Wesley Corpus

29.--I found the venerable old man at Cubert pale, * The following is Dryden's translation of these lines :- The first thus rent, a second will arise: And the same metal the same room supplies.--EDIT. Sept. 1778.] JOURNAL, 135 thin, and scarce half alive. However, he made shift to go in a chaise to the preaching, and, deaf as he was, to hear almost every word. He had such a night's rest as he had not had for many, months, and in the morning seemed hardly the same person. It may be God will give him a little longer life, for the good of many. Sun. 30.--About five I preached in the amphitheatre at Gwennap, it was believed, to four-and-twenty thousand. After wards I spent a solemn hour with the society, and slept in peace. Mon. 31.--About eleven I preached to a large and serious congregation, near the Town-Hall, in Bodmin; and about six in the evening at Launceston; a town as little troubled with religion as most in Cornwall. Tues. SEPTEMBER 1.--I went to Tiverton. I was musing here on what I heard a good man say long since,--“Once in seven years I burn all my sermons; for it is a shame if I can not write better sermons now than I could seven years ago.” Whatever others can do, I really cannot. I cannot write a better sermon on the Good Steward, than I did seven years ago: I cannot write a better on the Great Assize, than I did twenty years ago: I cannot write a better on the Use of Mouey, than I did near thirty years ago: Nay, I know not that I can write a better on the Circumcision of the Heart, than I lid five and-forty years ago. Perhaps, indeed I may have read five or six hundred books more than I had then, and may know a little more History, or Natural Philosophy, than I did; but I am not sensible that this has made any essential addition to my knowledge in Divinity. Forty years ago I knew and preached every Christian doctrine which I preach now. Thur. 3.--About noon I preached at Cathanger, about eight miles from Taunton.