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 proyided 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 crossing, with horses

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.

In

It is no wonder that Dr. Johnson valued her conversation. 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 the

saints; and they are a race of people the most unlikely to seek true happiness, or find the pearl without price." I have already remarked, 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 as 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 which 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," &c. Her favourite Hymn among these was,

"Rejoice for a brother deceased," &c.

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 Jen

nings 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, Svo. edit. date, Oct. 1763: and Fletcher's Works, Vol. II. p. 128, 8vo. edit. p. 4. of the "Appeal to Matter of Fact," &c.

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 407., 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. Hall's) 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, "I have now a sensation that convinces me my departure is near; the heart-strings seem gently, but entirely, loosened."

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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