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Untitled Article
grumbling , for holidays inclusive . What a heaven would such a school have been to poor Mehetabel How must her little heart have quivered in the cold breeze that blew upon it as constantly as a trade wind ; for every night Mrs . Wesley lectured every one of them separately upon their duties , not knowing that the trembling child ' s duties were her interests , and that her interests were
her affections . The spirit of love could not be quenched , it was in her very frame ; but it must have been sadly chilled and sorely pained . It is a wretched alternative to drive the young soul into , either servility or rebellion , or what is worse than either separately , the combination of the one in the outward manner with the other
in the heart . Hetty was of a truthful and gentle nature ; she always was so ; but though unspoiled by the discipline , grievously must she often have writhed under its infliction . Corrupt her opinions it did ; that could not be avoided , and probably it blunted her suffering Pervert her heart it could not . Nature there was too strong , even for Mrs . Wesley and her well-regulated family .
This was the first act of the tragedy ; the second was of a darker character . It was unavoidable that such a being as Mehetabel should love , but after an education which implanted so much of false principle , and left so much of ignorance , and in circumstances unfavourable to accurate observation , it was almost equally unavoidable that she should love unhappily .
If tried b y the lives of her daughters , nothing can be more corn - * plete than the condemnation of Mrs . Wesley and her plans . But let it not fall on her alone . In fact , she and they were alike the victims of those mistakes about religious principle and social morality which have done so much mischief in the world . The lot fell the heavier on them , on some of them at least , because they were the finer natures . She was as hard as the system , and so it has rewarded her with canonization . But the one saint made many martyrs . Of her seven daughters , one passed a single life in uneasiness and privation . Of another , we are only told that of
her and her husband nothing is known ; and this is the only biography in the chapter of the daughters which can be read without pain . A third made her escape , by an early death , from a profligate who would have been the torment of her life . A fourth had also an early escape by the early death of her * ill suited mate ;' and the remaining three , passed long and wretched years of marriage hopelessness and helplessness . Here was a costly wreck
of thoughts , feelings , hopes , and capacities of enjoyment , which surely nothing in nature rendered necessary or unavoidable . None of them appear to have been marked by qualities which tenJ actively to induce misery . The substance of their wretchedness tvas simply this : they made a religious contract to pass the remainder of their lives with persons who turned out to be so uncongenial that the only alternative wa * the irregular suipen&ion of the
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170 A Victim .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1833, page 170, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2610/page/26/
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