that it might not be exposed to impertinent curiosity. It was to this purport:-"I conjure you spare no time, no address or pains to learn the true cause of my friend's former grief. I much doubt you are in the right. God forbid that she should again err thus. Watch over, guard her as much as you possibly can. Write to me, how it behoves me to write to her." Here not being under Wesley's eye, her life was not regulated with the same reference to his opinion; and when he went to Frederica some weeks after his brother's departure," he found her," he says, "scarce the shadow of what she was, when he had left her." He endeavoured to convince her of this: the kind of remonstrance excited some pain and some pride; and in her resentment she told him she would return to England immediately. "I was at first a little surprised," says he, "but I soon recollected my spirits, and remembered my calling.

non me, qui cætera vincet

Impetus; at rapido contrarius evehar orbi.”

He had recourse to prayer, however, and to the exhortations of Ephrem Syrus, whom he thought at this time the most awakening writer of all the ancients; and after several fruitless attempts, he

* It was perhaps on this occasion that he composed these lines, which, as he tells us in his "Plain Account of Christian Perfection," were written at Savannah in the year 1736:

Is there a thing beneath the sun

That strives with thee my heart to share?

Ah tear it thence, and reign alone,

The Lord of every motion there!

at length succeeded in dissuading her from what he called the fatal resolution of going to England. She went back with him to Savannah, and in a short time he believed she had recovered the ground which she had lost. This was the close of October. "In the beginning of December," he writes, "I advised Miss Sophy to sup earlier, and not immediately before she went to bed. She did so, and on this little circumstance, what an inconceivable train of consequences depend! not only all the colour of remaining life for her, but perhaps my happiness too."

Notwithstanding this docility, Delamotte suspected that both her obedience and her devotion were merely assumed for the occasion; he therefore told Wesley what he thought of her artfulness and his simplicity, and plainly asked him if it was his intention to marry her. That he had formed this intention in his heart is beyond a doubt, but he had not declared it; the question embarrassed him, and he made no decisive answer; but being staggered by what Delamotte had said, he called upon the Moravian Bishop. The Bishop replied thus:-" Marriage is not unlawful. Whether it is expedient for you at this time, and whether this lady is a proper wife for you, ought to be maturely considered." The more he considered the more he was perplexed, so he propounded the matter to the elders of the Moravian Church. When he went to learn their determination, he found Delamotte sitting with the elders in full conclave assembled; and upon his proposing the

question, the Bishop replied: "We have considered your case; will you abide by our decision?” He made answer that he would. Then said the Bishop, we advise you to proceed no further in this business. Upon this Wesley replied, “The will of the Lord be done," and from that time in perfect obedience to their decision, it is affirmed that he carefully avoided the lady's company, though he perceived what pain this change in his conduct gave her. Had the lady herself known that a consultation of Moravian elders had been held upon her case, whatever pain and whatever love she might have felt, would soon have given place to resent

ment.

- Docile, however, as he had shown himself to his spiritual directors, his private diary shows what pain he felt in their decision, and that even when he thought it best for his salvation that the match should be broken off, he had not resolution to break it off himself, so that the point on his part was still undecided, when she put an end to his struggles by taking another husband. Passages in his private journal make this beyond a doubt: «Feb. 5. 1737. One of the most remarkable dispensations of Providence towards me which I have yet known began to show itself this day. For many days after I could not at all judge which way the scale would turn: nor was it fully determined till March 4. on which God commanded me to pul! out my right eye; and by his grace I determined so to do; but being slack in the execution, on Saturday, March 12., God being very merciful to

me, my friend performed what I could not. I have often thought one of the most difficult commands that ever was given, was that given to Ezekiel concerning his wife. But the difficulty of obeying such a direction appeared to me now more than ever before, when considering the character I bore, I could not but perceive that the word of the Lord was come to me likewise, saying, 'Son of man, behold I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke, yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down.'" The fourth of March appears to have been the day on which the consultation was held : "From the direction I received from God this day,” he says, 66 touching an affair of the last importance, I cannot but observe, as I have done many times before, the entire mistake of many good men, who assert that God will not answer your prayer unless your heart be wholly resigned to his will. My heart was not wholly resigned to his will; therefore, I durst not depend on my own judgement; and for this very reason I cried to him the more earnestly to supply what was wanting in me. And I know, and am assured, that he heard my voice, and did send forth his light and his truth." The twelfth of March was the day on which Sophia married Mr. Williamson, "being," says Wesley, "the day which completed the year from my first speaking to her. What thou doest, O God, I know not now, but I shall know hereafter."*

* Upon this part of Wesley's private history Dr. Whitehead says, "Mr. Wesley has observed a silence in his printed journal on some,

His first consolation was derived from reflecting upon the part which he believed himself called to

circumstances of this affair, which has induced many persons to suspect the propriety of his conduct in this business. He has, however, been more open in his private journal, which was written at the time as the eircumstances arose. And as this private journal, and his other papers, lay open to the inspection of his friends for several years, I cannot help thinking that it would have been more to the reputation of them-selves and Mr. Wesley to have openly avowed the fact that he did intend to marry Miss Causton, and was not a little pained when she broke off the connection with him. From a careful perusal of his private journal this appears to me to have been the case. But, whatever may be said of his weakness, (and who is not weak in something or other?) or of his prudence in this affair, nothing can be laid to his charge in point of criminality." Wesley would naturally say as little as possible upon this subject in his printed journal; and in private, whether he remembered the lady with any degree of tenderness or not, he must have been conscious of much eccentricity during the course of the attachment, and great indiscretion after it was broken off. But it is remarkable that his private journal should only hint at the consultation of Moravians, and so remotely, that unless the fact had elsewhere been mentioned, it could never have been inferred. Dr. Coke

and Mr. Moore say, "There is a silence observed in Mr. Wesley's journal in respect to some parts of this event, which it is possible has caused even friendly readers to hesitate concerning the pro-priety of his conduct, or at least concerning that propriety which they might be led to expect from so great a character. But what has hitherto been defective, we are happy in being able to supply. The actors in this scene, are now, we may hope, in a better world; the last of them died but a few years since. We are not, therefore, bound, as Mr. Wesley thought himself when he published the account, to let a veil be thrown over this transaction: rather we are bound to let his innocency appear as the light, and his just dealing as the noon-day.” They add some circumstances which, to say the least, are not very probable. A young lady who had married after her arrival in Georgia, was troubled in conscience, and told Wesley, under a promise of secresy, the plot which General Oglethorpe had laid to cure him of his enthusiasm, adding these words: "Sir, I had no rest till I resolved to tell you the whole affair. I have myself been urged to that behaviour towards you, which I am now ashamed to mention. Both Miss Sophia and myself were ordered, if we could but succeed, even to deny you nothing." These biographers say further," when General Oglethorpe perceived by Wesley's altered manner, and some incautious expressions, that his scheme had been discovered, he gave him a hint that there were