August 8 Petition Mission

“Your gentleness has made me great” (2 Sam 22:36).

In urging Robert Southey to write a biography of John Wesley, Sir Walter Scott recounts the following: “When I was twelve years old, I heard him [Wesley] preach more than once, standing on a chair, in Kelso churchyard. He was a most venerable figure…. He told many excellent stories. One I remember, which he said had happened to him at Edinburgh. ‘A drunken dragoon,’ said Wesley, ‘was commencing an assertion in military fashion, [he inserted the most common curse] just as I was passing. I touched the poor man on the shoulder, and when he turned round fiercely, said calmly, “You mean God bless you.”’ In the mode of telling the story, he failed not to make us sensible how much his patriarchal appearance, and mild yet bold rebuke, overawed the soldier, who touched his hat, thanked him, and, I think, came to chapel that evening.”

O gentle and lowly One, make me like You in Your great gentleness today.