Martha Wesley (Mrs. Hall)

Martha, or, as she is usually termed, Patty or Par, seems to have been born sometime between 1703 and 1708. She was younger than her brother John, and older than her brother Charles. She was reputed by her sisters to be the mother’s favourite. Mr. Charles thought the same; and expressed his “wonder that so wise a woman as his mother could give way to such a partiality, or did not better conceal it.” Many years after, when this saying of her Brother was mentioned to Mrs. Hall, she replied, “What my sisters call partiality was what they might all have enjoyed if they had wished it; which was permission to sit in niy Mothers chamber when disengaged, to listen to her conversation with others, and to hear her remarks on things and books out of school hours.”’ What was called partiality to Patty, was the indulgence of this propensity to store her mind, and enlarge her intellect, with the observations of a parent whose mode of thinking was not common, and whose conversation was both peculiarly impressive and instructing; and surely it would have been cruelty to have chased away a little one, who preferred he, Mother’s society to recreation, and delighted to hang upon her words, when the others were intensely engaged in play. The truth appears to be, that the partiality was on the part of the child. Patty loved her Mother more than any of the rest; and this for the double reason, because she was her Mother, which was common to all, and because in listening to her discourses, she increased her little fund of knowledge, which was what her soul thirsted after, a propensity which her Mother very properly permitted her to indulge.

From her infancy, Patty was distinguished for deep thoughtfulness. for grave and serious deportment, and for an equanimity, or evenness of temper, which nothing could discompose.

Her brothers Samuel and Charles, with all her sisters, strove by all kinds of witty mischief to throw her off her guard, and ruffle her temper; but in vain. To their jests and playful tricks she opposed solid arguments, and this acquired her the name of Patient Grizzle, among them. Her abhorrence of satire (in which it appears most of the rest abounded) provoked its attacks in many an epigram while she calmly expostulated on the moral evil of satire, and unprovoked, contended even with her brother Samuel that ridicule never cured any vice. She was so affectionate in her disposition, that they could not quarrel with her, and so completely unassailable that she foiled her antagonists.

By the misery of others she was vulnerable in the very tenderest degree. Though slow and deliberate in all her general movements, she would fly, at the call of want or pain, to succour the distressed. No occupation, no indisposition of body, except it confined her U her bed, could prevent her from affording her assistance. In this alone she was enthusiastic, and the readiness with which she obeyed such calls attended her to old age.

To her brother John she was uncommonly attached. They had the same features so exactly, as if cast in, the same mould, added to an exact similarity of disposition. Had I seen them dressed in thf clothing of males, I could not have told which was Mr. Wesley: and had I seen them in female attire, I could not have distinguished which was Mrs. Hall. Such a similarity of countenance, expression, and manner, I think I never perceived as between these two. Even their handwriting was so much alike, that the one might be easily mistaken for the other. And the internal disposition was the same Like her, John thought deeply on every subject; and felt himse]: answerable to his reason and conscience for every thing he did: in neither of them did passion, or natural appetite, seem to have any peculiar sway. Mr. Wesley has told me, that when he was a Child.

and was asked at any time, out of the common way of meals, to have for instance a piece of bread and butter, fruit, &c. he has replied with cool unconcern, “I th;tnk you, I will think of it.” He would neither touch nor do any thing till he had reflected on its fitness and propriety. This subjection of his mind to deep reflection, which might have appeared, to those who were not acquainted with him, like hesitation, sometimes puzzled the family. In one instance his Father said in a pet to Mrs. Wesley, “J profess, sweet-heart, I think our Jack would not attend to the most pressing necessities of nature, unless he could give a reason for it.”

His love to Patty was like hers to him; and he alone never joined * in the provoking tricks of the others, when they leagued together to overturn Patty’s philosophic steadiness.

Her attachment to this brother, to whom she bore so strong an affinity both in mind and person, seemed to be innate, not acquired. From her earliest infancy when an helpless child in the arms, afflicted and moaning with pain, the sight of this beloved Brother immediately calmed and cheered her, causing her to forget her pain and suffering.

The astonishing similarity in person and feeling between this brother and sister, accompanied by such a singular mutual attachment which lasted through life, has induced me to anticipate a part of the early history of Mr. Wesley, of which his future biographers may make a profitable use.

Mrs. Wesley’s opinion of the strong characteristic steadiness of Patty may appear from the following incident. One day entering the nursery when all the children, Patty excepted, (who was ever sedate and reflecting,) were in high glee and frolic, the Mother said, but not rebiikingly, a You will all be more serious one day.” Martha lifting up her head, immediately said, “Shall I be more serious, Mam?” No, replied the Mother.

Her mother was her oracle. She almost idolized her, and would never willingly be from her side; and it is not to be wondered at, if Mrs. Wesley did feel a partiality for such a child. It is natural for love to beget love: and where this law of nature .seems to be inefficient, enmity will take the place of love, or love will soon become extinct.

But there is a part of Martha’s character which has been so solemnly impeached, and the prejudice against her became in consequence so inveterate; that, unless I can clear up this point, I can scarcely expect credit from my Readers who know no more than what is contained in the public outcry: I allude to her conduct in reference to her marriage.

On the disastrous fire which took place in 1709? in the Parsonage-house at Epworth, by which it and all Mr. Wesley’s property were destroyed, the children were scattered among relatives and friends, till the house could be rebuilt, and till the desolation in the familycircumstances might be in some measure repaired.

