“Mr. Hall has paid me for the books. I don’t want any money of you; your love is sufficient. But write, as often and as largely as you can, to your affectionate friend and brother,
“John Wesley.”[307]
Not long after this, “poor Moravianized Mr. Hall,” as Charles Wesley calls him, seems to have removed to Salisbury, and there to have occupied a chapel, and set up a Society of his own, which his wife refused to join. Charles Wesley writes:—
“1743, August 11. From ten to two, I got with my sister Hall in Salisbury. She stands alone. Every soul of her husband’s Society has forsaken the ordinances of God; for which reason she refuses to belong to it.”
Westley Hall was now an avowed Dissenter. His wife objected to leave the Church of her venerable father. Her husband’s disciples jeered her; and, before long, her husband himself committed against her the most cruel wrongs. Another extract from Charles Wesley’s Journal will be useful. On his way from London to Bristol, he wrote:—
“1745, June 19. Three miles on this side Salisbury, a still sister came out to meet, and try her skill upon, me. But, alas! it was labour lost! I knew the happy sinner, and all her paces. I found my sister as a rock in the midst of waves. Mr. Hall’s Society had all left the Church, and mocked and persecuted her for not leaving it. Many pressed me to preach; but I answered them, ‘My heart was not free to it.’ At four, I set out with my sister; and reached Bristol in the afternoon of the next day.”
Six months after this, Hall, not satisfied with his dissenting success at Salisbury, used his utmost endeavours to make converts of the two Wesley brothers. To John Wesley he wrote a long letter, earnestly pressing him and his brother “to renounce the Church of England.” Hall’s letter is lost; but Wesley’s answer exists, and is too important to be omitted. It exhibits the ground taken by Hall, and shows the position and difficulties of some, at least, of the Oxford Methodists.
“December 30, 1745.
“Dear Brother,—Now you act the part of a friend. It has long been our desire, that, you would speak freely. And we will do the same. What we know not yet, may God reveal to us!