EARLY WESLEYAN PREACHERS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 326, 4 June 1875, Page 4

EARLY WESLEYAN PREACHERS.

For some years no stated provision whatever was made for the preacher. At a later period: the circuits were directed to pay, if they could, £3.quarterly for his clothes and booksl' Mather was the first who: received an allowance for his wife— 5 it amounted to four shillings a week. An additional allowance of twenty shillings a quarter was made for each child. When ; the preacher was home, eighteen pence) a day was allowed for his board ; abroad, 1 he lived among the people. It was ho \ wpnder that they should sometimes be "brought to the last shilling." In: such a predicament it is reported that Samuel Bradburn once wrote to Mr. Wesley, enclosing a fivepound note :—"Pear Sammy, —Trust in the Lord to do good ; : so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shaltbe fed.—Yours affectionately, John Wesley." . Bradburn replied,:—" Reverend arid dear Sir,—l have often, been struck with the beauty of the passage of Scripture quoted in your letter, and I must confess that I never saw'such!" useful expository notes upon it before! I am, reverend and dear sir, your obedient and grateful servant, S. Bradburn. In 1787 Jonathan Crowther and Duncan M'Allam were appointed to,lnverness. Theirjjourr r ney to it was adventurous and dangerous; their circuit was large and their allowauce next to nothing, for Crowther received onjy fifty shillings for the whole year's labor. He wrote to Wesley.—" No man is fit for Inverness Circuit unless his flesh be brass; his bones iron, and his heart harder than a stoip's. If I were doing good I should be content (if I had them), to sacrifice seven -lives every year; but to liye in misery and to di" in banishment for next to nothing is afflicting indeed," When Thomas Taylor was in Glaspow he

requently'desired his landlady not to provide anything for dinner, and a'little before' hbon dressed himself, and walked out till 'after; dinner; : and then went home to his Hungry : ' room with a" cruel and confesses that he never many fast "days either before or, since., JBhn : ■■ Jane 'died in 1750, and Wesley thus; notices'his death in his'joiirnal '::—" All 'his clothes, linen; [and woollen stockings,; hat and "wig",' are,' riot thought' sufficient • to answer his ! funeral' expenses w^c)i : amount to £1 37si'3di ' All'-the money ; which he had was .Is. 4d.-—enough for ahr unniar-i ried n preactier "of the,Gospel.of i leave."— .'lrish Eyaugelist. ? ~,.,, f : t: ''