Some time after this, Mr. .Matthew Wesley, the Surgeon, took to his house Hetty and Susan, and afterwards in 1730 Patty. It proves no mean subjection of her will to the obedience due to parental authority, that, notwithstanding her strong attachment to her mother, she consented without murmuring to go with this uncle, who was still till then nearly a stranger to her; and to sojourn at a great distance from parents whom she dearly loved, and the benefit of whose conversation she could not hope to replace.

While she staid with her uncle, she was treated by him with the greatest tenderness: but as he was very unlike all other persons of the family, not having a decisively religious turn, she often found herself in great bondage. Though he did not oppose any obstacles to the gratification of her religious feelings, yet she was there without help in sacred things. She had none to encourage her to press forward in the good way, which, in a Letter to her Brother John, she greatly deplores. While in London with her uncle, she sometimes paid a visit to her brother Samuel at Westminister: but her plain manner did not suit the views of his “lordly Dame,” and therefore her visits were not very frequent.

I shall give an extract of the Letter to which I have referred in this place, as it may be considered as a prelude to her marriage; at least it will shew that she was not quite satisfied with her situation, and might be the more easily persuaded to change it, when a proper opportunity should present itself.

“I intended to have wrote sooner to my Dr. Bro. but I have had such an indisposition, as, though it has not made me what one may call sick, it has made me almost incapable of any thing.

“My uncle is pretty well recovered. I heartily join with you in wishing you may have a conference with him. Who knows but he might be better for it; at least, it is not impossible. He had several years ago a violent fit of illness; seemed wondrous serious; and sent for a Clergyman, who staid with him some hours, and when he came from him told my Grandmother, if it pleased God to spare his life, he believed he would be a good man. But when he did recover again, and got among his companions, all his good resolutions vanished immedj itely!

<( Was almost any body else in my place, they would think themselves very happy. I want neither money, nor clothes; nay, I have both given me in the most obliging manner; and yet 1 am not so. I not only want the most rational part of friendship; but I see a person whom I can’t help loving very well, (to say nothing of my sister,) going on in a way which I think the wrong way, without being able to persuade him to turn into the right. 1 cannot do the good I fain would, and I am continually in danger of doing the evil I would not.

“Oh might I, like the seraph Abdiel, faithful stand amongst the faithless! I am persuaded I shall not want my dear Brother’s prayers to enable me to do it.

“I go sometimes to Westminister: but I am afraid it will be impossible for me ever to make -a friend of my Sister. She fell upon me the last time I was there for i giving myself such an air as to drink water,’ though she told me she did not expect that I should leave it.’ I told her if she could convince me that there was any ill in it, I would, and thank her for telling me of it: but I desired her, in the Jirst place to tell me what she meant by the word i airf which she did not choose to do, I believe for a very good reason; so our dispute ended. My Brother said he would go to Oxford this Easter. I asked him if he would take me with him? He seemed pretty willing to do it: but I fancy his wife will hardly let him. Indeed if he should give me twenty shillings, it would be such a thing as he never did yet; nor indeed did I ever desire it before. I should be pleased if he would, because it would give me the pleasure of seeing my dear Brother at his own habitation, and of telling him by word of mouth how much I am

“His faithful Friend,

and affectionate Sister,

March 10, 1730. Martha Wesley.”

The poor Surgeon, her Uncle, was supposed to be careless about religion, because he did not take a heated part in the pro and con Polemic Divinity of the day.

While Martha was at her Uncle’s house, she received the addresses of a Gentleman of the name of Hall, who was one of Mr. Wesley’s pupils at Lincoln College. He was then, according to every evidence, not hypocritically but deeply pious: though not di a strong judgment, and consequently of a fickle mind. His pretentions were all fair, his deportment correct, his education truly pious, his person agreeable, his manners pleasing, and his property good.

In his addresses to Martha, there is no doubt he was sincere; and in order to secure her, he took the expedient, common enough in

those days, to betroth her to himself. All this was without the knowledge of her Parents, or her Brothers, and was done at her Uncle’s house in London. He then accompanied her brothers John and Charles to Epworth, and there he saw her sister Kezzia, grew enamoured of her, courted, obtained her consent, and that of the family in general, who knew nothing of his pre-engagement with Martha; and he was on the point of leading poor unconscious Kezzia to the altar, when a sudden qualm of conscience reproached and reminded him of his prior engagment, and he came back to Martha. The family were justly alarmed at his conduct; in vain they questioned him on the reason of this change. He had not honour enough, however sore his conscience was, candidly to confess his prior engagements with Patty: but talked of a “revelation he had from heaven,” that he should not marry Kezzia but Martha. As Martha had made the contract with him without consulting her Parents, she was afraid to allege it in her own vindication; and most probably Mr. Hall had bound her not to discover the previous engagement. And she was obliged in consequence to suffer the heaviest censures of her brothers, who regarded her as the usurper of her sister’s rights; whereas had she frankly declared that she had been affianced to the man before ever he had even seen her sister Kezzia, they could not have blamed her for redeeming her solemn pledge; though they might have judged her imprudent in putting herself in the hands of a man, who had shewn such a flexibility of affection, and such a versatility of character. But there is no doubt that he used all his artifice to persuade Patty that his heart stood right, though for a time he had yielded to violent temptation. As the family knew nothing of Patty’s prior engagements, it is no wonder that in their strong method of expressing themselves, especially in Poetry, they should consider Patty’s marriage as a kind of incest, as they supposed she had in fact the husband of her sister.

