“Though you have lost your chief reason for coming, yet there are others which make your presence more necessary than ever. My mother, who will hardly ever leave Epworth, would be exceedingly glad to see you as soon as can be. She does not administer, so can neither sue nor be sued. We have computed the debts as near as can be, and find they amount to about £100, exclusive of cousin Richardson’s. Mrs Knight, her landlady, seized all her quick stock, valued at above £40 for £15 my father owed her on Monday last, the day he was buried; and my brother this afternoon gives a note for the money, in order to get the stock at liberty to sell; for security of which he has the stock made over to him, and will be paid as it can be sold. My father was buried very frugally, yet decently, in the churchyard according to his own desire. It will be highly necessary to bring all accounts of what he owed you, that you may mark all the goods in the house as principal creditor, and thereby secure to my mother time and liberty to sell them to the best advantage. All papers and letters of importance I have sealed up and keep till you come.

“If you take London in your way, my mother desires you would remember she is a clergyman’s widow. Let the society give her what they please—she must be still in some degree burdensome to you, as she calls it. How do I envy you that glorious burden, and wish I could share it. You must put me in some way of getting a little money, that I may do something in this shipwreck of the family, for somebody, though it be no more than furnishing a plank.

“My mother sends her love and blessing; we all send our love to you, and to my sister and Phill. I should be ashamed of having so much business in my letter were it not necessary. I would choose to write and think of nothing but my father. Before we meet I hope you will have finished his elegy. Pray write if there be time.—I am, your most affectionate brother,

“Charles Wesley.”[[345]]

Thus lived and died Samuel Wesley.[[346]] Near the east end of Epworth Church, there is a plain grit tombstone, supported by brick-work, on which is cut the following inscription, said to have been composed by Mrs Wesley. Passing over the absurd manner in which it is divided, it is utterly unworthy of the distinguished man whose memory it is intended to perpetuate:—

“Here

Lyeth all that was

Mortal of Samuel Wesley,

A.M. He was rector of Epworth

39 years, and departed