[The facts contained in this chapter have been gathered from Clarke’s _Wesley Family_; Dunton’s _Life and Errors_; Defoe’s _Works_; Knight’s _History of England_; Baxter’s _Life and Times_; Calamy’s _Nonconformist Memorials_; Calamy’s _Life and Times_; Clarendon’s _History of the Rebellion_; Williams’s _Funeral Sermon for Annesley_; Chambers’s _Biographical Dictionary_; John White’s _Speech in the House of Commons in 1641_; John White’s _Century of Scandalous Priests_, &c., &c.] CHAPTER VII. THE “ATHENIAN GAZETTE.”—1690–1695. In 1691 or thereabouts, Mr Wesley was appointed to the parish of South Ormsby, a neat Lincolnshire village, about eight miles north-west of Spilsby. It is pleasantly situated, and, in 1821, the parish, including the adjoining hamlet of Kettlesby, contained thirty-six dwelling-houses, and two hundred and sixty-one inhabitants, a population probably quite equal to what it was in the days of Samuel Wesley. The church consists of a tower, a nave, and a chancel, with a small chapel on the northern side, and is dedicated to St Leonard.[39] ----- Footnote 39: _History of the County of Lincoln._ ----- This was no serious charge for a young clergyman of twenty-eight years of age, and possessed of learning and ability like those of Samuel Wesley; yet here, among his flock of two hundred men, women, and children, he resided and faithfully laboured for about the next five years. The living was obtained for him without any solicitation on his part, by the Marquis of Normanby. Its emoluments were £50 a year, and a house to live in.[40] The house was little better than a mud-built hut, and Samuel Wesley in describing it and his own life in it, writes:— “In a mean cot, composed of reeds and clay, Wasting in sighs the uncomfortable day; Near where the inhospitable Humber roars, Devouring by degrees, the neighbouring shores. Let earth go where it will, I’ll not repine, Nor can unhappy be, while heaven is mine.” ----- Footnote 40: Mr Kirk says the living of South Ormsby now brings in more than five times that amount. ----- Here, in this miserable hovel, Wesley and his noble young wife resided. Here five of their children were born, and here Wesley wrote some of the most able works he ever published. Samuel Wesley was one of the rural clergy, but differed widely from the great mass of his brethren, who are thus described by Macaulay:—