Wesley Corpus

Having spent the time proposed here, with much satisfaction, in the evening I returned to Cork. Sunday, AUGUST 3.--I had wrote to the Commanding Officer for leave to preach near the barracks; but he was just gone out of town; so I was obliged once more to coop myself up in the Room. Monday, 4. Knowing by the experiment I made two years since, that it was an entertainment above the taste of our evening congregation, I read some select letters at five in the morning, to those who desired to hear them. And many of them were not a little comforted and established in the ways of God. Thur. 7.--In the afternoon I set out for Kinsale. In the way a violent storm drove us into a little hut, where a poor woman was very thankful for physical advice, and another for a little money to buy her food. The sky then clearing, we soon reached Kinsale, where I preached at six in the Exchange, to a multitude of soldiers, and not a few of the dull, careless townsfolk. At five in the morning, it being a field-day, the soldiers could not attend; but I had a large and serious congregation notwithstanding. Surely good might be done here also, would our Preachers always preach in the Exchange, as they may without any molestation, instead of a little, ugly, dirty garret. About nine, a sharp storm having put an end to their exercise, I went to the soldiers in the field. I stood so near the intrenchments of the fort, that they could hear within as well as without. The sun indeed shone extremely hot on my head; but presently a cloud interposed. And when I began to be chill (for the wind was high and sharp) it removed till I wanted it again. How easily may we see the hand of God in small things as well as great ! And why should a little pointless raillery make us ashamed to acknowledge it? In the evening I preached to the usual congregation in the main street at Bandon, on, “Her ways are ways of pleasant ness, and all her paths peace.” The congregation was near Aug. 1760.] JOURNAL. 13 twice as large, at five in the morning, as it was last week when I preached an hour later. Sun.