CHAPTER XXI
WESLEY'S LAST YEARS
AND DEATH
WESLEY made two pleasant excursions
with some friends to Holland in the summers of 1783 and 1786.
The notes of his tours show how thoroughly the old man enjoyed
the change of scene. Nothing seemed to escape his attention.
The cleanliness of the streets and houses was such that he could
not find a speck of dirt. The women and children seemed the
most beautiful he had ever seen. “They were surprisingly
fair, and had an inexpressible air of innocence in their countenances.”
He had much pleasant intercourse with pious people, and returned
to his work at home refreshed and cheered by his three weeks
of holiday. In the summer of 1787 Wesley spent nearly four weeks
in the Channel Islands. Methodism had already been introduced
into those lovely islands. Wesley’s visits greatly encouraged
the workers there. He preached every day to large congregations,
and was everywhere received with marked respect. The beauty
and fruitfulness of the islands made a great impression on him,
whilst the kindness of friends and the pleasant change of scene
added to his preaching tour the charm of a summer holiday.
Wesley lived three years after
his brother Charles. Those years were full of honour. The Methodist
Societies felt that their founder could not long be with them,
and hung eagerly upon his lips. His visits to all parts of the
country were public holidays. Multitudes thronged to listen
to the venerable preacher, who had endeared himself to all by
his labour of love. Increasing infirmities did not check his
restless itinerancy. On the first anniversary of his brother’s
death he landed at Dublin on his last visit. He remained in
Ireland for three months and a half. Gravel Walk House, he says,
was “filled as I never saw it before; and they all seemed
to hear as for life.” Another of his congregations was
a brilliant assembly. Honourables and Right Honourables were
present, and he felt that all were given into his hands. At
Pallas, near Limerick, all the neighbouring gentry came to hear
him. No place would hold the crowd, so that Wesley was obliged
to stand outside. “The people, as it were, swallowed every
word; and great was our rejoicing in the Lord.”
Such scenes marked every step of
Wesley’s progress through Ireland. One instance may show
how he was received in the homes of the people. When he was
about to leave a house where he had stayed, “one and another
fell on their knees all round me, and most of them burst out
into tears and earnest cries, the like of which I have seldom
heard; so that we scarce knew how to part.” When Wesley
embarked for England, on July 12th, 1789, multitudes followed
him to his vessel. Before he went on board they sang a hymn
together; then Wesley fell on his knees and implored God’s
blessing on their families, their Church, and their country.
It was a bitter but a blessed hour. Not a few fell upon his
neck and kissed him. The ship moved from the shore he was nevermore
to see whilst the venerable patriarch stood on deck, with his
hands lifted in prayer for Ireland.’
The vessel was the Princess Royal,
of Parkgate, the neatest and most elegant packet Wesley had
ever seen. The company on board was exceedingly agreeable, and
he slept as well as if he had been in his own bed. Next day
he shut himself up in his chaise on deck and read the life of
a man who claimed to be the premier nobleman of Ireland, one
of the most cool, deliberate, and relentless murderers Wesley
ever heard of. He felt such interest in this extraordinary story,
that he had already devoted nearly two pages of his journal
to an account of him. In the evening Wesley and his friends
sang a hymn on deck, which soon drew the company around him.
Without delay he began to preach on “It is appointed unto
men once to die.” All seemed affected by the solemn message.
This was a fitting close to Wesley’s visits to Ireland.
On his return to England, he suffered
much from thirst and fever, but Dr. Easton, whom he consulted
in Manchester, gave him medicine, which soon relieved him.
A month after he landed from Ireland he paid his last visit
to Cornwall At Falmouth the change wrought by God’s grace
filled him with thankfulness. “The last time I was here,”
he writes, “above forty years ago, I was taken prisoner
by an immense mob, gaping and roaring like lions. But how is
the tide turned ! High and low now lined the street, from one
end of the town to the other, out of stark love and kindness,
gaping and staring as if the King were going by. In the evening
I preached on the smooth top of the hill, at a small distance
from the sea, to the largest congregation I have ever seen in
Cornwall, except in or near Redruth. And such a time I have
not known before since I returned from Ireland. God moved wonderfully
on the hearts of the people, who all seem to know the day of
their visitation.”
