had no doubt of a city church. One of the professors, a rich man with
much influence, had practically promised him one. Wesley went home to
his doting mother, and told her the news. Wesley's mother believed in
much more than the city church. She believed her son to be capable of
anything. "I shall have a large salary, mother," boasted Wesley, "and
you shall have the best clothes money can buy, and the parsonage is
sure to be beautiful."

"How will your old mother look in fine feathers, in such a beautiful
home?" asked Wesley's mother, but she asked as a lovely, much-petted
woman asks such a question. She had her little conscious smile all
ready for the rejoinder which she knew her son would not fail to
give. He was very proud of his mother.

"Why, mother," he said, "as far as that goes, I wouldn't balk at a
throne for you as queen dowager."

"You are a silly boy," said Mrs. Elliot, but she stole a glance at
herself in an opposite mirror, and smiled complacently. She did not
look old enough to be the mother of her son. She was tall and
slender, and fair-haired, and she knew how to dress well on her very
small income. She was rosy, and carried herself with a sweet
serenity. People said Wesley would not need a wife as long as he had
such a mother. But he did not have her long. Only a month later she
died, and while the boy was still striving to play the role of hero
in that calamity, there came news of another. His professor friend
had a son in the trenches. The son had been wounded, and the father
had obeyed a hurried call, found his son dead, and himself died of
the shock on the return voyage. Wesley, mourning the man who had been
his stanch friend, was guiltily conscious of his thwarted ambition.
"There goes my city church," he thought, and flung the thought back
at himself in anger at his own self-seeking. He was forced into
accepting the first opportunity which offered. His mother had an
annuity, which he himself had insisted upon for her greater comfort.
When she died, the son was nearly penniless, except for the house,
which was old and in need of repair.

He rented that as soon as he received his call to Brookville, after
preaching a humiliating number of trial sermons in other places.
Wesley was of the lowly in mind, with no expectation of inheriting
the earth, when he came to rest in the little village and began
boarding at Mrs. Solomon Black's. But even then he did not know how
bad the situation really was.