Wesley Corpus

Middleton. By his advice I went home and took my bed: a strange thing to me who had not kept my bed a day (for five-and-thirty years) ever since I had the small-pox. I immediately fell into a profuse sweat, which continued till one or two in the morning. God then gave me refreshing sleep, and afterwards such tranquility of mind that this day, Sunday, November I, seemed the shortest day to me I had ever known in my life. I think a little circumstance ought not to be omitted, although I know there may be an ill construction put upon it. Those words were now so strongly impressed upon my mind that for a considerable time I could not put them out of my thoughts: ‘Blessed is the man that provideth for the poor and needy; the Lord shall deliver him in the time of trouble. The Lord shall comfort him when he lieth sick upon his bed; make Thou all his bed in his sickness.’ On Sunday night likewise I slept well, and was easy all Monday morning. But about three in the afternoon the shivering returned much more violent than before. It continued till I was put to bed. I was then immediately as in a fiery furnace. In a little space I began sweating; but the sweating seemed to increase rather than allay the burning heat. Thus I remained till about eight o’clock, when I suddenly awaked out of a kind of doze, in such a sort of disorder (whether of body or mind, or both) as I know not how to describe. My heart and lungs, and all that was within me, and my soul too, seemed to be in perfect uproar. But I cried unto the Lord in my trouble, and He delivered me out of my distress.