Wesley Corpus

To Mrs. Johnston, Annandale, Lisleen Date: LONDON, February 16, 1777. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1777) Author: John Wesley --- MY DEAR SISTER,--The persons with whom we have to do are so dilatory that I know not when we shall begin to build. Perhaps not this year; and if so, I shall with God's help go through Ireland as usual. But if we build, I can only visit Dublin, I suppose, about the middle of June. If it will suit your convenience, I shall hope for the pleasure of seeing you then. If any other of the preachers exceed their time (about an hour in the whole service), I hope you will always put them in mind what is the Methodist rule. People imagine the longer the sermon is the more good it will do. This is a grand mistake. The help done on earth God doth it Himself; and He doth not need that we should use many words. According to the account which you give I cannot blame you for keeping the preachers at your house. In such circumstances you did well to detain them. It would have been cruelty to let them go. How wonderfully different from this was the account from Whisby, merely by the omission of a few little circumstances--so little can we depend upon any relation which is given by one whose passions are raging. That none of your little company should have drawn back is more than one could have expected. It is well if a third part of those that at first set their hands to the plough endure to the end. May you and all yours be of that happy number, but particularly my dear Sidney. I commend you all to Him that hath loved you; and am, my dear sister, Your ever affectionate brother.