymously, I cannot be certain that I have seen it. I am not aware that there is any printed matter, casting light on Mr Wesley’s history, that I have not laid under contribution. To have cited all the authorities from which the work has been compiled, would have crowded the margin with an inconvenient number of titles of tracts, pamphlets, and books. A few are given, and the remainder can be easily adduced if needed.
For the chapters on national affairs, I am largely indebted to Macaulay, and to Knight’s “Pictorial History of England;” also to the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian; and to other publications of a kindred character. In some instances, quotations have not been marked by inverted commas; because they have not been made continuously, but pickings from ten or a dozen pages of another work have been put into half a page of this. I hope that this general acknowledgment will save me from the charge of plagiary.
A few original letters are now for the first time published. For three of these, I am indebted to the kind courtesy of the Rev. Elijah Hoole, D.D.
The portrait is taken from the large engraving published in the year of Mr Wesley’s decease, in his “Dissertations on the Book of Job.”
The work has been a labour of love; and if the reader derives as much profit and pleasure in perusing it as the author has had in writing it, I shall be amply satisfied.
L. Tyerman.
Stanhope House, Clapham Park,
January 18, 1866.