“DEAR JOSEPH,--For several years, I have been convinced that I had not done my duty with regard to that valuable woman; that I had not told her what, I was thoroughly assured, no one else would dare to do, and what I knew she would bear from no other person, but possibly might bear from me. But, being unwilling to give her pain, I put it off from time to time. At length, I did not dare to delay any longer, lest death should call one of us hence. So I, at once, delivered my own soul, by telling her all that was in my heart. It was my business, my proper business, so to do; as none else either could or would do it. Neither did I at all take too much upon me: I know the office of a Christian minister. If she is not profited, it is her own fault, not mine: I have done my duty, and I do not know there is one charge in that letter which was either unjust, unimportant, or aggravated; any more than that against the doggerel hymns, which are equally an insult upon poetry and common sense. “I am, dear Joseph, your affectionate brother, JOHN WESLEY.”[108] The above refers to a letter which Wesley had addressed to Lady Huntingdon; but which has never yet been published. Evidently it was faithful, and also unpalatable. It seems to have strengthened prejudices against him, instead of removing them. His position also was not improved by anti-Calvinian publications over which he had no control. Mr. William Mason, who had been one of Wesley’s classleaders, but had left him, and was now a magistrate of the county of Surrey, and resided at Rotherhithe Wall,[109] issued his “Axe laid to the Root of Antinomian Licentiousness; extracted from the works of Mr. Flavel.” 1770: 8vo, 36 pages. Another writer, signing himself “Academicus,” gave to the public a small octavo volume of 124 pages, entitled “The Church of England Vindicated from the Rigid Notions of Calvinism”; in which Sir Richard Hill is severely, perhaps abusively, flagellated for his virulent attack on Dr. Adams of Shrewsbury, and the Rev. William Romaine is charged with preaching a sermon which “shocked every serious and rational Christian that heard it.” All these incidents had to do with the lamentable anger and bitterness of the memorable Calvinian controversy which will soon demand attention. The sessions of the conference of 1770 being ended, Wesley set out for Cornwall, where he spent the next three weeks. Returning to Bristol, he and his brother, at the beginning of October, agreed, at the request of the society, to administer to them the Lord’s supper every other Sunday; which arrangement, of course, rendered it necessary, that an ordained clergyman should reside at Bristol, or in its neighbourhood.