life, were indications that the machine was wearing out, and would soon come to a stop. In 1788, he lost his brother Charles, who, during many years, had been his zealous coadjutor, and, through life, his faithful and affectionate friend. Latterly their opinions had differed. Charles saw the evil tendency of some part of the discipline, and did not hesitate to say that he abominated the band-meetings, which he had formerly approved; and, adhering faithfully himself to the church, he regretted the separation which he foresaw, and disapproved of John's conduct, in taking steps which manifestly tended to facilitate it. Indeed, Mr. Wesley laid aside, at last, all those pretensions by which he had formerly excused himself; and, in the year 1787, with the assistance of two of his clerical coadjutors, Mr. Creighton and Mr. Peard Dickinson, he ordained two of his preachers, and consecrated Mather a bishop or superintendent. But this decided difference of opinion produced no diminution of love between the two brothers. They had agreed to differ; and, to the last, John was not more jealous of his own authority, than Charles was solicitous that he should preserve it. "Keep it while you live," he said, “and after your death, detur digniori, or rather, dignioribus. You cannot settle the succession; you cannot divine how God will settle it." Charles, though he attained to his eightieth year, was a valetudinarian through the greatest part of his life, in consequence, it is believed, of having injured his constitution by close application and excessive abstinence at Oxford. He had always dreaded the act of dying; and his prayer was, that God would grant him patience and an easy death. A calmer frame of mind, and an easier passage, could not have been granted him; the powers of life were fairly worn out, and, without any disease, he fell asleep. By his own desire, he was buried, not in his brother's burying ground, because it was not consecrated, but in the churchyard of Mary-le-bone, the parish in which he resided; and his pall was supported by eight clergymen of the Church of England.

It was reported that Charles had said, his brother would not outlive him more than a year. The prediction might have been hazarded with sufficient likelihood of its fulfilment; for John was then drawing near the grave. Upon his eighty-sixth birthday, he says, "I now find I grow old. My sight is decayed, so that I cannot read a small print, unless in a strong light. My strength is decayed; so that I walk much slower than I did some years since. My memory of names, whether of persons or places, is decayed, till I stop a little to recollect them. What I should be afraid of is, if I took thought for the morrow, that my body should weigh down my mind, and create either stubbornness, by the decrease of my understanding, or peevishness, by the increase of bodily infirmities. But thou shalt answer for me, O Lord, my God!" His strength now diminished so much, that he found it difficult to preach more than twice a-day; and for many weeks he abstained from his five o'clock morning sermons, because a slow and settled fever parched his mouth. Finding himself a little better, he resumed the practice, and hoped to hold on a little longer; but, at the beginning of the year 1790, he writes, "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 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." In the middle of the same year, he closed his cash account-book with the following words, written with a tremulous hand, so as to be scarcely legible: "For upwards 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." His strength was now quite gone, and no glasses would help his sight. "But I feel no pain," he says, "from head to foot; only, it seems, nature is exhausted, and, humanly speaking, will sink more and more, till

The weary springs of life stand still at last."

On the first of February, 1791, he wrote his last letter to America. It shows how anxious he was that his followers should consider themselves as one unit

ed body. "See," said he, "that you never give place to one thought of separating from your brethren in Europe. Lose no opportunity of declaring to all men, that the Methodists are one people in all the world, and that it is their full determination so to continue." He expressed, also, a sense that his hour was almost come. "Those that desire to write," said he, "or say any thing to me, have no time to lose; for time has shaken me by the hand, and death is not far behind :"-words which his father had used in one of the last letters that he addressed to his sons at Oxford. On the 17th of that month, he took cold after preaching at Lambeth. For some days he struggled against an increasing fever, and continued to preach till the Wednesday following, when he delivered his last sermon. From that time he became daily weaker and more lethargic, and, on the 2d of March, he died in peace; being in the eighty-eighth year of his age, and the sixty-fifth of his ministry.

During his illness he said, "Let me be buried in nothing but what is woollen; and let my corpse be carried in my coffin into the chapel." Some years before, he had prepared a vault for himself, and for those itinerant preachers who might die in London. In his will he directed, that six poor men should have twenty shillings each for carrying his body to the grave; for I particularly desire," said he, "there may be no hearse, no coach, no escutcheon, no pomp except the tears of them that loved me, and are following me to Abraham's bosom. I solemnly adjure my executors, in the name of God, punctually to observe this." At the desire of many of his friends. his body was carried into the chapel the day preceding the interment, and there lay in a kind of state becoming the person, dressed in his clerical habit, with gown, cassock, and band; the old clerical cap on his head, a Bible in one hand, and a white handkerchief in the other. The face was placid, and the expression which death had fixed upon his venerable

features, was that of a serene and heavenly smile.The crowds who flocked to see him were so great, that it was thought prudent, for fear of accidents, to accelerate the funeral, and perform it between five and six in the morning. The intelligence, however, could not be kept entirely secret, and several hundred persons attended at that unusual hour. Mr. Richardson, who performed the service, had been one of his preachers almost thirty years. When he 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; and the feeling with which he did this was such, that the congregation, who were shedding silent tears, burst at once into loud weeping.

ment.

Mr. Wesley left no other property behind him than the copyright and current editions of his works, and this he bequeathed to the use of the Connexion after his debts should have been paid. There was a debt of one thousand six hundred pounds to the family of his brother Charles; and he had drawn also for some years upon the fund for superannuated preachers, to support those who were in full employWhen he was told that some persons murmured at this, he used to answer "what can I do? must the work stand still? the men and their families cannot starve. I have no money. I have no money. Here it is; we must use it; it is for the Lord's work." The money thus appropriated and the interest due upon it, amounted to a considerable sum. In building chapels, also, the expenses of the Connexion outran its means, so that its finances were left in an embarrassed state. The number of his preachers at the time of his death amounted in the British dominions to 313, in the United States to 198; the number of members in the British dominions was 76,968, in the United States, 57,621.

Such was the life, and such the labours of John Wesley; a man of great views, great energy, and great virtues. That he awakened a zealous spirit, not only in his own community, but in a Church which needed something to quicken it, is acknowledged by the members of that Church itself; that he encouraged enthusiasm and extravagance, lent a ready ear to false and impossible relations, and spread superstition as well as piety, would hardly be denied by the candid and judicious among his own people. In its immediate effects the powerful principle of religion, which he and his preachers diffused, has reclaimed many from a course of sin, has supported many in poverty, sickness, and affliction, and has imparted to many a triumphant joy in death. What Wesley says of the miracles wrought at the tomb of the Abbe Paris, may fitly be applied here; "In many of these instances, I see great superstition, as well as strong faith: but God makes allowance for invincible ignorance, and blesses the faith, notwithstanding the superstition." Concerning the general and remoter consequences of Methodism. opinions will differ They who consider the widespreading schism to which it has led, and who know that the welfare of the country is vitally connected with its church-establishment, may think that the evil overbalances the good. But the good may endure, and the evil be only for a time. In every other sect there is an inherent spirit of hostility to the Church of England, too often and too naturally connected with di eased political opinions. So it was in the beginning, and so it will continue to be, as long as those sects endure. But Methodism is free from this. The extravagancies which accompanied its growth are no longer encouraged, and will altogether be discountenanced, as their real nature is understood. This cannot be doubted. It is in the natural course of things that it should purify itself gradually from whatever is objectionable in its institutions. Nor is it beyond the bounds of reasonable hope, that conforming itself to the original intention of its founders, it may again draw towards