On this occasion her brother Charles sent her the following verses, which most certainly never were designed to be made public; for he was afterwards convinced that he had received a very imperfect account of the transaction, and even justified the conduct of his sister.

TO MISS MARTHA WESLEY.

When want, and pain, and death, besiege our gate,
And every solemn moment teems with fate;
While cloud and darkness fill the space between,
Perplex th’ event, and shade the folded scene:
In humble silence wait th’ unuttered voice,
Suspend thy will, and check thy forward choice;

Yet wisely fearful for th’ event prepare;

And learn the dictates of a brother’s care.

How tierce thy conflict, how severe thy flight,

When Hell assails the foremost sons of light;

When he, who long in virtue’s paths had trod,

Deaf to the voice of conscience and of God,

Drops the fair mask, proves traitor to his vow;

And thou the temptress, and the tempted thou

Prepare thee then to meet the infernal war,

And dare beyond what woman knows to dare

Guard each avenue to thy fluttring heart,

And act the sister’s and the Christian’s part.

Heaven is the guard of virtue; scorn to yield,

When screened by Heaven’s impenetrable shield.

Secure in this, defy th’ impending storm,

Though Satan tempt thee in an angel’s form,

And, Oh! I see the fiery trial near;

I see the saint, in all his forms, appear.

By nature, by religion, taught to please,

With conquest flushed, and obstinate to press,

He lists his virtues in the cause of Hell,

Heaven, with celestial arms, presumes to assail;

To veil with semblance fair the fiend within.

And make his God subservient to his sin!

Trembling I hear his horrid vows renewed,

I see him come by Delia’s groans pursued.

Poor injured Delia! all her groans are vain;

Or he denies, or listening mocks her pain.

What though her eyes with ceaseless tears o’erflow

Her bosom heave with agonizing woe;

What though the horror of his falsehood near

Tear Up her faith, and plunge her in despair;

Yet can he think, (so blind to Heaven’s decree.

And the sure fate of curs’d apostasy)

Soon as he tells the secret of his breast.

And puts the angel off — and stands confess’d;

When love, and grief, and shame, and anguish in eel

To make his crimes and Delia’s wrongs complete.

That then the injured maid will cease to grieve;

Behold him in a Sister’s arms, and live!

Mistaken wretch — by thy unkindness hurled

From ease, from love, from thee, and from the world

Soon must she land on that immortal shore,

Where falsehood never can torment her more

There all her sufferings and her sorrows cease.

Nor saints turn devils there to vex her peace 1

Yet hope not then, all specious as thou art,

To taint with impious vows her Sister’s heart:

With proffered worlds her honest soul to move.

Or tempt her virtue to incestuous love.

No — Wert thou as thou wast, did heaven’s fust rays

Beam on thy soul, and all the Godhead blaze.

Sooner shall sweet oblivion set us free

From friendship, love, thy perfidy, and thee;

Sooner shall light in league with darkness join,

Virtue and Vice, and Heaven and Hell, combine,

Than her pure soul consent to mix with thine;

To share thy sin, adopt thy perjury,

And damn herself to be revenged on thee;

To load her conscience with a Sister’s blood,

The guilt of incest, and the corse of God!

Perhaps this would have been severe enough, had the case been even so bad as Mr. Charles conjectured.

He had not examined the business. Poor Patty was in London. completely unconscious of what was going on at Epworth; and bore the blame of receiving, for the first time, the addresses of a man who had just jilted her sister. I wish the Reader to keep these two facts in view: — 1. Patty was addressed by Hall, consented to be his wife, and was betrothed to him before he ever saw Kezzia. 2. She was in London, when Hall went down into Lincolnshire; and knew nothing of the transaction with Kezzia at Epworth, till a considerable time after it took place: and had Hall then married Kezzia, the world would never have heard Martha’s complaint, and Kezzia would have been bound to that miserable and profligate wretch who afterwards fell to the lot of her sister. When Martha found how matters stood, she wrote to her mother, and laid open the whole business, who on this explanation wrote her full consent, assuring her “that if she had obtained the consent of her uncle, there was no obstacle.”

Kezzia, on hearing the true relation, cordially renounced all claim to Hall; and, from every thing 1 have been able to learn, sat as indifferent to him, as if no such transaction had ever existed. Her uncle Matthew, with whom Patty lived, was so satisfied with her conduct, and with the match, that he gave her 500/, on her marriage, and the fullest testimony of “her dutiful and grateful conduct during the whole time she had resided in his house.” Kezzia also gave the fullest testimony of her approbation by choosing to go and live with Mr. and Mrs. Hall, though she had a strong invitation to go and live with her brother Samuel; and her brother John was to have given 50?. per annum to have covered her expenses.

