“DEAR SON,—I came hither to-day because I cannot be at rest till I make you easier. I could not possibly manufacture any money for you here sooner than next Saturday. On Monday I design to wait on Dr. Morley, and will try to prevail with your brother to return you £8 with interest. I will assist you in the charges for ordination, though I am myself just now struggling for life. This £8 you may depend on the next week, or the week after. “Your affectionate father, “SAMUEL WESLEY.”[39] Difficulties were overcome, and Wesley, having prepared himself with the most conscientious care for the ministerial office, was ordained deacon on Sunday, September 19th, 1725. CHAPTER II. _WESLEY’S ORDINATION, ETC._ [Sidenote: 1725 Age 22] What was the state of things about the time of Wesley’s ordination? Wesley entered the Charterhouse in the year Queen Anne died. George I., Elector of Hanover, took her place. Endless intrigues in favour of the Pretender sprung up; and Bolingbroke fled to him on the Continent, and became his Secretary of State. Ormond gave magnificent fêtes at Richmond, and gathered around him the most fiery of the Jacobites, and the most intolerant of the high church party, till he also found it expedient to follow Bolingbroke’s example, and secretly escape to France. The clergy, in many instances, preached sermons and published pamphlets in which the temper, orthodoxy, and religion of King George were not painted in the brightest colours, and in which they hesitated not to say that England would soon be eaten up by Hanoverian rats and other foreign vermin. Rumours of invasion and of insurrection became general, and, about a year after George’s coronation, the Chevalier landed in Scotland, to take possession of what he called his kingdom. The history of this adventure is too well known to be repeated here. Suffice it to observe, that Parliament set a price on the Pretender’s head, by offering a reward of £100,000 for his arrest. In Scotland, King George’s troops were put to live in free quarters, in the houses and upon the estates of Jacobites. In England, gaols were crowded with nonjuring Protestants, high church divines, and Popish squires, monks, and priests; while the Chevalier, like his poltroon father, fled from danger, and left thousands of his hot-headed followers to pay a fearful penalty for their rash adherence to him. Plotters, however, still plotted; among the chief of whom was Bishop Atterbury, the friend and patron of Wesley’s brother Samuel. The prelate was arrested, was tried in the House of Lords, was deprived of his bishopric, was banished from his country, entered the service of the Pretender, and became his confidential agent.