Wesley Corpus

“MY DEAR PARISHIoNERs, “THE weakness of my body confining me from you, I humbly submit to the divine dispensation. And I ease the trouble of my absence from you, by being present with you in spirit, and by reflecting on the pleasure I have felt in years past, in singing with you, “Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.’ This truth let us receive with all readiness, and we shall meet in Christ, the centre of lasting union. And our hearts shall be full of the song of angels, ‘Glory be unto God in the highest ! On earth peace, good-will toward men l’ In order to this, may the eyes of your understanding be more and more opened to see the need of a Redeemer, and to behold the suitableness, freeness, and fulness of the redemp tion wrought out by the Son of God! This wish glows in my soul so ardently, that it brings me down upon my knees while I write. And in that posture I entreat you all to consider and improve the day of your visitation; and to prepare in good earnest to meet with joy your God and your unworthy Pastor in another world ! Weak as I was when I left you, I hear that many, who were then healthy and strong, have got the start of me; and that some have been hurried into eternity without a moment's warning. May this awful event strike a deeper consideration into all our souls 1 May the sound of their bodies, dashed in pieces at the bottom of the pit, rouse us to a speedy conversion, that we may never, through carelessness or delay, fall into the bottomless pit ! Tottering as I stand on the brink of the grave, some of you also may drop into it before me. Let us all, then, prepare for our approaching change, and never rest till we are assured it will be a happy one. Let the longsuffering of God toward us, who survive the hundreds that I have buried, lead us all to repentance. Embrace Jesus Christ, who wept for you in the manger, agonized for you in. the garden, bled for you on the cross, and now pleads for you on his mediatorial throne. Meet me not at the great day in your sins and in your blood.