and conscience, and thus addressed him: "Sir, thank the grace of God, that while my child is thus cruelly treated, suffering to distraction a punishment he has not merited, I had not turned your babe out of the cradle; but you must go and unlock the closet and release the child, or I will immediately do it." This tone was too decisive to be treated with either neglect or contempt. Mr. Hall arose, unlocked the closet, and released the child. Even in this trifling case her cool 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 wo, 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 into 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 at the tale of misery. He took immediate charge of his sister's unfortunate guest, and had her provided 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 theology 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 imbittered 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.

It is no wonder that Dr. Johnson valued her conversation. In 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 for 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 inexperienced, 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 expatiate 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 beloved 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 recognized; 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!"

586

THE WESLEY FAMILY.

On Easter Sunday, April 15, 1781, Mr. Boswell (in his "Life of Johnson") mentions dining at the doctor's in company with several persons, among whom were Mrs. Williams, Mrs. Du Moulin, and Mrs. Hall, sister of the Rev. John Wesley, and resembling him both in figure and manner. "I mentioned," says Boswell," a kind of religious Robinhood society, which met every Sunday morning at Coachmakers'-hall, for free debate; and that the subject for this night was, the text which relates, with other miracles which happened at our Saviour's death,' And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.' Mrs. Hall said it was a very curious subject, and she should like to hear it discussed. Johnson replied, somewhat warmly, One would not go to such a place to hear it-one would not be seen in such a place to give countenance to such a meeting.' I, however, resolved that I would go. But, sir,' said she to Johnson, 'I should like to hear discuss it.' He seemed reluctant to engage in it. She talked of the resurrection of the human race in general, and maintained that we shall be raised with the same bodies. Johnson: 'Nay, madam, we see that it is not to be the same body; for the Scripture uses the illustration of grain sown. You cannot suppose that we shall rise with a diseased body; it is enough if there be such a sameness as to distinguish identity of person.' She seem

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ed desirous of knowing more, but he left the question in obscurity."

Mrs. Hall had an innate horror of melancholy subjects. "Those persons," she maintained, "could not have real feeling who could delight to see or 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 favorite hymn among these was,

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 wellcircumstanced 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 Jennings 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 surprise 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."

See, on this controversy, Wesley's Journals, in his Works, vol. iv, p. 163, date, Oct., 1763, and Fletcher's Works, "Appeal to Matter of Fact," vol. iii, pp. 322-324.