1741. September 6.—“I was astonished by a letter from my brother, relating his conference with the apostle of the Moravians. Who would believe it of Count Zinzendorf, that he should utterly deny all Christian holiness? I never could, but for a saying of his, which I heard with my own ears. Speaking of St. James’s epistle, he said: ‘If it was thrown out of the canon, I would not restore it.’” The heresy of such a man was of vast importance; for, in this same year and month, September, 1741, Zinzendorf told Doddridge, that he had “sent out, from his own family of Moravians, three hundred preachers, who were gone into most parts of the world; and that he himself was now become the guardian of the Protestant churches in the south of France, sixty of which were assembling privately for worship.”[391] As already stated, Charles Wesley was in danger of falling into the Moravian heresy. The following is an extract from a letter addressed to Wesley by the Countess of Huntingdon, and dated October 24, 1741. “Since you left us, the _still ones_ are not without their attacks. I fear much more for your brother than for myself, as the conquest of the one would be nothing in respect to the other. They have, by one of their agents, reviled me very much, but I have taken no sort of notice of it. I comfort myself, that you will approve a step with respect to them, which your brother and I have taken: no less than his declaring open war against them. He seemed under some difficulty about it at first, till he had free liberty given him to use my name, as the instrument, in God’s hand, that had delivered him from them. I rejoiced much at it, hoping it might be the means of working my deliverance from them. I have desired him to enclose to them yours on Christian perfection. The doctrine therein contained, I hope to live and die by; it is absolutely the most complete thing I know. Your brother is also to give his reasons for separating. I have great faith God will not let him fall; for many would fall with him. His natural parts, his judgment, and the improvement he has made, are so very far above the very highest of them, that I should imagine nothing but frenzy had seized upon him. “We set out a week ago for Donnington, and you shall hear from me as soon as I arrive, and have heard how your little flock goes on in that neighbourhood.”[392] Methodists will learn, from this interesting letter, that they owe a debt of gratitude to the noble and “elect lady” of the midland counties. We turn to Whitefield. On his arrival from America, in the month of March, he found his position far from pleasant.