And when the bearer’s truly blest, it—Showers—
Showers, indeed! for both thy tongue and pen,
Have often made our graces spring again.”
Another of Wesley’s school-fellows was the celebrated Daniel Defoe—the son of a London butcher, and born the year before Wesley was—the master of five languages, and a diligent student of mathematics, natural philosophy, geography, history, and logic; a man who commenced trade as a horse-dealer; but who paid less attention to trade than to politics; and hence, at the age of thirty-one, was bankrupt, and had to compound with his creditors. Trade failing, Defoe turned author, and published several works, which gained him the confidence of King William, and excited great attention. In 1703, he issued his publication entitled, “The Shortest Way with Dissenters,” of which more anon. In 1704, he commenced the Review, a periodical which extended to nine quarto volumes, and which pointed the way to the Tatlers, Spectators, and Guardians that followed. After this, he was, in more instances than one, employed by the Government, and was granted a Government pension. By his Family Instructor, the family of George I. were instructed; his “Robinson Crusoe” is too well known to need description; while his “Captain Singleton,” “Moll Flanders,” “Religious Courtship,” “Cavalier,” “Colonel Jack,” and “Fortunate Mistress;” his “Journal of the Plague,” “Political History of the Devil,” and “New Voyage Round the World,” if not read now, used to be read by admiring myriads. Defoe was a marvellous man, and something more will have to be said concerning him. He died in poverty, four years before Samuel Wesley died, and was buried in Bunhill Fields, in 1731.
Space forbids any further mention of the school-fellows of young Wesley; and we can only add, that, notwithstanding the dangers to which he was exposed, and excepting the censurable proceedings already noticed, he left London with an unblemished character, and considerably advanced in classical learning, by the instructions of the two pious and eminent men who acted as his tutors. He had the opportunity of attending the ministry of Stephen Charnock, John Bunyan, and many other of the most popular preachers of the day; and, before he went to Oxford, had taken down many hundreds of their sermons. Though he left the Dissenters, it would be folly to deny that these dissenting sermons greatly enriched his mind, and helped to mould his moral character.
[Besides some of the works mentioned at the close of Chapters I and II., the following have contributed to the contents of the present chapter, viz., Clarke’s Wesley Family, Dunton’s Life and Times, Toulmin’s Life of Biddle, Gentleman’s Magazine, the Tracts written during the controversy between Wesley and Palmer in 1703–1707, the works mentioned in the course of the chapter, and others.]
CHAPTER IV.
UNIVERSITY DAYS—1683—1688.
Samuel Wesley left the Dissenters in 1683. Why? His son, the Rev. John Wesley, shall answer. His statement is as follows:—
“Some severe invectives being written against the Dissenters, Mr S. Wesley, being a young man of considerable talents, was pitched upon to answer them. This set him on a course of reading, which soon produced an effect different from what had been intended. Instead of writing the wished-for answer, he himself conceived he saw reason to change his opinions; and actually formed a resolution to renounce the Dissenters, and attach himself to the Established Church. He lived at that time with his mother and an old aunt, both of whom were too strongly attached to the Dissenting doctrines to have borne, with any patience, the disclosure of his design. He therefore got up one morning, at a very early hour, and, without acquainting any one with his purpose, set out on foot to Oxford, and entered himself of Exeter College.”
Samuel Wesley’s own account is, in substance, the following:—While he was a student in the Dissenting academies in London, Dr Owen wished him and some others to graduate at the universities, on the ground that the Dissenters were expecting the times to change, and that in a little while their party would be looked upon with greater favour, and their pupils be allowed to take university degrees. Owen, however, insisted that on no account whatever ought they to take the oaths and subscriptions.