How was he surprised into so rash an action .■'...
Lord Mansfield told me last year that ordination
was separation. This my brother does not nor will
not see, or that he has renounced the principles and
practice of his whole life. Thus our partnership is
dissolved, but not our friendship. I have taken him
for better or for worse till death do us part, or rather
reunite us in love unspeakable. I have lived a little
too long that have lived to see this evil day.' Then he
went on to speak of the ordination of Bishop Seabury,
whose ordination was recognized by the Church of
England, who was ready to ordain any of the Metho-
dist preachers, and seems to have been quite ready
to enter into sympathetic co-operation with them,
and concludes with melancholy forebodings. ' But
what are the poor Methodists now } Only a new sect
of Presbyterians.' To his brother he writes in the
same mournful strain. ' Alas ! what trouble are you
preparing for yourself, as well as for me, and for
your oldest, truest, best friends ! Before you have
quite broken down the bridge, stop and consider.
Go to your grave in peace, or at least suffer me
to go before this ruin. So much I think you owe
to my father, my brother, and to me, as to stay
till I am taken from the evil. I am on the brink
of the grave. Do not push me in, or embitter my
last moments. . . . This letter is a debt to our parents
and to our brother as well as to you.' To this



396 JOHN WESLEY. [chap.
