Lady Augusta Bruce, a personal friend of Queen Victoria. A more catholic-hearted man than Dean Stanley never lived. He invited leading Nonconformists to speak in the Abbey, and cultivated friendly relations with Dr. Rigg, then his neighbour at Westminster.
The dean opened Westminster Abbey to John and Charles Wesley. He said in 1878, The President of the Wesleyan Conference asked if I would allow the erection of a monument in Westminster Abbey, in Poets Corner, to Charles Wesley, as the sweet psalmist of our "English" Israel. I ventured to ask, "If we are to have a monument to Charles, why not to John?" To John Wesley, accordingly, together with his brother Charles—not as excluding Charles, but as the greater genius, as the greater spirit of the two—that monument has been erected.
When the memorial was unveiled he was smarting under the loss of his wife, and his feelings found relief in a memorable application of Charles Wesley s words to himself—
My company before is gone,
And I am left alone with Thee;
With Thee all night I mean to stay,
And wrestle till the break of day.
Dean Stanley died in 1881 . Husband and wife rest together in a quiet corner of Henry the Seventh s Chapel in Westminster Abbey. His Eastern Church, Jewish Church, Sinai and Palestine, Memorials of Westminster Abbey are all classics.
His favourite among Charles Wesley's hymns was that entitled Catholic Love—
Weary of all this wordy strife,
These notions, forms, and modes, and names,
To Thee, the Way, the Truth, the Life,
Whose love my simple heart inflames,
Divinely taught, at last I fly
With Thee and Thine, to live and die.
Hymn 145. Heal us, Immanuel; hear our prayer.
William Cowper (60).
Olney Hymns, 1779, headed 'Jehovah-Rophi'—'I am the Lord that healeth thee. The original reads—
Heal us, Emmanuel ! here we are,
Waiting to feel Thy touch.
