XI.

WHITEFIELD, whose personal relations with Wesley were close and affectionate to the end, died in 1770, at the age of fifty-four, at Newbury Port, New England. On a certain occasion he had burst into weeping, with the exclamation, "I shall live to be a poor, peevish old man, and everybody will be tired of me!" but he escaped this fate. From a memorandum book in which he entered the times and places of his preaching, it has been calculated that in the thirty-four years of his ministry he preached eighteen thousand sermons, or an average of ten sermons a week. In accordance with his desire he was buried before the pulpit of the Presbyterian church, in the town where he died. All the bells in the town tolled. The ships in the harbour fired mourning guns, and flew their flags half-mast. All the black cloth in the stores in Georgia was bought

up, and the church was hung with black. The governor and the council met at the State House in deep mourning, and went in procession to hear a funeral sermon; and throughout the tabernacles in England funeral honours were paid him.

The human being to whom, of all, John Wesley was probably most tenderly attached, his brother Charles, died in 1788. He was buried in the churchyard at Marylebone, and eight clergymen of the Church of England bore his pall.

Till he was eighty-three John Wesley maintained remarkable vigour of health. At that age he wrote:

I am a wonder to myself! I am never tired (such is the goodness of God) either with writing, preaching, or travelling. One natural cause, undoubtedly, is my continual exercise and change of air. How the latter contributes to health, I know not; but certainly it does.

Two years later he says:

-

I am not so agile as in times past. I do not run or walk as fast as I did. My sight is a little decayed.

In 1790, wrote:

when

eighty-seven, he

I am now an old man, decayed from head 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 labours. I can preach and write still.

He preached his last sermon at Leatherhead on February 23, a week before his death, which occurred on March 2, 1791. On Tuesday, March 1, he got up, sat in his chair, and sang the verse beginning,

I'll praise my Maker while I've breath.

More than once he exclaimed, "The best of all is, God is with us." When his brother's widow wetted his lips, he repeated his thanksgiving after meals :

We thank Thee, O 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.

In the course of the night he kept saying repeatedly, "I'll praise, I'll praise!" At ten o'clock in the morning he died, faintly uttering the word "Farewell," in the presence of his niece, Miss Wesley, and ten other friends. His body lay in state in his great London chapel in the City Road, and as many as ten thousand persons passed through. The funeral service was performed by a Mr. Richardson, one of his preachers. When this gentleman came to that part of the service, "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto Himself the soul of our dear brother," his voice changed, and he substituted the word father. The congregation hitherto had been shedding tears silently, but at this they burst into loud weeping. the time of his death the number of his preachers in the British dominions was 313; of members, 76,968. In the United States the number of preachers was 198; and of members, 57,621.

At

Wesley was a man of very impressive appearance. People who were strongly prejudiced against him have, as soon as they were brought into personal contact with him, been known to change their opinion. Yet he was a small, short, spare man, whose weight over the greater part of his life was about nine stone. Mr. John Hampson, one of his earliest biographers, says of Wesley :

His face for an old man was one of the finest I have seen. A clear, smooth forehead, an aquiline nose, an eye the brightest and most piercing that can be conceived, and a freshness of complexion scarcely ever to be found at his years and impressive of the most perfect health, conspire to render him a venerable and interesting figure. ... A narrow plaited stock, a coat with a small upright collar, no buckles at his knees, no silk or velvet in any part of his apparel, and a head as white as snow, gave an idea of something primitive and apostolical; while an air of neatness and cleanliness was diffused over his whole person.

Despite a flow of high spirits, which gave brightness and cheerfulness to his