Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-03-23
"I have no sharer Of my heart
To rob my Savior of apart
And desecrate the whole;
Only betrothed to Christ am l,
And wait His coming from the sky
To wed nv happy SOUL"


1t was, therefore, with great surprise, and
not without some scandal, that in 1749 his
friends heard that be was engaged to Mrs.
Grace Murray, a young widow who had
nursed him in a short illness, and who was
actually accompanying him at that time in
his ministerial travels through the country.
This young woman had been brought up as
a maid-servant, and was person of small
education, though of great attractions, and
a fervent convert to Methodism. She was
a person of singularly impulsive tempera-
ment, and with an utter disregard of deli
cacy and honor, in the midst of her engage
ment to Wesley allowed herself to cOquet
also with one of his lay preachers, John
Bennett; and for some months the most eX-
traordinary alterations went on, her choice
resting sometimes on one, sometimes on the
other of her lovers, with passionate asser-
tions of her entire devotedness to each, and
this with intervals occasionally of few
hours only. Charles Wesley, disguised and
indignant, strove to put an end to the scan
dal His brother yielded, and met the lady
10 say farewell. He kissed her, and said,
"Grace Murray,
kYOU HAVE BROKEN MY HEART.
A week or two after she was married to
the inferior sutton. She and Wesley did
not meet again for 80 years She long out
lived her husband; and when in London
she came to hear her son preach in Moor
fields, she met her venerable lover-lover
still, apparently, for the interview is de-
scribed as very affecting. Henceforth they
saw each other no more, and Wesley never
again mentioned her name. Through long
years Grace continued a course of christian
usefulness, and lived and died eminently re-
spected. She lies In Chinly churchyard, in
Derbyshire.
Undeterred by his former experiences, in
1851 Wesley again ventured on an engage
ment, which actually resulted in marriage.
Now, too, the lady was a widow, a Mrs. Va
zeille; her first husband having been mer-
chant. who had left her small independ-
eHee. There was little in her to deserve the
attachment, either in char acter or intellect.
She, too, like Grace Murray was Of humble
birth. and, like her, had been a maid-ser-
want. Having during her widowhood join
ed herself to the Methodists, she was natur-
ally pleased and Aattered with the attentions
of their renowned head.
CHARLES WESLEY AGAIN INTERPOsED;
but this time in vain. 1t soon appeared
how ill-advised union had been contract
ed; and after few years of wretched mar
RED life, marked on her part by outrageous
ill-temper, jealousy, violence, and even
treachery, which her husband on his side
bore with the patience of a Socrates, the
lady one day took herself off and lived in a
state of separation from him until her
death. "NOn cam reliqui non reu0cdbOr'
was the husbands apt and pardonable ex-
clamation when he found her gone. She
takes her place in the foremost rank
Of the bad wives of eminent men, worthy
to be classed with the welded COIN
panions of Socrates, of Albert Durer, of
George Herbert, or Richard Hooker; she
was the most vicious vixen of them all. It
may be imagined, without doing any injus-
tice to him, that when his letters were stolen,
interpolated, and forged by his wife, for the
purpose of injuring his character, the grieV-
ing spirit of the old prophet may sometimes
have said, "Grace Murray would not have
done this" At the same time we must, in
Justice, say that Wesley cannot be wholly
exonerated from blame for, setting aside
the question whether, after electing to mar
ry, he was not bound to do more for the
comfort of his wife, he certainly gave occa-
sion to her jealous temper by his unwary
conduct, and, most Of all, by
HIS UNACCOUNTABLE FONDNEsS
for a certain Sarah Ryan, quondam maid
servant, like the others; who, although she
was the wife of three living husbands, so
won She good opinion and confidence of
Wesley by her Ostentatious deyoutness, that
he actually appointed her matron Of Kings
wood school, where he necessarily paid her
frequent visits. No suspicion can really
attach, of course, to the fair fame OF one so
pure and unblemished as Wesley; but 1t
was difficult for jealous wife to think so.
And assuredly we must say of him, adopt
ing a well known phrase of Mr.. Froude's,
that Gin his relations with women he SEEM
ed to be under a fatal necessity of mis- =
take"