John Wesley, now recognised as the 'Father of the
Holy Club,' wrote to his father again seeking for
guidance, and thus submitted himself to the decision
of a man whom he must have felt to be as decidedly
his intellectual inferior as he was far behind him in
spiritual insight. Samuel Wesley, however, showed
in this correspondence with his son nothing but the
strong part of his character. His response to this
appeal was fitted to enco urage all that was good in
his son's efforts without intensifying anything that
may have been singular in them. 'The less you
value yourselves for these unfashionable duties,' he
says, ' (for there are no such things as works of super-
erogation,) the more all good and wise men will
value you ; ' and there is no disposition in his letter
to magnify the attacks made upon the Society into
anything that could be dignified with the title of
persecution. If his son had sought no further advice
after this, we should still have thought he had gone
to the outside of what was necessary in the way of
diffidence and caution. But, as if fearful that his
father might be too partial a guide, he now turned to
an aged clergyman in the neighbourhood of his home,
whose response, like all those which he had sought,
was favourable to perseverance in the path on which
he had entered. In the winter of this year (1730-31)
Wesley attempted to meet the still continuing attacks
with drawing up the following list of queries, which
all who blamed them were, asked to consider. That
all that was characteristic of the Society is included
in the conduct here justified we can hardly doubt,
when we reflect that any important omission in this
declaration would have been a challenge to their



II.] WESLEY AT OXFORD. y;

critics to add the accusation of hypocrisy to that of
fanaticism. The chief of these questions are given
below.
