d names the "Thursday with Jacky," and "Saturday with
Charles," will mostly arrest the reader now. These days came to be
fondly treasured in the memory of all the children.

Twenty years after John Wesley had left home, it is touching to hear him
say---"In many things you have interceded for me and prevailed. Who
knows but in this too--a complete renunciation of the world--you may be
successful?" "If you can spare me only that little part of Thursday
evening which you formerly bestowed upon me in another manner, I doubt
not it would be as useful now for correcting my heart, as it was then
for forming my judgment."

Yet one more feature of Mrs. Wesley's plan of education was that of the
children's appointed conversations with one another, the eldest with the
youngest, the second eldest with the next in age, and so on. To this
good purpose was devoted the better space available in the rooms of the
"New Rectory," built after the fire.

VII.

STRUGGLES WITH POVERTY.

All this work of education, intellectual and spiritual, was conducted
under severe pressure of poverty. When Mr. Wesley received the living of
Epworth, it cost him fifty pounds to have the great seal affixed to his
title, and to remove his family to the place. This unfortunately was but
a specimen of the hard conditions under which he held his cure.

Lord Oxford wrote to the celebrated Dean Swift, soliciting his name as a
subscriber to Mr. Wesley's book on Job--"The person concerned is a
worthy, honest man; and by this work of his, he is in hopes to get free
of a load of debt which has hung upon him some years. This debt is not
owing to any folly or extravagance of his, but to the calamity of his
house having been twice burnt, which he was obliged to rebuild. This is
in short the case of an honest, poor, worthy clergyman, and I hope you
will take him under your protection."

A wealthy brother of Mr. Wesley professed himself quite "scandalised" at
the constant struggles of the family, and did a little for the wiping
away of the reproach, but no more. "Tell me, Mrs. Wesley, whether you
ever really wanted bread?" said the good Archbishop Sharp one day, by
way of preface to a very generous donation on the spot. "My Lord," was
the reply, "I will freely own to your grace that, strictly speaking, I
never did want bread. But then I had so much care to get it before it
was eat, and to pay for it after as has often made it very unpleasant to
me. And I think