ther desired my company. When I came, he gave me an account of all that had happened; particularly the knocking during family prayer. But that evening (to my great satisfaction) we had no knocking at all. But between nine and ten, a servant came in and said, Old Jeffries is coming,' (that was the name of one that died in the house,) " for I hear the signal.' This they informed me was heard every night about a quarter before ten. It was toward the top of the house on the outside, at the north-east corner, resembling the loud creaking of a saw: or rather that of a windmill, when the body of it is turned about, in order to shift the sails to the wind. We then heard a knocking over our heads, and Mr. Wesley catching up a candle, said, Come, Sir, now you shall hear for yourself.' We went up stairs; he with much hope, and I (to say the truth) with much fear. When we came into the nursery, it was knocking in the next room: when we were there, it was knocking in the nursery. And there it continued to knock, though we came in, particularly at the head of the bed (which was of wood) in which Miss Hetty and two of her younger sisters lay. Mr. Wesley, observing that they were much affected though asleep, sweating, and trembling exceedingly, was very angry, and pulling out a pistol, was going to fire at the place from whence the sound came. But I catched him by the arm, and said, Sir, you are convinced this is something preternatural. If so, you cannot hurt it: but you give it power to hurt you.' He then went close to the place and said sternly, Thou deaf and dumb devil, why dost thou fright these children, that cannot answer for themselves? Come to me in my study that am a man?' Instantly it knocked his knock (the particular knock which he always used at the gate) as if it would shiver the board in pieces, and we heard nothing more that night." Till this time, my father had never heard the least disturbances in his study. But the next evening, as he attempted to go into his study (of which none had any key but himself) when he opened the door, it was thrust back with such violence, as had 6 like to have thrown him down. However, he thrust the door open and went in. Presently there was knocking first on one side, then on the other; and after a time, in the next room, wherein my sister Nancy was. He went into that room, and (the noise continuing) adjured it to speak; but in vain. He then said, "These spirits love darkness: put out the candle, and perhaps it will speak :" she did so; and he repeated his adjuration; but still there was only knocking, and no articulate sound. Upon this he said, " Nancy, two christians are an overmatch for the devil. Go all of you down stairs; it may be, when I am alone, he will have courage to speak." When she was gone a thought came in, and he said, "If thou art the spirit of my son Samuel, I pray, knock three knocks and no more." Immediately all was silence; and there was no more knocking at all that night. I asked my sister Nancy (then about fifteen years old) whether she was not afraid, when my father used that adjuration? She answered, she was sadly afraid it would speak, when she put out the candle; but she was not at all afraid in the day-time, when it walked after her, as she swept the chambers, as it constantly did, and seemed to sweep after her. Only she thought he might have done it for her, and saved her the trouble. By this time all my sisters were so accustomed to these noises, that they gave them little disturbance. A gentle tapping at their bed-head usually began between nine and ten at night. They then commonly said to each other, "Jeffery is coming: it is time to go to sleep." And if they heard a noise in the day, and said to my youngest sister, "Hark, Kezzy, Jeffery is knocking above," she would run up stairs, and pursue it from room to room, saying, she desired no better diversion. A few nights after, my father and mother were just gone to bed, and the candle was not taken away, when they heard three blows, and a second, and a third three, as it were with a large oaken staff, struck upon a chest which stood by the bed-side. My father immediately arose, put on his night-gown, and hearing great noises below, took the candle As they and went down: my mother walked by his side. went down the broad stairs, they heard as if a vessel full of silver was poured upon my mother's breast, and ran jingling down to her feet. Quickly after there was a sound, as if a large iron ball was thrown among many bottles under the stairs: but nothing was hurt. Soon after, our large mastiff dog came and ran to shelter himself between them. While the disturbances continued, he used to bark and leap, and snap on one side and the other; and that frequently before any person in the room heard any noise at all. But after two or three days, he used to tremble, and creep away before the noise began. And by this, the family knew it was at hand; nor did the observation ever fail. A little before my father and mother came into the hall, it seemed as if a very large coal was violently thrown upon the floor and dashed all in picces: but nothing was seen. My father then cried out, "Suky, do you not hear? All the pewter is thrown about the kitchen." But when they looked, all the pewter stood in its place. There then was a loud knocking at the back-door. My father opened it, but saw nothing. It was then at the fore-door. He opened that; but it was still lost labour. After opening first the one, then the other several times, he turned and went up to bed. But the noises were so violent all over the house, that he could not sleep till four in the morning. Several gentlemen and clergymen now earnestly advised my father to quit the house. But he constantly answered, "No; let the devil flee from me: I will never flee from the devil." But he wrote to my eldest brother at London to come down. He was preparing so to do, when another letter came, informing him the disturbances were over; after they had continued (the latter part of the time day and night) from the second of December to the end of January. NOTE VIII. Page 32. MR. BUTLER (in whose biographical works the reader may find a well-digested account of the life and writings of Thomas à Kempis) says that more than an hundred and fifty treatises concerning the author of The Imitation had been printed, before Du Pin wrote his dissertation upon the subject. The controversy has been renewed in the present century. There is a Dissertazione Epistolare intorno all' Autore del Libro De Imitatione Christi annexed to a dissertation upon the birth-place of Columbus (Florence, 1808). A treatise upon sixty French translations of The Imitation was published at Paris, April 14. 1813, by Ant. Alex. Barbier, Bibliothecaire de sa Majesté l'Empereur et Roi. Mr. Butler says, "the fear of the Cossacks suspended the controversy; probably it will now be resumed." A curious anecdote concerning this book occurs in Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, (vol. i. p. 236.) "There had been a press for printing at Cambridge (in New England) for near twenty years. The court appointed two persons in October 1662 licensers of the press, and prohibited the publishing any books or papers which should not be supervised by them; and in 1668 the supervisors having allowed of the printing Thomas à Kempis' De Imitatione Christi, the court interposed, it being wrote by a popish minister, and containing some things less safe to be infused among the people;' and therefore they commended to the licensers a more full revisal, and ordered the press to stop in the mean time. In a constitution less popular, this would have been thought too great an abridgment of the subject's liberty." NOTE IX. Page 47. Methodists not a new Name. "Ir is not generally known," says Mr. Crowther, "that the name of Methodist had been given long before the days of Mr. Wesley to a religious party in England, which was distinguished by some of those marks which are supposed to characterize the present Methodists. A person called John Spencer, who was librarian of Sion College, 1657, during the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, in a book which he published, consisting of extracts from various authors, speaks of the eloquence and elegance of the Sacred Scriptures, and asks, where are now our Anabaptists, and plain pack-staff Methodists, who esteem all flowers of rhetoric in sermons no better than stinking weeds?' "By the Anabaptists, we know that he means a denomination of Christians which is still in existence; and though we have not at this time any particular account of the Methodists of that day, it seems very probable that one description of religionists, during that fertile period, was denominated Methodists. These it would seem distinguished themselves by plainness of speech, despising the ornaments of literature and the charms of eloquence in their public discourses. This might have been known to the Fellow of Merton College, who gave the Oxonian Pietists the name of Methodists, though it seems probable Mr. Wesley never caught the idea. Gale also, in his fourth Part of the Court of the Gentiles, mentions a religious sect, whom he calls The New Methodists."" History of the Wesleyan Methodists, p. 21. |