living from the soil--he was unrelenting.

Necessity may have driven him; but it was only to be expected that
murmurings should arise, and from words the angry islanders passed to
deeds. For a time they contented themselves with burning the rector's
barn and trying to burn his house. Then, when he was so indiscreet as to
become indebted to one of their number, they clapped him into prison.
His speedy release, through the intervention of clerical friends, and
his blunt refusal to seek a new sphere of activity, were followed by
more barn burning, by the slaughter of his cattle, and finally by a fire
that utterly destroyed the rectory and all but cost the lives of several
of its inmates, who by that time included the future father of
Methodism.

The bravery with which the Rev. Samuel met this crowning disaster, and
the energy with which he set about the task of rebuilding his home--not
in mud and thatch, but in substantial brick--seem to have shamed the
villagers into giving him peace, seem even to have inspired them with a
genuine regard for him. He for his part, if we read the difficult pages
of his biographers aright, appears to have grown less exacting and more
diplomatic. In any event, he was left in quiet to prepare his sermons,
write his poems, and assist his devoted wife (who, by the way, he is
said to have deserted for an entire year because of a little difference
of opinion respecting the right of William of Orange to the English
crown) in the upbringing of their children. Thus his life ran along in
comparative smoothness until the momentous advent of the ghost.

This unexpected and unwelcome visitor made its first appearance early in
December, 1716. At the time the Wesley boys were away from home, but the
household was still sufficiently numerous, consisting of the Rev.
Samuel, Mrs. Wesley, seven daughters,--Emilia, Susannah, Maria,
Mehetabel, Anne, Martha, and Kezziah,--a man servant named Robert Brown,
and a maid servant known as Nanny Marshall. Nanny was the first to whom
the ghost paid its respects, in a series of blood-curdling groans that
"caused the upstarting of her hair, and made her ears prick forth at an
unusual rate." In modern parlance, she was greatly alarmed, and hastened
to tell the Misses Wesley of the extraordinary noises, which, she
assured them, sounded exactly like the groans of a dying man. The
derisive laughter of the young women left her state of mind unchanged;
and they too gave way t