The proposal, then, of the Archbishop of York was, to obtain from Parliament one of these letters patent, authorising and commanding collections to be made in certain churches, for the purpose of relieving the distresses of the rector of Epworth. The feeling which prompted this was unquestionably kind, but perhaps it was scarce considerate. To a high-minded and sensitive man like Samuel Wesley, it could not be otherwise than disagreeable to have his domestic troubles and financial embarrassments paraded, first before Parliament, and afterwards in parish churches, for the purpose of obtaining collections to pay some £300 of debt, and perhaps to furnish a trifling surplus to repair Epworth parsonage, and to improve Epworth parish church. At the present day, such a mode of raising money for such purposes would be universally denounced; and in the case of Samuel Wesley, one hundred and sixty-five years ago, such a plan ought never to have been propounded. It was doubtless a duty to assist the impoverished parson, but the assistance ought to have been, not public, but private. Dr Clarke asserts that the archbishop actually applied to the Upper House of Parliament for such a brief. Be that as it may, we find Samuel Wesley disapproving of the proposal in the following letter, which was written four months and a half after his former one:— “EPWORTH, _May 14, 1701_. “MY LORD,—In the first place, I do, as I am bound, heartily thank God for raising me so great and generous a benefactor as your Grace, when I so little expected or deserved it. “And then, to return my poor thanks to your lordship, though but a sorry acknowledgment, yet all I have, for the pains and trouble you have taken on my account. I most humbly thank your Grace that you did not close with the motion which you mentioned in your Grace’s first letter; for I should rather chose to remain all my life in my present circumstances, than so much as consent that your lordship should do any such thing. Nor, indeed, should I be willing on my own account to trouble the House of Lords in the method proposed, for I believe _mine_ would be the first instance of a brief _for losses by child-bearing_ that ever came before that honourable house. “Had your Grace been able to have effected nothing for me, the generosity and goodness had been the same; and I should have prayed for as great a heap of blessings on your Grace and your family. This is all I can do now, when I have such considerable assistance by your Grace’s charitable endeavours. When I received your Grace’s first letter, I thanked God upon my knees for it. I have done the same, I believe, twenty times since, as often as I have read it; and more than once for the other, which I received but yesterday.