Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-03-07

publications as the Reformed Church Quar-
terly Rcvicw, whose two editors, Drs Apple
and Titzel, and tho most of whose contribu-
tors are resident but also through various
other denorninational, religious and literary
journals Of the first rank and highest stand
ing in tho country. The Independent has
during the past year contained number Of
articles from the pens Of Prof E.y. Gerhart,
ID. d., Rev. j. Max Hark, and Miss Alice
Nevin ; the Christidn linton numbers Mr.
Hark among its editorial writer's while In
the leading undenominational theological
| review, the Aadopcr, published in Boston,
and representing the profoundest scholarship
and most advanced religious thought of the
country, Lancaster has within the last eight
| months contributed no less than four valu-
able papers, two by Dr. Gerhart and two by
| Mr.. Hark. In literature and scholarship we
| are evidently not as ''slow" rs some other
and larger cities at any rate don't feel as II
we had anything to be ashamed of in this re-
| spect
have just read book of 40 pages writ
| ten by an Englisbmau, as "the outcome of a
| visit TO the United States" i'm which the
writer tries TO tell his fellow -countrymen all
that he saw and heard. But, for all the men,
ton he makes of religion or religious de-
nominations, the reader might suspect that
there wasn't a church in the whole land
| ~
| 1t was Nathaniel Hawthorne who when a
boy, wrote to his mother 81 do not want 10
be doctor, and live by mems diseases /; nor
minister, and live by their sins nor law
yer, and live by their quarrels. So don't
see that there is anything left for me but TO
| he an author" And yet, as a story-teller he
was a preacher, lawyer and doctor.
~
The centennial of organized Methodism in
| the United States was celebrated in Balti-
more-where the first conference met--last
Christmastide; but the Methodists were in
Lancaster county before that They came
| right after the hard winter Of 1880 that was
the year the leo was from IS to 10 inches
thick, frost penetrated the ground five
feet, the ears of the cattle and feet
| of the hogs were frost-bitten, squirrels per-
ished in their holes and partridges fell dead
| everywhere on the snow-covered fields.
| With the spring and swallows came also the
| Methodists ;and year later, 1882, the Ian
caster circuit was formed and Rev. VIM.
Partridge appointed TO IL a. minister. There
were then 40 members of "society." Simon
Miller must have been the first Lancaster
county born Methodist preacher.
| Recalling Methodism and its great founder,
John Wesley, what matrimonial trial he
\ had Could he accomplish such vast work
with wife like his let lesser men in that fix
iiot despair
If you could stand above the grave of John
Wesley's wife and read the inscription ON hor
tomb 1t would run thus:
n woman Of exemplary piety, a tender
| parent, and q sincere friend"
| Ana you might suspect that she had been a
tender and true wife, whose ministry at the
fireside supplemented her husbands on the
circuit Her epitaph, so far as it conveys
this idea, literally "lies like tombstone" 4"
The great Methodist preacher postponed his
marriage until no was AZ years old-a
time of life when men supposed TO
make such engagements with caution, espe-
cially if it is their first venture. But ii
| Wesley had been three score and ten, or
had been married three or four times, he
| could not have made more of a mess of IT,
Mrs. Nazel Cor Nizelle) was merchants
} widow, which in itself did not unfit her for a
| preachers bride She had a fortune of go
900, which even modern parson would not
consider an insu perable bar to matrimony.
She had four children, an incuni brance
that bachelors have often taken with less
dover. Though Wesley knew her for nearly
year before their marriage, their courtship
seems to have been of but fifteen or
| sixteen days continuance, and ii was only
after correspondence and consultation with
| friend that he came to the conclusion that
~ ~
single state. His resolution to wed and his
choice OF a wife so grieved his brother Charles
that he "groaned all the day and several
following ones over II. He not only knew
that his brothers habit of travelling, his many
visitations, extensive correspondence and
lack OF conjugal temperament untitled him
for domestic tranquility, but also that Mrs.
Vazel was neither fitted by education nor
temper to be his wife. 1t was an ominous
, | event that John Wesley, having broken his
ankle by fall on the ice, went to the bridal
altar on crutches.
Within less than two years their troubles
, | began. For time she travelled with him
, | and, if not very happy, they wero not alto
| gether miserable. But when from Cornwall
whittier she had not accompanied him, he
sent packet of letters which she intercepted
few ili-considered words to Methodist
sister aroused her to fury and henceforth their
life was one Of discord. Her jealousy aroused
| she would drive hundred miles to see who
T | entered town with her husband. Hei
fiery temper enkindled, she stole his letters
forged expressions that he never used, inter
polated false passages, misinterpreted spir.
itual sayingssoas TO give them a bad meaning,
read them to a select party OF Calvinists
and made them the basis of infamous charges.
Not cSntentwith such abuse, tits even recorded
that her rage vented itself in physical assault
John Hempson writes that once he found this
'tender parent '.foaming with fury Her
husband, John Wesley, was on the floor,
where this 'sincere friend" the wife oi
his bosom, had been trailing him by the hair;
and she, herself, this woman of ex-
emplary piety" was holding in her
hands venerable locks of his gray
hair, which in her tenderness and sincerity
she had piously torn out Of his head by the
roots
x*x
Notwithstanding all this he bore it for a
long time. After seventeen years OF married
, life and such exquisite experience of conju-
gal tenderness as has been quoted, he is
found sympathizing with her in sickness,
testifying to her kind nursing of him and
subscribing himself her afiectionate husband
Patience ceased to be even Christian virtue,
when in III she left him in London without
word of explanation. He said, "non can,
retfqm: non diD,isi non reUocdbO,' (I have
not left her, have not sent her away, neither
Will l recall her.") He could call her
Dear Molly" after she had trailed his
body ON the floor by the hair he could travel
22S miles in AZ hours to visit her stretched on
bed of sickness. But human nature ex-
nausted itself finally, and who will woLder
that she was buried before he knew of her
death and who will blame him that he did
not add hypocrisy to error by mourning a
loss which must have been a relief? His
philosophic consolation was that had she
been better wife, the desire TO please her
might have withdrawn him from weightier