Charles Wesley (1707-1788) Subseries, 1750-1788, 1903-1911, and undated

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[NOTE: originals housed in Box WF 2 available by prior request only. Use copies are in Box WF 4.

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35 items

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Letters written by Charles Wesley to friends, family members, other preachers and members of his congregation. The majority of the letters concern details of Wesley's everyday affairs, including travel arrangements, financial transactions, and assessments of the moral values of various parishioners. Some letters discuss his and others' plans and dealings in America (see letters dated 1754; Feb. 18, 1764; and Jan. 19, 1773). In the letter dated 1773 Jan. 19, Wesley discusses his vision for Methodism in response to a suggestion for less preaching.

Some twenty letters are addressed to his very close friend Samuel Lloyd, a London lawyer who also handled CW's financial affairs. Prominent within this correspondence is Wesley's growing concern with his own mortality, as well as his thoughts on death in general (see letters to Lloyd spanning the years 1760-1769). Writing through his struggle with gout, the partial paralysis of one of his arms, and his wife's bout with a near-fatal illness, Wesley continuously insists on Lloyd's central importance in his heart and mind, and frequently expresses his longing, alternately, to see Lloyd once more in life and to spend eternity with Lloyd in the hereafter. Two letters upon this subject repeat the exclamation "O vain, vain, vain all else!" (Feb. 18, 1764, and Mar. 20, 1769). Arranged in chronological order.

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