Wesley Corpus

I hope you do not pass any day without spending some time in private exercises. What do you read at those seasons Do you read, as it were, by chance Or have you a method in reading I want you to make the best use that is possible of every means of improvement. Now is the time! Now you have the fervor of youth on your side. Now animal nature is in perfection. Now your faculties are in their vigor. And happy are you, who have been enabled to begin your race betimes! I hope you are just now minding this one thing --looking unto Jesus, and pressing on to the mark, to the prize of our high calling! O run, and never fire! So shall your love and zeal always be a comfort to Yours affectionately. To Mary Bishop BRISTOL, September 13, 1774. MY DEAR SISTER,--The difference between heaviness and darkness of soul (the wilderness state) should never be forgotten. Darkness (unless in the case of bodily disorder) seldom comes upon us but by our own fault. It is not so with respect to heaviness, which may be occasioned by a thousand circumstances, such as frequently neither our wisdom can foresee nor our power prevent. It seems your trial was of the latter kind; perhaps, too, it was partly owing to the body. But of whatsoever kind it was, you may profit thereby: it need not leave you as it found you. Remember the wise saying of Mr. Dodd, 'It is a great loss to lose an affliction.' If you are no better for it, you lose it. But you may gain thereby both humility, seriousness, and resignation. I think the seldom you hear the Moravians the better. I should have heard them two or three times in a year; and perhaps I might have done it without any hurt. But others would have been emboldened by my example to hear them. And if any of these had been destroyed thereby their blood would have been upon my head. Some have lately advised me to omit what relates to them in the present edition of my Journals. So I would if the evil were removed. But I have no reason to believe it is. I never found them acknowledge any one fault. And without this there can be no amendment.