The congregations of the rector’s wife were probably larger than those of the rector’s curate. Inman heard of these gatherings, and wrote to Mr Wesley, complaining that Mrs Wesley, in his absence, had turned the parsonage into a conventicle; that the church was likely to be scandalised by such irregular proceedings, and that they ought not to be tolerated any longer. Mr Wesley wrote to his wife, suggesting that she should let some one else read the sermons. She replied that there was not a man among them that could read a sermon without spoiling a good part of it, and that none of her children had a voice strong enough to be heard by so many people. The only thing that disquieted her was “presenting the prayers of the people to God.” She had been obliged to do this, but, because of her sex, she doubted its propriety.

The curate still complained, and the rector, writing to his wife, desired that the meetings should be discontinued. She replied that Inman and a man called Whiteley, and one or two others, were the only persons in the parish that had raised complaints; that calling the meeting a conventicle did not alter the nature of the thing; and that, notwithstanding its alleged scandal, it had been the means of bringing more people to the church than anything else had been, for the afternoon congregation had been increased by it from twenty to above two hundred, which was a larger congregation than Inman had been accustomed to have in the morning; some families who seldom went to church now began to go constantly; and one person, who had not been there for seven years, was now attending with the rest. Besides all this, the meetings had been the means of conciliating the minds of the people towards the Wesley family, and they now lived in the greatest amity imaginable. After stating these facts, Mrs Wesley adds:—“If, after all this, you think fit to dissolve this assembly, do not tell me that you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience; but send me your positive command in such full and express terms as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment for neglecting this opportunity of doing good, when you and I shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[[215]] What the upshot was we have no means of knowing. John and Charles Wesley were present at these irregular meetings—the first Methodist meetings ever held—Charles a child four years old, and John a boy of nine. “Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth!”

CHAPTER XVII.
PRETERNATURAL NOISES.—1716–1717.

From the earliest times, men have believed in apparitions, or preternatural appearances of spirits. The Jews, in the days of Moses, were commanded not to suffer a witch to live. The Greeks and the Romans had their demons or genii. In the days of Christ there were demoniacs. Origen conceived that souls tainted by flagrant crimes were either confined in a species of limbo, or attached to particular spots, where within certain limits, they might ramble about at pleasure. Popery, from the first, countenanced and fostered the doctrines of witchcraft and demonology, its priests strengthening their dominion by practising conjurations, and its monks fabricating legends suited to the prevailing taste. Martin Luther believed as firmly in diabolical apparitions as the most illiterate monk in the Popish Church, which he laboured to destroy. And, in more recent times, men like Dr Henry More, Andrew Baxter, and Joseph Glanvil, (all contemporaneous with Samuel Wesley,) wrote most learnedly to prove that the doctrine of apparitions is deducible from the nature of the soul, the testimony of Scripture, and the evidence of fact. On the other hand, most elaborate works against the doctrine were published, about the same period, by the celebrated Thomasius, and by Dr Balthasar Bekker. Down to the sixteenth century, in Europe, witchcraft universally prevailed; and even as late as the middle of the seventeenth century it maintained its ground with considerable firmness. In England, the belief in witchcraft was supported by the royal authority of James I., was countenanced by Lord Bacon, and was generally adopted among the people; and there was only one writer, Reginald Scot, who was hardy enough to write against it. Supposed witches were weighed against the Church Bible, which, if the accused persons were guilty, would preponderate. They were placed in the middle of a room cross-legged, bound with cords, and sitting on a stool; were kept without food and sleep for four-and-twenty hours, and were watched all the while to see the witch’s imps, in the shape of flies and spiders, come to suck her breasts. They were made to repeat the Lord’s prayer, because no witch could repeat it without omitting some of its sentences. A witch could not weep more than three tears, and that only out of the left eye. After binding the right thumb to the left toe, and the right toe to the left thumb, the supposed witch was thrown into a river, and, unless she sank, she was proved guilty; because, according to the infallible teaching of King James, having renounced her baptism by water, the water renounced her. By such trials as these, and by the accusations of children, old women, and fools, thousands of unhappy persons were condemned for witchcraft, and were burnt to death. Without questioning the reality of such a thing as witchcraft, it cannot be denied that the witnesses, by whose evidence supposed witches were condemned, were, in most cases, either weak enthusiasts or downright villains; and that the confessions ascribed to the witches themselves were, in many instances, the effects of a disordered imagination, produced by cruel treatment and excessive watchings.

There can be little doubt that, from early life, Samuel Wesley was a believer in the doctrine[doctrine] of apparitions. In vol. i. of the Athenian Oracle, (p. 185,) it is assumed that the soul, after its separation from the body, may again be clothed with some sort of aerial, fiery, or cloudy vehicle, and be visible to our senses; and instances are given of apparitions at Puddle Dock, London, and at the Grange, in Lancashire. In another article of the same volume, (p. 289,) it is said—“That spirits have sometimes really appeared to mortals is, amongst all sober men, beyond controversy;” and Luke xxiv. 37 is quoted in support of such a theory. In a third article, vol. i. p. 296, ten apparition cases are related, and the writer concludes thus:—“The next step to the disbelieving such things is the denial of the soul’s existence out of the body; and, if that be admitted, farewell all moral virtues and the expectation of rewards and punishments hereafter.” Again, page 153, it is argued that there is no nation or language in which there is not some word expressive of the idea of witchcraft, and that, if witches had not really existed, it was an absurd thing for Almighty God to make a law commanding them to be put to death. Many other articles of a like character may be found in the other volumes of the same work, proving, beyond a doubt, that, at the commencement of his ministerial life, Samuel Wesley believed in witches and in ghosts. We must now proceed to give, in as condensed a form as possible, the account of the old Jeffrey apparition at Epworth Parsonage. For the preservation of that account we are indebted to the Rev. Samuel Badcock, and for its publication to Dr Priestley.

