Wesley Corpus

To Hannah Ball Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1778) Author: John Wesley --- [ROBERTSBRIDGE], December 2, 1778. MY DEAR SISTER, - Little things contrary to our will may be great blessings. We have need to apply the general word, 'Take up thy cross, and follow Me,' to a thousand little particulars: a smoky room, a cold morning, a rainy day, the dullness or perverseness of those we are with-these and innumerable little crosses will help us onward to the kingdom. But the most profitable of all crosses to your own soul may be the unfaithfulness or unfruitfulness of your sisters, without one or other of which they never could have lost any blessing which God had given them. Nothing can exercise and therefore increase your faith and love like the seeming to spend all your strength for naught. Oh how this increases, my dear Hannah, my love to you! How much more does it increase His love for whom you labor! We do not thoroughly understand the meaning of that word, 'The times anti seasons God hath reserved in His own power.' Undoubtedly He has wise reasons for pouring out His Spirit at one time rather than another; but they lie abundantly too deep for human understanding to fathom. To us He says, 'What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter!' - I am, my dear Hannah, Your affectionate brother.