The true state of the case was for some years unknown to the brothers; and Mr. Wesley himself, in his Letter to Hall, dated Dec. 2, 1747? charges him with having “stolen Kezzia from the god of her youth; that in consequence she refused to be comforted, and fell into a lingering illness which terminated in her death; that her blood still cried unto God from the earth against him. and that surely it was upon his head.” That this was Mr. Wesley’s impression I well know: but it is not strictly correct. I have the almost dying assertions of Mrs. Hall, delivered to her beloved niece Miss Wesley, and by her handed in writing to me, that the facts of the case were as stated above; — that” so little did Kezzia regret her faithless lover, and so fully sensible was she of her sister’s prior claim, that she chose to live with them, and lived in perfect harmony and comfort with her sister. And so far from this disappointment shortening her days, she resided between Jive and six years under the same roof; and had so completely subdued all affection towards Mr. Hall that she had formed an attachment to another gentleman, but his death prevented the union.

This business being afterwards laid before Mr. Charles Wesley who had written the preceding severe lines to his sister, and her prior engagement to Mr. Hall being pleaded, and the cruel injustice and censures she had suffered, he did not at all dispute the premises; saw that Martha had fully justified herself on the ground of her prior engagement; but said, “she should not have mismatched herself with so worthless a man.” He never liked Hall afterwards, though for a considerable time he conducted himself with propriety. During her lifetime it was proposed that Mrs. Hall should publish the real state of the case, that her character might not continue to lie under such a load of unmerited censure and calumny. To which she answered, — “Once I did intend to do so: but I am now so soon removing to another world, where all is known, and icill be made known, that it is unimportant what mortals may think or say of me.” This statement Mrs. Hall took on her conscience into the eternal world, and perhaps a more upright and conscientious woman never drew the breath of life. But the thing speaks for itself. 1. Can it be supposed that such a woman as Mrs. Wesley, senior, would have unhesitatingly given her consent to her marriage with Hall, had she not been perfectly satisfied with the propriety of her conduct? 2. Can it be imagined that her uncle Matthew, who stood high on his honour, would have given his consent, with the most positive testimony to the excellence of her conduct while in his house, and sealed the whole on her marriage with a present oifve hundred pounds, if he had not been persuaded that she had acted honourably? 3. Is it at all likely that a woman of Mrs. Hall’s tender, exquisitely tender, and compassionate feelings, would have married to break a beloved sister’s heart? 4. Or that this sister would have chosen to have lived with her, had she had reason to believe her at all culpable? She found out that Hall had betrothed her sister, but bad Concealed it. caitiff as he was’ and finding that Patty’s affections had been en-MISS MARTHA WESLEY, — MAS. HALL

gaged, and her claim prior, she resolved to shew the world, by thus being with her, that she had no cause for resentment to the sister.

That the Brothers should think that there was no prospect of happiness, with such a weather-cock, is quite natural and reasonable and it is most certain that Mr. Charles Wesley’s severe verses were written before he was made acquainted with the circumstances of the case. Mrs. Hall always justified her own conduct; and ever maintained that her marrying Hall gave no umbrage to Kezzia.

Her composure under suppositions and aspersions so injurious to her fame was astonishing. The selfish principle seemed annihilated in her; and she bore blame and obliquy, rather than, by vindicating herself, involve others. She has been loaded with invective; and the biographers of her Brothers have added to the number of her detractors.

Mr. Southey has also been misled; and his treatment of the character of this excellent woman is far from candid. He not only details all that others have said, who should have informed themselves better: but by his nervous and elegant language he has given a more vivid colouring to mistakes and slanders, of which I readily grant he was not the inventor. But the maxim De mortuis et abstntibus nil nisi bonurn did not sufficiently govern his pen. It has still been objected “she should not have taken Hall.” I have already shewn that she was solemnly betrothed to him. He became unfaithful: but he appeared to stop in time, came back to her a penitent, and alleged that God had convinced him of the vice of his conduct, when on the point of sacrificing her peace and his own conscience Could she, or should she as matters then stood, refuse him? Would it have been right to have turned him back again to her deceived Sister? Surely not. Nor could Kezzia have wedded him without being guilty of that species of incest of which Mr. Charles charged his innocent Sister, at the time he was unacquainted with the true state of the case.

Mr. Southey says, that “Mrs. Hall bore her fate with resignation. and with an inward consciousness that her punishment was not heavier than her fault.” This I totally deny: she had no such consciousness. Her feelings and the dictates of her heart on this subject ever were, —

Hie murus aheneus esio,
JS’il conscire sibi, nulld. pallascere culpa.

Hor Ep. Lib. i. E. I. ver. 60 This is my brazen bulwark of defence, A consciousness of spotless innocence; The vile accuset still / dare to meet, lsTor e’er turn pale, at what he dares repeat, Mrs. Hall ever vindicated her conduct: to her dying hour she testified the purity and approbation of her conscience in the whole business: and it was the consciousness of having acted right in the sight of God in this matter, that enabled her to bear all his profligacy and unkind treatment with an even .mind and unbroken spirit. And suppose that, on the principles which the detractors of this excellent and injured woman hold, he had been permitted to marry Kezzia, would he have been a better husband, or a better man? No. The seeds of all his profligacy were deeply radicated in him; and they would have produced their correspondent fruits, had he been, married to an angel. He was a man of no ?nind: when, even sincere, he acted not by Scripture or reason., but by impulse. He did not consult his judgment, for he had but little to consult; and had he been any where out of Paradise, he would have been a versatile, shatter-brained, and by turns, a pious and profligate man. Let his natural fickleness of character, and his imbecillity of mind, tell, as far as it may, in vindication of his conduct. He is gone to another world and his judgment is with God!

