History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

property in the connection were vested in Wesley in their legal titles, and so remained until after his
decease the Deed became operative and entailed the title in the Legal Hundred. Arbitrary power
blinds the eyes to judicial distinction. The sentiments severally quoted furnish the keys which were
availed of by his successors both in England and America.
On Sunday, February 28, he preached to enormous congregations, at City Road, West Street, and
Brentford, and then was off on his annual long journey to the north. He published a circular of his
route that all persons might know his whereabouts. The labors were Herculean for a man of
eighty-seven. Another quotation from a letter of April 4, 1790, will be of use in future references:
"I did not approve of Dr. Coke's making collections in your or any other circuit. I told him so, and
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am not well pleased with his doing it. It was very ill done." This and other citations would seem
to confirm Whitehead's declaration as to Dr. Coke: "That Mr. Wesley should suffer himself to be so
far influenced in a matter of the utmost importance, both to his own character and the societies, by
a man of whose judgment in advising, and talent in conducting, any affair he had no very high
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opinion is truly astonishing." He was commenting directly upon Coke's letter to Wesley which
decided the American ordinations. It will be seen that it was easy for Wesley to condone the faults
and even misdoings of his familiars, and give at times very opposite testimony in far apart letters
touching them. The ingratiations of Coke with Wesley found the way to this charity of his nature.
He and Moore were often in these closing years his traveling companions, while the faithful Joseph
Bradburn rarely left him. He was now on his last long itinerary over the kingdom. The incidents as
given by Tyerman are touching and marvelous. Tottering up the pulpit stairs at Bradford, the whole
congregation burst into tears. While the crowd was assembling at the door, a woman by the name
of Wilson mockingly exclaimed, "They are waiting for their God;" no sooner was the sentence
uttered than she fell senseless to the ground, and the day following she expired. He was attended by
cavalcades of preachers and others escorting him from town to town. On his birthday he wrote:
"Monday, June 28th. — This day I enter into my eighty-eighth year. For above eighty-six years I
found none of the infirmities of old age; my eyes did not wax dim, neither was my natural strength
abated; but last August I found almost a sudden change. My eyes were so dim that no glasses would
help me. My strength likewise quite forsook me; and probably will not return in this world. But I feel
no pain from head to feet; only it seems nature is exhausted; and, humanly speaking, will sink more
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and more, till 'the weary springs of life stand still at last." The health of Adam Clarke seemed
failing and he wrote him solicitous letters.
He kept not only a Journal almost to the very last, but an account of his income and expenditures.
The last entry is in a hand difficult to decipher — "N. B. For upward of eighty-six years I have kept
my accounts exactly. I will not attempt it any longer, being satisfied with the continual conviction,
that I save all I can, and give all I can, that is all I have. John Wesley. July 16, 1790." The profits of
his publishing house were large, but his income from the society small, though he was not
infrequently made the almoner of others. He told Samuel Bradburn in 1787 that he never gave away
less than a thousand pounds a year out of his own pocket. He died as he had lived, without a purse,
save the publishing house, and that he bequeathed to the Conference for "carrying on the work of
God by itinerant preachers." His Will was largely a trust deed, in which Coke, Whitehead, Mather,
and Moore are oftenest named. Whitehead's "Life" gives the Will in full. The forty-seventh
Conference, and the last Wesley attended, was convened at Bristol, July 2; 1790. Three hundred and
thirteen were recorded on the roll of appointments. The three financial returns, not including salaries,