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

"WROOTE, April 7, 1725.
"DEAR BROTHER,—Whether you will be engaged before thirty,
or not, I cannot determine; but, if my advice be worth listening to,
never engage your affections before your worldly affairs are in
such a posture that you may marry soon. The contrary practice has
proved very pernicious in our family. I know you are a young man
encompassed with difficulties, and have passed through many
hardships already, and probably must through many more before
you are easy in the world; but, believe me, if ever you come to
suffer the torment of a hopeless love, all other afflictions will seem
small in comparison of this.
"I know not when we have had so good a year, both at Wroote
and at Epworth, as this year; but instead of saving anything to
clothe my sister or myself, we are just where we were. A noble
crop has almost all gone, beside Epworth living, to pay some part
of those infinite debts my father has run into, which are so many,
that were he to save £50 a year, he would not be clear in the world
this seven years. One thing I warn you of: let not my giving you
this account be any hindrance to your affairs. If you want
assistance in any case, my father is as able to give it now as any
time these last ten years; nor shall we be ever the poorer for it.
"I have quite tired you now; pray be faithful to me. Let me have
one relation that I can trust. Never give a hint to any one of aught
I write to you; and continue to love your unhappy but affectionate
sister,
"EMILIA WESLEY." [24]
Wesley now began to apply himself with diligence to the study of
divinity. He writes: "When I was about twenty-two, my father pressed me
to enter into holy orders. At the same time the providence of God
directing me to Kempis's 'Christian's Pattern,' I began to see that true
religion was seated in the heart, and that God's law extended to all our
thoughts as well as words and actions. I was, however, angry at Kempis
for being too strict; though I read him only in Dean Stanhope's translation.