[116] Poor Whitefield was pelted even after he was dead. In the _Annual Register_, for 1770, it is wickedly stated, that his last visit to America was owing “to an attachment to a woman, by whom he had a child while his wife was living;” and it is added, that “this child was the first infant ever entered into his orphan house in Georgia”! [117] Wesley’s “Free Thoughts” were sharply criticised by an able writer, in 1771, in an octavo pamphlet of 58 pages, with the title of “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley; in answer to his late pamphlet, entitled ‘Free Thoughts on the Present State of Public Affairs.’” 1771. Age 68 The year 1771 was one of unceasing conflict. The first two months, as usual, were spent in London, during which Wesley’s wife, in one of her insane piques, and without assigning the slightest reason, unceremoniously left his house in London, and started for her own in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle. It was on this occasion that Wesley wrote the words so often quoted: “_Non eam reliqui; non dimisi; non revocabo_.” On the 3rd of March, Wesley set out for Ireland, where he laboured for the next few months. Affairs in Scotland were a source of increasing anxiety. Hence the following letter to Lady Maxwell, in reference to Alexander McNab, one of his itinerants, and the Rev. Richard De Courcy, who was about to become minister in Lady Glenorchy’s chapel, Edinburgh. “LONDON, _January 24, 1771_. “MY DEAR LADY,--Although Mr. McNab is quite clear as to justification by faith, and is, in general, a sound and good preacher, yet, I fear, he is not clear of blame in this. He is too warm and impatient of contradiction, otherwise he must be lost to all common sense, to preach against final perseverance in Scotland. From the first hour that I entered the kingdom, it was a sacred rule with me never to preach on any controverted point,--at least, _not in a controversial way_. Any one may see that this is only to put a sword into our enemies’ hands. It is the direct way to increase all their prejudices, and to make all our labours fruitless.