To his Mother Date: OXON, May 28, 1725. DEAR MOTHER, My brother Charles, I remember, about a month or two since, was bemoaning himself, because my brother and I were to go into the country, and he was to be left behind. But now I hope he has no reason 'to complain, since he had the good fortune to go down in my stead. It was indeed very reasonable that he should, since he had never been at Wroot before, and I have; besides that, my father might probably think it would be an hindrance to my taking Orders, which he designed I should do on Trinity Sunday. But I believe that would have been no impediment to my journey, since I might have taken Bugden Buckden in Huntingdonshire, where Bishop Reynolds. ordained, in my way; and by that means I might have saved the two guineas which I am told will be the charge of Letters Dimissory.

I was lately advised to read Thomas Kempis Wesley says (Journal, May 1738): I read him only in Dean Stanhope's translation. Yet I had frequently much sensible comfort in reading him.' The tenth edition of Stanhope's Christian Pattern, or a Treatise of the Imitation of Jesus Christ, was published in x72t (Roberts.... London). Evidently Stanhope's version did not satisfy him. Later we find him using the Latin text of Sebastian Castalio; and in the letter of April 19, 17654, he quotes from the better text of Lambinet. In 1735 his own version was published. See Moore's Life of Wesley, ii. 401; W.H.S. Proceedings, xii. 33n; and page 131n. over, which I had frequently seen, but never much looked into before. I think he must have been a person of great piety and devotion, but it is my misfortune to differ from him in some of his main points. I can't think that when God sent us into the world He had irreversibly decreed that we should be perpetually miserable in it. If it be so, the very endeavor after happiness in this life is a sin; as it is acting in direct contradiction to the very design of our creation. What are become of all the innocent comforts and pleasures of life; if it is the intent of our Creator that we should never taste them If our taking up the cross implies our bidding adieu to all joy and satisfaction, how is it reconcilable with what Solomon so expressly affirms of religion that her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths peace A fair patrimony, indeed, which Adam has left his sons, if they are destined to be continually wretched! And though heaven is undoubtedly a sufficient recompense for all the afflictions we may or can suffer here, yet I am afraid that argument would make few converts to Christianity, if the yoke were not easy even in this life, and such an one as gives rest, at least as much as trouble.

Another of his tenets, which is indeed a natural consequence of this, is that all mirth is vain and useless, if not sinful. But why, then, does the Psalmist so often exhort us to rejoice in the Lord and tell us that it becomes the just to be joyful I think one could hardly desire a more express text than that in the 68th Psalm, ' Let the righteous rejoice and be glad in the Lord. Let them also be merry and joyful.' And he seems to carry the matter as much too far on the other side afterwards, where he asserts that nothing is an affliction to a good man, and that he ought to thank God even for sending him misery. This, in my opinion, is contrary to God's design in afflicting us; for though He chasteneth those whom He loveth, yet it is in order to humble them: and surely the method Job took in his adversity was very different from this, and yet in all that he sinned not. I hope when you are at leisure you will give me your thoughts on that subject, and set me right if I am mistaken See next letter. Pray give my service to any that ask after me, and my love to my sisters, especially my sister Emly. I suppose my brothers are gone. I am Your dutiful Son.