Said the old man, when at the age of seventy-seven, “I do not remember to have felt lowness of spirits for one quarter of an hour since I was born.” Of course, it is presumed he means that causeless depression which is usually the result of indolence. At the age of eighty-six he writes: “Saturday, March 21st, I had a day of rest, only preaching morning and evening.”
It is wonderful to think that at nearly ninety years of age he could continue to make any effort to preach, but he did so, and he continued as a tower of strength to the companies he had formed and called together. But he outlived most of his early contemporaries, friends and foes. He stood in the pulpit of St. Giles’, in London; he had preached there fifty years before, prior to his departure for America. “Are they not passed as a watch in the night?” he writes. Old families that used to entertain him had passed away. “Their houses,” says he, “know neither me nor them any more.” His later letters show that fervid sentiment for woman known only to loftiest minds and hearts; this again is entwined with beautiful simple regards for children. When he ascended the pulpit of Rathby Church, where he was often allowed to preach, a child sat in his way on the stairs, he took it in his arms and kissed it, and placed it tenderly on the same spot. Crabb Robinson heard him at Colchester; he was then eighty-seven; on each side of him stood a minister supporting him; his feeble voice was barely audible. Robinson then a boy, destined to enter into his ninety-second year, says: “It went to the heart, and I never saw anything like it in after life.” Three days after he preached at Lowestoft, and there he had another distinguished hearer, the poet Crabbe. Here, also, he was supported into the pulpit by a minister on either side; but what really touched the poet naturally and deeply was Wesley’s adaptation and appropriation of some lines of Anacreon. The poet speaks of his reverent appearance, his cheerful air, and the beautiful cadence with which he repeated the lines-
“Oft am I by women told,
Poor Anacreaon, thou growest old;
See, thine hairs are falling all,
Read More About Wesley:
- John Wesley at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library
- Selected text from the Journal of John Wesley on A Vision of Britain through Time, with links to the places named.
- Sermons by John Wesley
- John Wesley as a British abolitionist
- John Wesley info from the United Methodist Church
- John Wesley and the Anglo-Catholic Revival, by G.W. Taylor 1905 article.
- John Wesley in the Georgia Encyclopedia
- Wesley’s Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible produced between 1754 and 1765
- BBC Humber article on Wesley’s life
- Epworth Bells newspaper, History of the Wesleys
- John Wesley (1703–1791): Life, Legend and Legacy, an online exhibition at the John Rylands Library, retrieved June 7, 2009.
- John Wesley at Find a Grave
- Carey, Brycchan. “John Wesley (1703–1791).” The British Abolitionists. Visited 25 November 2009.
- Wesley John, “Thoughts Upon Slavery,” John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Life. Charles Yrigoyen, 1996. Visited 5 October 2009.
- http://wesley.nnu.edu/john_wesley/letters/1789b.htm
- Official web site for feature film Wesley: http://www.wesleythemovie.com
- John Wesley : Doing All The Good He Could
- Llanelli Community Heritage John Wesley Blue Plaque :http://www.llanellich.org.uk/Blue-Plaques/john-wesley.html
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