kes, it was at any rate
an amiable weakness--a fault which was very near akin to a virtue. A
guileless trustfulness of his fellow-men, who often proved very unworthy
of his confidence, and, akin to this, a credulity, a readiness to
believe the marvellous, tinged his whole career. 'My brother,' said
Charles Wesley, 'was, I think, born for the benefit of knaves.'[740] It
is in the light of this quality that we must interpret many important
events of his life. His relations with the other sex were notoriously
unfortunate; not a breath of scandal was ever uttered against him; and
the mere fact that it was not is a convincing proof, if any were needed,
of the spotless purity of his life; for it is difficult to conceive
conduct more injudicious than his was. The story of his relationship
with Sophia Causton, Grace Murray, Sarah Ryan, and last, but not least,
the widow Vazeille, his termagant wife, need not here be repeated. In
the case of any other man scandal would often have been busy; but
Wesley was above suspicion. His conduct was put down to the right
cause--viz. a perfect guilelessness and simplicity of nature. The same
tone of mind led him to take men as well as women too much at their own
estimates. He was quite ready to believe those who said that they had
attained the summit of Christian perfection,[741] though, with
characteristic humility, he never professed to have attained it himself.
He was far more ready than either his brother Charles or Whitefield to
see in the physical symptoms which attended the early movement of
Methodism the hand of God; but, in justice to him, it should be added
that he was no less ready than they were to check them when in any case
he was convinced of their imposture. The same spirit led him to
attribute to the immediate interposition of Providence events which
might have been more reasonably attributed to ordinary causes; this laid
him open to the merciless attacks of Bishops Lavington and Warburton.
The same spirit led him to the superstitious and objectionable practice
of having recourse to the 'Sortes Biblicae,' by which folly he was more
than once misled against his own better judgment; the same spirit
tempted him to lend far too eager an ear to tales of witchcraft and
magic.[742]

But, after all, these weaknesses detract but little from the greatness
and nothing from the goodness of John Wesley. He stands pre-eminent
among the worthies who originated and conducted the revival of