Before Wesley wrote again he had been to Newcastle and had seen Peggy. The letter is dated from Witney, August 27, and is, as usual, very affectionate in tone: "I thought it was hardly possible for me to love you better than I did before I came last to Newcastle. But your artless, simple, undisguised Affection exceedingly increased mine. At the same time it increased my Confidence in you so that I feel you are unspeakably near and dear to me." He adds in a postscript, "Don’t forget what you have learnt in Music." Possibly Peggy had been showing her friend her accomplishments. Possibly, too, she had learnt her music from a certain young man, Edward Avison, afterwards organist of St. Nicholas’ Church, Newcastle. If this were the case, her teacher taught Peggy something else beside music, for she afterwards married him.
In the next letter we get glimpses of two people famous in the Methodist world of the day, George Whitefield, and Darcy, Lady Maxwell. Of George Whitefield it is unnecessary to speak. Lady Maxwell was the daughter of Thomas Brisbane of Brisbane in Ayrshire, and the widow of Sir Walter Maxwell, fourth Baronet, of Pollock. Left a childless widow in 1757, she became a follower of John Wesley, though she did not formally join the Methodists till many years later. She provided the money for building the school at Kingswood.
Wesley writes: "I hope Mr. Whitefield was an instrument of good at Newcasle, and a means of stirring up Some. He is very affectionate and very lively and his word seldom falls to the ground: tho’ he does not frequently speak of the deep things of God, or the Height of ye Promises. But you say not one word of Lady Maxwell? Did she call at Newcastle going and coming? Did you converse with her alone? And did she break thro’ her Natural and habitual Shyness? How did you find her? Seeking Heavenly things alone, and all athirst for God? It will be a miracle of miracles if she stands, considering the thousand snares that surround her. I have much satisfaction when I consider in how different a situation you and my Dear Molly Dale are. You have every outward Advantage for Holiness wch an indulgent Providence can give."[24]
The correspondence now begins to slacken. Peggy has accused him of not answering her last letter; in reply Wesley writes from Liverpool, April 1, 1768. "I do not understand what Letter you mean. I have answer’d (if I do not forget) every letter which I have receiv’d, and I commonly answer either of you within a day or two. In this respect, I do not love to remain in your debt. In others I must always be so, for I can never pay you the Affection I owe. Accept of what little I have to give.... I hope to be at Glasgow on Wednesday the 19th instant, at Aberdeen ye 28th, at Edinburgh May 5th, at Newcastle on Friday May 20th."
The next letter dated June 30, 1768, may be described as a very brief treatise on Sanctification. Then there is a gap of nearly a year, the next letter being dated May 20, 1769. Peggy has had to endure a great trial. Her sister Molly married a Mr. John Collinson of London. The Newcastle Courant of April 29, 1769, thus announces the fact: "Thursday, was married at St. Andrew’s, Mr. John Collinson of London to Miss Dale of Northumberland Street, daughter of the late Mr. Dale of Tunstall, near Sunderland, a most agreeable young lady, endowed with every qualification to render the marriage state happy, with a fortune of £2,000." But Peggy felt her sister’s defection much. Wesley was strongly in favour of the single life both for men and women. He had published a treatise in favour of celibacy, entitled Thoughts on a Single Life. It is true that he himself afterwards married in the year 1751, but, as his matrimonial experiences were distinctly unfortunate (he separated from his wife for ever after five years of married life), he was not unnaturally more than ever firmly convinced of the advantage of celibacy.[25] Peggy was as yet quite sure that John Wesley was right in this as in everything else.
He comforts her thus: "The hearing from my Dear Peggy at this critical time gives me a particular satisfaction. I wanted to know, How you bore such a trial, a wound in the tenderest part. You have now a first proof that the God whom you serve, is able to deliver you in every trial. You feel and yet conquer.... I hope you are delivered not only from repining with regard to Her, but from reasoning with regard to yourself. You still see the more excellent way, and are sensible of the advantages you enjoy. I allow some single women have fewer Advantages for Eternity than they might have in a married State. But, blessed be God you have all the Advantages wch one can well conceive.... O may you improve every advantage to the uttermost. And give more and more comfort to, my Dear Peggy, your Affectionate Brother, J. Wesley."
There is one more letter from London, November 17, 1769, encouraging Peggy to persevere in her work for others. Then the letters cease. Perhaps there were more letters which have been lost, or were perchance destroyed by the recipient. Wesley, with his zeal for celibacy, can hardly have liked the news of his Peggy’s engagement to Edward Avison. He was organist of St. Nicholas’, Newcastle, in succession to his father, Charles Avison,[26] once a well-known musician in the North of England. He was three years younger than Peggy. Their married life was short. They were married March, 1773: Edward Avison died October, 1776, aged twenty-nine; and Peggy in November, 1777, aged thirty-three. They left no children. Their monument in the churchyard of St. Andrew’s Church, Newcastle, says: "They were eminent for piety and primitive simplicity of manners; having each borne a lingering disease with the most exemplary patience and resignation, they rejoiced at the approach of death." Perhaps Wesley visited Newcastle during the last year of his dear Peggy’s life, and was able to minister spiritual consolation to her. Let us hope that any breach that Peggy’s marriage may have made between her and one who loved her with so tender and paternal an affection was cured by the approach of Death, the great Healer.
Little remains to be said. Mary Collinson lived to 1812, and left a family of two sons, George Dale and John Collinson, and three daughters, Ann Collinson, Thermuthis Collinson, and Mary, the wife of Christopher Godmond. It is not known if any of her descendants are alive to-day; if there be any such, they may very likely possess the missing letters. Ann Dale never married, and lived till 1820. Edward, their brother, died in 1826, having seen five of his six sons die before him without issue. His eldest and only surviving son, also Edward, lived till 1862, and then died childless. With him died out the senior branch of the family of Dale of Dalton-le-Dale and Tunstall. Since his death there have been no Dales of this family residing in the Bishopric. How the letters written by John Wesley came into the possession of Canon Dale, or Canon Dale’s father, William Dale, is not known. Possibly Anne Dale gave them to William Dale, or her brother may have given them to his son. It is certain that to that son’s careful preservation of them we owe this intimate revelation of the great revivalist’s affection for a Durham girl.
THE OLD FAMILIES OF DURHAM
By Henry R. Leighton
THE evil fate that has attended the old houses in this county has followed equally relentlessly the families who once dwelled therein. Here and there, it is true, a family still exists that has weathered the storms of long centuries; one or two, perhaps, may be pointed out that have increased their acreage as the long years went by; and perhaps another two or three whose lands remain with daughters’ heirs.