“I cannot close my letter without adding something remarkable that has lately happened in our town (though it is not over-fruitful in adventures) which may afford you some useful remarks. “Your worthy schoolmaster, John Holland, whose kindness you wear on your knuckles, after having cost his father, Thomas Holland, two or three hundred pounds at the University, in hopes he would live to help his sister and brothers, and for want of which the poor old man now lies in Lincoln Gaol, without any hopes of liberty unless death should set him free; after having been in thirteen places, and pawned his gown and clothes almost as often, being thrown out wherever he came for his wickedness and lewdness—was making homewards about a month or six weeks since, and got within ten or a dozen miles of Epworth, where he fell sick, out of rage or despair, and was brought home to the parish in a cart, and has lain almost mad since he came hither. Peter Forster, the Anabaptist preacher, gave him twopence to buy some brandy, and thought he was very generous. His mother fell a-cursing God when she saw him. She has been with me to beg the assistance of the parish for him. What think you of this example?—I am, your affectionate father, “SAMUEL WESLEY.”[192] ----- Footnote 192: _Methodist Magazine_, 1846, p. 576. ----- The above letter is a beautiful example of the loving confidence which ought to exist between a father and his children. It also affords incidental evidence, which refutes the commonly-received opinion, that the early education of the Wesley children was devolved exclusively on the mother. There can be no doubt that Susannah Wesley educated her children up to a certain point, but who taught the sons and some of the daughters the elements of Greek and Latin? From the foregoing letter, it is undeniable that, though Susannah Wesley was a thorough master of the English language, and had a respectable knowledge of the French, she was not so familiar with Latin as to be able to read it without difficulty; and, if so, there can be little question that, whatever knowledge the sons, and two or three of the daughters had of the classic tongues, was communicated by their father; for, though Samuel seems to have had a half brutalized tutor for a time, there is no evidence that any other of the children had a like provision. In the first place, the rector could not afford it; and, secondly, there was no need of it, for he himself was one of the best classical scholars of his day.