I rejoice that it has been in my power to withdraw the thick veil that has been spread over this woman’s innocence. I can assure my Readers, that I have not advanced a single fact that is not founded on unexceptionable documents; and that I can produce both loritten and oral testimony to confirm the whole. The further anecdotes and facts which I shall shortly produce will serve still more particularly to illustrate the unimpeachable character of this woman, and to confirm the Reader in his conviction of her innocence.

As the circumstances above related, were little known.to the Public, if at all, the marriage of Mr. Wesley Hall and Miss Patty Wesley became the subject of public congratulation.

I shall subjoin a copy of Verses printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine for September 1735, p. 551, in which year Miss M. Wesley was- married to Mr. W. Hall.

CIS THE MARRIAGE
OF MR. WESLEY HALL TO MISS PATTY WESLEY.

Hymen, light thy purest flame,

Every sacred rite prepare;
Never to thy altar came

A more pious faithful pair.

Thee, dispensing mighty pleasure,

Rashly sensual minds invoke;
Only those partake thy treasure

Paired in Virtue’s easy yoke.

Such are Hall and Wesley joining,
Kindred souls with plighting bandi.

Each lo each entire resigning,
One become by nuptial bands.

Happy union, which destroys

Half the ills of life below;
But the current of our joys

Makes with double vigour flow.

Sympathizing friends abate

The severer strokes of fate;
Happy hours, still happier prove

When they smile on those we love

Joys to vulgar minds unknown

Shall their daily converse crown
Easy slumbers, pure delights,

Bless their ever peaceful nights

Oh Lucina, sacred power,

Here employ thy grateful care;
Smiling on the genial hour,

Give an offspring wise and fair!

That, when the zealous sire shall charm no more

Th’ attentive audience with his sacred lore,

Those lips in silence closed, whose heavenly skill

Could raptures with persuasive words instil;

A son may in the important work engage,

And with his precepts mend the future age;

That when the accomplished mother, snatched by fate

No more shall grace the matrimonial state;

No more exhibit in her virtuous life

The bright exemplar of a perfect wife;

A daughter, blest with each maternal grace,

May shine the pattern of the female race! J. Duice.

As to the father and his offspring these prayers were not answered: but the whole conduct of Mrs. Hall, during this unfortunate marriage, did prove her to be

“The bright exemplar of a perfect wife.’!

Mr. Hall passed from change to change, still in the deteriorating ratio; and from excess to excess in the ratio of geometrical progression, till he became a proverb of reproach and shame; —

The vilest husband, and the worst of men.

And on January 6, 1776, he died at Bristol, probably a penitent, exclaiming in his last hours, as Mrs. Hutchins testified,” I have injured an angel ’ an angel that never reproached me P

Those who wish to see a full account of his delinquencies may consult the faithful Letter sent to him by Mr. John Wesley, Decern h,er 22, 1747? in his Journals, Vol. II. p. 435,

Of his death Mr. Wesley speaks thus: — “I came (to Bristol) just time enough, not to see, but to bury, poor Mr. Hall, my brother-in-law, who died on Wednesday morning, January 6, 1776, I trust in peace; for God had given him deep repentance. Such another monument of Divine mercy, considering how low he had fallen, and from what heights of holiness, I have not seen, no not in seventy years. I had designed to have visited him in the morning: but he did not stay for my coming. It is enough, if after all his wanderings we meet again in Abraham’s bosom.” Journal, Vol. V. p. 177-

I need scarcely say, that Mr. Hall, who was a clergyman of the Church of England, and had a curacy at Salisbury, became a Moravian and Quietist, an Antinomian, a Deist, if not an Atheist, and a Polygamist, which last he defended in his teaching, and illustrated by his practice. He married Miss Patty Wesley in 1735, and died In 1776, being her husband for about forty years.

Having cleared Mrs. Hall’s character and conduct in reference to ber marriage, it may be necessary to consider her behaviour as a wife to one of the worst and most unkind of husbands. I will adduce one instance recorded by witnesses on the spot, and corroborated by herself, on being questioned as to its truth.

When they lived at Fullerton, near Salisbury, where they had a large house and garden, near the Church where he ministered, she he had taken a young woman into the house as a seamstress, whom Mr. Hall seduced; these were the beginning of his ways. Mrs. Hall, being quite unsuspicious, was utterly ignorant of any improper attachment between her husband and the girl.

Finding the time of the young woman’s travail drawing near, he feigned a call to London on some important business, and departed. Soon after his departure, the woman fell in labour. Mrs. Hall, one of the most feeling and considerate of women on such occasions, ordered her servants to go instantly for a doctor. They all refused: and when she had remonstrated with them on their inhumanity, they completed her surprise by informing her that the girl, to whom they gave any thing but her own name, was in labour through her criminal connection with Mr. Hall, and that they all knew her guilt long before. She heard, without betraying any emotion, what she had not before even suspected, and repeated her commands for assistance. They, full of indignation at the unfortunate creature, and strangely inhuman, absolutely refused to obey; on which Mrs-. Hall immediately went out herself, and brought in a midwife; called on a neighbour; divided the only six pounds she had in the house, and deposited Jive with her, who was astonished at her conduct; enjoined kind treatment, and no reproaches; and then set off for London, found her husband, related in her own mild manner the circumstances. told him what she had done, and prevailed upon him to return to Salisbury as soon as the young woman could be removed from the house. He thought the conduct of his wife not only Christian, but heroic; and was for a time suitably affected by it: but having embraced the doctrine of Polygamy, his reformation was but of a short continuance. Mr. Hall was guilty of many similar infidelities; and after being the father of ten children by his wife, nine of whom lie buried at Salisbury, he abandoned his family, went off to Ireland with one of his mistresses, and his wife never saw him more. Notwithstanding all this treatment, Mrs. Hall was never heard to speak of him but with kindness. She often expressed wonder that women should profess to love their husbands and yet dwell upon their faults, or indeed upon those of their friends. She was never known to speak evil of any person.

