Wesley Corpus

It surely contains many excellent things. Yet I cannot but think the fever he had twenty years ago, when he supposes he was “introduced into the society of angels,” really introduced him into the society of lunatics; but still there is something noble, even in his ravings: His mind has not yet lost All its original brightness, but appears Majestic, though in ruin. Mon. 16.--I rode to Dorking, where were many people; but none were cut to the heart. Tuesday, 17. I went on to Ryegate-Place. In King Henry the Fourth’s time, this was an eminent monastery. At the dissolution of monasteries, it fell into the hands of the great spoiler, Henry the Eighth. Queen Elizabeth, pleased with the situation, chose it for one of her palaces. The gentleman who possesses it now has entirely changed the form of it; pulling down whole piles of ancient building, and greatly altering what remains. Yet, after all that is taken away, it still looks more like a palace than a private house. The stair-case is of the same model with that at Hampton-Court: One would scarce know which is the original. The chimney-piece in the hall is probably one of the most curious pieces of wood-work now in the kingdom. But how long? How many of its once bustling inhabitants are already under the earth ! And how little a time will it be before the house itself, yea, the earth, shall be burned up ! I preached in the evening to a small company, on, “It is appointed unto men once to die.” All seemed moved for the present. They saw that life is a dream: But how soon will they sleep again? Wednesday, 18. I preached to another kind of congregation at Shoreham. Here we are not ploughing upon the sand. Many have “received the seed upon good ground,” and do “bring forth fruit with patience.” Sat. 21.--I met an old friend, James Hutton, whom I had not seen for five-and-twenty years. I felt this made no differ. Jan. 1772.] JOURNAL. 451 ence; my heart was quite open; his seemed to be the same; and we conversed just as we did in 1738, when we met in Fetter-Lane.