Wesley Corpus

Oh that the time past may suffice! Is it now not high time that you should awake out of sleep Now God calls aloud! My dear Lady, now hear the voice of the Son of God, and live! The trouble in which your tender parent is now involved may restore all that reverence for her which could not but be a little impaired while you supposed she was 'righteous over-much.' Oh how admirably does God lay hold of and 'strengthen the things that remain' in you!--your gratitude, your humane temper, your generosity, your filial tenderness! And why is this but to improve every right temper; to free you from all that is irrational or unholy; to make you all that you were--yea, all that you should be; to restore you to the whole image of God--I am, my Lady, Yours, &c. To his Wife Editor's Introductory Notes: 1760 [6] LIVERPOOL, March 23, 1760. Poor Molly! Could you not hold out a little longer! not one month not twenty days Have you found out a presence already for talking in the old strain A thin one indeed: but, such as it is, it may serve the turn for want of a better. 'You have taken a bed to pieces. And you want to put it in my study. And I do not tell you whether you may or no'! Truly I cannot look upon this whole affair as any other than a presence. For what need had you to take the bed in pieces at all and what need was there (if it was taken in pieces) that it should lie in the one little room which I have when you have four rooms to yourself Alas, that to this hour you should neither know your duty nor be willing to learn it! Indeed, if you was a wise, whether a good woman or not, you would long since have given me a carte blanche: you would have said, 'Tell me what to do, and I will do it; tell me what to avoid, and I will avoid it. I promised to obey you, and I will keep my word. Bid me do anything, everything. In whatever is not sinful, I obey. You direct, I will follow the direction.'