Give me to feel another’s woe.
To hide the faults I see, —

was her maxim: exposure of vice she believed never. did ?ny good. “Tell your neighbour his fault, said she, between him and you alone: — when you censure, spare not the vice — but the name.”

Her only remaining child, Wesley Hall, was a very promising youth; he lived till he was fourteen, and then died of the small-pox. He was educated at the expense of his uncles John and Charles. When his life was despaired of, his mother was sent for: but she came too late; the amiable youth had breathed his last before her arrival. Her tenderness as a mother was known to be so great, that they dreaded the effect this melancholy event might have on her mind when she came to the knowledge of it, especially as there had been a very reprehensible want of care in the family where he was boarded, which was supposed to have at least accelerated, if not caused, his death. But she bowed to this dispensation of Providence, which had deprived her of her last earthly hope and support: she bore the dreadful stroke with humility, meekness, and fortitude. No reflections on second causes, — no violence of grief, — no complaints of her bitter fate; — all her conduct evinced the Christian, and the Christian parent.

Some have supposed that there must have been an apathy in her nature thus to bear the most grievous wrongs, and the heaviest losses: but such persons have not considered to what heights of excellence the human mind may be exalted by reason and religion.

When Mr. Charles Wesley asked her “How she could give money/*’ as previously related, “to her husband’s concubine?” she answered, “I- knew I could obtain what I wanted from many: but she, poor hapless creature! could not: many thinking it meritorious to abandon her to the distress which she had brought upon herself. Pity is due to the wicked; the good claim esteem: besides, I did not act as a woman, but as a Christian.”

There are several still alive who can attest her sensibility: the poor, the sick, the afflicted of all descriptions, excited in her the deepest feelings of sympathy. Like her brother John, she was ready to bear the burthen of every sufferer; to deny herself the necessaries of life in order to relieve the needy; and to be stoical in no sufferings but her own.

This was the character of the F ounder of Methodism; this was that of his excellent Sister. Her charity was unbounded; and the charity of a person reduced to an income so limited was “the munificence of the widow’s mite, founded on self-denial.” Her brother, Mr. Charles Wesley, has said, “It is in vain to give Pat any thing to add to her comforts; for she always gives it away to some person poorer than herself.”

Another instance will farther illustrate this part of her character. In proportion as Mr. Hall advanced in profligacy, he lost all sense of decorum, and that shame which in all bad characters, not wholly abandoned to vice, usually accompanies the exposure of guilt. He had the frontless inhumanity one day to bring in one of his illegitimate infants; and he ordered his wife to take charge of it till he could provide it with a suitable situation. She ordered a cradle to be brought, placed the babe in it, and continued to perform for it all requisite acts of humanity.

While nursing this illegitimate, her only remaining child, Wesley Hall, of whom I have already spoken, had by some means displeased his father, who had now as little government of his temper as he had of his passions; for under a course of such transgressions a man usually becomes a sot or a fury. He rose up in a violent rage, thrust the child into a dark closet, and locked him up. The child was terrified to distraction. Mrs. Hall, with her usual calmness, desired him to release the child. He refused; — she entreated, — he was resolute: — she asserted that the punishment was f r beyond the fault; — he still hesitated. She then summoned up the more than female dignity and courage which formed that part of her character that led her to decide on that line of conduct which she ought to pursue, from the evidence brought to her reason and conscience, and thus addressed him, —” Sir, thank the grace of God, that while my child is thus cruelly treated, suffering to distraction a punishment he has not merited, I had not turned your babe out of the cradle; but you must go and unlock the closet, and release the child or I will immediately do it.’7 This tone was too decisive to be treated with either neglect or contempt. Mr. Hall arose, and unlocked the closet, and released the child. Even in this trifling case, her cool philosophy was as much in action as her piety: she wished the authority of the father to be preserved, that it might appear to the child that the same mouth which had pronounced the sentence might pronounce its repeal; and that the hand that had committed to prison might effect its discharge.

It is a hapless case when the parents are not agreed either in the management or correction of their children: from the minds of children thus treated it removes all sense of moral good and evil; — they see their parents are not agreed in their correction, and they are led in consequence to consider the punishment to be arbitrary and cruel. They hate the corrector and love the intercessor, or that one who takes their part; and it is a million to one, humanly speaking, that what is called the moral sense will be, in consequence, utterly obliterated from their minds.

Mrs. Hall could not endure the sight of misery which she could not relieve; it quite overwhelmed her. One day she came to the house of her brother Charles, apparently sinking under distress, and looking like a corpse. On inquiry it was found that a hapless woman had come to her, and related such a tale of real woe, that she took the creature into her own lodging, and had kept her for three days; and the continual sight of her wretchedness, wretchedness that she could not fully relieve, so affected her, that her own life was sinking to the grave. The case was immediately made known to that Son of consolation, her brother John, whose eye and ear never failed to affect his heart at the sight or tale of misery. He took immediate charge of his sister’s unfortunate guest, and had her provided for according to her wants and distresses.

