[Illustration: The Rev. John Wesley.]
June 17.--The birth-day of JOHN WESLEY, the celebrated founder of the
more numerous division of the English Methodists. He was the second son
of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, Rector of Epworth, in Lincolnshire, where he
was born in the year 1703. Although his father was a man of considerable
literary attainments, being known to the public as the author of various
works in verse, it was to his mother, a woman of a much more zealous and
active character than her husband, that Wesley was chiefly indebted for
his early education, and probably also for the seeds of many of his
distinguished mental habits.
After receiving a very systematic elementary tuition from his mother,
John Wesley was sent to the Charterhouse, from whence he removed at the
usual time to Christ-church College, Oxford. Here he distinguished
himself greatly by his diligence and success as a student, showing from
the first, in the distribution of his time, the same punctual and
persevering regard to method by means of which he mainly achieved all
the greater objects of his life. The reading of some religious works,
and especially of ‘Law’s Serious Call,’ awakened in him a strong spirit
of religious fervour; and he formed that association with a number of
his college acquaintances of similar views and feelings, to which, from
the punctilious regularity of the members in their devotions and general
demeanour, the epithet of “methodists” was given as a name of reproach
by the wags of the university. As has happened in other cases, the
objects of the intended satire were much too earnest in the views they
had adopted to feel or to regard any point of ridicule which it might be
supposed to possess, and frankly adopted the nick-name thus bestowed
upon them by their opponents, as their proper designation. Among their
number, besides Wesley, was the afterwards equally celebrated George
Whitfield.
We cannot here attempt to pursue minutely the remainder of the course of
Wesley’s busy life, or to trace the rise of that extensive fabric of
ecclesiastical policy of which he was the founder. Suffice it to say,
that having commenced his public labours as a religious teacher in the
newly-formed colony of Georgia, in America, in the year 1735, he pursued
from this time a course of almost constant journeying, preaching, and
writing, till within a week of his death, on the 2d of March, 1791, in
the eighty-eighth year of his age. During the greater part of this long
period he rarely preached less than twice, and often four or five times
a day; while, besides presiding with the most minute superintendence
over all the public affairs of the large and rapidly growing community
which acknowledged him as its head, and transacting a great deal of
private business, he found time to send to the press a succession of
works, which, in the collected edition, amount to between thirty and
forty volumes. Mr. Southey, who has made the life of this extraordinary
man one of the most interesting books in the language, has given us the
following account of the manner in which he contrived to get through all
this occupation. “Leisure and I,” said Wesley, “have taken leave of one
another. I propose to be busy as long as I live, if my health is so long
indulged to me.” This resolution was made in the prime of life, and
never was resolution more punctually observed. “Lord, let me not live to
be useless!” was the prayer which he uttered after seeing one whom he
had long known as an active and useful magistrate, reduced by age to be
“a picture of human nature in disgrace, feeble in body and mind, slow of
speech and understanding.” He was favoured with a constitution vigorous
beyond that of ordinary men, and with an activity of spirit which is
even rarer than his singular felicity of health and strength. Ten
thousand cares of various kinds, he said, were no more weight or burthen
to his mind than ten thousand hairs were to his head.... His manner of
life was the most favourable that could have been devised for longevity.
He rose early, and lay down at night with nothing to keep him waking, or
trouble him in sleep. His mind was always in a pleasurable and wholesome
state of activity; he was temperate in his diet, and lived in perpetual
locomotion. And frequent change of air is, perhaps, of all things, that
which most conduces to joyous health and long life. The time which Mr.
Wesley spent in travelling was not lost. “History, poetry, and
philosophy,” said he, “I commonly read on horseback, having other
employment at other times.” He used to throw the reins on his horse’s
neck, and in this way he rode, in the course of his life, above a
hundred thousand miles, without any accident of sufficient magnitude to
make him sensible of the danger which he incurred.
June 21.--_The Longest Day._--On this day there is an interval of
sixteen hours and thirty-four minutes between the rising and the setting
of the sun, which interval is longer than on any other day in the year.
Up to this point, from the 21st December (the shortest day), the days
have steadily increased in length; from this point they will steadily
decrease. We may more properly, at some future time, explain in a series
of papers some of the more remarkable phenomena of the changes of
seasons. At present we shall call our reader’s attention to the moral
reflections which the recurrence of “The Longest Day” suggests, by
re-printing a few stanzas of a poem by Mr. Wordsworth on this subject:--
Summer ebbs;--each day that follows
Is a reflux from on high,
Tending to the darksome hollows
Where the frosts of winter lie.
He who governs the creation,
In his providence assign’d
Such a gradual declination
To the life of human kind.
Yet we mark it not;--fruits redden,
Fresh flowers blow, as flowers have blown,
And the heart is loth to deaden
Hopes that she so long hath known.
Be thou wiser, youthful Maiden!
And when thy decline shall come,
Let not flowers, or boughs fruit-laden,
Hide the knowledge of thy doom.
Now, even now, ere wrapp’d in slumber.
Fix thine eyes upon the sea
That absorbs time, space, and number;
Look towards eternity!
Follow thou the flowing river,
On whose breast are thither borne
All deceived, and each deceiver,
Through the gates of night and morn;
Through the year’s successive portals;
Through the bounds which many a star
Marks, not mindless of frail mortals,
When his light returns from far.
Thus when Thou with Time hast travell’d
Tow’rds the mighty gulf of things,
And the mazy stream unravell’d
With thy best imaginings;
Think, if thou on beauty leanest,
Think how pitiful that stay,
Did not virtue give the meanest
Charms superior to decay.
Duty, like a strict preceptor,
Sometimes frowns, or seems to frown;
Choose her thistle for thy sceptre,
While thy brow youth’s roses crown.
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