Mileposts

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! What 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. My left eye is grown dim and hardly serves me to read. I have daily some pain in the ball of my right eye, as also in my right temple (occasioned by a blow some months since), and in my right shoulder and arm, which I impute partly to a sprain and partly to the rheumatism. I find likewise some decay in my memory.

I find no decay in my hearing, smell, taste or appetite (though I want but a third of the food I did once), 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.

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.

Journal of John Wesley, June 28, 1788