Page:Susanna Wesley (Clarke 1886).djvu/33

Rh diocese, two of which were then vacant. Considering how much Irish blood ran in the veins of the Wesleys, and also that their connections were people of position in the Emerald Isle, he would probably have been well placed in such a see, and the difference it would have made to his family would have been incalculable. Possibly neither Queen Mary nor the Archbishop knew of these circumstances, but simply thought that a clergyman at thirty-two years of age was too young, and the pastor of two hundred and fifty country people too inexperienced, for such a post. The Queen, however, did not forget him, and it is said that it was in consequence of a wish expressed shortly before her last illness that the living of Epworth was offered to him.

It was just before leaving South Ormsby that Mrs. Wesley had the grief of losing her father, Dr. Annesley, who died, after five months' illness, on the last day of 1696. The news, of course, did not travel very quickly, nor was it unexpected ; but it was none the less keenly felt. She was then twenty-seven, and expecting her eighth child, only one of her family having been seen by its grandfather. She was a strong believer in communion between the spirits of the departed and those dear to them who are still in the body, and throughout the remainder of her life loved to think that her father was far nearer to her than while she was in Lincolnshire and he in the flesh in Spital Yard.