Mr. Bradford delivered soon after the opening of the first conference subsequent to his death. My dear Brethren, "Some of our travelling preachers have expressed a fear, that after my decease you would exclude them either from preaching in connexion with you, or from some other privileges which they now enjoy. I know no other way to prevent any such inconvenience, than to leave these my last words with you. I beseech you by the mercies of God, that you never avail yourselves of the deed of declaration, to assume any superiority over your brethren but let all things go on, among those itinerants who choose to remain together, exactly in the same manner as when I was with you, so far as circumstances will permit. In particular I beseech you, if you ever loved me, and if you now love God and your brethren, to have no respect to persons, in stationing the preachers, in chusing children for Kingswood-school, in disposing of the yearly contribution and the preachers' fund, or any other publick money. But do all things with a single eye, as I have done from the beginning. Go on thus, doing all things without prejudice or partiality, and God will be with you even to the end. JOHN WESLEY." The conference immediately and unanimously resolved, that all the preachers in the connection should enjoy every privilege which they possessed. In the year 1793, permission was given to any of the societies who desired it, to celebrate the dying love of the Redeemer in their own chapels, which duty they had before performed in the established church only. This is the economy of the British Methodists at this time. The minutes of the conference have been printed every year but it was not till 1765, that the sta tions of the preachers were inserted in them. And no regular account of the number of members in the societies through the three kingdoms was obtained until 1767. The following table shews the increase of the itinerant preachers and of the Methodist societies, till the last conference in 1806. Years. 1765 No. of Itinerant Preachers. People in the Societies. 1767 ... In the year 1802, there were 738 Methodist chapels in England, 26 in Wales, 20 in Scotland, 130 in Ireland, 19 in the Isle of Man, 3 in the Isle of Wight, 3 in the Norman Isles, 1 in Berwick-upon-Tweed, and 1 in the Isles of Scilly, amounting to 941 houses for divine worship. L CHAPTER VI. From the year 1784 until his death. THE work of God increased yearly and new societies were formed, in all of which the same rules were observed. Though now declining in the vale of years, Mr. Wesley rose at four in the morning, preached two, three or four times daily, travelled between four and five thousand miles yearly, making a tour once in two years through Great Britain and Ireland. The following letter written to a travelling preacher in 1786, shews us Mr. Wesley's fatherly care of the preachers; and gives us an example of his delicate manner of conveying reproof where he saw it necessary." Dear S, you know I love you; ever since I knew you, I have neglected no way of shewing it that was in my power. And you know I esteem you for your zeal and activity, for your love of discipline, and for your gifts which God has given you particularly, quickness of apprehension, and readiness of utterance, especially in preaching and prayer. Therefore I am jealous over you, lest you should lose any of the things you have gained, and not receive a full reward and the more so, because I fear you are wanting in other respects. And who will venture to tell you so? You will scarce know how to bear it from me, unless you lift up your heart to God-If you do this, I may venture to tell you what I fear, without any further preface. I fear you think of yourself more highly than you ought to think. Do. you not think too highly of your own understanding? of your gifts? particularly in preaching! as if you were the very best preacher in the connection? of our own importance? as if the work of God here or there, depended wholly or mainly on you? and of your popularity? which I have found to my surprise far less than I expected. May not this be much owing to your want of brotherly-love? With what measure you mete, men will measure to you again. I fear there is something unloving in your spirit: something not only of roughness, but of harshness, yea of sourness! Are you not likewise extremely open to prejudice, and not easy to be cured of it? So that whenever you are prejudiced, you become bitter, implacable, unmerciful? If so, that people are prejudiced against you, is both the natural and judicial consequence. I am afraid lest your want of love to your neighbours, should spring from your want of love to God from your want of thankfulness. I have sometimes heard you speak, in a manner that made me tremble : indeed, in terms that not only a weak christian, but even a serious deist would scruple to use. I fear you' greatly want evenness of temper. Are you not generally too high, or too low? Are not all your passions too lively your anger, in particular? Is it not too, soon raised and is it not often too impetuous ? causing you to be violent, boisterous-bearing down all before you! Now lift up your heart to God, or you will be angry at me. But I must go a little further. I fear you are greatly wanting in the government of your tongue. You are not exact in relating facts. I have observed it myself. You are apt to amplify to enlarge a little beyond the truth. You cannot imagine, if others observe this, how it will affect your reputation. But I fear you are more wanting in another respect. That you give a loose to your tongue when you are angry that your language then, is not only sharp, but coarse, and ill-bred-If this be so, the people will not bear it. They will not take it, either from you, or me." On his birth-day in 1788, he makes the following observations, "I this day enter on my eighty-fifth year. And what cause have I to praise God, as for a thousand spiritual blessings, so for bodily blessings also ? How little have I suffered yet, by the rush of numerous years! It is true, I am not so agile as I was in times past: I do not run or walk so fast as I did. My sight is a little decayed. I find likewise some decay in my memory, with regard to names and things lately past : but not at all with regard to what I have read or heard, twenty, forty, or sixty years ago. Neither do I find any decay in my hearing, smell, taste, or appetite, nor do I feel any such thing as weariness, either in travelling or preaching. And I am not conscious of any decay in writing sermons, which I do as readily, and I believe, as correctly as ever. 1 "To what cause can I impute this, that I am as I am? First, doubtless to the power of God, fitting me for the work to which I am called, as long as he pleases to continue me therein and next, subordinately to this, to the prayers of his children-May we not impute it, as inferior means, to my constant exercise and change of air? To my never having lost a night's sleep, sick or well, at land or sea, since I was born? To my having sleep at command, so that whenever I feel myself almost worn out, I call it, and it comes day or night? To my having constantly, for above sixty years, risen at four in the morning? To my constant preaching at five in the morning, for above fifty years ? To my having had so little pain in my life, and so little sorrow or anxious care ?-Even now, though I find pain daily in my eye, temple, or arm, yet it is never violent, and seldom lasts many minutes at a time. "Whether or not this is sent to give me warning, that I am shortly to quit this tabernacle, I do not |