Wesley Corpus

Fri. 28.--A gentleman came to me full of good will, to exhort me not to leave the Church ; or (which was the same thing in his account) to use extemporary prayer; which, said he, “TI will prove to a demonstration to be no prayer at all. For you cannot do two things at once. But thinking how to pray, and praying, are two things. Ergo, you cannot both think and pray at once.” Now, may it not be proved by the self-same demonstration, that praying by a form is no prayer at all? e. g. “You cannot do two things at once. But reading and praying are two things. Ergo, you cannot both read and pray at once.” Q. E. D. In the afternoon I was with one of our sisters, who, for two days, was believed to be in the agonies of death, being then in travail with her first child: but the pain, she declared, was as nothing to her ; her soul being filled, all that time, with “joy unspeakable.” a a ‘| = Sai | ’ d Saat : 198 REV. J. WESLEY’S JOURNAL. [Dec. 1740. Mon. Dec. 1.--Finding many of our brethren and sisters offended at each other, I appointed the several accusers to come and speak face to face with the accused. Some of them came almost every day this week. And most of the offences vanished away. Where any doubt remained, I could only advise them each to look to his own heart; and to suspend their judgments of each other, till God should “ bring to light the hidden things of darkness.” Fri. 12.--Having received many unpleasing accounts concerning our little society in Kingswood I left London, and after some difficulty and danger, by reason of much ice on the road, on Saturday evening came to my brother at Bristol, who confirmed to me what I did not desire to hear.