The tide of life is rapidly ebbing, but light from the realms above reveals to his enraptured soul the glories of his eternal home. Collecting all his remaining strength, he joyfully exclaims, "The best of all is, God is with us." The chamber where the good man gathered up his feet in death seemed radiant with the divine glory. A few of his preachers and intimate friends were there--Bradford, long his traveling companion; Dr. Whitehead, afterward his biographer; Rogers and his devoted wife, Hester Ann, who ministered to him in his last hours; the daughter of Charles Wesley; Thomas Rankin; George Whitefield, his book steward; and a few others. They knelt around the couch of the dying saint. Bradford prayed. Then with a low but almost angelic whisper he said, "Farewell." It was his last. And at the moment Bradford was saying, in a petition which must have reached the throne of God, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and this heir of glory shall come in." While they thus lingered "the weary wheels of life" stood still, and the unparalleled career of John Wesley was ended at 10 A. M., March 2, 1791. Hester Ann Rogers, who was present, says: "And while he could hardly be said to be an inhabitant of earth, being now speechless, and his eyes fixed, victory and glory were written on his countenance, and quivered, as it were, on his dying lips. No language can paint what appeared in that face! The more we gazed upon it the more we saw heaven unspeakable." Thus lived and died the founder of the Methodist denomination. It was remembered that when the mother of Wesley was dying she said, "Children, as soon as I am dead sing a song of praise." So, as Wesley himself ceased to breathe, his friends, standing about his lifeless form, sang: "Waiting to receive thy spirit, Lo! the Saviour stands above; Shows the purchase of his merit, Reaches out the crown of love." He had requested in his will, and, in the name of God, most solemnly adjured his executors scrupulously to observe it, that six poor men should carry his body to the grave, and should receive one pound each for the same. He requested that there should be no display, no hearse, no coach, no escutcheon, no pomp, except the tears of those who loved him and were following him to Abraham's bosom. All these directions were strictly observed. He was buried in the cemetery of the City Road Chapel. Mr. Wesley's death attracted public notice beyond any former example not only in London, but throughout the United Kingdom. Thousands of his people, with the traveling preachers, went into mourning for him. The pulpits of the Methodists and of many other denominations were draped in black, and hundreds of sermons were preached on the subject of his death.