In the eighteenth letter--the sixteenth contains nothing of especial
interest, the seventeenth is missing--Wesley speaks of his followers at
Newcastle: "Those you mention are Israelites indeed to whom you will do
well to speak with all freedom. A few more in Newcastle are of the same
spirit: Altho’ they are but few in whom ye Gold is free from dross. I
wish you could help poor Molly Stralliger. I am often afraid for her
lest she shᵈ be ignorant of Satan’s devices, and lose all that GOD had
wrought in her."
The twentieth letter we give in full, not because it is more interesting
than the other letters, but because it has not before appeared in public
print.[23] The other letters will be found in the _Life and Letters of
Thomas Pelham Dale_, by his daughter, Helen Pelham Dale, published by
George Allen, 1894. The whereabouts of this letter was not then known,
but it has since been unearthed from a collection of autographs made by
a connection of the family. Possibly the other missing letters may be in
other collections. The letter is dated from Athlone, June 19, 1767: "My
dear Peggy, By conversing with you, I should be overpaid for coming two
or three hundred miles round about. But how it will be I know not yet.
If a ship be ready for Whitehaven, then I shall arrive at Whitehaven or
Newcastle, otherwise I must sail for Holyhead or Chester. I hope you now
again find the increased witness that you are saved from sin. There is a
danger in being content without it, into which you may easily reason
yourself. You may easily bring yourself to believe there is no need of
it, especially while you are in an easy and peaceful state. But beware
of this. The Witness of Sanctification as well as of Justification, is
ye privilege of God’s Children, and you may have the one always clear as
well as ye other if you walk humbly and closely with God. In what state
do you find your mind now? Full of Faith and Love? Praying always? Then
I hope you always remember my Dear Peggy, Your affectionate Brother, J.
Wesley."
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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