Wesley Corpus

To Miss March Date: REIGATE, November 30, 1774. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1774) Author: John Wesley --- You are in the safer extreme. When I formerly removed from one college to another, I fixed my resolution not to be hastily acquainted with any one; indeed, not to return any visit unless I had a reasonable hope of receiving or doing good therein. This my new neighbors generally imputed to pride; and I was willing to suffer the imputation. I 'sum up the experience' of persons, too, in order to form their general character. But in doing this we take a different way of making our estimate. It may be you chiefly regard (as my brother does) the length of their experience. Now, this I make little account of; I measure the depth and breadth of it. Does it sink deep in humble, gentle love Does it extend wide in all inward and outward holiness If so, I do not care whether they are of five or five-and-thirty years’ standing. Nay, when I look at Miss Betsy Briggs or Miss Philly Briggs, I am ready to hide my face: I am ashamed of having set out before they were born. Undoubtedly Miss Johnson is deep in grace, and lives like an angel here below. Yet some things in her character I do not admire; I impute them to human frailty. Many years ago I might have said, but I do not now, Give me a woman made of stone, A widow of Pygmalion. And just such a Christian one of the Fathers, Clemens Alexandrinus describes; but I do not admire that description now as I did formerly. I now see a Stoic and a Christian are different characters; and at some times I have been a good deal disgusted at Miss Johnson's apathy. When God restores our friends to us, we ought to rejoice; it is a defect if we do not. In that and several other instances I take knowledge of Sarah Ryan's littleness of understanding: and this, as well as our temper, we ought to improve to the utmost of our power; which can no otherwise be done than by reading authors of various kinds as well as by thinking and conversation. If we read nothing but the Bible, we should hear nothing but the Bible; and then what becomes of preaching