Wesley’s reception at other
places was equally enthusiastic. He had scarcely ever spent
such a week in Cornwall before. More than twenty-five thousand
assembled at Gwennap Amphitheatre, the scene of so many memorable
Cornish services. When he made a passing call at MaraZion,
the preaching-place was filled in a few minutes, so that he
could not refrain from giving them a short sermon. In the market-place
at St. Ives, on August 25th, 1789, “well-nigh all the
town attended, and with all possible seriousness.” “Surely,”
he adds, “forty years’ labour has not been in vain
here.” This was Wesley’s last visit to Cornwall,
the Methodist county.
Wesley’s health was wonderful.
He had suffered much on several occasions from the family gout,’
of which his mother died, but abstemiousness and constant exercise
had helped him to throw off this weakness. In 1782 he writes,
“I entered into my eightieth year, but, blessed be God,
my time is not ‘labour and sorrow.’ I find no more
pain or bodily infirmities than at five-and-twenty. This I still
impute (I) to the power of God, fitting me for what He calls
me to; (2) to my still travelling four or five thousand miles
a year; (3) to my sleeping, night or day, whenever I want it;
(4) to my rising at a set hour; and (5) to my constant preaching,
particularly in the morning.”
On January 1st, 1790, he wrote,
“I am now an old man, decayed from hand to foot. My eyes
are dim; my right hand shakes much; my mouth is hot and dry
every morning; I have a lingering fever almost every day; my
motion is weak and slow. However, blessed be God, I do not slack
my labour: I can preach and write still.” Henry Moore,
who lived with Wesley at this time, was surprised at this description.
Wesley still rose at four, and went through the work of the
day with much of his old vigour, and with astonishing resolution.
His own statement, therefore, sets Wesley’s devotion
to his work in a striking light. One of the most interesting
services of the year was held in West London. “I preached
a sermon to the children at West Street Chapel. They flocked
together from every quarter; and truly God was in the midst
of them, applying those words, ‘Come, ye little children,
hearken unto me; and I will teach you the fear of the Lord.’”
On the 1st of March, 1790, he issued
a circular giving the dates for his visits to various towns
in his northern journey. He still caught and treasured up those
pleasant little facts which give such life to his journals.
Wigan, for many years proverbially called “wicked Wigan,”
was not what it once had been. The people, he says, “in
general had taken a softer mould.” Other touches show
that Wesley’s interest in everything he saw was unabated.
Crowds assembled to hear him. On Sunday, August 4th, he preached
at the cross in Epworth market-place to such a congregation
as was never seen in the town before. A correspondent of the
Methodist Recorder’ mentions that he had conversed with
an old Methodist in one of our villages who “stated that
a large number of Wesley’s admirers accompanied him on
the way from one town or village to his next appointment, never
leaving him till they were met by another company coming from
an opposite direction, to whom they safely delivered their precious
charge.” The women walked on one side of the road, and
the men on the other. Such scenes were frequent in these last
days.
When he visited Colchester on October
11th, Wesley had a wonderful congregation. Rich and poor, clergy
and laity, assembled to do honour to the old man and listen
to his message. Henry Crabb Robinson heard him in the great
round meeting-house. One of his preachers stood on each side
of him in the wide pulpit, holding up the veteran. “His
feeble voice was barely audible; but his reverend countenance,
especially his long white locks, formed a picture never to be
forgotten. There was a vast crowd of lovers and admirers. It
was for the most part a pantomime, but the pantomime went to
the heart. Of the kind, I never saw anything comparable to it
in after-life.” After the people had sung a verse, Wesley
rose and said, “It gives me a great pleasure to find that
you have not lost your singing, neither men nor women. You have
not forgotten a single note. And I hope, by the assistance of
God, which enables you to sing well, you may do all other things
well.” A universal “Amen” followed. A little
ejaculation or prayer of three or four words followed each division
of the sermon. After the last prayer, Wesley “rose up
and addressed the people on liberality of sentiment, and spoke
much against refusing to join with any congregation on account
of difference in opinion."
