Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-05-19
By H. ADDINGTON BRUCE
HE REV. SAMUEL IVES
LEY is chiefly known to
posterity as the father of
I the famous John Wesley.
the founder IF Mefhodisr1n


and of the hardly less famous Charles
Wesley. But the Rev. Samuel has
further claims to remembrance If he ~az1TSEsz
gave to the world John and Charles 70 NS1f1GA
Wesley, he also the sire of seven ffTHa
teen other Weseys, eight of whom like
their celebrated brothers, grew to
maturity and attained varying degrees
of distinction. =
He was himself man of distinc- d
ton as preacher, poet, and contro- n
versalist. His sermons were ~
mons in the good, old fashioned
sense of the term. His poems were the ~
despair of the critics. but won him iLJ/
wide reputation. He was an adept in NsIka
what the late 1anented Whistler called II s. :
the gentle art Of making enemies II
Though more familiar with the inside f~Af,
of pulpit, he not unacquainted
with the inside of jail He raised his A
numerous progeny on an income sell an
dom exceeding one thousand dollars
! !. ! :
year. And, what is perhaps the most i,
astonishing fact in a career replete with Il Ill
surprises, he was the hero of one of the VII
best authenticated ghost stories M
record.
This visitation from the super
mundane came Climax to series
of worldly annoyances that would have
upset the equanlmity OF very Job
and the Rev. Samuel, in temper at any I, Il
rate, was the reverse of Job like. His ~
troubles began in the closing years of ~
the seventeenth century, when he be-
came rector of the established church
at Epworth, Lincolnshire, venerable
edifce dating back to the stormy days
of Edward H., and damp it
old. The story goes that this living
was granted him as reward because
he dedicated one of his poems to Queen
Mary. But the Queen would seem to have had
punishment in mind for him, rather than reward
An Unattractive Parish
LOCATED in the Isle of Axholme in the midst of a
IL long stretchoffenc country boundedby four rivers
and for great part under water, Epworth was at
that epoch dreariness itself. The Rev. Samuels
spirits must have sunk within him the carts
1aro fam md. hons
hold belongings toied through quagmire and morass:
they must have fallen still farther when he gazed
and thatch that was to be his home; and they must
have touched the zero mark, jealous High Church
that he with the discovery that his peasant
parishioners were Presbyterian minded folk who
hated ritualism cordially they hated the Pope
Whatever his secret sentiments, he lost no time
in endeavoring to stamp the imprint of his vigorous
personality on Epworth. Forgetful. or unheedful,
of the fact that the natives of the Isle of Axhome
were VIGOROUSLY violent and lawless, he began to
rule them with rod of iron. Thus they should
think thus they should do, thus they should gol
Above all, the Rev. Samuel never permitted them
to forget that in addition to spiritual they owed him
temporal obligations. In the matter of tithes-al-
ways sore subject in a community hard put to ex-
tract living from the soil-he was unrelenting.
Necessity may have driven him; but it was only
to be expected that murmurings should arise and
from words the angry ISLANDERS passed to deeds
For time they contented themselves with burning
the rectors barn and trying to burn his house Them
when he was so indiscreet as to become indebted to
one of their number. they clapped him into prison
His speedy release, through the Intervention of
clerical friends, and his blunt refusal to seek
sphere of activity, followed by barn
burning, by the slaughter of his cattle, and finally
by fire that utterly destroyed the rectory and all
but cost the lives of several of its inmates who by
that time included the future father of Methodism.
The bravery with which the Rev. Samuel met this
browning disaster, and the energy with which he
set about the task of rebuilding his home-not in
mud and thatch, but in substantial brick-seem to
have shamed the villagers into giving him peace.
even to have inspired them with genuine
regard for him: He for his part, if read the diff
cult pages OF his bographers Alright appears to have