Walter : a tale of the times of Wesley

Front matter

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Preface

I HAVE but few words to say by way of introduction to this fifth volume of the second series of Church History Stories. It brings us to the prosaic dead level of the eighteenth century — the age of elaborate apologies for religion, and exhaustive treatises written in its defense and as “ Evidences of Christianity ” — very useful books in their way, but bearing unmistakable proofs of being written in an age when the living spirit of Christianity had well-nigh departed from every branch of the Church, until John Wesley arose, a father in Israel.

The previous century had witnessed the grand protest of our Puritan Fathers on behalf of religion, and many of them had left the shores of Old England, to found a new and mighty empire beyond the seas. The reigns of the two Charleses saw England denuded of some of her best and noblest sons, and those who remained as dissenters from the established religion were glad to hide their heads and be left in peace ; for though there was a certain freedom allowed to men to worship God after their own conscience, which no Archbishop Laud or bigoted king could rob them

Preface.

of, still it was burdened with so many restrictions as to be hardly worth the name. A dissenting chapel was a very modest little building in those days, generally hidden out of sight for safety’s sake, and scarcely daring to hang a feeble oil lamp at its door, for fear of calling attention to its existence, and provoking an attack from those who were ready to make Dissenters the scapegoats for every thing. To expect any thing like a general revival of religion to spring from Dissenters was, therefore, out of the question, when the Church had purged itself of every trace of nonconformity by ejecting two thousand of the best and most learned of her clergy. The Church then sank to the dead level of sloth and ignorance that made apologies for its existence a necessity, since it had ceased to exert any vital influence on the world, until the genius of Wesley roused it into life again.

My chief authorities for the facts narrated of Wesley and Whitefield are S^ithey and Tyerman’s Lives of Wesley, and for the rest — Newton, Cowper, Wilberforce, Watt — various authors have been consulted.

That my story may bear with it a message of warning and encouragement, as well as historical instruction, and that some souls may be edified and built up in their most holy faith, is the constant prayer of The Author.

Historical Persons.

WESLEY,

NEWTON,

ASBURY,

WILBERFORCE,

BENEZET,

WATT,

WHITEFIELI),

COWPER,

FLETCHER,

RAIKES,

WOOLMAN,

DR. JOHNSON.

*

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. On the Village Green n

II. A Heap of Wood Ashes 25

Chapter I. On The Village Green

WHAT a delightful old room it was ! The children’s room it had always been called, although the children had, for the most part, forsaken it now, and the parent nest, too — all but the youngest, a boy and girl, who were still spared to the old folks, and loved the old room, with its incongruous litter of school books and playthings, tools and broken furniture, and all the odds and ends of hobbies that had been bequeathed to this younger brother and sister by their elders.

The boys had all shown a turn for mechanics, and here stood the embodiments of some of their ideas, or, rather, the fragments of them, for nothing had been perfected ; and so this younger scion of the old family might have profited by his brothers’ failures, and given up

Walter.

trouble can come of it, unless it is very soon stopped.”

“ Ah, ah ! it’s Mary, then, at the bottom of this,” chuckled Mr. Maxwell. “I thought it was not like you, good dame, to begrudge them the last bit of their childhood. Walter is only sixteen and Lucy a year younger ; why should they be turned out of the children’s room yet ? ”

Meanwhile the subjects of this discussion were as busy as two of their father’s work-people in the neighboring foundry, elaborating some of Walter’s schemes, when the door opening into the garden was suddenly darkened, and a hand was laid on Walter’s shoulder. “ Come, tear yourself from those gimcracks; there is to be a splendid fight on the green ; for Will Carson has bought another game-cock, and Tom Beavis is to bring his out again. Come, Mistress Lucy, get your hood, and come with us ; we have not a minute to lose.”

But Lucy looked at her brother doubtfully — not about the witnessing such sport ; that was one of the “ manly ” games of the time, and, of course, a favorite with most boys ; and, as Lucy always shared in her brother’s amusements, it was no uncommon thing for her to go and see a cock-fight on the village green — but Walter

On the Village Green . i

was more than usually absorbed in his work just now, and needed her help. So before accepting Philip Golding’s invitation she looked to see what her brother thought about it.

“ I’d like to see the fight,” debated Walter, looking critically at his work ; “ but, you see — ”

“ O, no buts, an it please you, but come now, and leave that gimcrack for another day. That can wait, but the fight will begin whether we are there or not,” said Philip impatiently.

