Wesley Corpus

He shared his all with the poor, who lay so close to his heart, that, at the approach of death, when he could not speak without difficulty, he cried out, ‘O my poor ! What will become of my poor !” He was blessed with so great a degree of humility, as is scarce to be found. I am witness how often he has rejoiced in being treated with contempt. Indeed it seemed the very food of his soul, to be little and unknown. “His zeal for souls, I need not tell you. Let the labours of twenty-five years, and a martyr's death in the conclusion, imprint it on your hearts. His diligent visiting of the sick occasioned the fever which, by God’s commission, tore him from you and me. And his vehement desire to take his last leave of you with dying lips and hands, gave (it is supposed) the finishing stroke, by preparing his blood for putrefaction. Thus has he lived and died your servant. And will any of you refuse to meet him at God’s right hand in that day? “He walked with death always in sight. About two months ago, he came to me and said, ‘My dear love, I know not how it is, but I have a strange impression, death is near us, as if it were to be some sudden stroke upon one of us. And it draws out all my soul in prayer, that we may be ready. He then broke out, ‘Lord, prepare the soul thou wilt call! And O stand by the poor disconsolate one that shall be left behind ' ' “A few days before his departure, he was filled with love in an uncommon manner. The same he testified as long as he had a voice, and continued to the end, by a most lamb-like patience, in which he smiled over death, and set his last seal to the glorious truths he had so long preached among you. “Three years, nine months, and two days, I have possessed my heavenly-minded husband. But now the sun of my earthly joys is set for ever, and my soul filled with an anguish which only finds its consolation in a total resignation to the will of God.