Her husband was a curate, on only £30 a year. They “boarded” in London and the neighbourhood, “without going into debt.” In the course of a few months, Mr. Wesley received his first preferment in the Church. Upon £50 a year, and one child additional per annum, his thrifty wife managed to make the ends meet. After existing seven long years in the miserable rectory of South Ormsby, the rectorship of Epworth, valued at £200 per annum, was conferred upon the Rev. Samuel Wesley. The town is a place of deep interest to two religious denominations. There the founder of Methodism and the planter of its earliest offshoot were born, and in the old parish church they were both dedicated to God. One would almost imagine that devouring fire was the rector of Epworth’s adverse element. Scarcely had he and his noble wife taken possession of the new home, when a third of the building was burnt to the ground. Within twelve months after, the entire growth of flax, intended to satisfy hungry creditors, was consumed in the field; and in 1709 the rectory was utterly destroyed by fire. If the number and bitterness of a man’s foes be any gauge of his real influence, then the Rector of Epworth must have been the greatest power in the isle. The consequences of carrying out his sincere convictions regarding things secular and sacred were terrible. The conflagration, involving all but the temporal ruin of the Wesley family, was the work of some malicious person or persons unknown. Instead of appreciating his eminent abilities and scholarly attainments, his brutal parishioners insulted him in every possible way. His friends advised him to leave, but he resolutely disregarded their counsel. “I confess I am not of that mind,” he writes to the Archbishop of York, “because I may do some good there: and ’tis like a coward to desert my post because the enemy fire thick upon me.” Two of his most violent enemies were cut off in the midst of their sins, and in these events Mrs. Wesley saw the avenging hand of Him who hath said, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” For nearly forty years the Rector of Epworth sowed with unfaltering hand, and saw no fruit. But ere he departed, the autumn came. He saw “the full corn in the ear,” and a few patches of the golden harvest ready for the reaper’s sickle. A new generation widely different from their fathers, had grown up around him, and in the midst of their tenderest sympathy he passed the quiet evening of life. Memorable sentences were ever and anon dropping from his ready pen, indicating that he was looking for the coming crisis. On the 25th of April, 1735, just as the golden beams of that day shot their last glances upon the old parsonage, so eventful in domestic vicissitudes, the sun of the rector completed its circuit, and sank behind the western hills of old age to shine in a brighter sky for evermore.