But Walter shook his head. “You must go without us this time, Phil ; I’ve got an idea, and want to work it out. Did you find the string, Lucy? ” he asked, turning to his sister.

Lucy could not help feeling disappointed, for to help blindly in the carrying out of another’s idea is different from working with the enthusiasm born of the idea itself; and so, while Walter turned joyfully to fashion a new wheel, Lucy went rather reluctantly to look for the string that entered so largely into the construction of their models at this period. But Philip was not to be put off quite so easily.

“ Come now ; there has not been a fight worth looking at for more than a month ; I am sure you can leave that thing alone for an hour to see such good sport. No one will touch it while" you are gone.”

1 6

Walter.

“ O, I’m not afraid of that; but — but, you don’t understand about these things, Phil ; when I have an idea like this — ”

“Tell us when you haven’t had an idea about some gimcrack or the other. What a bonfire your ‘ ideas ’ would make ! ” laughed Philip, looking around at the clumsy models scattered about the room.

“ O, they’re not all mine,” said Walter; “my brother John and the rest have had a turn at working out their ideas, and those I have made are not perfect. I’ve got on with them, you see, and then I’ve seen where they could be improved, and to do that I’ve had to begin again.”

“ Well, come with me now, and give your idea time to work itself out,” said Philip ; “ it will -save you time and trouble, too. Never mind the string, Lucy, but go and get your hat or hood.”

“ I suppose we shall have to go,” laughed Walter, reluctantly putting aside the model he had been working at, and preparing to go out. He tossed aside the long, flowing curls that hung over the braided collar of his coat, and took his cocked hat from the peg near the door, while Lucy ran to her own room to change her quilted petticoat, and draw the

On the Village Green . i

skirt of her gown more neatly through the pocket holes. Then there was the jaunty little hat, with its bundle of cherry-colored ribbons, to set right, at the top of her roll of hair, and her long gloves to draw on ; so that before all these arrangements could be made the boys’ patience had become exhausted. When Lucy bounced into the room she saw, to her surprise, only her elder sister, Mary, who was on a visit at her old home. Lucy stared, and Mary looked confused as she said, “Walter has 'gone out with Philip Golding. Are you going with them ? ”

At another 'time the young matron would have protested against her sister being allowed to run about with the boys, declaring she was never allowed such liberty ; and, anxious as Lucy was to escape this lecture and catch up with the boys, she could not help wondering what had happened to Mary, as she ran down the garden path and out into the road.

The boys were walking very slowly on ahead, for Walter could not have enjoyed any pleasure that his sister did not share, and it was more for Lucy’s sake than his own that he had left his precious model and come out this afternoon ; but he did not like to be kept waiting, and so he said, “ What a long iS

Walter.

time you have been, Lucy ! ” as soon as she joined them.

“We thought your sister must have set you to your lace-work,” said Philip, who knew Lucy’s hatred of lace-work.

“ Mary is playing cards with mother and Miss West, I presume,” said Walter, “and did not see us come out.”

“ O yes, she did ; she was in the summer parlor when I came out, and told me you had gone on,” said Lucy.

The “ children’s room ” was occasionally called the summer parlor, because it had a door opening to the garden as well as the ordinary door connecting it with the rest of the house, at the end of a long passage. It was an out-of-the-way room, and rarely visited by any of the family; and so to hear that his stately elder sister had deigned to visit their quarters caused Walter no small surprise.

“ Dame Mary in our room ! ” he exclaimed, laughing; “why, surely the sky will fall. What was she doing, Lucy, to let you escape so easily?”

“ Nothing, only looking at one of your models,” said Lucy lightly; and then the conversation drifted into another channel, and Mary and the models were soon forgotten in

On the Village Green.

the excitement of watching the fight, which had just commenced when they reached the village green.

The boys elbowed their way through the crowd to secure a good place for Lucy. She was as eager as any body to see the poor birds spurring, and picking, and clawing each other ; and the cheering and swearing and cursing inseparable from such a scene was altogether such a common, every-day occurrence that she did not notice it. Nay, in the eagerness of the sport she herself used a few genteel oaths, for the habit of swearing was so general in those days that even those priding themselves on their good birth and genteel breeding did not hesitate to use profane language occasionally, if not generally.

The village ale-house was, of course, close to the spot where the cock-fight took place; and, as drunkenness was as common as swearing, and men prided themselves in being called three-bottle or four-bottle men, according to their capacity for drinking this quantity before rolling under the table helpless and insensible, it may be imagined that few among the crowd of men gathered there were quite sober when the fight was at an end ; but Lucy was by no means discomposed by the reeling, drunken, 2

Walter.

quarrelsome men ; for her own father was disposed to be quarrelsome when he slipped under the dining-table at home without having taken quite enough to render him insensible, and his wife and servants attempted to carry him to bed without giving him either wine or brandy.

