Apart from amply refuting the slanderous charge already mentioned, this extract from Wesley’s letter is of considerable importance, as it clearly shows that fasting was not a part of the primary programme of the Methodists; and that, if fasting is to be taken as a proof of religious earnestness, Morgan, in the first instance, was the most religious of the brotherhood. Whether Morgan was in the habit of observing the ecclesiastical fasts when the Methodist meetings were commenced in November, 1729, is not apparent; but it is quite clear that his discontinuance of fasting was occasioned by his declining health. It was about the month of May, 1731, when fasting was relinquished; and, as we have already seen, it was then that the illness commenced which issued in his death. Whether fasting induced that illness is a point which must be left undecided; but, even admitting that it did, Wesley was not to blame, for Wesley himself did not begin to fast until a year after Morgan had laid aside the practice. Whatever others did, Morgan’s father fully exonerated the two Wesleys; and, though he had censured his son for what he conceived to be excessive piety only five months before the young man’s death, that piety was now a source of consolation. Replying to Wesley’s letter, dated October 18, 1732, Mr. Morgan writes:— “_November 25, 1732._ “REV. SIR,—I give entire credit to everything and every fact you relate. It was ill-judged of my poor son to take to fasting, with regard to his health, of which I knew nothing, or I should have advised him against it. He was inclined to piety and virtue from his infancy. I must own I was much concerned at the strange accounts which were spread here, of some extraordinary practices of a religious society in which he had engaged at Oxford, lest, through his youth and immaturity of judgment, he might be hurried into zeal and enthusiastic notions that would prove pernicious. But now, indeed, the piety and holiness of life which he practised afford me some comfort in the midst of my affliction for the loss of him, having full assurance of his being for ever happy. The good account you are pleased to give of your own and your friends’ conduct, in point of duty and religious offices, and the zealous approbation of them by the good old gentleman your father, reconcile and recommend that method of life to me, and make me almost wish that I were one amongst you. “I am, with respects to your brother, sir, your most obliged and most obedient humble servant, “RICHARD MORGAN.”