English Social Reformers

th is the one which has been handed down, as it were, as fully and completely as possible, as the example of the home of an eighteenth-century parish priest. So to Epworth we will turn to discover the influences and surroundings among which grew up the great reformer of the eighteenth century. This parish is rather an isolated one, for it is cut off from its proper diocese, that of Lincoln, by the river Trent, and there were few neighbours with whom the Wesleys could associate on terms of social equality. But these circumstances caused the home influences of Epworth Rectory to impress themselves all the more strongly on John Wesley in his earlier years. He was born on June 17th (O. S.) 1703, his father being the rector of the parish, an office he filled from 1696 to 1735. While yet a boy two events occurred, which, it is certain, left a very decided mark upon his subsequent thought. The f1rst was the burning of the Rectory when the boy was six years old (1709), and when he was almost burned to death before he was rescued. It is not unnatural to connect this event with his sincere belief in the reality of hell-fire expressed in his sermons and revivalist addresses, or with his own proposed epitaph on himself as " a Brand plucked from the Burning." The second event of note was the occurrence of mysterious and hitherto unexplained noises of what would be now vulgarly called a " spiritualistic " character in the rector's house in the winter of 1715-16. It is probable ...