Lives of Illustrious ShoemakersWinks, W. E. (William Edward)
History
Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers
Winks, W. E. (William Edward)
Shoemakers -- Biography
The year spent in South Wales was happy and prosperous, and the churches
at Pembroke, Haverfordwest, and Carmarthen were greatly increased and
well organized under the care of Bradburn and his colleague. By the
Conference in 1776 he was sent to Limerick, and from thence, in four
months, such was the severity of the strain upon his health, he was
removed to Dublin. Here he had met, on first landing in Ireland, with
the young lady who was afterward to become his wife. It was a case of
"mutual admiration" and "love at first sight." Bradburn was a passionate
lover, and could ill brook the delay of two years which had to pass away
before he took the beautiful Miss Nangle to his own home. In one of his
anxious moods, when sick of love and hope deferred, he rose from his
sleepless bed to pray for divine guidance and favor in regard to the
serious business of courtship. It was his custom to pray aloud, and
supposing his colleague, who occupied the same bed, to be fast asleep,
he did not balk his prayer in this instance, finishing a fervent appeal
for divine direction with the simple words, "But, Lord, let it be
Betsey." His bedfellow humorously responded, "Amen," and broke out into
a hearty laugh at poor Bradburn's expense. John Wesley, who favored the
match, and generously interceded in his friend's behalf, both with a
much-dreaded stepmother and the fair one herself, conducted the marriage
ceremony in the house of a friend. He had invited the bride and
bridegroom-elect, and Mrs. Karr the stepmother, "to breakfast with him
at Mrs. King's,[16] the morning after his arrival, being his birthday;
as soon as she (Mrs. Karr) entered he began the ceremony and married us
in the parlor. Pride would not let her affront Mr. Wesley, and she was
forced to appear satisfied." "Wesley," says Bradburn's biographer,[17]
"more than once took up cudgels for his preachers when in difficulties
of this kind, but not in such a summary manner."
[16] Bradburn's lodgings.
[17] "Life of Samuel Bradburn." By T. W. Blanshard. P.
68. Elliot Stock, 1870. A most interesting biography of the
famous Wesleyan preacher.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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