JOHN WESLEY Hetty's poems are of a very high standard of excellence, and it is more than likely that she wrote the verse part—for it is partly in prose dialogue—of "Eupolis' Hymn to the Creator," which is far better than anything else attributed to Sam Wesley. He died in 1735, and John, who had been curate to him at Epworth and Wroot (the livings went together), left the neighbourhood; and the place which had been the home of one of Lincolnshire's most remarkable families for nearly forty years knew them no more. (See Appendix I.)
Lincoln, however, saw John Wesley, for he preached in the Castle yard in 1780, as his father had done seventy-five years earlier, when he was spitefully imprisoned for debt. He was preaching at Lincoln again in 1788, and again in July, 1790, in the new Wesleyan Chapel. Eight months later he died. His last sermon was preached at Leatherhead, February 23, 1791, and his last letter was written on the following day to Dr. John Whitehead. He died on March 2, aged 88, having, as he said, during the whole of his life "never once lost a night's sleep." A memorial tablet to John and his brother Charles was placed in 1876 in Westminster Abbey. But there is also a fine statue of him as a preacher in gown and bands, showing a strong, rugged and kindly face, and at the base an inscription: "The world is my parish." This is in front of the City Road Chapel, which he had built in Moorfields, and where he was buried, but not till 10,000 people had filed past to take their last look at the well-known face as he lay in the chapel.
Dean Stanley visiting this once, said that he would give a great deal to preach in the pulpit there, and when, to his query whether the ground was consecrated and by whom, the attendant answered, "Yes; by holding the body of John Wesley," he rejoined, "A very good answer."
John Wesley himself had been denied access to Church of England pulpits for fifty years, 1738-1788. Even when he preached at Epworth in 1742, it was from his father's tombstone; and in most cases his congregations, which were often very large, were gathered together in the open air. We hear of him preaching to a large assemblage in the rain at North Elkington, on April 6, 1759; and also at Scawby, Tealby, Louth, Brigg and Cleethorpes; but in June, 1788, he notes in his diary: "Preached in church at Grimsby, the Vicar
