“2. Of pride, throughout my life past; inasmuch as I thought I had what I find I have not. “3. Of gross irrecollection; inasmuch as in a storm I cry to God every moment, in a calm not. “4. Of levity and luxuriancy of spirit; appearing by my speaking words not tending to edify, but most by my manner of speaking of my enemies.” He adds:— “I went to America to convert the Indians; but oh, who shall convert me? I have a fair summer religion. I can talk well; but let death look me in the face, and my spirit is troubled. I think, verily, if the gospel be true, I am safe: for I not only have given, and do give, all my goods to feed the poor; and not only give my body to be burned, drowned, or whatever God shall appoint for me; but I follow after charity, if haply I may attain it. I now believe the gospel is true. I show my faith by my works,—by staking my all upon it. I would do so again and again, a thousand times, if the choice were still to make. Whoever sees me sees I would be a Christian. But in a storm, I think, ‘What if the gospel be not true? Then thou art of all men most foolish. For what hast thou given thy goods, thy ease, thy friends, thy reputation, thy country, thy life? For what art thou wandering over the face of the earth—a dream! a cunningly devised fable?’ Oh, who will deliver me from this fear of death? A wise man advised me some time since, ‘Be still and go on.’ Perhaps this is best, to look upon it as my cross.” After landing in England, he penned another remarkable paper, which has often been cited without a quotation of the notes he appended in after years.[223] He asserts that when he went to America, to convert the Indians, he was not himself converted; but in the appended note he adds, “I am not sure of this.” Neither are we. By his conscientious severity in comparing himself with the standard of a perfect Christian, as contained in the New Testament, and by his imperfect and mystified views of the scriptural plan of salvation, he might deprive himself of the filial confidence and joy belonging to a child of God; but we dare not affirm that he was a child of wrath because he was without the joy. On the same principle, thousands of us would be children one day, but not the next. Wesley’s assertion was too strong; in after life he felt it so; and those who quote it ought, in all fairness, to add what he himself appended. In another part of the same document he says of himself: “Alienated as I am from the life of God, I am a child of wrath, an heir of hell.” But the note he attached to this, in subsequent years, is, “I believe not”; and if not a child of wrath, then in his opinion, and after mature reflection, he had a right to think himself a child of grace and an heir of heaven.