but God saved him almost by a miracle.  He only was forgot by the servants, in the hurry.  He ran to the window towards the yard, stood upon a chair and cried for help.  There were now a few people gathered, one of whom, who loves me, helped up another to the window.  The child seeing a man come into the window, was frightened, and ran away to get to his mother’s chamber.  He could not open the door, so ran back again.  The man was fallen down from the window, and all the bed and hangings in the room where he was were blazing.  They helped up the man a second time, and poor Jacky leaped into his arms and was saved.  I could not believe it till I had kissed him two or three times.  My wife then said unto me, “Are your books safe?” I told her it was not much, now she and all the rest were preserved. . . .

Mr. Smith of Gainsborough, and others, have sent for some of my children. . . .  I want nothing, having above half my barley saved in my barns unthreshed.  I had finished my alterations in the Life of Christ a little while since, and transcribed three copies of it.  But all is lost.  God be praised!

I hope my wife will recover, and not miscarry, but God will give me my nineteenth child.  She has burnt her legs, but they mend.  When I came to her, her lips were black.  I did not know her.  Some of the children are a little burnt, but not hurt or disfigured.  I only got a small blister on my hand.  The neighbours send us clothes, for it is cold without them.

The child (Kezzy) was born and lived.  The Rectory was rebuilt within a year, at a cost of 400 pounds.  The day after the fire, as he groped among the ruins in the garden, Mr. Wesley had picked up a torn leaf of his Polyglot Bible, on which these words alone were legible:  Vade; vende omnia quot habes; et attolle crucem, et sequere me.  He had come to Epworth a poor man:  and now, after fifteen years, he stood as poor as then; poorer, perhaps.  He had served his parishioners only to earn their detestation.  But he stood unbeaten:  and as he stared out of his window there gripped him—­not for the first time—­a fierce ironical affection for the hard landscape, the fields of his striving, even the folk who had proved such good haters. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field—­ay, and learn to relish it as no other food. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground.  Ah, but to go and surrender that ground to others—­there lay the sting!  With him, as with many another true man disappointed in his fate, his hopes passed from himself to fasten the more eagerly on his sons.  He wanted them to be great and eminent soldiers of Christ, and he divined already that, if for one above the others, this eminence was reserved for John.  But he wanted also a son of his loins to succeed him at Epworth, to hold and improve what painful inches he had gained; and again he could only think of John.  Could a man devote his life to this forsaken parish and yet be a light set on a hill for the world?  Had not his own life taught the folly of that hope?