“_November 25, 1730._ “O that our friendship (since you give me leave to use that dear word) may be built on a firm foundation. For want of humility, I cannot follow you as I would. I must be left behind in the race of virtue. I am sick of pride: it quite weighs my spirit down. O, pray for me, that I may be healed. I have the greater dependence on your intercession, because you know what you ask. Every line of your last shows the heart of the writer, where, with friendship, dwells humility. Ours, dear Aspasia, it is to make acknowledgments; upon us lie the obligations of gratitude. If it be a fault to have too harmonious a soul, too exquisite a sense of elegant, generous transports, then, indeed, I must own there is an obvious fault both in Selina and Aspasia. If not, I fancy one may easily reconcile whatever they think or act to the strictest reason; unless it be their entertaining so favourable a thought of their most obliged and most faithful—CYRUS.” “_Innocents’ Day, 1730._ “Should one, who was as my own soul, be torn from me, it would be best for me. Surely if you were called first, mine eyes ought not to overflow because all tears were wiped away from yours. But I much doubt whether self-love would not be found too strong for a friendship, which I even now find to be less disinterested than I hitherto imagined. Is it a fault to desire to recommend myself to those who so strongly recommend virtue to me? Tell me, Aspasia,—tell me, Selina,—if it be a fault that my heart burns within me, when I reflect on the many marks of regard you have already shown.” Aspasia made an inquiry of Wesley, couched in the following terms:— “Every Sunday evening, a gentleman in this town has a concert of music. I am invited there to-night, and design to go. I charge you, on the friendship you have professed for me, to tell me your sincere opinion about it, and all your objections. For, if I am in error by going, you ought to prevent my doing so again.” Wesley replied:— “Far be it from me to think that any circumstance of life shall ever give the enemy an advantage over Aspasia. He, who has overcome the world and its princes, shall give His angels charge over her to keep her in all her ways. “To judge whether any action be lawful on the sabbath or no, we are to consider whether it advances the end for which the sabbath was ordained. Now, the end for which the sabbath was ordained is the attainment of holiness. Whatever, therefore, tends to advance this end is lawful on this day. Whatever does not tend to advance this end is not lawful on this day.”