On March 2nd, 1791, John Wesley announced his last word Farewell and died as family and friends prayed by his bedside. He was eighty-seven years old. The last letter he wrote was to William Wilberforce–a letter written with trembling hand a week earlier. His words reached Wilberforce at a time he was quite discouraged. They read:
O be not weary in well doing! Go on in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery shall vanish away . . .That He who has guided you from youth up may continue to strengthen you in this and all things is the prayer of, dear sir,
Your affectionate servant,
John Wesley
In his lifetime, John Wesley had accomplished what few others have, and he died the most well-loved man in England. Beginning at thirty-six as an itinerant preacher, he traveled 250,000 miles on horseback and preached more than forty thousand sermons to crowds as large as twenty thousand. He regularly preached three times a day, often beginning at 5 a.m. At the time of his death, there were seventy-nine thousand Methodists in England and forty thousand in America. . . . During his lifetime he lived frugally, giving away $150,000 out of his meager income to spread the gospel.
What he left behind was one well-worn coat, two silver teaspoons, and the Methodist Church.