Wesley Corpus

Fri. 23.--About three in the afternoon I went to my mother, and found her change was near. I sat down on the bedside. She was in her last conflict; unable to speak, but I believe quite sensible. Her look was calm and serene, and her eyes fixed upward, while we commended her soul to God. From three to four, the silver cord was loosing, and the wheel breaking at the cistern; and then, without any struggle, or sigh, or groan, the soul was set at liberty. We stood round the bed, and fulfilled her last request, uttered a little before she lost her speech: “ Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to God.” Sun. August 1.--Almost an innumerable company of people being gathered together, about five in the afternoon, I committed to the earth the body of my mother, to sleep with her fathers. The portion of Scripture from which I afterward spoke was, ‘I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the eartn and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. AndI saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” It was one of the most solemn assemblies I ever saw, or expect to see on this side eternity. We set = a Aug. 1742.] REV. J. WESLEY’S JOURNAL. 261 up a plain stone at the head of her grave, inscribed with the following words :-- In sure and steadfast hope to rise, And claim her mansion in the skies, A Christian here her flesh laid down, The cross exchanging for a crown. True daughter of affliction, she, Inured to pain and misery, Mourn’d a long night of griefs and fears, A legal night of seventy years. The Father then revealed his Son, Him in the broken bread made known. She knew and felt her sins forgiven, And found the earnest of her heaven. Meet for the fellowship above, She heard the call, “‘ Arise, my love !”” “T come,” her dying looks replied, And lamb-like, as her Lord, she died.