trifles as "The Young Student's Library: containing Extracts and
Abridgments of the most Valuable Books printed in England and in the
Foreign Journals from the year '65 to this time. To which is added
A New Essay upon all sorts of Learning."

Close by the parish church stood the Hall, the great house of the
Lord Marquis of Normanby who in 1694 made Mr. Wesley his domestic
chaplain. The Marquis was a rake, and he and his mistresses gave the
poor clergyman many searchings of heart. There was one who took
a fancy to Mrs. Wesley and would be intimate with her. Coming home
one day and finding this visitor seated with his wife, Mr. Wesley
went up to her, took her by the hand and very fairly handed her out.
It cost him his living: but the Marquis, being what is called a good
fellow in the main, bore him no grudge; nay, rather liked his spirit,
and afterwards showed himself a good friend to the amount of twenty
guineas, to which the Marchioness (but this is more explicable) added
five from her own purse.

By good fortune the living of Epworth fell vacant just then, and in
accordance with some wish or promise of the late Queen Mary, to whom
he had dedicated his _Life of Christ_, Mr. Wesley was presented to
it, a decent preferment, worth about 200 pounds a year in the
currency of those times. But by this time his family was large; he
was in debt; the fees to be paid before taking up the living ate
farther into his credit; a larger house had to be maintained, with
three acres of garden and farm-buildings; and his new parishioners
hated his politics and made life as miserable for him as they could.
They were savage fighters, but they found their match. In 1702 they
set fire secretly to the parsonage-house, and burned down two-thirds
of it. In the winter of 1704 they destroyed a great part of his crop