Badcock was born about the year 1750, and, at the age of nineteen, became the minister of one of the most considerable Dissenting congregations in Devonshire. On his removal from Barnstaple, he was elected minister at South Moulton. He now turned his attention to literature, and became a correspondent of the London and monthly reviews, and of the chief London magazines. About three years before his death, which occurred in 1788, he renounced the Dissenting ministry, and was ordained a priest of the Established Church.[[216]]

This man, by means of Mrs Earle, the daughter of Samuel Wesley, jun., became possessed of a large mass of Wesley MSS., some of which he published in the Gentleman’s Magazine, and in other publications of that period. The rest he gave to his friend Dr Priestley. These included a “copy of Mr Wesley’s Diary,” and copies of letters written by his daughters to the absent members of the family, all in the hand-writing of Mr Samuel Wesley, jun. This MS. was lent by Priestley to a friend, and for a time was lost; but at length it was restored, and, in 1791, was published.[[217]] Priestley, in his preface, says, “This is perhaps the best authenticated, and the best told story of the kind, that is anywhere extant.” The account, as published in detail by Dr Priestley, fills forty-seven octavo pages, but every material fact will be found in the condensed statement now subjoined.

The preternatural noises at Epworth parsonage were first heard by Mrs Wesley. This was on the evening of a day when her son Samuel had come home from Westminster School, and, with considerable sharpness, had quarrelled with his sister Susannah. At the time, Mrs Wesley was in her bedroom, and heard a clattering of doors and windows, and then several distinct knocks, three by three. This, however, gave her no anxiety; and, though ever after, similar noises were invariably heard previous to the occurrence of any family misfortune, yet Mrs Wesley, and, indeed, the family as a whole, seemed to have attached no importance to such disturbances until the close of the year 1716. Then the noises became alarming, and the following is an account of them from that period:—

On the first of December 1716, Nanny Marshall, the maid-servant, heard, at the dining-room door, something which sounded like the groans of a dying man, and which made her hair stand on end. This was in the day-time, and, at night, Miss Susannah and Miss Anne Wesley, whilst sitting in the dining-room, heard something rush on the outside of the doors that opened into the garden, then three loud knocks, immediately after other three, and, in half a minute, the same number above their heads. A night or two after, Emilia came down stairs, at ten o’clock, to wind up the timepiece and lock the doors, as usual, and, as she was doing so, she heard, under the staircase, a sound as if some bottles there had all been dashed to pieces; but, when she looked, all was safe. She also heard a noise, like a person throwing down a vast coal in the middle of the front kitchen; but when she and Susannah went to see what it was, the dog was fast asleep, and nothing out of order. Emilia now went to bed, but Mehetabel, who always waited for her father to leave his study and to retire to rest, was sitting on the lowest step of the garret stairs, when there came down the stairs behind her, something like a man in a loose night-gown trailing after him, which made her fly to Emilia in the nursery. After this, the man-servant, whose dormitory was the garret, heard some one rattling by his side, and then walking up and down the stairs, gabbling like a turkey-cock. Noises, also, were heard in the nursery, and all the other chambers, knocking first at the foot of the beds, and then behind them.

At length the four young ladies, Emilia, Susannah, Mehetabel, and Anne, the youngest of whom was fourteen years of age, and the eldest twenty-four, told their father and mother of the noises they had heard. The father smiled, and gave no answer; but, appearing to think it was a trick played by themselves, or by their lovers, he afterwards took care to see them all in bed before he went to bed himself. The mother said she believed that the noise was made by rats; and sent for a horn to frighten them away. At last, on December 21st, the noises were heard not only by the young ladies, but by their parents. Nine distinct and loud knocks startled them in the room adjoining that in which they were sleeping. The rector thought, or was pleased to say, it might be some one outside the house, and expressed a hope that his stout mastiff might rid them of the disturber of their peace. Next night, however, he heard six knocks more; and two days after, at seven in the morning, Emilia brought her mother into the nursery, where she heard noises under the bed, and then at the head of it. She knocked, and it answered her. She looked beneath the bed, and thought she saw something run from thence in the shape of a badger, and apparently take refuge under Emilia’s petticoats. The next night but one, Mr Wesley and his wife were awaked, shortly after midnight, by noises so violent that it was in vain to think of sleep while they continued. They went into every chamber; and, generally, as they entered one room, the noise was heard in the room behind them. Proceeding to the lower part of the house, they heard a clashing among the bottles, and then another distinct sound, as if a peck of money were poured out at Mrs Wesley’s waist, and ran jingling down her night-gown to her feet. Going through the hall into the kitchen, the mastiff came whining towards them, and seemed almost paralysed with fear. They still heard it rattle and thunder in every room above and behind them except the study, where, up to the present, it had never entered.