The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, Vol. I - Enter His Rest

"The scantiness of my paper obliges me to conclude with
begging yours and my father's blessing on
"Your dutiful son,
"JOHN WESLEY."
"For Mrs. Wesley, at Wroote,
"To be left at the Post-office,
in Bawtry, Nottinghamshire."
Dr. Cheyne, mentioned in the preceding letter, was educated at
Edinburgh, where his habits were temperate and sedentary; but,
proceeding to London, he associated with a number of young gentry, to
retain whose friendship it was necessary to indulge to the utmost in table
luxuries. The result was, Cheyne became nervous, scorbutic, shortbreathed,
lethargic and listless; and was so enormously fat as to be nearly
thirty-three stones in weight. His life became an intolerable burden, and,
to cure himself, he adopted a milk and vegetable diet, by means of which
he recovered his strength, activity, and cheerfulness. He became the
author of several interesting works, one of which was the book just
noticed. Wesley, to a great extent, adopted Cheyne's prescription, and
forty-six years after he read his book at Oxford, wrote: "How marvellous
are the ways of God! How has He kept me even from a child! From ten
to thirteen or fourteen, I had little but bread to eat, and not great plenty of
even that. I believe this was so far from hurting me, that it laid the
foundation of lasting health. When I grew up, in consequence of reading
Dr. Cheyne, I chose to eat sparingly, and to drink water. This was another
great means of continuing my health, till I was about seven-and-twenty.
I then began spitting of blood, which continued several years. A warm
climate [Georgia] cured this. I was afterwards brought to the brink of
death by a fever; but it left me healthier than before. Eleven years after,
I was in the third stage of a consumption; in three months it pleased God
to remove this also. Since that I have known neither pain nor sickness,
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and am now healthier than I was forty years ago." Cheyne became one
of Wesley's favourites, and no wonder. After reading his "Natural Method
of Curing Diseases," he designates it one of the most ingenious books he
had ever seen; but adds, "What epicure will ever regard it? for the man
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talks against good eating and drinking!" Cheyne died in 1745, calmly