All Mrs. Hall’s movements were deliberate, slow, and steady. In her eye, her step, her speech, there appeared an innate dignity and superiority; which were so mingled with gentleness and good nature, as ever to excite respect and reverence, but never fear; for all children loved her, and sought her company.

Her safety excited much anxiety in the minds of her friends. When at an advanced age, she would take long walks through crowded streets; for she never quickened her pace in crossings, even when carriages were in full drive. Her niece Miss Wesley being one day with her in Bloomsbury-square, when a coach was closely following, urged her, but in vain, to quicken her pace. Striving to pull her out of the way of danger, she unluckily pulled her off her feet just before the horses. When she got up, she calmly observed, that “the probability of being injured by a fall, was greater than of being run over by the coachman, who could gain no advantage by it; on the contrary much disadvantage and expense.” These remarks she made to her niece standing in the crossmg, with horse.*

Trampling before and behind. Fortunately the coachman had pulled up his horses, or they had both been under the wheels long before the speech was finished.

She spent much time, at his own particular request, with Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was strongly attached to her, and ever treated her with high reverence and respect. The injuries she had sustained, and the manner in which she had borne them, could not but excite the esteem of such a mind as his.

They often disputed together on matters of Theological and Moral Philosophy; and in their differences of opinion, for they often differed, he never treated her with that asperity with which he often treated those opponents who appeared to plume themselves on their acquirements. He wished her very much to become an inmate ‘in his house; and she would have done so, had she not feared to provoke the jealousy of the two females already there, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Du Moulin, who had long resided under his roof, and whose queer tempers much embittered his social hours and comforts. She ventured to tell him the reason; and he felt its cogency, as no doubt the comparison between the tempers would have created much ill-will. As a frequent visitor, even they, cross-tempered as they were, highly valued Mrs. Hall.

It is no wonder that Dr. Johnson valued her conversation. In many cases it supplied the absence of books: her memory was a repository of the most striking events of past centuries; and she had the best parts of all our Poets by heart. She delighted in literary discussions, and moral argumentations, not for the display but the exercise of her mental faculties, and to increase her fund of useful knowledge; and she bore opposition with the same composure as regulated all the other parts of her conduct.

The young and experienced, who had promising abilities, she exhorted to avoid that blind admiration of talents, which is apt to regard temper and the moral virtues as secondary; and infused an abhorrence of that satire and ridicule which too often accompany wit. Of wit, she used to say, she was the only one of the family who did not possess it; and Mr. Charles Wesley used to remark, that” Sister Patty was always too wise to be witty.’’ Yet she was very capable of acute remark; and once at Dr. Johnson’s house, when she was on a grave discussion, she made one which turned the laugh against him, in which he cordially joined, as he felt its propriety and force.

In his house at Bolt-Court, one day when Mrs. Hall was present, the Doctor began to expiate on the unhappiness of human life. Mrs. Hall said, “Doctor, you have always lived among the wits, not tli< saints; and they are a race of people the most unlikely to seek true happiness, or find the pearl without price.” I have already re= marked, that she delighted in theological discussions. It was her frequent custom to dwell on the goodness of God, in giving His creatures Laws; observing “that what would have been the inclination of a kind nature, was made a command, that our benevolent Creator might reward it; He thus condescending to prescribe that a« a duty, which, to a regenerate mind, must have been a wish and delight, had it not been prescribed.” She loved the name of duties; and ever blessed her gracious Redeemer, who enabled her to discharge them. In a conversation there was a remark made, that the public voice was the voice of truth, universally recognised; whence the proverb, Vox populi, vox Dei. This Mrs. Hall strenuously contested; and said the “public voice” in Pilate’s hall was, Crucify Him! Crucify Him!

She had an innate horror of melancholy subjects. “Those persons” she maintained, “could not have real feeling, who could delight to see or to hear details of misery they could not relieve, or descriptions of cruelty ichich they could not punish. Nor did she like to speak of death: it was Heaven, the society of the blessed, and the deliverance of the happy spirit from this tabernacle of clay, not the pang of separation, (of which she always expressed a fear,) on which she delighted to dwell. She could not behold a corpse, “because,” said she, “it is beholding sin sitting upon his throne.” She objected strongly to those lines in Mr. Charles Wesley’s Funeral Hymns: —

“Ah lovely appearance of death;
What sight upon earth is so fair,” Sic

Her favourite Hymn among these was,

“Rejoice for a brother deceased,” &x.

Few persons could be mentioned of whom she had not something good to say; and if their faults were glaring, she would plead the influence of circumstances, education, and sudden temptation, to which all imprisoned in a tenement of clay were liable, and by which their actions were often influenced: yet she was no apologist for bad systems; for she thought with an old Puritan, that a fault in an individual was like a fever; but a bad principle resembled a plague, spreading desolation and death over the community. Few persons feel as they should for the transgression, which is the effect of sudden temptation to a well circumstanced sin.

