It was Mrs. Wesley who counseled John to ponder well what he did before he forbade laymen to address congregations; and her arguments on this point were so conclusive that they led him to alter his mind and make use of them as an agency for good in the Church, though previously he had considered such a proceeding a dangerous innovation.
During the life-time of her husband, it was her custom, in his absence, to allow those who chose to come to assemble in a room of the old rectory at Epworth, on Sunday, and either read them a sermon herself or have one of the elder children do it. Frequently, the office of reader devolved upon her daughter Emily.
No matter into what department of her life you inquire, she is still found the same active, energetic, and strong-minded woman. Nothing weak or puerile is found in her character. From girlhood to maturity, from maturity to gray hairs, she pursues the same steady, uniform course. Her life is consistent with the principles which she had laid down for her own self-government, and which she believed were deduced from the Word of God.
At seventy-two years of age, she closed a long career of usefulness, dying, as the Christian might be expected to die, in the triumphs of faith. Five of her daughters, and her son John, were permitted to stand at her bedside and witness her peaceful end, and to comply with a request made shortly before she died, that, as soon as the last struggle was ended, they should unite in singing a psalm of praise for her release.
Very appropriate were the lines of her son Charles on this occasion:
"In sure and steadfast hope to rise,
And claim her mansion in the skies,
A Christian here her flesh laid down—
The cross exchanging for a crown."