SOURCE: Heitzenrater, Richard P. “Wesley and His Diary.” In John Wesley: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by John Stacey, pp. 11-22. London: Epworth Press, 1988.

In the following essay, Heitzenrater examines Wesley's private notebooks and the ciphers employed therein, maintaining that although the works reveal details of Wesley's private life, they do not significantly alter history's evaluation of him.

No single name in the history of our tradition is more familiar to Methodists world-wide than John Wesley. Nevertheless, historians and biographers, as well as painters, have had difficulty for over two centuries in capturing a portrait of Wesley that commands a consensus as being true to life. The picture is usually larger than life, perhaps not unexpectedly so—Wesley was, after all, a significant historical personality. But in the process of depicting his significance, the epic proportions of his traditional public image often overshadow the human, personal aspects of the man...