EARLY WESLEYAN PREACHERS.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1981, 11 May 1875, Page 3

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 books. Mather was the first - who received an allowance for his wife— 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, he lived ..among the people. It was no wonder" that they should sometimes be " brought to the last shilling." In such o predicament it is reported that Samuel Bradburn.once wrote to Mr Wes- ' ley an account of his sufferings, and that Mr Wesley sent the following laconic reply, enclosing a five pound note:—" Dear Sammy, —Trust in the Lord to do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be-fed.—Yours affectionately, John Wesley." Bradburn replied:— " Beverend "and dear Sir, —I have often been struck with the beauty of the passage - of Scripture quoted in your letter, and II 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 Inverness. Their " journey to it was adventurous and • dangerous; their circuit was large and their allowance next to nothing, for Crowther received- only fifty shillings for the whole .year's labor. He wrote to Wesley ._«« £|o man is "fit for Inverness Circuit unless his. flesh bo brass, his bones iron, and hia heart harder than a stoic's. If I were.doing good I should be content (if I had them,) to sacrifice seven lives every year ; but to live in misery and to die in banishment for next to nothing is . afflicting indeed." When Thomas Taylor wasin Glasgow ho frequently desired his' landlady not to provide anything for dinner, and a little'before noon dressed himself, and walked out till after dinner, and ' then went"home to his hungry room with . a cruel appetite, ,and confesses that he never kept so many fast days either before or since. John Jane died in 1750, and ''^JWesVey *uus notices his death in his jour- :—" All his clothes, linen, and woollen Jretockings, hat and wig, are not thought ,sufl?cientto answer his funeral expenses which amount to £1 17s. 3d. All the ■ money he had was Is. 4d. —enpugh for an unmarried preacher of the Gospel to leave."-rrlrish Evangelist. •