The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, Vol. I - Enter His Rest

unaccountable stories he had ever heard;"—namely, that of a lad in
Ireland, who ever and anon made an involuntary pilgrimage through the
aerial regions, and feasted with demigods in nubibus. In the same letter,
Wesley relates an adventure of his own; for, while walking a few days
previously in the neighbourhood of Oxford, he had observed a forlorn
looking house, which he found was unoccupied by mortals because it was
haunted by ghosts. Wesley tells his mother that he purposes to visit this
forsaken dwelling, and to assure himself whether what he had heard was
true. He further relates that a Mr. Barnesley, and two other of his fellowstudents,
had recently seen an apparition in a field adjoining Oxford, and
that it had since been ascertained that Barnesley's mother died in Ireland
at the very moment when the spectre had been witnessed. [12]
Thus, at this early period of his history, Wesley's mind, wisely or
unwisely, superstitiously or otherwise, was full of the supernatural; and
to the calm judgment of his philosophic mother he submits his facts for
her opinion. Three weeks afterwards she wrote: — [13]
"DEAR JACKY,—The story of Mr. Barnesley has afforded me
many curious speculations. I do not doubt the fact; but I cannot
understand why these apparitions are permitted. If they were
allowed to speak to us, and we had strength to bear such
converse,—if they had commission to inform us of anything
relating to their invisible world that would be of any use to us in
this,—if they would instruct us how to avoid danger, or put us in
a way of being wiser and better, there would be sense in it; but to
appear for no end that we know of, unless to frighten people
almost out of their wits, seems altogether unreasonable."
This was not a solution of Wesley's difficulty. It was rather making
mystery more mysterious. The young student was full of anxious inquiry.
Isaac Taylor thinks that the strange Epworth episode so laid open
Wesley's faculty of belief, that ever after a right of way for the
supernatural was opened through his mind; and, to the end of life, there
was nothing so marvellous that it could not freely pass where "Old
Jeffrey" had passed before it. Taylor adds: "Wesley's most prominent