John Wesley was at Bristol on Sunday evening the 18th of July, and had just ended preaching to a large congregation, when the message came that his mother was apparently near death.

He rode off immediately for London, which he reached on the 20th, and, as he says in his Journal, “I found my mother on the borders of eternity; but she has no doubt or fear, nor any desire but, as soon as God should call her, to depart and be with Christ.”  She enjoyed a quiet sleep on the evening of the 22nd, and awoke in the morning in a joyful frame of mind.  Her children heard her say, “My dear Saviour, art Thou come to help me in my extremity at last?”

Utterances of praise at intervals filled the hours that remained, At four o’clock in the afternoon her son had left her for a little, that he might snatch some hasty refreshment in the adjoining room, when he was called back again to offer the commendatory prayer.  “She opened her eyes wide and fixed them upward for a moment.  Then the lids dropped, and the soul was set at liberty, without one struggle or groan or sigh, on the 23rd of July, 1742, aged seventy-three.  We stood round the bed and fulfilled her last request, uttered a little before she lost her speech, ‘Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to God.’”

There was a vast crowd at the funeral, at Bunhill Fields, on the 1st of August.  John Wesley’s voice faltered as he pronounced the words, “The soul of our dear mother here departed”—­and the grief of the multitude broke out afresh.  A hymn was sung, and he then stood forth and preached one of the most moving sermons that ever came from his lips, turning not upon the pathos of the funeral, but upon the Bible picture of the last judgment.  Of the occasion he himself has said—­“It was one of the most solemn assemblies I ever saw or expect to see, on this side eternity.”  The stone at the head of her grave was inscribed with her name, and with verses from the pen of her son Charles:—­

HERE LIES THE BODY
OF
MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY,
YOUNGEST AND LAST SURVIVING DAUGHTER OF
DR. SAMUEL ANNESLEY.

In sure and stedfast hope to rise,
And claim her mansion in the skies,
A Christian hero her flesh laid down,
The cross exchanging for a crown;

True daughter of affection she,
Inured to pain and misery;
Mourned a long night of grief and fears—­
A legal night of seventy years.

     The Father then revealed His Son;
     Him in the broken bread made known
     She knew, and felt her sins forgiven,
     And found the earnest of her heaven.

     Meet for the fellowship above,
     She heard the call, “Arise, My love!”
     “I come,” her dying looks replied,
     And lamb-like, as her Lord, she died.

XIII.

CONCLUSION.

The title “Founder of Methodism,” humanly speaking, must be shared between mother and son.  To many minds this will seem to have been a question settled by the action of Mrs. Wesley at Epworth.