the autumn of 1690, when he received the living of South Ormsby, in
Lincolnshire, through the presentation of the Marquis of Normanby.

While exercising, in his pastoral duties, a diligence and faithfulness
such as to put him for the most part above censure, the young husband
toiled hard in literary work for the support of his household, and by
various publications of a theological character in verse and prose--at
one time a metrical _Life of Christ_, at another a treatise on _The
Hebrew Points_, and chiefly by articles in Dunton's _Athenian
Oracle_--he earned the means of keeping his family at least
above distress.

About the close of 1696 Samuel Wesley was presented to the parish of
Epworth--a place destined to be irrevocably associated with his name.
This promotion is said to have been awarded him by special desire of the
Queen, to whom he had dedicated his _Metrical and Illustrated Life
of Christ_.

IV.

EPWORTH.

Mr. and Mrs. Wesley, with their family of four children--one son and
three daughters, the youngest of these being an infant in arms--duly
took possession of their new sphere. The promotion proved to be a hard
parish and a humble abode. The landowners were comparatively poor, and
of small culture in mind or morals. The people were proportionately
subject to hardships in their mode of life, and were rude and even
"savage" in character, as events were soon to prove.

There were seven rooms in the straw-roofed parsonage requiring new
furniture, which had to be procured with borrowed money--a beginning of
things that formed a grievous burden for many a day. The trade of the
place consisted chiefly in the dressing of flax, which was extensively
grown in the fields of the river-island of Axholme, in-which the village
of Epworth stood, with its population of two thousand. The parsonage
shared in this trade; but misfortunes soon came thickly.

A fire broke out (not the one that has become so celebrated) in 1702,
and destroyed a third part of the house. Mrs. Wesley and the children
were in the study when the alarm was raised, and "the mother, taking two
of them in her arms, rushed through the smoke and flame;" another was
with difficulty saved, and happily none were lost. A year later the
rector's whole crop of flax was consumed.

The famous fire took place in 1709. According to Mrs. Wesley's
account--"When we opened the street door, the strong north-east wind
drove the flames in with such violence