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 news of Samuel Wesley's death was communicated by a friend and neighbour to Charles, who was then at Bristol, and probably also to John at the Foundry. The latter had often been rallied by his relatives on his reticence as to family matters, and it appears that he actually started off to meet Charles and go with him to Tiverton to see their widowed sister-in-law without communicating the sad news to his mother, who was ill in her own room. Very likely he had not the heart to do so, for all the family knew how dearly she loved her first-born, and what a pattern son he had been to her. Possibly he commissioned one of his sisters to tell her gently. How she bore it she herself told Charles:—

"DEAR CHARLES, "November 29th, 1739.

"Upon the first hearing of your brother's death, I did immediately acquiesce in the will of God, without the least reluctance. Only I marvelled that Jacky did not inform me of it before he left, since he knew thereof; but he was unacquainted with the manner of God's dealing with me in extraordinary cases, which,