whom it was addressed, but contrived to keep it in his own hands. Twelve years afterwards, without the author's consent, he published it, under the title of " A Letter from a Country Divine to his Friend in London concerning the Education of Dissenters in their Private Academies in several parts of this Nation : Humbly offered to the consideration of the Grand Committee of Parliament for Religion now sitting." The temper of the House at that moment was one of extreme hostility to Dissenters and eagerness for their suppression.
The strife waxed quite furious as pamphlet succeeded pamphlet, and angry passions arose on all sides. Mr. Wesley's special antagonist was a Rev. Samuel Palmer, who, of course, had his adherents, and to such an extent did this wordy warfare go that Daniel De Foe, who took his full share in it, was committed to Newgate in July 1703. Mr. Wesley might, perhaps, have had the same fate had he lived in London; for so universal was the contention that, according to Dean Swift, the very cats and dogs discussed it, whilst fine ladies became such violent partizans of the Low and High Church parties "as to have no time to say their prayers" The Rector of Epworth, with his sharp tongue and hot temper, was far more likely to make enemies than friends at such a time, and no doubt a great deal of prejudice and ill-feeling was aroused against him in Lincolnshire, and his wife, as well as himself, had to bear the brunt of it.
It was a great trial to her to part with her first- born son, Samuel, who in 1704 was placed at Westminster, though she would have been the last woman to have stood in the way of her child's advancement. The boy went to London with his father, probably
