Wesley Corpus

To all who give signs of their not being strangers to it, I propose this question (and why not to you rather than any), -- Shall I quite break off my pursuit of all learning, but what immediately tends to practice I once desired to make a fair show in languages and philosophy, but it is past; there is a more excellent way: and if I cannot attain to any progress in the one without throwing up all thoughts of the other--why, fare it well! Yet a little while, and we shall all be equal in knowledge, if we are in virtue. You say you ' have renounced the world.' And what have I been doing all this time What have I done ever since I was born Why, I have been plunging myself into it more and more. It is enough. 'Awake, thou that sleepest.' Is there not 'one Lord, one Spirit, one hope of our calling' one way of attaining that hope Then I am to renounce the world, as well as you. That is the very thing I want to do; to draw off my affections from this world, and fix them on a better. But how What is the surest and the shortest way Is it not to be humble Surely this is a large step in the way. But the question recurs, How am I to do this To own the necessity of it is not to be humble. In many things you have interceded for me and prevailed. Who knows but in this too you may be successful If you can spare me only that little part of Thursday evening which you formerly bestowed upon me in another manner, I doubt not but it would be as useful now for correcting my heart as it was then for forming my judgment. [See Telford's Wesley, p. 21.]