Wesley Corpus

Wed. 3.--I had a little leisure to take a view of the shattered condition of things here. The poor prisoners, both in the Castle and in the city prison, had now none that cared for their souls ; none to instruct, advise, comfort, and build them up in the knowledge and love of the Lord Jesus. None was left to visit the workhouses, where, also, we used to meet with the most moving objects of compassion. Our little school, where about twenty poor children, at a time, had been taught for many years, was on the point of being broke up; there being none now, either to support, or to attend it: and most of those in the town, who were once knit together, and strengthened one another’s hands in God, were torn asunder and scattered abroad. ‘It is time for thee, Lord, to lay to thy hand !” At eleven, a little company of us met to intreat God for “ the remnant that” was “left.” He immediately gave us a token for good. One who had been long in the gall of bitterness, full of wrath, strife, and envy, particularly against one whom she had once tenderly loved, rose up and showed the change God had wrought in her soul, by falling upon her neck, and, with many tears, kissing her. The same spirit we found reviving in others also; so that we left them not without hope, that the seed which had been sown even here, “ shall take root downward, and bear fruit upward.” About six in the evening, I came to Burford ; and at seven, preached to, it was judged, twelve or fifteen hundred people ; on, ‘ Christ--made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” Finding many approved of what they had heard, that they might not rest in that approbation, I explained, an hour or two after, the holiness of a Christian; aud, in the morning, I showed the way to this holiness, by giving both the false and the true answer to that important question, “What must I do to be saved ?”