“CHARLES WESLEY.”[331] “LONDON, _April 23, 1779_. “DEAR BROTHER,--I still love Thomas Maxfield. I see some advantages to us, as well as to him, from his return to us, _provided_ he is first convinced. Receive him _unconvinced_, and you will have to put him away again, when perhaps it will scarce be in your power. One more trial, if you please, we will make upon him, in a conference between us three. Possibly we may gain our brother. “I shall be happy to hear you have saved poor William Shent. Hopper and others will, I know, draw in their horns while you are talking with them, and be perhaps convinced for a short time. Give them back their first love, and their first poverty, and they will not even wish to reign without us. Peter Jaco, John Atlay, and John Pawson, might, I hope, be set right by a friendly conference with us. They then would strengthen their brethren, or recover them. “Your defect of mistrust needs my excess to guard it. You cannot be taken by storm, but may by surprise. We seem designed for each other. If we could and would be more together, it might be better for both. That I shall go first, I cannot doubt. The extraordinary strength, continued to you, is a promise of your longer continuance. My strength and my work are very near their end. “CHARLES WESLEY.”[332] The above letter refers to another matter besides that of the return of Thomas Maxfield. Charles Wesley was still jealous of the preachers aspiring after power, and especially of Christopher Hopper and his friends. He seems to have thought, that John Atlay, who was now the book steward in London, and John Pawson, who was the London assistant, and Peter Jaco, who was a London supernumerary, “might be set right by a friendly conference”; but of the other London preachers, including Thomas Rankin and Thomas Coke, he was in doubt. He properly enough gives himself credit for an excess of caution; but, perhaps wrongly, thinks his brother had not enough of it. This was another important crisis in the history of the two Wesleys. It was only a few months before, that City Road chapel had been opened. Charles Wesley, Thomas Coke, John Richardson, and John Abraham, were its officiating clergymen; but John Pawson, Thomas Rankin, Thomas Tennant, and Peter Jaco, were itinerant preachers, appointed by the conference of 1778, to the London circuit, of which the chapel in City Road was now a part. What was the result? Jealousies sprung up, indirectly referred to in the above letter, but mentioned in greater detail in another letter to be presently inserted. Before, however, that letter is introduced, perhaps the following extracts from John Pawson’s unpublished manuscript memoir of Dr. Whitehead will be acceptable, and will cast light on Wesley’s difficulties. Mr. Pawson writes: