He attended and presided at his last Conference, held at Bristol, July 20, 1790. Anxious to devote every hour and moment to the service of the Master, he visits Cornwall, London, and the Isle of Wight, and then returns to Bristol. He is again in London, and then he is seen standing under the shade of a large tree at Winchelsea, preaching his last outdoor sermon. Though unable to preach longer in the open air, he still continues to preach "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God." At Colchester rich and poor, clergy and laity, throng to hear him in wondering crowds. At Norwich, where once mob violence swept everything, he is received as an angel of mercy. At Yarmouth the house is thronged.
At Lynn all the clergymen in the town, save one who was lame, came out to hear him.
Again he is in London preaching in all his chapels, and even making preparations to visit Ireland and Scotland, but these last visits his failing strength will not allow. Well does Tyerman call him "the flying evangelist."
The shadows are lengthening, and he seems conscious that his end is near. He preaches his last sermon at Leatherhead, Wednesday, February 3, 1791, from Isa. lv, 6: "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near." He concluded the sermon by singing one of Charles Wesley's hymns:
"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!"
On that day fell from his lips a Gospel trumpet which had sounded the word of life more frequently and effectually than was ever known to have been done by an uninspired man.
CHAPTER XVIII.
WESLEY AND HIS TRIUMPHANT DEATH.
WESLEY had reached his home--City Road--the proper place from which to be translated to his heavenly mansion. He is waiting for the chariot.
His friends are deeply anxious. Joseph Bradford sends the following dispatch to the preachers:
"Dear brethren, Mr. Wesley is very ill. Pray! Pray! Pray!"
Looking over the whole of an extended life of unparalleled labor and suffering, he exclaims:
"I the chief of sinners am, But Jesus died for me."
The day following he was heard to say, "There is no way into the holiest but by the blood of Jesus."
He frequently, with full heart, sang Watts's rapturous hymn, beginning:
"I'll praise my Maker while I've breath."
The tide of life is rapidly ebbing, but light from the realms above reveals to his enraptured soul the glories of his eternal home.
Collecting all his remaining strength, he joyfully exclaims, "The best of all is, God is with us."
The chamber where the good man gathered up his feet in death seemed radiant with the divine glory. A few of his preachers and intimate friends were there--Bradford, long his traveling companion; Dr.
Whitehead, afterward his biographer; Rogers and his devoted wife, Hester Ann, who ministered to him in his last hours; the daughter of Charles Wesley; Thomas Rankin; George Whitefield, his book steward; and a few others. They knelt around the couch of the dying saint. Bradford prayed.
Then with a low but almost angelic whisper he said, "Farewell." It was his last. And at the moment Bradford was saying, in a petition which must have reached the throne of God, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and this heir of glory shall come in." While they thus lingered "the weary wheels of life" stood still, and the unparalleled career of John Wesley was ended at 10 A. M., March 2, 1791.
Hester Ann Rogers, who was present, says: "And while he could hardly be said to be an inhabitant of earth, being now speechless, and his eyes fixed, victory and glory were written on his countenance, and quivered, as it were, on his dying lips. No language can paint what appeared in that face! The more we gazed upon it the more we saw heaven unspeakable."
Thus lived and died the founder of the Methodist denomination.
It was remembered that when the mother of Wesley was dying she said, "Children, as soon as I am dead sing a song of praise." So, as Wesley himself ceased to breathe, his friends, standing about his lifeless form, sang:
"Waiting to receive thy spirit, Lo! the Saviour stands above; Shows the purchase of his merit, Reaches out the crown of love."
He had requested in his will, and, in the name of God, most solemnly adjured his executors scrupulously to observe it, that six poor men should carry his body to the grave, and should receive one pound each for the same. He requested that there should be no display, no hearse, no coach, no escutcheon, no pomp, except the tears of those who loved him and were following him to Abraham's bosom. All these directions were strictly observed.
He was buried in the cemetery of the City Road Chapel.
Mr. Wesley's death attracted public notice beyond any former example not only in London, but throughout the United Kingdom. Thousands of his people, with the traveling preachers, went into mourning for him. The pulpits of the Methodists and of many other denominations were draped in black, and hundreds of sermons were preached on the subject of his death.
His indefatigable zeal had long been witnessed by all classes; but his motives had been variously estimated. Some attributed it to love of popularity, others to ambition, and others to love of wealth; but it now appeared that he was actuated by a pure regard for the immortal interests of mankind. Many ministers, both of the Establishment and among Dissenters, spoke with great respect of his long, laborious, devoted, and useful life, and earnestly exhorted their hearers to follow him as he followed Christ.
"He was a man," says Lord Macaulay, "whose eloquence and logical acuteness might have rendered him eminent in literature; whose genius for government was not inferior to that of Richelieu; and who devoted all his powers, in defiance of obloquy and derision, to what he sincerely considered the highest good of his species."
The ardor of his spirit was never dampened by difficulties nor subdued by age. The world ascribed this to enthusiasm, but he ascribed it to the grace of God. Whatever it was, it has commanded the respect of the present generation. He who was expelled from all the churches as a madman and a fanatic is now deemed worthy of a most eligible niche in England's grandest cathedral.
Dr. Watts's admirable elegy on Thomas Gouge has been applied to the death of Wesley:
"The muse that mourns a nation's fall Should wait at Wesley's funeral; Should mingle majesty and groans, Such as she sings to sinking thrones; And in deep-sounding numbers tell How Zion trembled when this pillar fell; Zion grows weak, and England poor, Nature herself, with all her store, Can furnish such a pomp for death no more."
On the monument in Westminster Abbey is the simple inscription:
JOHN WESLEY, M.A.
BORN JUNE 17, 1703; DIED MARCH 2, 1791.
CHARLES WESLEY, M.A.
BORN DECEMBER 17, 1707; DIED MARCH 29, 1788.
This is engraved upon the tablet:
"I look upon all the world as my parish."
"The best of all is, God is with us."
"God buries his workmen, but carries on his work."
The first two were the utterances of John, and the last of Charles, Wesley.
The following poem was written by the "Bard of Sheffield," Hon. James Montgomery, on the first centennial of Wesleyan Methodism, 1836. It is a beautiful tribute:
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
One song of praise, one voice of prayer, Around, above, below; Ye winds and waves the burden bear, A hundred years ago!
A hundred years ago! What then?
There rose the world to bless A little band of faithful men-- A cloud of witnesses.
It looked but like a human hand; Few welcomed it, more feared.
But as it opened o'er the land The hand of God appeared.
The Lord made bare his holy arm In sight of earth and hell; Fiends fled before it with alarm, And alien armies fell.
God gave the word, and great has been The preachers' company.
What wonders have our fathers seen!
What signs their children see!