Wesley Corpus

It produced in him a most ready mind, which embraced every cross with alacrity and pleasure. For the good of his neighbour, nothing seemed hard, nothing wearisome. Sometimes I have been grieved to call him out of his study two or three times in an hour; especially when he was engaged in composing some of his deepest works; but he would answer, with his usual sweet ness, ‘O, my dear, never think of that. It matters not, if we are but always ready to meet the will of God. It is conformity to the will of God that alone makes an employ ment excellent.’ He never thought anything too mean, but sin; he looked on nothing else as beneath his character. If he overtook a poor man or woman on the road, with a burden too heavy for them, he did not fail to offer his assistance to bear part of it; and he would not easily take a denial. This therefore he has frequently done. “In bearing pain he was most exemplary, and continued more and more so to the last. Nor was it least remarkable in the most humbling part of the ministry, the coming down to the capacities of the ignorant. Nevertheless he had a most resolute courage in the reproving of sin. To daring sinners he was a son of thunder; and no worldly considera tions were regarded, whenever he believed God had given him a message to deliver to any of them. “One considerable part of humility is, to know our own place, and stand therein. Every member has its peculiar appointment in the human body, where the wise Master builder has placed it; and it is well while each continues in its place. But, as every dislocated bone gives pain, and must continue so to do till it is replaced in its proper socket, so every dislocated affection must give pain to the soul till it is restored to its own place, till it is totally fixed in God, till we resign our whole selves to the disposal of infinite wisdom. This is the proper place of every rational creature; and in this place he invariably stood. Whatever he believed to be the will of God, he resolutely performed, though it were to pluck out a right eye, to lay his Isaac on the altar.