Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

His understanding was clear, active, searching, and vigorous; formed
for investigation, capable of grappling with any difficulty, remarkable for
its patient application, and possessed a singular ability for arranging and
generalizing subjects; perhaps more adapted for analysis than for
synthesis. His powers of invention were fruitful, and his imagination
vivid; but this faculty he neglected, rather than cultivated. His memory
was surprisingly retentive, he states, indeed, that of the thousands of
sermons which he delivered he never knew beforehand one single
sentence that he should utter, and that this was owing to the verbal
imperfection of his memory. But those who have been much in his
company have been frequently struck with his powerful recollection, not
only of a subject in the mass, but also in its minutest details. The
multitude of books which he read, the manuscripts which he examined,
the sermons that he preached, the sick whom he visited, the journeys that
he performed, the committees which he attended, the public business in
which he assisted, the private interviews that he granted, the many
volumes which he composed and published, the thousands of letters
which he wrote,—in addition to all his other duties as a Methodist
preacher,—are proofs that his industry must have been unintermitted, and
pursued with unexampled energy. At the commencement of his public
life he wrote: "I am determined, by the grace of God, to conquer and die;
and I have taken the subsequent motto, and have placed it before me on
the mantel-piece: 'Stand thou as a beaten anvil to the stroke; for it is the
property of a good warrior to be flayed alive, and yet to conquer.'" But,
like Mr. Wesley, though he "was always in haste, he was never in a
hurry." His dress, library, garden, farm, all showed him to be a man of
order. What his hand found to do he did it with all his might, and he did
it at once. To nearly every letter he replied by return of post. To idleness
he seems to have had no propensity: in whatever company or situation he
was found, even in his relaxations, his mind was occupied. While others
slept or banqueted, or idled out their despicable days in gossiping and
folly, he kept the glorious harvest of this issue full in view, and ploughed
with all his heifers, reckless of the sun and rain. To a young man he says,
"As a travelling preacher I learned more in one year than I learned before
in many at school. The grand secret is to save time. Spend none