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and tottering body. It is not for the love of sunshine ́or the variety of meats, that I desire life, but, if it please God, that I may render him a little more service. It is a blessed thing to live above the fear of death, and I praise God, that I fear it not. The means I am about pursuing to save life, so far as I am solely concerned, are, to my apprehension, worse than death. My profuse night-sweats are very weakening to my emaciated frame; but the most distressing nights to this frail body have been as the beginning of heaven to my soul. God hath, as it were, let heaven down upon me in those nights of weakness and waking. I am not suffered once to lose my hope. My confidence is, not that I have lived such or such a life, or served God in this or the other manner; I know of no prayer I ever offered, no service I ever performed, but there has been such a mixture of what was wrong in it, that instead of recommending me to the favour of God, I needed his pardon, through Christ, for the same. Yet he hath enabled me in sincerity to serve him. Popular applause was not the thing I sought. If I might be honoured to do good, and my heavenly Father might see his poor child attempting, though feebly and imperfectly, to serve him, and meet with his approving eye and commending sentence, "Well done, good and faithful servant,"-this my soul regarded and was most solicitous for. I have no hope in what I have been, or done. Yet I am full of confidence; and this is my confidence; there is a hope set before me: I have fled, I still fly for refuge to that hope. In him 1 trust; in him I have strong consolation, and shall assuredly be accepted in this Beloved of my soul. The Spirit of adoption is given me, enabling me to cry, Abba, Father. I have no doubt of my being a child of God, and that life and death, and all my present exercises are directed in mercy, by my adored heavenly Father." "

He sailed from Falmouth for Lisbon, on the 30th of

September, 1751. On the passage, he several times said to Mrs. Doddridge, "I cannot express to you what a morning I have had; such delightful and transporting views of the heavenly world is my Father now indulging me with, as no words can express." There appeared such sacred gratitude and joy in his countenance as often reminded her of those lines in one of his hymns,

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"When death o'er nature shall prevail,

And all its powers of language fail,

Joy through my swimming eyes shall break,
And mean the thanks I cannot speak."

He landed at Lisbon on Lord's day, October 13th. The next day he wrote to his assistant at Northampton, and gave him a short account of his voyage, and, after mentioning his great weakness and danger, he adds :Nevertheless, I bless God, the most undisturbed serenity continues in my mind, and my strength holds proportion to my day. I still hope and trust in God, and joyfully acquiesce in all he may do with me. When you see my dear friends of the congregation, inform them of my circumstances, and assure them that I cheerfully submit myself to God. If I desire life may be restored, it is chiefly that it may be employed in serving Christ among them; and that I am enabled by faith to look upon death as an enemy that shall be destroyed; and can cheerfully leave my dear Mrs. Doddridge a widow in this strange land, if such be the appointment of our heavenly Father. I hope I have done my duty, and the Lord do as seemeth good in his sight!"

The night of Thursday, October 24th, seemed the last of rational life; his mind continued in the same vigour, calmness, and joy, which he had felt and expressed during his whole illness. Mrs. Doddridge still attended him; and he said to her, "That he had been making it his humble and carnest request, that God would support

and comfort her; that it had been his desire, if it were the Divine will, to stay a little longer upon earth to promote the honour and interest of his beloved Lord and Master; but now, the only pain he felt in the thought of dying was, his fear of that distress and grief which would come upon her in case of his removal." After a short pause, he added, "But I am sure my heavenly Father will be with you. It is a joy to me to think, how many friends and comforts you are returning to. So sure I am that God will be with you and comfort you, that I think my death will be a greater blessing to you than ever my life hath been." After lying still some time, and being supposed asleep, he told her he had been renewing his covenant engagements with God; and though he had not felt all that delight and joy which he had so often done, yet he was sure the Lord was his God, and he had a cheerful, well-grounded hope, through the Redeemer, of being received to his everlasting mercy. He lay in a gentle doze the following day, and continued so till about an hour before he died; when, in his last struggle, he appeared restless, fetched several deep sighs, and quickly after obtained his release from the burden of the flesh, on Saturday, October 26th.

But though he died in a foreign land and among strangers, yet was his departure sincerely mourned and his burial accompanied with many tears. The righteous are had in everlasting remembrance.

5. JOHN WESLEY.

"Then, then I rose; then, first, humanity

Triumphant pass'd the crystal ports of light,

Stupendous guest, and seized eternal youth."--YOUNG.

THIS extraordinary man, upon completing his eightysecond year, says, "Is anything too hard for God? It is now eleven years since I have felt any such thing as weariness. Many times I speak till my voice fails and I can speak no longer. Frequently I walk till my strength fails and I can walk no farther; yet, even then, I feel no sensation of weariness, but am perfectly easy from head to foot. I dare not impute this to natural causes, it is the will of God.”

Within the four succeeding years, a great change had taken place; and upon his eighty-sixth birthday, he says, "I now find I grow old. My sight is decayed, so that I cannot read a small print, unless in a strong light. My strength is decayed, so that I walk much slower than I did some years since. My memory of names, whether of persons or places, is decayed, till I stop a little to recollect them. What I should be afraid of is, if I took thought for the morrow, that my body should weigh down my mind, and create either stubbornness, by the decrease of my understanding, or peevishness, by the increase of bodily infirmities. But thou shalt answer for me, O Lord, my God!" His strength now diminished so much, that he found it difficult to preach more than twice a-day; and for many weeks he abstained from his five o'clock morning sermon, because a slow and settled fever parched his mouth. Finding himself a little better, he resumed the practice, and hoped to hold on a little longer; but, at the beginning of the year 1790, he writes, "I am now an old man, de

cayed from head to foot. My eyes are dim; my right hand shakes much; my mouth is hot and dry every morning; I have a lingering fever almost every day; my motion is weak and slow. However, blessed be God! I do not slack my labours: I can preach and write still." In the middle of the same year, he closed his cash account-book with the following words, written with a tremulous hand, so as to be scarcely legible: "Up to the age of eighty-six years I have kept my accounts exactly; I will not attempt it any longer, being satisfied with the continual conviction, that I save all I can, and give all I can-that is, all I have."

Upon the 28th of June, 1790, he thus writes, "This day I enter into my eighty-eighth year. For nearly eighty-six years, I found none of the infirmities of old age-my eyes did not wax dim, neither was my natural strength abated. But last August, I found almost a sudden change-my eyes were so dim, that no glasses would help me; my strength likewise quite forsook me, and probably will not return in this world. But I feel no pain from head to foot, only it seems nature is exhausted, and, humanly speaking, will sink more and more, till

"The weary springs of life stand still at last."

This, at length, was literally the case; the death of Mr. Wesley, like that of his brother Charles, being one of those rare instances in which nature, drooping under the load of years, sinks by a gentle decay.

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Conscious that his end was approaching, he wrote, on the 18th of Feb., 1791, to his followers in America, giving them his last counsels. See," said he, "that you never give place to one thought of separating from your brethren in Europe. Lose no opportunity of declaring to all men, that the Methodists are one people in all the world, and that it is their full determination so to continue."

He

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