curious to hear the confessions of the holy sisters. By this time I suppose you have had enough of bandmeetings. Mr Wesley instituted another kind of private meeting for the highest order of his people, called the select bands; to which none were admitted but such as were sanctified, or made perfect in love, and freed from all the remains of sin. But as I never professed perfection, I was not permitted to enter into this holy of holies. But I have known a great number of these perfect saints, of both sexes; and I also lived in the same house a whole year with one of these entire holy sisters. A few days before I came to live in Chiswell street, one of these perfect sisters was detected in stealing coals out of the shed of one of the sanctified brothers; but she, like the old fellow above mentioned, said it was the devil that tempted her to do it. Four times every year new tickets are distributed to all Mr Wesley's people throughout the three kingdoms. Their ticket is a very small slip of paper, with a text of scripture on it, which is exchanged every quarter for some other text. Such as are only in a class, have a different text from such as are in a band, so that no one can be admitted into a general meeting of the bands, appointed by any of the preachers when he intends to give them an exhortation, nor into any particular band, by a common society ticket. On the common tickets are such texts as these: "Now is the accepted time."-"Awake thou that sleepest," and such like. But those for the bands are in a higher strain; as, "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." ."—" Go on unto perfection."-" Ye are children of the light."-" Your bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost;" and other texts of a similar tendency. For these tickets each poor person paid one shilling, such as were rich paid more; indeed the money seemed the principal end of issuing tickets, at least in country places, the members in the community being so well known to each other, that they scarcely ever showed their tickets in order to gain admittance. I forgot to inform you that prayer-meetings, classmeetings, band-meetings, &c., were in general held in private houses, belonging to some of the brethren. I am, dear friend, yours. LETTER XI. "Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong; * "Then all for women, panting, rhiming, drinking, DEAR FRIEND, You now see what sort of a society I was got into. In country places particularly, they consist of farmers, husbandmen, shoemakers, woolcombers, weavers, their wives, &c. I have heard Mr Wesley remark that more women are converted than men; and I believe that by far the greatest part of his people are females; and not a few of them sour, disappointed old maids, with some others of a less prudish disposition, "Who, grown unfit for carnal bliss, Lavater in his essay on Physiognomy says, "Women sink into the most incurable melancholy, as they also rise to the most enraptured heights." In another place he says, "By the irritability of their nerves, their incapability for deep inquiry and firm decision, they may easily, from their extreme sensi bility, become the most irreclaimable, the most rapturous enthusiasts." 66 'There is," says Mr Hume," only one subject on which I am apt to distrust the judgment of females: and that is, concerning books of gallantry and devotion, which they commonly affect as high-flown as possible; and most of them seem more delighted with the warmth than with the justness of the passion. I mention gallantry and devotion as the same subject; because, in reality, they become the same when treated in this manner; and we may observe, that they both depend on the very same complexion; as the fair sex have a great share of the tender and amorous disposition, it perverts their judgment on this occasion, and makes them be easily affected, even in what has no propriety in the expressions, nor nature in the sentiment. Mr Addison's elegant discourses of religion have no relish with them, in comparison to books of mystic devotion: and Otway's fine tragedies are rejected for the rant of Mr Dryden." There are thousands in this society who will never read anything besides the bible, and books published by Mr Wesley. For several years I read very little else, nor would I go (at least very seldom) to any other place of worship; so that instead of hearing the sensible and learned preachers of Taunton, I would often go four, five, or six miles, to some country village, to hear an inspired husbandman, shoemaker, blacksmith, or woolcomber; and frequently in frost and snow have I risen a little after midnight (not knowing what time of night it was) and have wandered about the town until five o'clock, when the preaching began; where I have often heard a sermon preached to not more than ten or a dozen people. But such of us as did attend at this early hour, used afterwards to congratulate each other on the great privilege we enjoyed; then off we went to our work shivering with cold. was first converted to Methodism when I was about sixteen years of age; from that time until I was twenty-one I was a sincere enthusiast, and every spare hour I enjoyed I dedicated to the study of the bible, reading methodistical books, learning hymns, hearing sermons, meeting in societies, &c. My me mory was very tenacious, so that everything I read I made my own. I could have repeated several volumes of hymns; when I heard a sermon, I could have preached it again, and nearly in the same words; my bible had hundreds of leaves folded down, and thousands of marks against such texts as I thought favoured the doctrines (or whims) which I had imbibed. So that I stood forth as the champion of Methodism wherever I came. But alas! my godly strict life at length suffered interruption. I will give you a farther account of the Methodists when 1 come to the time when I finally left their society. The election for two members of parliament was strongly contested at Taunton just as I attained my twenty-first year; and being now of age, the six or seven months which I had to serve of my apprenticeship were purchased of my mistress by some friends of two of the contending candidates; so that I was at once set free in the midst of a scene of riot and dissipation. "Present example gets within our guard, "Nor shame nor honour could prevail, To keep me thus from turning tail." As I had a vote, and was also possessed of a few ideas above those of my rank and situation, my company was courted by some who were in a much higher sphere; and (probably what they partly intended) in such company I soon forgot my godly or methodistical connections, and ran into the opposite extremes so that for several months most of my spare hour; were devoted to the (6 Young-ey'd god of wine! parent of joys! MALLET'S Eurydice. Here I had nearly sunk for ever into meanness, obscurity, and vice; for when the election was over, I had no longer open houses to eat and drink in at free cost; and having refused bribes, I was nearly out of cash. I began the world with an unsuspecting heart, and was tricked out of about three pounds (every shilling I was possessed of) and part of my clothes, by some country sharpers. Having one coat and two waistcoats left, I lent my best waistcoat to an acquaintance, who left the town and forgot to return it. However, I did not sink quite so low as the commonalty of journeymen shoemakers, but in general worked very hard, and spent my money in better company. "To know good, preferring specious ill, Who breaks the compass, and contemns the stars." FENTON. Notwithstanding, at times I was very uneasy, and although I had not been at any methodistical meeting during the time that I had lived this dissipated life, yet my mind was not freed entirely from the superstitious fears I had there imbibed; so that whenever any person asked me, what would become of me (that had lived such a holy life) if I should die in the state of backsliding from "the good old way?" I always acknowledged that I should be eternally damned, were that to be the case. But I must confess that I was not much afraid of dying in such a state, as I was too |