The Young People's Wesley

Wesley in 1716, while John was at the Charterhouse School, London. They occasioned no little speculation among philosophers and doubters in general, not only at t

hey heard a strong knocking on the outside of the door which opened into the garden. They answered the call, but no one was there. A second knock was heard

med only to regret that it was not full of malt. Strange noises were heard in and about the room during the night. These were related to another maid i

he doors, on the bedstead, and at var

head. The next night, while in their chamber, they heard knockings under their feet, while no person was i

" The next night Emily heard knocks on the bedstead and under the bed. She knocked, and it answered her. "I went down stairs," says Mr. Wesley, "and knocked with my stick against the joists of the kitchen. It answered me as loud

t morning and evening, when prayer was offered for the king. Mr. Wesley says, "I have been thrice pushed by an invisible power, once against the corner of my desk

profusely; and, becoming very much excited, he pulled out a pistol and was about to fire it at the place from whence the sound came. Mr. Poole caught his arm and said: "Sir, you are convinced that this is something preternatural. If so, you cannot hurt it, but you give it power to hurt you." Then going close to the place, Mr. Wesley said: "Thou deaf and dumb devil, why dost thou

wn stairs they heard a sound as if a vessel of silver were poured upon Mrs. Wesley's breast and ran jingling down to her feet

on one side and on the other, and that frequently before any person in the room heard any noise at all. But after two or three days he used to tremble and creep away before the noise began; and by this the family knew of its approach. Foo

and then subsided, except that some members of t

s reply was eminently characteristic: "No," said he, "let

without satisfactory results, save that all believed they were preterna

ywhere extant; and yet, so strongly wedded was he to his materialistic views, he could not accept them, nor find what might be regarded as a commonsense solution of them. He thought it quite probable that it was a trick of the servants, assisted by some

r. Wilberforce avows his belief in their preternatural character. In his Life of Wesley he does say, "The

d of fear, and also free from credulity, except the general belief that such things were supernatural.

ch things may be preternatural and yet not miraculous; they may be in the ordinary course of nature, and yet imply no alteration of its laws. And in regard to the good end which it may be supposed to answer, it would be end sufficient if sometimes one of those unhappy persons, who, looking through the dim

a contagious nervous disease" with which he judged the whole family to have been afflicted, "the acme o

y Family, claims that they are so circumstantial and authentic as to entitle them to the most implicit credit. The eye and ear witnesses we

OM, WHENCE THE MYS

little earlier as "New England witchcraft," and in our times as the Rochester and Hidsvill

ley's mind and life. There was ever present to his mind the reality of an invisible world, and he was convinced that satanic a