Morality was at this time at so low an ebb in all classes of society, that it seemed as though the commonest instincts of nature were blunted by the contact, or a gentle, well-trained girl, like Lucy Maxwell, could not have stood near a crowd of coarse, brutal, half-drunken men without a shudder of the keenest pain and repulsion ; but as it was, Lucy was troubled with no such qualms, and laughed, and chatted, and discussed the fight, and the odds and ends of gossip that she overheard, or was told by one or two friends she had met on the green.

Among the latter were a young lady and gentleman who had just returned from a visit to London, and, of course, full of the news of the Court and the Parliament, and what was going on in the great city. Among other things was a story about the Methodists.

“Who are the Methodists ? ” asked Lucy. “ I overheard Deb Potter talking about them,

On the Village Green. 21

but could not make much out of what she said.”

“ Of course not, my dear, you could not be expected to understand any thing so low and vulgar as these canting, blaspheming Methodists,” said her friend.

“ But who are they, and what do they do ? ” asked Lucy.

“ Well, they are a lot of half-crazy people, as low as Deb Potter and those miserable people that live on the waste — not a braided coat or brocaded gown ever to be seen among them ; and as for what they do, no one, I vow, could tell you that, except that they sit up all night to pray, and sing, and then fall into fits, and howl like Bedlamites.”

“ And that is not the worst of the matter, as I conceive it, Mistress Lucy,” put in her friend’s brother ; “ for the leader of this mad rabble is himself a respectable gentleman, and, as some say, a clergyman of Oxford.”

"O, fie upon him! What would my Uncle Rawlins say if he should hear this story?” said Lucy.

“ You may be sure he will hear of it; but so long as these praying madmen keep away from his parish he need not let it trouble him,” replied her friend.

Walter.

“ I don’t think he would let it disturb him much even then, beyond setting him off on a new study among his books, to find out the cause of such an outbreak, and at what date in the world’s history it had previously occurred, and what we might expect to happen next from what preceded it,” said Walter.

“ My uncle is a very clever man, far too clever for preaching sermons and such common things,” said Lucy, with a touch of pride in her tone. “ He hires a curate to do that work ; for he rarely leaves his study and his books, except to hunt now and then with the squire and some of the quality, when they happen to be staying in the country.”

“ I wish the Methodists would come this way ; they would soon find they could not do much here,” said Walter, laughing; “we are not to be trapped into praying and singing hymns at unlawful hours. Church is the place for that, and it should be kept to the church, I say.”

“And I say the same ; this Mr. Wesley, the leader of the Methodists, teaches his followers that they may sing and pray anywhere and every-where. Was ever such blasphemy heard of before ? ”

“ O, let the Methodists alone,” said Philip,

On the Village Green.

in a tone of disgust and annoyance. “Tell us about the speech of the last highwayman that was hung at Tyburn. Did you go to the hanging, Mistress Dolly?” he asked.

“ No, but my Cousin Ted brought me a broad-sheet of the man’s last speech, and mighty fine it is, I can tell you. They say he was a very pretty fellow, and wore the finest of French lace frillings to be hanged in. You shall have the broad-sheet, Lucy, when my mamma has read it.”

“Wont you lend it to me as well?” asked Philip.

“ O no, the Methodists will do you most good,” said Dolly, with a meaning laugh.

The lad looked at her for a minute with a searching, grieved look in his face, and then turned away.

“What has offended Phil, that he has walked off like that?” exclaimed Lucy.

“ Hush ; haven’t you heard the news about the Goldings ? ” whispered her friend.

“ About the Goldings ? What can the news be ? for Phil is up at our house nearly every day, and he has said nothing of news,” said Lucy, half offended that her friend should be in possession of a secret that she did not share.

Walter.

“ O, Phil would not tell you ; it is nothing to be proud of, but still true enough, I feel sure now — although my aunt would have it that it was nothing but gossip and scandal; for Master Phil would not have turned away so huffy if it had not been true.”

“ But what is it ? ” exclaimed Lucy, impatiently.

“ My dear, haven’t you heard that Harold Golding has turned Methodist?”

