"I must see of what spirit she is," Wesley told himself, "and if she may yet be numbered among the children of light."
A new phase of Antonia's life began after her interview with John Wesley. All that she had done in the past, in those dens of misery and crime by the Marsh, was as nothing compared with her work under his direction. At Lambeth she had but exercised a fine lady's capricious benevolence, obeying the whim of the moment: a creature of impulse, too lavish where her heart was touched, too easily revolted by the ugliness of vice. In the squalid regions that lay around the Foundery her charities were administered upon a different system. One of Mr. Wesley's best gifts was the faculty of order, and all things done under his direction were done with an admirable method and proportion. His Loan Society, which made advances of twenty shillings and upwards to the respectable poor—to be repaid in weekly instalments—his Dispensary, his day and night-classes all testified to his power of organization. From the days when a poor scholar at Oxford, he lived like an anchorite of the desert in order that he might feed starving prisoners and rescue fallen women, he had been experienced in systematic charity. From him, in the hours he could spare her before starting on his northern pilgrimage, she learnt how to distribute her alms with an unfailing justice, and how to make the best use of her time. Her visits in those homes of sickness and penury, which might have been hopelessly dreary without his directing spirit, became full of interest in the light of his all-comprehending mind.
She sold three of her dress carriages and dismissed her second coachman. A hackney coach carried her to Moorfields every day, and she employed the greater part of the day in visiting the poor. She was often among Wesley's hearers at the evening service at the Foundery. His sermons touched her heart and almost convinced her reason. His simplicity of style and force of argument impressed her more than Whitefield's dramatic oratory. Mr. Wesley had no deep-drawn "Oh!" for Garrick to envy. His action was calm and pleasing, his voice clear and manly. He appealed to the heart and mind of his hearers by no studied effects, no flights of rhetoric, yet he never failed to hold them in the spell of that simple eloquence.
Antonia was interested in the congregation as well as in the preacher. She was moved by the spectacle of all those fervent worshippers—mostly in the lower ranks of life—men and women of scantiest leisure, who gave much when they spent their evenings in the chapel; instead of at the playhouse, or by the fireside in the cosy parlour with cards and congenial company. For the first time she began to understand what the religious life meant, the life in which all earthly things are secondary. The earnest faces, the voices of a vast concourse singing Charles Wesley's exquisite hymns, moved her deeply.
Her work took her mostly among the humble members of that Methodist Society which had begun twenty years before by the gathering together of eight or ten awakened souls, yearning for help and counsel, groaning under the burden of sin, and which was now so widespread a multitude. In the garrets and cellars, where she sat beside the bed of the sick and the dying, she found a fervour of unquestioning faith that startled and touched her. For these sufferers the Gospel she read was no history of things long past and done with, no story of a vanished life. It was the message of a living Friend, a Redeemer waiting to give them welcome in the Kingdom of the just made perfect, the world where there is no death. He who had promised the penitent thief a dwelling in Paradise was at the door of the death chamber; and to die was to pass to a life more beautiful than a child's dream of heaven.
As the days and weeks went by, that Gospel story read so often under such solemn influences, with death hovering near, took a deeper hold upon Antonia's imagination. The message that she carried to others was for her also. She learnt to love the wise Teacher, the beneficent Healer, the Saviour of mankind. That name of Saviour pleased her. From the theologian's point of view she was, perhaps, no more a Christian than she had ever been. She dared not tell John Wesley, whom she revered, and who now accepted her as a brand snatched from the burning, that her faith was not his faith, that she was neither convinced of sin nor assured of Grace.
Her awakening had been no sudden act, like the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost, but a gradual change in her whole nature, the widening of her sympathies, the growth of pity and of love. It was not of Christ the Sacrifice she thought, not of His atoning blood; but of Jesus the Great Exemplar, of Jesus who went about doing good. She would not question how it came to pass, but she believed that, in the dim long-ago, Divinity walked among mankind and wore the shape of man; to what end, except to make men better, she knew not. In all her conversation with Wesley's converts, however exalted their ideas might be, that earthly image was in her mind, Jesus, human and compassionate, the Comforter of human sorrows, the Sinless One who loved sinners.
Wesley rejoiced with exceeding joy in her conversion. He had met her from time to time in the dwellings of the poor, had sat with her beside the bed of the dying, had seen her often among his congregation; and he believed that the work of Grace had begun, and that it needed but good influences to ensure her final perseverance and justification by faith. He wrote to George Stobart the night before he left London for the North.
"You have passed through a fiery trial, dear friend, and I admire your fortitude in renouncing a passion that was stronger than all things, except your hope of salvation. The lady you love has become my friend and fellow-worker, and I dare venture to believe that she has escaped from darkness into light, and that you may now enjoy her society without peril to your soul. Let me hear by-and-by how your suit prospers. Her ladyship is a woman of rare gifts, and of a noble character.
"Yours in Christ,
"J. W."