“I am, etc.,
“John Wesley.”[713]
Such were Wesley’s efforts to obtain subscriptions for the first chapel relief fund that Methodism ever raised. This was a great connexional effort to collect £12,000, to defray all the connexional chapel debts. What was the result? This may be gathered from another circular, which Wesley issued two years afterwards.
“November 20, 1769.
“My dear Brother,—Two years ago, many of our brethren, who considered the number of the people called Methodists, and the circumstances which a great part of them were in, believed we should pay off the debt at once. I myself was fully persuaded, that between twenty and thirty thousand people were well able to do this; but I was not at all persuaded they were willing. However, I said little upon that head; being unwilling to weaken the hands of those who were of another mind.
“It was a good step which was made the first year. Upwards of £5000 were contributed; by which means the most pressing debts were paid; and many of our brethren were firmly persuaded we should make an end of the whole the second year. I well knew the Methodists could do this, but I saw no reason to think they would. And when the collection was brought in, amounting to above £2000, it was full as much as I expected.
“But what can be done this third year? £5000 remain unpaid. Are the Methodists able to clear this in one year? Yes, as able as they are to clear £50. But are they willing? That I cannot tell. I am sure a few of them are, even of those who have a large measure of worldly goods; yea, and those who are lately increased in substance, who have twice, perhaps ten or twenty times, as much as when they saw me first. Are you one of them? Whether you are or not, whether your substance is less or more, are you willing to give what assistance you can? to do what you can without hurting your family? ‘But if I do so, I cannot lay out so much, in such and such things, as I intended.’ That is true; but will this hurt you? What, if instead of enlarging, you should, for the present, contract, your expenses? spend less, that you may be able to give more? Would there be any harm in this? ‘But neither can I lay up so much.’ This, likewise, is most true; but is it ill husbandry to ‘lay up treasure in heaven’? Is that lost which is given to God? ‘But I thought we should have paid the debt in one year, and so need no further collections.’ I never thought so; I knew it might be paid in one year, but never expected it would. There is more likelihood of its being paid this year. It will, if our brethren exert themselves: do you, for one; let nothing be wanting on your part. Yet do not imagine, ‘We shall need no further collections.’ Indeed, we shall, though we owed not one shilling. Do not you remember the original design of the yearly subscription? Paying our debts is but one branch of the design. It answers several other valuable ends, equally necessary. It enables us to carry the gospel through the three kingdoms; and, as long as we pursue that glorious design, this subscription will be necessary; though, it is true, when once this burden is removed, a far smaller contribution will suffice. However, ‘let the morrow take thought for the things of itself’; to-day do what you can, for the love of God, of your brethren, of the cause of God, and of your affectionate brother,
“John Wesley.”[714]
This appeal was responded to, by a further reduction of debt to the amount of £1700; but new debts were constantly being created, and, for years afterwards, chapel debts were one of Wesley’s sorrows.
The conference of 1767 being concluded, Wesley started, on August 24, for the west of England, preaching at Wycombe, Witney, and other places. He made a brief tour in Wales, and visited most of the societies in the county of Somerset. On September 26, hearing that his old friend, Mrs. Blackwell, was dying, he hurried to London, and found her better. Two days later, he went back to Bristol, where, he says, “I permitted all of Mr. Whitefield’s society that pleased, to be present at the lovefeast. I hope we shall ‘not know war any more,’ unless with the world, the flesh, and the devil.”