Wesley Corpus

To Ann Loxdale Date: CHESTER, April 15, 1781. Source: The Letters of John Wesley (1781) Author: John Wesley --- I snatch a few moments to write to my dear Miss Loxdale, although I have not time to write as I would. [See letter of March 27.] The trials which you have lately undergone were all instances of the goodness of God, who permitted them merely for your profit, that you might be the more largely the partaker of His holiness. You know our blessed Lord Himself as man ‘learned obedience by the things that He suffered’; and the last lesson which He learned upon earth was that ‘Father, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.’ Never imagine, my dear friend, that your letters to me can be too frequent or too long -- I may add, or too free. Nothing endears you to me so much as your artless simplicity. I beg you would always write just what you feel without disguise, without reserve. Your heart seems to be just as my heart. I cannot tell that I ever before felt so close an attachment to a person I had never seen. Surely it is the will of our gracious Lord that there should be a closer union between you and Yours in tender affection.