Wesley Corpus

Let our necessities give way to the extremities of the poor.” 12. “But with all his generosity and charity he was strictly careful to follow the advice of the Apostle, ‘Owe no man any thing. He contracted no debt. While he gave all he had, he made it a rule to pay ready money for every thing; believing this was the best way to keep the mind unencumbered and free from care. Meanwhile his substance, his time, his strength, his life, were devoted to the service of the poor. And, last of all, he gave me to them. For when we were married, he asked me solemnly, whether I was willing to marry his parish. And the first time he led me among his people in this place, he said, ‘I have not married this wife only for myself, but for you. I asked her of the Lord, for your comfort, as well as my own.’” 13. All his life, as well as during his illness, particularly at Newington and Brislington, (as has been largely related,) he was grateful in a very high degree, to those who conferred the least benefit upon him; yea, or even endeavoured so to do. One of these was Mr. Richard Edwards, of London, to whose care he was committed as a Leader, when he was first admitted into the London Society. A lively sense of the kindness which Mr. Edwards then showed him, he retained to the end of his life. This he testified by repeated letters; one or two of which it may be well to transcribe. “TERN, Oct. 19, 1756. “THIs is to let you know, that (praise be to the Lord!) I am very well in body, and pretty well in soul. But I have very few Christian friends here. And God has been pleased to take away the chief of those few by a most comfortable death. And lately I heard that my aged father is gone the way of all flesh. But the glorious circumstances of his death make me ample amends for the sorrow which I felt. For some years, I have wrote to him with as much freedom as I could have done to a son, though not with so much effect as I wished. But last spring, God visited him with a severe illness, which brought him to a sense of himself.