Wesley Corpus

To Mrs. Bennis Date: LONDON, January 18, 1774. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1774) Author: John Wesley --- MY DEAR SISTER,--A will steadily and uniformly devoted to God is essential to a state of sanctification, but not an uniformity of joy or peace or happy communion with God. These may rise and fall in various degrees; nay, and may be affected either by the body or by diabolical agency, in a manner which all our wisdom can neither understand nor prevent. As to wanderings, you would do right well to consider the sermon on Wandering Thoughts [See Works, vi. 23-32]: you might likewise profit by Elizabeth Harper’s Journal, whose experience much resembled yours, only she was more simple; and you may learn from her to go straight to God as a little child, and tell Him all your troubles and hindrances and doubts, and desire Him to turn them all to good. You are not sent to Waterford to be useless. Stir up the gift of God which is in you; gather together those that have been scattered abroad, and make up a band, if not a class or two. Your best way would be to visit from house to house. By this means you can judge of their conduct and dispositions in domestic life, and may have opportunity to speak to the young of the family. By motion you will contract warmth; by imparting fife you will increase it in yourself. As to the circumstance mentioned in the postscript of your last, I should think you would do well to exert yourself in that matter as much as possible [On Dec. 29, 1773, she wrote from Waterford, where she found the people very dead. There is no postscript to the printed letter]. It will be a cross: take up that cross, bear your cross, and it will bear you; and if you do it with a single eye, it will be no loss to your soul.--I am, my dear sister, Your affectionate brother.