Remarkable Providence.

REMARKABLE PROVIDENCE.

[PRINTED IN THE YEAR 1778.]

———

THE following letter, written by my mother, gives an account of a very remarkable providence: But it is imperfect with regard to me. That part none but I myself can supply. Her account, wrote to a neighboring Clergyman, begins: —

“EPWORTH, August 24, 1709.

“ON Wednesday night, February 9, between the hours of eleven and twelve, some sparks fell from the roof of our houses, upon one of the children’s (Hetty’s) feet. She immediately ran to our chamber, and called us Mr. Wesley, hearing a cry of fire in the street, started up, (as I was very ill, he lay in a separate room from me,) and, opening his door, found the fire was in his own house. He immediately came to my room, and bid me and my two eldest daughters rise quickly and shift for ourselves. Then he ran and burst open the nursery-door, and called to the maid to bring out the children. The two little ones lay in the bed with her; the three others in another bed. She snatched up the youngest, and bid the rest follow; which the three elder did. When we were got into the hall, and were surrounded with flames, Mr. Wesley found he had left the keys of the doors above stairs. He ran up, and recovered them, a minute before the staircase took fire. When we opened the street-door, the strong northeast wind drove the flames in with such violence, that none could stand against them. But some of our children got out through the windows, the rest through a little door into the garden. I was not in a condition to climb up to the windows; neither could I get to the garden-door. I endeavored three times to force my passage through the street-door, but was as often beat back by the fury of the flames. In this distress, I besought our blessed Savior for help, and then waded through the fire, naked as I was, which did me no farther harm than a little scorching my hands and my face.

“When Mr. Wesley had seen the other children safe, he heard the child in the nursery cry. He attempted to go up the stairs, but they were all on fire, and would not bear his weight. Finding it impossible to give any help, he kneeled down in the hall, and recommended the soul of the child to God.”

I believe it was just at that time I waked; for I did not cry, as they imagined, unless it was afterwards. I remember all the circumstances as distinctly as though it were but yesterday. Seeing the room was very light, I called to the maid to take me up. But none answering, I put my head out of the curtains, and saw streaks of fire on the top of the room. I got up and ran to the door, but could get no farther, all the floor beyond it being in a blaze. I then climbed up on a chest which stood near the window: One in the yard saw me, and proposed running to fetch a ladder. Another answered, “There will not be time; but I have thought of another expedient: Here, I will fix myself against the wall; lift a light man, and set him on my shoulders.” They did so, and he took me out of the window. Just then the whole roof fell in; but it fell inward, or we had been all crushed at once. When they brought me into the house where my father was, he cried out, “Come, neighbors, let us kneel down! Let us give thanks to God! He has given me all my eight children: Let the house go; I am rich enough.”

The next day, as he was walking in the garden, and surveying the ruins of the house, he picked up part of a leaf of his polyglott Bible, on which just those words were legible: Vade; vende omnia quæ habes, et attolle crucem, et sequere me. “Go, sell all that thou hast; and take up thy cross, and follow me.”