“ Harold Golding turned Methodist — one of the mad rabble you were talking about ! ” said Lucy in a tone of scorn. “ Dolly, I don’t, I wont believe it!” said she the next minute. “ I’ve known Phil and Harold as long as I have known my own mother and father, and, besides, Oxford is not like London ; there is no mad rabble of Methodists there, and somebody must have made a mistake, or told a lie;” and, saying this, Lucy walked away with the air of an offended duchess. *

A Heap of Wood Ashes .

Chapter II. A Heap Of Wood Ashes

UCY tried to forget what she had heard,

-I—* and walked on with her brother and Philip, chatting and laughing; but the memory of what Dolly Reece had told her remained like the smarting sting of a wound that would make itself felt the more she tried to hide and forget it. They went for a long walk before returning home, but Lucy took care not to ask any more questions about the Methodists, or to be left with her friend that she might have the opportunity of telling her any more about Harold Golding; for although she was impatient to hear all that was known about her old playmate, she did not wish to hear it from Dolly, neither would she ask her brother any questions while Philip was with them, and he seemed in no hurry to leave them to-day.

But at last they reached their own garden gate, where Philip bade them good-bye. The moment he was gone Lucy began questioning her brother : “ Walter, have you heard any thing about Harold ? Did Phil tell you

Walter.

he had turned Methodist? Has he been turned out of Oxford ? ”

“Any more questions? Go on ; let us have a few more,” said Walter, laughing at his sister’s impatience.

“ It’s all very well for you to laugh,” exclaimed Lucy angrily; “but it is shameful, disgraceful, for a young gentleman like Harold to join with such a rabble, and I’ll never speak to him again.”

Walter was in a teasing mood, and would not satisfy his sister as to whether he had heard the report or not ; but his face and banter gave way to alarmed surprise when he opened the door of the old summer parlor and surveyed the altered aspect of the room.

“ Who has been here ? ” he exclaimed, as he looked round upon the clear, tidy table, and missed the litter in which his soul delighted.

Lucy forgot her own indignation as she stepped in behind her brother. “ O Walter, where are your models and things ? ” she said, rushing forward to take a closer inspection for in the gathering dusk of the summer night part of the room was in darkness, and Lucy groped about in search of the things which she thought might have been put out of the way while the room was being cleaned.

A Heap of Wood Ashes .

But not one of their old treasures could she find, and she went back to where Walter was standing near the door, silent as a statue, but with such a look on his face as would have frightened Lucy if she could have seen it.

“ Don’t tell me ; I know it, Lucy ; I know they are all gone,” he said hoarsely.

“ But — but who can have done it ? ” said Lucy wonderingly.

“ Who did you leave behind when you came out ? That was what she had come to do ! I see it all now ; it’s Mary’s doings, and I’ll never speak to her again,” said Walter, bitterly.

“ O, don’t say that ! It may not be so bad as you think. Perhaps Molly has been cleaning, and packed all the rubbish, as she calls it, in a corner. Wait a minute, and I will get a light and Lucy ran out of the other door and up the passage, returning very soon with a candle. But the desolation of the room was only made more apparent, and it was needless to search in corners or on shelves, for they had all been cleaned of every model and wheel that had previously crowded them ; but in the wide-open fire-place there was a heap of wood ashes that had not been there when they went out.

The meaning of this was plain enough : some one had carried out Philip Golding’s suggestion,

Walter.

and made a bonfire of all the embodied ideas of Walter and his brothers ; and this was what remained of them. He stepped across from the door to look at the black and gray fragments that lay in a heap in the fire-place. They were still warm, but not a vestige remained to tell what it had once been. Walter turned them about with his foot, Lucy watching him and wishing he would speak ; for this dreadful silence and the hard look in his face were worse than any passionate outburst.

At last Lucy could bear it no longer, and, bursting into tears, she sobbed, “O Walter! do scold me, or something; it’s all my fault; for if I had not wanted to go you would not have gone out this afternoon, and then no one could have touched your things.”

“Yes, she would have done it some other time ; Mary always did want to make people do as she wished, and always hated models. I hate her now, and always shall,” concluded Walter. He felt too miserable himself to attempt to comfort Lucy beyond telling her not to cry, while she felt that if she had not been so eager to go and see the cock-fight their models might have been saved. So she blamed herself very bitterly, almost as much as she blamed Mary.

A Heap of Wood Ashes.

Walter sat down, and, resting his elbows on the table, buried his face in his hands, and Lucy, feeling she could do her brother no good just now, crept out of the room and went to the oak parlor, where she expected to find her mother and sister, and hoped she should find them by themselves. In this, however, she was disappointed, for her father and a large party of friends were also there, playing at cards, and it was evident that more than one of the party had already drank too much.

