Wesley Corpus

Mon. 17-. After preaching at Durham, I went on to Dar- lington. The society here,lately consisting of nine members, is now increased to above seventy ; many ofwhom are warm in their first love. At the love-feast, many of these spoke their experience with all simplicity. Here will surely be a plentiful harvest, if tares do not grow up with the wheat. Wed. 19.-I preached to my old, loving congregation at Osmotherley ; and visited, once more, poor Mr. Watson, just quivering over the grave. Part of this week I read, as I travelled, a famous book, which I had not looked into for these fifty years. It was Lucian's " Dialogues." He has agood deal of humour, but wonderful little judgment. His great hero is Diogenes, the Cynic ; just such another brute as himself. Socrates (as one might expect) he reviles and ridicules with all his might. I think there is more sense in his " Timon," than in all his other Dialogues put July, 1776.1 79 together : And yet, even that ends poorly, in the dull jest of his breaking the heads of all that camenear him. How amaz- ing is it, that such abook as this should be put into the hands ofschool-boys ! Mon. 24. I went on to Scarborough. I think the preaching- house here is the most elegant of any square Room which we have inEngland; and wehad as elegant acongregation : But they were as attentive as ifthey had been Kingswood colliers. Tues. 25.-I visited apoor backslider, who has given great occasion to the enemy to blaspheme. Some time since, he felt a pain in the soles of his feet, then in his legs, his knees, his thighs. Now it has reached his stomach, and begins to affect his head. No medicines have availed at all. I fear he has sinned a sin unto death ; a sin which God has determined to punish bydeath. Fri. 28-. I am seventy-three years old, and far abler to preach than I was at three-and-twenty. What natural means hasGod used to produce so wonderful an effect ? 1. Continual exercise and change of air, by travelling above four thousand miles in a year : 2. Constant rising at four : 3. The ability, if ever Iwant, tosleep immediately : 4. The never losing a night's