“Brother Wesley,” answered the widower, looking up, “you have done a kind deed this morning.  But what was your text?”

“My text was, ’Son of man, behold I take from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke:  yet shalt thou not mourn or weep, neither shall thy tears run down.’”

“I love you, brother:  you have ever been kind indeed to me.  Yet you put it in my mind at times, that the poor servant with one talent had some excuse, if a poor defence, who said ’I know thee, that thou art a hard man.’”

“Do I reap then where I have not sown, and gather where I have not strewn?”

“I will not say that.  But I see that others prepare the way for you and will do so, as Charles prepared it at Oxford:  and finding it prepared, you take command and march onward.  You were born to take command:  the hand of God is evident upon you.  But some grow faint by the way and drop behind, and you have no bowels for these.”

Silence fell between them.  John Whitelamb broke it.  “I can guess what your father’s letter will be—­a last appeal to you to succeed him in Epworth parish.  Do you mean to consent?”

“I think not.  My reasons—­”

“Nay, it is certain you will not.  And as for your reasons, they do not matter:  they may be good, but God has better, who decides for you.  Yet deal gently with the old man, for you are denying the dearest wish of his heart.”

“May I tell him that you will come?”

“I will come when he sends for me.”

Mr. Wesley’s message did not arrive until a good fortnight later, during which time John Whitelamb had fallen back upon his own sorrow.  He resumed his duties, but with no heart.  From the hour of his wife’s death he sank gradually into the rut of a listless parish priest—­a solitary man, careless of his dress as of his duties, loved by his parishioners for the kindness of his heart.  They said that sorrow had broken him; but the case was worse than this.  He had lost assurance of God’s goodness.

He could not, with such a doubt in his heart, go to his wife’s family for comfort.  He loved them as ever; but he could not trust their love to deal tenderly with his infidelity.  No Wesley would ever have let a human sorrow interfere with faith:  no Wesley (it seemed to him) would understand such a disaster.  It was upon this thought that he had called John a hard man.  He recognised the truth and that he was but brittle earthenware beside these hammered vessels of service.

Nevertheless, when in obedience to Mr. Wesley’s message he presented himself at Epworth, he was surprised by the calm everyday air with which the old man received him.  He had expected at least some word of his grief, some fatherly pressure of the hand.  There was none.  He knew, to be sure, that old age deadened sensibility.  But, after all, his dear Molly had been this man’s child, if not the best-beloved.