But Lucy was not to be deterred by the presence of friends, and, walking up to her sister, she said : “ How dared you do such a mean, spiteful thing to Walter?”

Mary looked at her sister and crimsoned, while every body paused in their play to look first at one and then the other. But Mary soon recovered from her confusion, and said, “ Don’t come worrying me about your rubbish ; I know nothing of your models.”

“ Yes, you do ; you watched Walter out this afternoon, and burned every one ; and I say you are mean and spiteful, and I will never own you for a sister again.” Lucy stamped her foot in her impotent rage, and actually raised her hand to strike her sister, but was held back by her father.

Walter.

With a loud oath he exclaimed, “ What does all this mean ! How dare you come here talking to your sister as though she were a girl like yourself? ”

“ No ! she is not a girl like myself,” said Lucy ; “ for I would scorn to do what she has done to-day. She is — ”

“ Now, now, Lucy, no hard names,” said her father; “but just tell us what Mary has done.”

“ Burned all our models, and broken Walter’s heart ! ”

Some of the guests laughed at the idea of Walter’s heart being broken ; but Mr. Maxwell, though he smiled, did not laugh, for he knew it was no light matter to the lad ; and he said, rather severely, “ Did you do this, Mary ? ”

But the young matron was by no means disposed to be taken to task for what she might do now, even by her father. She was the great lady of the family ; had made a wealthy marriage with the squire of Harewood in the neighboring county, and was received by all the quality. Her own family had come to look up to her, and seldom questioned what she thought right and proper to be done ; so that Lucy’s outburst was the more surprising and unpardonable in her estimation. Now, that her father should support this chit of a

A Heap of Wood Ashes.

girl in her daring was still worse, and so Mary replied haughtily, “ I decline to answer Lucy’s unmannerly charge.”

“ But you cannot deny it,” retorted Lucy ; “ and it would be more honest to answer my father’s question fairly.”1

But Mrs. Maxwell, who stood in considerable awe of her elder daughter, now interposed and ordered Lucy to leave the room, or sit down quietly and not interrupt the game — a command that her father enforced by a look that Lucy knew she dare not disobey ; and so she sat down as far away from her sister as she could, but near enough to watch the rising anger in her face.

Her sister’s anger, however, was soon forgotten in the interest with which Lucy listened to the conversation that was going on. It was not often that Lucy took the trouble to listen to the talk that went on between her father and his guests, but the word “ Methodist ” was mentioned, and Lucy was all attention.

“A rascally set of Jacobites and traitors, sir,” said one of the guests. “ I knew one who heard this Wesley pray that the Lord would call home his banished ones, but when publicly accused before the magistrates for praying for the return of the Pretender, he struggled out

Walter.

of the charge by saying we were all captive exiles who are absent from the Lord while present in the body ; we are not at home till we are in heaven.”

“ Mean and cowardly, as well as traitors ! ” muttered Lucy to herself.

“ I heard of these Methodists when I was at Bath,” said her sister, “ and Beau Nash boldly went to Mr. Wesley and demanded by what authority he was preaching, hoping by that means to drive him out of the town ; for people were being frightened out of their wits by what he told them in his sermons.”

“And did he rid Bath of the pests, Dame Harewood ? ” asked one of the company.

“ No, indeed ; this Wesley was not to be daunted so easily. He told the king of the pump room that he had received his authority from Jesus Christ, conveyed to him by the Archbishop of Canterbury, when he laid his hands upon him and said, ‘ Take thou authority to preach the Gospel/ ”

“And did not Nash invite him to the pump room to preach to the quality?” asked one. At which joke a laugh went round the whole table, in which Lucy herself joined, though she muttered, half aloud, “ Mary need not laugh ; she is as mean as a Methodist, playing such a sorry trick upon our models, and then refusing to own it.”

This reminded her that Walter was still sitting alone in the summer parlor, and she slipped out of the room to persuade him to join the company in the oak parlor.

“ What ! sit down at the table where she is ! ” exclaimed Walter bitterly.

“ Well, we must do it, you know, to-morrow, if we don't to-night,” said Lucy, “ and father is properly angry with her, I can see. Come along ; we shall have to do it, you know.”

“ Don’t be too sure,” said Walter moodily.

But Lucy would not notice this. “ Come ; they are talking about the Methodists. Do you know that the leader, Mr. Wesley, is really a clergyman ? Isn’t it shocking ! ”