Crabbe, the poet, who heard him a few days later at Lowestoft,
was much struck by Wesley’s venerable appearance and the
way in which he quoted Anacreon’s lines with an application
to himself:— Oft am I by woman told, “Poor Anacreon!
thou grow’st old; See, thine hairs are falling all:
Poor Anacreon ! how they fall !"
Whether I grow old or no, By these signs i do not know; But
this I need not to be told, ‘Tis time to live, if I grow
old.
At Lynn every clergyman in the
town was in his congregation, except one who was lame. “They
are all,” he says in one of the last lines he wrote in
his journal, “prejudiced in favour of the Methodists,
as indeed are most of the townsmen, who give a fair proof by
contributing so much to our Sunday-schools, that there is near
twenty pounds in hand.”
The rest of the year was devoted
to short journeys in his “home circuit “—the
counties lying around London. His last “field-preaching”
was at Winchelsea on October 6th, 1790. Many a pilgrimage has
been made to the large ash-tree under which Wesley took his
stand. The tree was near a ruined church. Most of the inhabitants
of the place listened while he spoke from those words, “The
kingdom of heaven is at hand; repent, and believe the Gospel.”
“It seemed,” Wesley wrote, “as if all that
heard were, for the present, almost persuaded to be Christians.”
One who was with him bears witness that “the word was
attended with mighty power, and the tears of the people flowed
in torrents.” The old field-preacher had not lost his
power.
In these last days people gazed
on Wesley with veneration as he passed through the streets.
He returned their friendly greetings in the words of his favourite
Apostle, “Little children, love one another.” In
1790, the summer before his death, he ceased to keep any account
of his personal expenditure. “I will not attempt it any
longer,” he writes, “being satisfied with the continual
conviction that I save all I can and give all I can; that is,
all I have.” No entreaty could make the old man omit any
duty. His constant prayer was, “Lord, let me not live
to be useless !" At every place he visited he gave the
Society his last advice “to love as brethren, fear God,
and honour the king.” He generally closed these touching
services with the verse which he gave out so often in the family
circle at the preachers’ house in City Road :— Oh
that, without a lingering groan,
I may the welcome word receive,
My body with my charge lay down,
And cease at once to work and live!
Wesley fully intended to make his
usual journey to the north in March, 1791. He sent his own carriage
and horses to Bristol, and secured places for himself and friends
in the Bath coach. That journey, however, was never taken. He
preached at Lambeth on February I7th. When he returned to City
Road, he seemed unwell, and said he thought he had taken cold.
Next day, however, he read and wrote as usual. In the evening
he preached at Chelsea, but his cold compelled him to pause
once or twice. On Saturday the fever and weakness increased,
but he was able to read and write. The following day, February
20th, he rose early, but was so unfit for his Sunday’s
work,t that he lay down again for a few hours. When he awoke,
he said, “I have not had such a comfortable sleep this
fortnight past.” In the afternoon he slept an hour or
two, then two of his discourses on the Ser mon on the Mount”
were read to him, and he came down to supper. On Monday he seemed
better and dined at Twickenham. He preached for the last time
in City Road Chapel on Tuesday evening. Next day he preached
at Leatherhead on “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found;
call ye upon Him while He is near.” This was his last
sermon.
These were some of his appointments
on the Plan for the Preachers in London (January to March, 1791).
This Plan is printed in Stevenson’s “History of
City Road Chapel,” p. 118
His last letter was written on
Thursday from Baiham to William Wilberforce. It shows both the
old man’s sympathy with the wrongs of the slave, and his
warm interest in Wilberforce’s great mission. Wesley had
become familiar with the horrors of slavery during his residence
in America, and Wilberforce was well known to his brother Charles
and himself.
"LONDON, February 24th, 1791.
"My DEAR SIR,—Unless
the Divine Power has raised you up to be as Athanasius, contra
mundum, I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise
in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of
religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised
you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition
of men and devils; but God be/or you, who can be against you?
Are all of them together stronger than God? Oh, ‘be not
weary in well-doing.’ Go on, in the name of God and in
the power of His might, till even American slavery, the vilest
that ever saw the sun, shall vanish away before it.
