The works of the Rev. John Wesley, Vol. 13 (of 32) — Reading Notes

Letters from the Wilderness: Brainerd's Voice

The volume begins with letters by David Brainerd, a missionary to Native Americans. His opening letter to his brother John, a student at Yale, sets a pattern of self-examination and longing. Brainerd writes that he 'long[s] to see you' but immediately corrects himself, asserting that 'there is no happiness to be enjoyed in earthly friends' apart from God. This rhetorical move—voicing a human desire only to subordinate it to divine will—recurs throughout the correspondence. The setting is specific: Kaunaumeek, 'about eighteen miles from Albany,' described as a 'lonely melancholy desert.' Brainerd's letters are marked by precise dates and locations, grounding his spiritual struggles in a tangible geography. He uses asterisks (*) to mark passages he considers most worthy of attention, a typographical cue that invites the reader to pause over his most intense reflections.

Journals of Affliction and Resignation

The middle excerpts shift to journals kept by women, including Mary Gilbert and Elizabeth Harper. These entries are structured by dates and follow a rhythm of trial, prayer, and consolation. A typical entry from Mary Gilbert records a friend's illness and death, her own temptation to 'reason on what had passed,' and a night of sleepless struggle. The language is plain but emotionally precise: 'I was quickly encompassed with a flood of temptations.' The journals often include reported speech, as when the dying woman says, 'God is able to bless and keep them, without me.' This layering of voices—the diarist's present reflection and the remembered words of others—creates a communal texture of spiritual experience. Readers should observe how the diarists balance physical suffering with a disciplined attention to inner states, noting phrases like 'I lay quite passive in the hands of my dear Lord.'

Patterns of Devotion and Self-Watch

Across the excerpts, a consistent devotional vocabulary emerges. Key terms include 'trial,' 'burthen,' 'peace,' 'resigned will,' and 'watching unto prayer.' The diarists frequently measure their spiritual state against an ideal of complete surrender. For instance, one writer confesses, 'I come short of what I desire to be,' yet adds 'without condemnation and fear.' This paradox—awareness of imperfection without despair—is a hallmark of Wesleyan spirituality. The journals also record specific practices: private prayer, meeting in bands, and attending preaching. Physical symptoms are noted without drama: 'I am much burthened in body, and confined by reason of my burthen.' The reader is encouraged to track how these accounts move between external events (illness, death) and internal responses (temptation, peace), and to notice the role of community in sustaining faith.

The Editor's Hand: Wesley's Selection and Arrangement

Although the excerpts do not include Wesley's own introductions, the volume's structure reveals his editorial choices. The table of contents lists eight distinct pieces, from Brainerd's letters to extracts of Mrs. L****'s letters. Wesley likely selected these accounts as models of Christian experience for his readers. The journals of women like Ann Johnson and Hannah Richardson suggest that Wesley valued lay testimony, especially from those who suffered and died 'with sweetness of temper.' The inclusion of a 'Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, by a Gentlewoman' indicates that the volume also contains direct correspondence with Wesley himself. Readers should consider how the arrangement—from male missionary to female diarists—creates a cumulative portrait of Methodist piety, and how the asterisks and transcriber's notes (which expand abbreviations and standardize punctuation) shape the modern reading experience.

Reading the Unfinished: Inference and Limits

The excerpts are fragmentary, and the full text likely contains many more entries. The reader should not assume that the selected passages represent the whole of any journal or letter. For example, Brainerd's letter breaks off mid-sentence, and the journal entries jump from December to an unspecified later date. The volume's word count (nearly 90,000 words) suggests that the excerpts cover only a small portion. When reading, it is helpful to note the dates and locations provided, as they anchor the spiritual narrative in a specific historical moment. The recurring themes of illness, death, and divine providence may reflect the editor's interest in 'happy deaths' as edifying examples. However, without the complete text, one cannot determine how representative these themes are of the volume as a whole.

This volume rewards a slow, attentive reading that follows the diarists' own method of self-watch. Pay attention to the dates, the asterisks, and the reported conversations—they are the hinges on which these spiritual narratives turn. The voices are earnest, sometimes raw, and always oriented toward a God who is both present and absent. Let the inconsistencies in spelling and punctuation remind you that these are historical documents, shaped by their time and by Wesley's editorial hand. Above all, read not for plot but for pattern: the repeated movement from trial to peace, from isolation to communion, is the quiet drama of this book.

I have shelved many a weary soul between covers, and I find one in Wesley’s volume—those desperate letters from Brainerd’s lonely desert—and another in that old wanderer’s tale of Jew and Gypsy. Both whisper of exile sought and carried, a quiet kinship of the heart’s own wilderness. The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam — Context and Discussion sits near it now, as if they knew each other.