Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments I am deeply grateful for the encouragement, advice, and information I received from Dr. Frank Baker of Duke
University, Durham, North Carolina and Dr. Richard P.
Heitzenrater of Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, the successive general editors of the new Bicentennial Edition of The Works of John Wesley, now in process of publication.
Dr. Baker is editing the Letters, and has so far published two volumes (volume 25: Letters I; and volume 26:
Letters II, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1980, 1982). These volumes contain Wesley's letters up to 1755, and for quotations to that date I have used Dr. Baker's edition. His other volumes are forthcoming, so I have had to rely on the earlier standard edition by Telford. Dr. Baker's many books about the Wesleys have also been outstanding among the mass of literature, old and new, which the writer on John Wesley must study. Dr. Heitzenrater's unpublished thesis of 1972 at Duke University, Durham,
North Carolina on the Oxford Methodists, his Diary of an Oxford Methodist (Duke University Press, 1986), and his fascinating two-volume anthology and commentary The Elusive Mr. Wesley (Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1984) have been most useful.
Volumes 1-4 of the Works of John Wesley, published by Abingdon Press, 1984-87, are the Sermons, edited by Dr.
Albert C. Outler. I have used this, not earlier editions, and pay tribute to Dr. Outler's superb editing, notes, and introductions. I also recall a stimulating conversation with Dr. Outler at Southern Methodist University.
I am very grateful to the Reverend John Lawson of Exeter, Devon, formerly professor of Methodist History
16 III JOHN WESLEY
and Theology at the Candler School of Theology, Atlanta, Georgia. He lent me many books and was always ready to discuss ''Wesley" problems and to encourage me.
The master of Charterhouse, Mr.
Eric Harrison, showed me round. The kindness and hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Harrison and their gift of the print of the Charterhouse in Wesley's time strengthened my links as an Old Carthusian. The headmaster of Charterhouse
School at Godalming, Surrey, in my own time was the late Sir Robert Birley, and he gave me several little points of "Wesley" interest; I cannot forget his reading in chapel from Wesley's Journal. I would also like to thank Mrs.
Ann Wheeler, the librarian at the school, and the late Mr.
R.L. Arrowsmith, who was a great authority on the history of Charterhouse.
I also thank the following: the archivist (Miss June Wells) and the chaplain (the Reverend Dr. John Shepherd) of Christ Church, Oxford; the Reverend Dr.
V.H.H. Green, formerly rector of Lincoln College, Oxford; Mr. Donald Cooke; the Right Reverend Timothy
Dudley-Smith, bishop of Thetford; Mr. R. Michael Robbins, C.B.E., F.S.A., chairman of the Museum of London; and the Right Honorable John Wakeham,
P.C., M.P.
I wish to acknowledge the help and courtesy of the staffs of Cambridge University Library, Devon County
Council's Traveling Library (Miss Sally Cotton and Mr.
W.G. Brownlow), the London Library, the Wesley Historical Society's Library, and Dr. Williams' Library.
Quotations from the Lavington Correspondence in Lambeth Palace Library, which was published in volume
42 (1980) of the Proceedings of the Wesleyan Historical Society, are by permission of the librarian (Dr. E.G.W. Bill), the editor (Mr. E.A. Rose), and the compiler (Dr. Oliver
A. Beckerlegge).
I am again most grateful to Mrs. J.E. Williams of Bideford, North Devon for her skilled typing. The final retype was needed at unexpectedly short notice, but she never wavered.
I would like to thank my British editor, David Wavre, and Afton Rorvik and James R. Adair, my American editors, for many suggestions and unfailing encouragement.
Chapter One Plucked from the Burning The room seemed light already, yet the bed curtains were closed, and the nursemaid had not got him up.
Jacky lay puzzled for a moment, then put out his head from the four-poster. He saw streaks of fire on the ceiling.
In the lurid glow he noticed that Molly and Anne, two of his sisters who slept in the same great bed with him, were gone, and the other bed, where the nurse slept with Patty and baby Charles, was empty. Five-year-old Jacky ran to the open door. The floor outside was ablaze. He ran back and climbed onto a chest of drawers near the window and pulled at the latch.
Above him the thatched roof of the rectory crackled and burned in the strong northeast wind. Below, a crowd of neighbors were gathered in the yard and were trying to douse the flames. Jacky edged onto the windowsill as far as he dared. He saw a man point up, then call out that he would fetch a ladder.
Another cried, 'There will not be time!'' This tall, burly neighbor leaned against the wall while eager hands helped a lighter man to climb onto his shoulders. As the heat behind Jacky grew intense, the fellow stood upright, stretched his arms, and plucked the boy out of the window. At that moment the roof fell in, "but it fell inward, or we had all been crushed at once."
They carried Jacky to the house where the family had taken refuge. Apparently Hetty, who was eleven, had been woken by a piece of burning thatch and had given the alarm. Their father, the rector of Epworth, had run to the room where his wife slept apart because she was ill and pregnant. She woke their eldest daughter, and they dashed through the flames to safety.