Some remarkable circumstances attended Wesley's preaching in these parts. Some of his opponents, in the excess of their zeal against enthusiasm, took up a whole waggon load of Methodists, and carried them before a justice. When they were asked what these persons had done, there was an awkward silence; at last one of the accusers said, “Why, they pretended to be better than other people; and, besides, they prayed from morning till night." The magistrate asked if they had done nothing else." Yes, Sir," said an old man, "an't please your worship, they have convarted my wife. Till she went among them she had such a tongue! and now she is as quiet as a lamb!"-" Carry them back, carry them back," said the magistrate," and let them convert all the scolds in the town." Among the hearers in the church-yard was a gentleman, remarkable for professing that he was of no religion for more than thirty years he had not attended at public worship of any kind; and, perhaps, if Wesley had preached from the pulpit instead of the tomb-stone, he might not have been induced to gratify his curiosity by hearing him. But when the sermon was ended, Wesley perceived that it had reached him, and that he stood like a statue; so he asked him abruptly, "Sir, are you a sinner?"—"Sinner enough," was the reply, which was uttered in a deep and broken voice; and he continued staring upwards, till his wife and servants, who were all in tears, put him into his chaise and took him home. Ten years afterwards, Wesley says in his journal, "I called on the gentle man who told me he was sinner enough,' when I preached first at Epworth on my father's tomb, and was agreeably surprised to find him strong in faith, though exceeding weak in body. For some years, he told me, he had been rejoicing in God without either doubt or fear, and was now waiting for the welcome hour when he should depart and be with Christ." There were indeed few places where his preaching was attended with greater or more permanent effect than at Epworth, upon this first visit. “Oh,” he exclaims, "let none think his labour of love is lost, because the fruit does not immediately appear! Near forty years did my father labour here, but he saw little fruit of all his labour. I took some pains among this people too; and my strength also seemed spent in vain. But now the fruit appeared. There were scarce any in the town on whom either my father or I had taken any pains formerly, but the seed so long sown now sprung up, bringing forth repentance and remission of sins." The intemperate and indecent conduct of the curate must undoubtedly have provoked a feeling in favour of Wesley; for this person, who was under the greatest obligations to the Wesley family, behaved toward him with the most offensive brutality. In a state of beastly intoxication himself, he set upon him with abuse and violence in the presence of a thousand people; and when some persons, who had come from the neighbouring towns to attend upon the new preacher, by his direction, waited upon Mr. Romley to inform him never have thus wholly abandoned himself to these flagitious propensities, if the Moravians had not withdrawn him from his influence, and therefore he judged them to be accountable for his perdition. He seems to have felt no misgiving that he himself might have been the cause; that Hall might have continued to walk uprightly if he had kept the common path; and that nothing could be more dangerous to a vain and headstrong man of a heated fancy, than the notion that he had attained to Christian perfection, and felt in himself the manifestations of the Spirit. Weary of this life at last, after many years, and awakened to a sense of its guilt as well as its vanity, he returned to England in his old age, resumed his clerical functions, and appears to have been received by his wife. Wesley was satisfied that his contrition was real, and hastened to visit him upon his death-bed; but it was too late. "I came," he 66 says, just time enough not to see, but to bury poor Mr. Hall, my brother-in-law, who died, I trust, in peace, for God had given him deep repentance. Such another monument of divine mercy, considering how low he had fallen, and from what height of holiness, I have not seen, no, not in seventy years! I had designed to visit him in the morning, but he did not stay for my coming. It is enough if, after all his wanderings, we meet again in Abraham's bosom." Mrs. Hall bore her fate with resignation, and with an inward consciousness that her punishment was not heavier than her fault:-that fault excepted, the course of her life was exemplary, and she lived to be the last survivor of a family whose years were protracted far beyond the ordinary age of man. Mehetabel, her sister, had a life of more unmingled affliction. In the spring freshness of youth and hope, her affections were engaged by one who, in point of abilities and situation, might have been a suitable husband; some circumstances, however, occasioned a disagreement with her father, the match was broken off, and Hetty committed a fatal error, which many women have committed in their just but blind resentment—she married the first person who offered. This was a man in no desirable rank of life, of coarse mind and manners, inferior to herself in education and in intellect, and every way unworthy of a woman whose equal in all things it would have been difficult to find. For her person was more than commonly pleasing, her disposition gentle and affectionate, her principles those which arm the heart either for prosperous or adverse fortune, her talents remarkable, and her attainments beyond what are ordinarily permitted to women, even those who are the most highly educated. Duty in her had produced so much affection toward the miserable creature whom she had made her husband, that the brutal profligacy of his conduct almost broke her heart. Under such feelings, and at a time when she believed and hoped that she should soon be at peace in the grave, she composed this Epitaph for herself: Destined while living to sustain An equal share of grief and pain, Without complaint she learn'd to bear From that illness, however, she recovered, so far as to linger on for many years, living to find in religion the consolation which she needed, and which nothing else can bestow. The state of her mind is beautifully expressed in the first letter which she ever addressed to John upon the subject. "Some years ago," she says, "I told my brother Charles I could not be of his way of thinking then, but that if ever I was, I would as freely own it. After I was convinced of sin, and of your opinion, as far as I had examined your principles, I still forbore declaring my sentiments so openly as I had inclination to do, fearing I should relapse into my former state. When I was delivered from this fear, and had a blessed hope that he who had begun would finish his work, I never confessed, so fully as I ought, how entirely I was of your mind; because I was taxed with insincerity and hypocrisy whenever I opened my mouth in favour of religion, or owned how great things God had done for me. This discouraged me utterly, and prevented me from making my change as public as my folly and vanity had formerly been. But now my health is gone, I cannot be easy without declaring that I have long desired to know but one thing, that is |