CHAPTER x.x.xIX.
About his "Father"s business."--Last advice.--Singing and dying.--"The best of all is, G.o.d is with us."--John Wesley pa.s.ses through the Golden Gates.
MOST people think it is time to stop working long before they are eighty, but John Wesley at eighty-seven still went about his "Father"s business." His constant prayer was, "Lord, let me not live to be useless." Every meeting he knew might be his last, and when he visited the different societies, he used to ask the members to take as his last advice: "To love as brothers, to fear G.o.d, and to honour the King." He closed nearly all these meetings with his brother"s hymn:
"O 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."
John Wesley"s last sermon was preached in a gentleman"s dining-room, at Leatherhead, a small place about eighteen miles from London. It was on February 23rd, 1791, and his text was, "_Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near._"--Isa. lv. 6. This was on a Wednesday, and the day but one after, Friday, he felt very poorly, and said he would like to lie down. At the end of half an hour, some one went to his bedroom, and found him so ill that they sent for the doctor.
On Sunday he seemed better, and got up. He was so cheerful and happy; and while sitting in his chair in his bedroom, he repeated a verse from one of his brother"s hymns:
"Till glad I lay this body down, Thy servant, Lord, attend; And oh! my life of mercy crown With a triumphant end!"
On Monday night he couldn"t sleep, and the next day, some one asked him if he had any pain.
"No," he answered. And then he began singing:
"All glory to G.o.d 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."
When he had sung two verses, he lay still. After awhile he said, "I want to write."
So they brought him ink and paper, and put the pen in his hand; but John Wesley"s writing days were over.
"I cannot," he said.
"Let me write for you," said one of his friends, "tell me what you want to say."
"Nothing," replied the dying Christian, "but that G.o.d is with us."
In the morning he wanted to get up, and while his friends were bringing him his clothes, he started to sing:
"I"ll praise my Maker while I"ve breath, And, when my voice is lost in death, Praise shall employ my n.o.bler 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 G.o.d: He made the sky, And earth and sea, with all their train; His truth for ever stands secure; He saves the opprest, He feeds the poor, And none shall find His promise vain."
_Hymn 224._
When he was dressed and seated in his chair, he prayed in a very weak voice: "Lord, Thou givest strength to those who can speak, and to those who cannot; speak, Lord, to all our hearts."
Then he tried to sing again, but his voice failed him.
He was soon tired of sitting up, and went back to bed. He could not talk very much; but twice he lifted his hand in triumph, and said so gladly: "The best of all is, G.o.d is with us."
A great many friends were standing round his bed; he took each one by the hand, and lovingly bade them farewell.
All through Tuesday night, he kept trying to repeat the hymn he had sung, but could only say: "I"ll praise, I"ll praise."
Next morning, about ten o"clock, the Rev. Joseph Bradford, who had been his faithful companion and nurse, knelt down at the bedside and prayed.
Eleven of Mr. Wesley"s friends were in the room; they wanted to go with their dear leader, right up to the gates that divide our life here from our life yonder.
"Farewell," said the dying patriarch. And then, as some one repeated, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and this Heir of glory shall come in," the Golden Gates opened, and the soul of John Wesley pa.s.sed through.
Those who were left outside the gates, still stood round the bed and sang to the departing spirit:
"Waiting to receive thy spirit, Lo, the Saviour stands above; Shows the purchase of His merit, Reaches out the crown of love."
So died happy John Wesley. Happy in life, happy in death. And the secret of his happiness was the secret he proclaimed to thousands of boys and girls, as well as men and women, all over this England of ours.
"O boys, be strong in Jesus; Let those around you see How manly, pure, and generous, A Christian boy can be.
"O maidens, live for Jesus, Like Him, be kind and true; And let the love from G.o.d above Rule all you say and do.
"Then all the boys and maidens, When life and work are o"er, Will hear from One, the words "Well done,"
And rest for evermore."
If ever you go to London, you must visit City Road Chapel, for there John Wesley was interred, on the 9th of March, 1791, aged nearly eighty-eight years.
A great deal was put on his tombstone which you could not understand, but it tells how this servant of G.o.d laboured to bring men and women to know Jesus Christ, and how the lives and hearts of many thousands were changed by his preaching.
In Westminster Abbey, too, you will see a marble tablet erected to his memory, and that of his brother Charles. Though churches shut their doors to him in life, his memory is now so lovingly respected, that the finest Cathedral in England has sought to do him honour.
In one of the topmost rooms in the tower at Kingswood School, John Wesley"s bedstead has recently been discovered. Merely a collection of poles and a piece of old sacking, it lay there many a long year, only seen by the man who went up the tower to wind the clock. Now it is put together, and set in a place of honour; and any of us may see the bed on which John Wesley slept, when he visited the boys and girls at Kingswood.
Here, too, we may see his chairs and books, and a gown, now torn, which he used to wear. The Governor of New Kingswood still sits in the high-backed oak chair in which John Wesley sat; and grafted on several of the trees in the orchard, are shoots from the very pear tree which was planted in the garden of Old Kingswood by the Founder of Methodism.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
FLETCHER AND SON, PRINTERS, NORWICH.