of its just severity recurred to her in after-life. But these remonstrances were of no avail, for Hall had won her affections also. "This last error," says Wesley, "was far worse than the first. But you was now quite above conviction. So, in spite of her poor astonished parent, of her brothers, of all your vows and promises, you jilted the younger and married the elder sister. The other, who had honoured you as an angel from heaven, and still loved you much too well, (for you had stolen her heart from the God of her youth,) refused to be comforted: she fell into a lingering illness, which terminated in her death. And doth not her blood still cry unto God from the earth? Surely it is upon your head." Mr. Wesley died before the marriage: it is not to be believed that, under such circumstances, he Soon must she land on that immortal shore, No! wert thou as thou wast! did Heav'n's first rays would ever have consented to it; and it is possible that his strong and solemn prohibition might have deterred his daughter from so criminal an union. Samuel observed bitterly of this fatal connection : "I am sure I may well say of that marriage, it will not, cannot come to good." And he proposed that Kezia should live with him, in the hope that it might save her from "discontent perhaps, or from a worse passion." But, like most of her family, this injured girl possessed a lofty spirit. She subdued her resentment, and submitted with so much apparent resignation to the wrong which she had received, that she accompanied the foul hypocrite and his wife to his curacy. But it consumed her by the slow operation of a settled grief. Charles thus describes her welcome release in a letter to John: "Yesterday morning sister Kezzy died in the Lord Jesus. He finished his work, and cut it short in mercy. Full of thankfulness, resignation, and love, without pain or trouble, she commended her spirit into the hands of Jesus, and fell asleep." Till this time John Wesley believed that Mr. Hall was, "without all question, filled with faith and the love of God, so that in all England,” he said, "he knew not his fellow." He thought him a pattern of lowliness, meekness, seriousness, and continual advertence to the presence of God, and, above all, of self-denial in every kind, and of suffering all things with joyfulness. "But now," he says, "there was a worm at the root of the gourd." For about two years after his marriage there was no apparent change in his conduct; his wife then began to receive her proper punishment from the caprice and asperity of his temper. After a while he seemed to recover his self-command, but soon again he betrayed a hasty and contemptuous disposition from having been the humble and devoted disciple of the Wesleys, he contracted gradually a dislike towards them, and at length broke off all intercourse with them, public or private, because they would not, in conformity to his advice, renounce their connection with the Church of England. He had now his own followers, whom he taught first to disregard the ordinances of religion, then to despise them, and speak of them with contempt. He began to teach that there was "no resurrection of the body, no general judgement, no Hell, no worm that never dieth, no fire that never shall be quenched." His conduct was now conformable to his principles, if indeed the principles had not grown out of a determined propensity for vice and profligacy. Wesley addressed an expostulatory letter to him, in which he recapitulated, step by step, his progress in degradation. After stating to him certain facts, which proved the licentiousness of his life, he concluded thus: "And now you know not that you have done any thing amiss! You can eat, and drink, and be merry! You are every day engaged with variety of company, and frequent the coffee-houses! Alas, my brother, what is this! How are you above measure hardened by the deceitfulness of sin! Do you remember the story of Santon Barsisa? I pray God your last end may not be like his! Oh how have you grieved the Spirit of God! Return to him with weeping, fasting, and mourning! You are in the very belly of Hell; only the pit hath not yet shut its mouth upon you. Arise, thou sleeper, and call upon thy God! Perhaps He may yet be found. Because He yet bears with me, I cannot despair for you. But you have not a moment to lose. May God this instant strike you to the heart, that you may feel His wrath abiding on you, and have no rest in your bones by reason of your sin, till all your iniquities are done away." Soon after he had written this letter, which was done more for the purpose of delivering his own soul, as he says, than with any reasonable hope of impressing a man so far gone in depravity, Wesley, in the course of his travelling, came to Mr. Hall's house, at Salisbury, and was let in, though orders had been given that he should not be admitted. Hall left the room as soon as he entered, sent a message to him that he should quit the house, and presently turned his wife out of doors also. Having now thrown off all restraint and all regard to decency, he publicly and privately recommended polygamy as conformable to nature, preached in its defence, and practised as he preached. Soon he laid aside all pretensions to religion, professed himself an infidel, and led for many years the life of an adventurer and a profligate, at home and abroad; acting sometimes as a physician, sometimes as a priest, and assuming any character according to the humour or the convenience of the day. Wesley thought that this unhappy man would never have thus wholly abandoned himself to these flagitious propensities, if the Moravians had not withdrawn him from his influence, and therefore he judged them to be accountable for his perdition. He seems to have felt no misgiving that he himself might have been the cause; that Hall might have continued to walk uprightly if he had kept the common path; and that nothing could be more dangerous to a vain and headstrong man of a heated fancy, than the notion that he had attained to Christian perfection, and felt in himself the manifestations of the Spirit. Weary of this life at last, after many years, and awakened to a sense of its guilt as well as its vanity, he returned to England in his old age, resumed his clerical functions, and appears to have been received by his wife. Wesley was satisfied that his contrition was real, and hastened to visit him upon his death-bed; but it was too late. "I came," he says, just time enough not to see, but to bury poor Mr. Hall, my brother-in-law, who died, I trust, in peace, for God had given him deep repentance. Such another monument of divine mercy, considering how low he had fallen, and from what height of holiness, I have not seen, no, not in seventy years! I had designed to visit him in the morning, but he did not stay for my coming. It is enough if, after all his wanderings, we meet again in Abraham's bosom." Mrs. Hall bore her fate with resignation, and with an inward consciousness that her punishment was not heavier than her fault:-that fault excepted, the course of her life was exemplary, and she lived 66 |