“Samuel Wesley.”[[305]]
As intimated in a previous letter, Mr Wesley went to London towards the end of the year 1733. Whilst there, he addressed the following letter “to the Lord Chancellor, for John Whitelamb, now curate of Epworth”:—
“Westminster, Jan. 14, 1734.
“My Lord,—The small rectory of Wroot, in the diocese and county of Lincoln, adjoining to the Isle of Axholme, is in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, and more than seven years since was conferred on Samuel Wesley, rector of Epworth. It lies in our low levels, and is often overflowed. During the four or five years that I have had it, the people have lost the fruits of the earth to that degree that it has hardly brought me in £50 per annum, omnibus annis; and some years not enough to pay my curate there his salary of £30 a-year. This living, by your lordship’s permission and favour, I would gladly resign to one Mr John Whitelamb, born in the neighbourhood of Wroot, where his father and grandfather lived, when I took him from among the scholars of a charity school, (founded by one Mr Travers, an attorney,) brought him to my house, and educated him there, where he was my amanuensis for four years, in transcribing my ‘Dissertations on the Book of Job,’ now well advanced in the press; and was employed in drawing my maps and figures for it, as well as we could by the light of nature. After this, I sent him to Oxford to my son, John Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln College, under whom he made such proficiency, that he was, the last summer, admitted by the Bishop of Oxford into deacon’s orders, and placed my curate in Epworth, while I came up to town to expedite the printing of my book.
“Since I was here, I gave consent to his marrying one of my seven daughters, and they are married accordingly; and though I can spare little more with her, yet I would gladly give them a little glebe land at Wroot, where I am sure they will not want springs of water. But they love the place, though I can get nobody else to reside on it.
“If I do not flatter myself, he is indeed a valuable person, of uncommon brightness, learning, piety, and indefatigable industry, always loyal to the king, zealous for the Church, and friendly to our Dissenting brethren; and for the truth of this character I will be answerable to God and man.
“If, therefore, your lordship will grant me the favour to let me resign the living unto him, and please to confer it on him, I shall always remain, your lordship’s most bounden, most grateful, and most obedient servant,
“Samuel Wesley.”[[306]]
In the Gentleman’s Magazine for February 1734, p. 108, the following announcement is made, in the list of ecclesiastical preferments:—“Mr Whitelamb to the rectory of Wroot, Lincolnshire.”
Mr Wesley’s two sons, John and Charles, were still at Oxford, and, with the other members of “the Holy Club,” were receiving the sacrament once a week, were practising the fasts of the English Church, visiting prisoners in the gaol, and the destitute in the city, and were abridging themselves of all the superfluities, and of many of the conveniences of life, for the purpose of relieving the distress with which they met. In December 1731, Samuel Wesley visited his two sons at Oxford, to see for himself the good they were doing, and to obtain direct information respecting their temper and spirit. In a letter to his wife, he says he “was well paid both for his expense and labour by their shining piety.” During the course of the ensuing summer, in 1732, John Wesley made two visits to Epworth; and two others in January and in June 1733. His father’s health had been seriously affected ever since his sad accident in June 1731; and as Samuel Wesley, jun., had declined to become his father’s successor at Epworth, the same proposal was now made to John,[[307]] and a long correspondence followed, which lasted till the end of 1734.[[308]] In a long letter to his father, written at this period, John Wesley assigns his reasons for declining the proposal. At Oxford he always had at hand half a dozen friends like-minded with himself; he was free from idle and trifling visitors, except once a month when he invited some of the students to breakfast with him; he was free from cares, and had the opportunity of attending public prayer twice a day; he could be holier and usefuller at Oxford than anywhere else; and the care of two thousand souls at Epworth was a greater weight than he had ability to bear.