She did not believe that the soul had its origin ex traduce, but that it was pre-existent; which she said accounted best for the astonishing difference in human beings from infancy. Soame Jennings has written on this subject, and many of his reasonings on this point are the same with those she was accustomed to use.*

It excited her surprize that women should dispute the authority which God gave the husband over the wife. “It is,” said she, “so clearly expressed in Scripture, that one would suppose such wives had never read their Bible.” But she allowed that this authority was only given after the fall not before: but “the woman,” said she, “who contests this authority should not marry.” Vixen and unruly wives did not relish her opinions on this subject; and her example they could never forgive.

In all her relations, and in all her concerns, she loved order. “Order is Heaven’s first law” was a frequent quotation of hers; it produces, she would say, universal harmony.

Conversing on the times of Oliver Cromwell, and the conduct of the Republicans, she got a little excited, and said, “The Devil was the first Independent.”

The Works of Dean Swift were held in high esteem by all the Wesley family, but herself. She could not endure the description of the Yahoos in Gulliver’s Travels; and considered it as a reflection on the Creator, thus to ridicule the works of his hands. His Tale of a Tub she considered as too irreverent to be atoned for by the wit.

Of her sufferings she spake so little, that they could not be learned from herself; I could only get acquainted with those I knew from other branches of the family. Her blessings, and the advantages she enjoyed, she was continually recounting. “Evil,” she used to say, “was not kept from me: but evil has been kept from harming me.”

Her manner of reproving sin was so gentle, so evidently the effect of love, that no one was ever known to be offended at it. Young people were so certain of her kindness, if they erred, that she was often chosen as a confessor among them.

Though she abhorred every thing relative to death, considering it as the triumph of sin; yet she spoke of her own removal with serenity. When her niece Miss Wesley asked her if she would wish that she should attend her in her last moments, she answered, “Yes, if you are able to bear it: but I charge you not to grieve more than half an hour.”

Though she had a small property of her own, yet she was principally dependent on the bounty of her Brothers, after her husband

* See, on this controversy, Wesley’s Journals, in his Works, Vol IV. p. 172, 8vo. edit, date, Oct. 1763: and Fletcher’s Works, Vol. II. p. 128, 8vo, edit, p 4. of the “Appeal to Matter of Fact,” Lc. had deserted her; and here was a striking illustration of the remark, that “in noble natures benefits do not diminish love on either side.” She left to her niece, whom she dearly loved, and who well knew how to prize so valuable a woman, the little remains of her fortune, who in vain urged her to sink it on her own life, in order to procure her a few more comforts.

Mr. Wesley, at his death, bequeathed her 40/., to be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of his Books: — This was little; but he had nothing to leave; this I well know, being one of his seven executors in trust. He had engaged to pay certain sums, which would have been paid out of the produce of his writings had he lived; to discharge which, the trustees above-mentioned were obliged to borrow the money! So much did he acquire by being the head of a large party; and after preaching the Gospel for sixty years! Mrs. Hall did not live to enjoy this legacy, as she died the same year with her Brother.

Her niece Miss Wesley was with her in her last moments: but this she permitted on the sole condition that she should not sleep at her (Mrs. HilFs) lodgings, “lest, as she said to her, “you should not sleep, and your anxiety might create mine.”

She had no disease, but a mere decay of nature. She spoke of her dissolution with the same tranquility with which she spoke of every thing else. A little before her departure she called Miss Wesley to her bed-side, and said, “1 have now a sensation that convinces me my departure is near; the heart-strings seem gently, but entirely, loosened.”

Miss Wesley asked her if she was in pain? “No,” said she, “but a new feeling.” Just before she closed her eyes she bade her niece come near — she pressed her hand, and said, “I have the assurance which I have long prayed for: Shout!” said she, and expired. Thus her noble and happy spirit passed into the presence of her Redeemer, on the 12th of July, 1791, about four months and nine days after the death of her brother John.

I shall close this Account with a few words extracted from one of Miss Wesley’s Letters now before me.

“Mrs. Susanna Wesley was a noble creature: but her trials were not such as Mrs. Hall’s. Wounded in her affections in the tenderest part; deserted by the husband she so much loved: bereaved of her ten children; falsely accused of taking her sister’s lover, whereas, though ignorantly, that sister had taken him from her; reduced from ample competency to a narrow income; — yet no complaint was heard from her lips! Her serenity was undisturbed, and her peace beyond the reach of calamity. Active virtues command applause; they are apparent to every eye: but the passive are only known to Him by whom they are registered on high, where the silent sufferer shall meet the full reward.”

So magnanimous a soul, so devoid of self, so unmoved by injury, so steadily religious, so compassionate to her fellow-creatures, so thoroughly devoted to God; — to say nothing of the other, is rarely found among the female sex!

Mrs. Hall, who, we have seen, resembled her Brother so remarkably in her person, and in the qualities of her mind, and between whom and him there was so much intense affection throughout life, was not separated from him in death. She lies in the same vault in which Mr. John Wesley’s remains were interred but a few months before. She was the last survivor of the original Wesley Family; her Father, Mother, Brothers, and Sisters, having all died before her.

When I first saw this excellent and interesting woman in 1783, 1 little thought that forty years after I should be led in the course of Providence to rescue her character from detraction, and erect a monument to her memory. Among those who knew her, she had as many admirers as acquaintances; her detractors have been few; and those must be sought among the Biographers of her Brothers; some of whom have dealt, in more than her case, in matters too hard for them, and written of those things which they did not understand.

As far as they did this ignorautly, none can be more ready than myself to plead their excuse!