Wesley Corpus

The violent rain kept away the delicate and curious hearers. For the sake of these I delayed the morning preaching till a quarter before nine: But it was too early still for a great part of the town, who could not possibly rise before ten. I added a few members to the society, and left them in peace and love. Where to preach in Belfast I did not know. It was too wet to preach abroad; and a dancing-master was busily employed in the upper part of the market-house; till at twelve the sovereign put him out, by holding his court there. While he was above, I began below, to a very serious and attentive audience. But they were all poor; the rich of Belfast “cared for none of these things.” After dinner we rode to Newtown, and found another poor, shattered society, reduced from fifty to eighteen members, and most of those cold enough. In the evening I preached to a large congregation in the market-house, on, “I will heal their backsliding.” God fulfilled his word: Many were healed, and many more deeply wounded. I had full employment among them the next day; and on Saturday, 24, I left between thirty and forty members, full of desire, and hope, and earnest resolutions, not to be almost, but altogether, Christians. About ten I preached at Comber, and then rode to Lisburn, where, in the evening, I had many rich and genteel hearers. Sunday, 25. The congregation was larger in the morning than April, 1762.] JOURNAL, 91 the evening before, and many appeared to be deeply wounded. O may none heal their wound slightly | But far the largest congregation of all met in the evening; and yet I saw not a scoffer, no, nor trifler, among them. Mon. 26.--In the evening I preached to a large congregation in the market-house at Lurgan. I now embraced the opportu nity which I had long desired, of talking with Mr. Miller, the contriver of that statue which was in Lurgan when I was there before. It was the figure of an old man, standing in a case, with a curtain drawn before him, over against a clock which stood on the other side of the room.