"Reading this morning a tract,
wrote by a poor African,
I was particularly struck by that
circumstance that a
man who has a black skin, being
wronged or outraged by
a white man, can have no redress;
it being a law in our
colonies that the oath of a black
against a white goes for
nothing. What villainy is this!
"That He who has guided you from
your youth up may continue to strengthen you in this and all
things is the prayer of, dear sir, your affectionate servant,
"JOHN WESLEY."*
One could wish for no more beautiful
close to Wesley’s correspondence than this trumpet-peal
to the young soldier who was stepping out to his life-long struggle.
The letter is a prophetic epitome of the history of emancipation.
About eleven
o’clock on Friday morning Wesley returned to City Road
to die. He sat down in his room, and desired to be left alone
for half an hour. Some mulled wine was then given him, and he
was helped to bed, where he lay in a high fever. On the Saturday
he scarcely moved. If roused to answer a question or take a
little refreshment, he soon dozed again. On Sunday morning,
February 27th, he got up, took a cup of tea, and seemed much
better. As he sat in his chair he looked quite cheerful, and
repeated the lines,— Till glad I lay this body down,
Thy servant,
Lord, attend;
And, oh !
my life of mercies crown
With a triumphant
end !
The Mends who
were present talked too much, so that he was soon exhausted,
and had to lie down. About half-past two he told those who were
about him, “There is no need for more than what I said
at BristoL My wordi then were
I the chief
of sinners am,
But Jesus
died for me."
His head was
sometimes a little affected by the fever, which rose very high.
In the evening, however, he got up again. Whilst he sat in his
chair he said, "How necessary it is for every one to be
on the right foundation
I the chief
of sinners am,
But Jesus
died for me.
We must be
justified by faith, and then go on to full sanctification.”
Next day he slept much. He repeated one verse three or four
times: “We have boldness to enter into the holiest by
the blood of Jesus.” After a very restless night he began
to sing,— All glory to God in the sky,
And peace
upon earth be restored
o Jesus,
exalted on high, Appear, our omnipotent Lord !
Who, meanly
in Bethlehem born,
Didst stoop
to redeem a lost race,
Once more to
Thy people return,
And reign
in Thy kingdom of grace.
Oh, wouldst
Thou again be made known.
Again in Thy
Spirit descend;
And set up
in each of Thy own
A kingdom that
never shall end !
Thou only art
able to bless,
And make the
glad nations obey,
And bid the
dire enmity cease,
And bow the
whole world to Thy sway.
He lay still
a while, then asked for pen and ink. When they were brought,
he was too weak to use them. Some time after he said, “I
want to write.” The pen was put into his hand, and the
paper held before him. “I cannot,” he said. Miss
Ritchie, one of the company, answered, “Let me write for
you, sir; tell me what you would say.” “Nothing,”
he replied, “but that God is with us.”
In the afternoon
he wished to get up. While his clothes were being brought, he
broke out singing with such vigour that all his friends were
astonished :— I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve
breath,
And when
my voice is lost in death,
Praise shall
employ my nobler powers;
My days of
praise shall ne’er be past,
While life,
and thought, and being last,
Or immortality
endures
Happy the man whose hopes rely
On Israel’s God: He made
the sky
And earth and seas, with all their
train;
His truth for ever stands secure,
He saves the oppressed, He feeds
the poor,
And none shall find His promise
vain.
These were the last lines Mr. Wesley
“gave out” in City Road Chapel when he preached
his last sermon there a week before. When helped into his chair,
Wesley seemed to change for death. This was on Tuesday afternoon,
March 1st. With a weak voice, he said, “Lord, Thou givest
strength to those that can speak and to those that cannot. Speak,
Lord, to all our hearts, and let them know that Thou loosest
the tongue.” He then sang— To Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, Who sweetly all agree.
