"One of the finest spectacles to me is the sight of an old man holding on his career of action or endurance to the extremity of life with an unwavering spirit. Such was Wesley. He ceased not his labors till death. After the eightieth year of his age he visited Holland twice. At the end of his eighty-second, he says, 'I am never tired either with writing, preaching, or traveling.' He preached under trees which he had planted himself, at Kingswood. He outlived most of his first disciples and preachers, and stood up mighty in intellect and labors among the second and third generations of his people. I have been affected in reading the account of his later years, when persecution had subsided, and he was everywhere received as a patriarch, and sometimes, as his biographer says, he excited, by his arrival in towns and eities, an interest such as the king himself would produce. He attracted the largest assemblies, perhaps, which have been congregated for religious instruction since the ministry of Christ, being estimated sometimes at more than thirty thousand. Great intellectually, morally, and physically, he at length died, in the eighty-eighth year of his age, and sixty-fifth of his ministry, unquestionably one of the most extraordinary men of any age.

"He lived to see Methodism spread through Great Britain, America, and the West India Islands. Nearly one hundred and forty thousand members, upward of five hundred itinerant preachers, and more than one thousand local preachers, were connected with him when he died. And how have these multiplied since! The epitaph of Sir Christopher Wren, in St. Paul's Cathedral, the work of his own genius, is applicable to Wesley's memory in almost all the civilized world: Do you ask for his monument? Look around you.'

A VISION IN THE WILDERNESS.

"It seemed a dream, and yet 'twas not.”

In my long journeys in the West, I used frequently to rest during the heat of the noonday under the shade of a tree, fastening my horse to one of its branches by a long rope, which afforded him ample room for grazing. After a hearty meal, of the famed “hoe-cake,” furnished at my last stopping place, and eaten with a relish which nothing but hunger and travel can give, and offering up my tribute of praise to Him who guided my wanderings, I usually lay down on my traveling blanket, with my saddle for a pillow, and refreshed myself by a few hours' sleep. Reposing thus, with my -pocket Bible in my hand, reading and meditating on the promises of God to his people, I once fell into a dreamy revery, during which I imagined that all the illustrious of the church in former ages passed in slow procession before me.

First in the long train, and at considerable distance from the following groups, moved a venerable company, with silvered locks, and

elevated and wrinkled brows; their countenances were marked with an expression of blended gravity and simplicity, their staves were crooks, and their whole appearance indicated the simple habits of pastoral life. They were. preceded by a figure of peculiar dignity, the rapt thoughtfulness of whose countenance bespoke a high communion with the spiritual world-a friendship with the Deity.

His

At a short distance in their rear followed one whose whole bearing was that of a stern, yet dignified consciousness of power. He bore in one hand a rod, and in the other a scroll. brow seemed like bronze, and was marked with the lines of most profound and somewhat awful thought. I gazed on this ancient-looking group until the shadows of the foremost grew dim in the distance, when, turning my eye, my attention was immediately arrested by an exceedingly interesting company of more varied character, and at more irregular intervals from each other. They were male and female. Their countenances wore different expressions; some the calm dignity of collected thought, others a lofty majesty that seemed something more than human; some an affecting pathos and lonely sadness, while the features of others were radiant with the outbreakings of ecstatic

emotion. All, however, had an indefinable correspondence. I was struck with an uplifted look of the eyes that was common to all, and imparted an aspect of sanctified inspi ration..

The first in the group was a lovely female figure, whose graceful form appeared to glide along as if moving on the air; her hair waved in the breezes, and her countenance was an expression of blended beauty and holiness. It seemed illuminated with a radiance from heaven. In one hand she held above her head a timbrel, while with the other she struck it with enthusiasm. At a distance methought I heard her sing," Awake, awake, Deborah; awake, awake, utter a song."

Next followed an unimpassioned, aged man, his eyes sunken, and his locks white like the snows of winter; mature thought and wise counsel sat on his visage, blended with a hallowed complacency that seemed to say, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." He was followed by one who was robed in regal apparel, and whose head was circled with a crown. He appeared a prince of God's people, anointed from on high. His face shone with rapture as he moved buoyantly along, with a harp in his hand, singing "O come, let us sing unto the Lord;