Here his voice failed, and he gasped
for breath. His mind seemed to wander. “Now we have done,”
he said. “Let us all go.” He was laid on the bed
from which he rose no more, and after sleeping a little, begged
those around him to pray and praise. The friends who were downstairs
were called up. Wesley’s fervour of spirit and his loud
“Amen” to the petition that God would continue
and increase His blessing upon His servants’ work showed
how fully he joined in these devotions. After they rose from
prayer he grasped their hands and said, “Farewell, farewell”
When some one entered, he strove to speak. Finding that his
friends could not understand what he said, he paused, and with
all his remaining strength, cried out, “The best of all
is, God is with us.” “Then, lifting up his dying
arm in token of victory, and raising his feeble voice with a
holy triumph not to be expressed, he again repeated the heart-reviving
words, ‘The best of all is, God is with us.’”
When Mrs. Charles Wesley came to
see him, he thanked her as she pressed his hand, and endeavoured
to kiss her. His lips were moistened; then he broke out in the
words of the grace he used before meals, “We thank Thee,
0 Lord, for these and all Thy mercies. Bless the Church and
King, and grant us truth and peace, through Jesus Christ our
Lord, for ever and ever.” Other words fell from his lips;
then he called those who were in his room to join in prayer.
His fervour was remarkable, though his bodily strength was fast
ebbing away. During the night he often attempted to repeat the
forty-sixth Psalm, but he was too feeble. He was heard, however,
to say, “I’ll praise—I’ll praise.”
A few minutes before ten o’clock the next morning, Wesley
found the long-sought rest. Joseph Bradford was praying. His
niece, Sarah Wesley, and a few friends, knelt around his bed.
The last word they caught was “Farewell.” Then,
as Mr. Bradford was saying, “Lift up your heads, 0 ye
gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and this heir
of glory shall come in,” without a lingering groan, Wesley
passed to the presence of his Lord. His friends, standing around
the bed, sang together—.
Waiting to receive thy spirit,
Lo! the Saviour stands above,
Shows the purchase of His merit,
Reaches out the crown of love.
Wesley died on Wednesday, March
2nd, 1791, in the eighty-eighth year of his age. The day before
the funeral his body was laid in the City Road Chapel, near
the entrance. A heavenly smile lingered on his face. The crowd
that came to take a last look upon the man to whom they owed
so much was said to number ten thousand persons. It was, therefore,
thought desirable to bury him between five and six in the morning.
No notice was issued till a late hour the previous evening,
but some hundreds of people were present. A biscuit was given
to each of the company in an envelope, on which was a portrait
of Wesley in his canonicals, with a halo and a crown. According
to directions in his will, the coffin was borne to the grave
by six poor men, each of whom received a sovereign, as Wesley
desired.
The funeral service, on Wednesday,
March gth, was read by the Rev. John Richardson, who had been
one of Wesley’s clerical assistants for nearly thirty
years. When he came to the words, “Forasmuch as it hath
pleased Almighty God to take unto Himself the soul of our dear
FATHER here departed,” loud sobs took the place of silent
tears. Wesley was laid in the vault which he had prepared for
himself and the preachers who died in London. The inscription
on his tomb says that “this great light arose (by the
singular providence of God) to enlighten these nations.”
“Reader,” it adds, “if thou art constrained
to bless the instrument, give God the glory.” At ten o’clock
on the morning of his burial, a funeral sermon was preached
in City Road Chapel by Dr. White-head, one of Wesley’s
preachers, who had retired from the itinerancy, and had long
been his favourite physician. He was now one of the London local
preachers. Black cloth draped the front of the gallery and the
pulpit Every corner of the building was crowded. All were in
mourning with the exception of one woman, who wore a piece of
blue ribbon in her bonnet. When she noticed her singularity,
she pulled out the ribbon, and threw it under her feet. She
became the ancestor of the wellknown family of Gabriels. One
of her sons was Lord Mayor of London; another, the late Mr.
J. W. Gabriel, was the senior trustee and steward of City Road
Chapel at the time of his death.
Wesley's will provided that all
profits arising from the sale of his books should be devoted
to the support of Methodism. Eighty-five pounds a year was to
be paid out of this amount to his brother’s widow, according
to the arrangement made at her marriage. Some other bequests
were made to friends or to Methodist objects. Wesley’s
manuscripts were given to Dr. Coke, Dr. Whitehead, and Henry
Moore, “to be burnt or published, as they see good.”
