Wesley Corpus

About five our great congregation met, and (what has seldom been known) very quietly. We were cqually quiet at the meeting of the society, which met now for the first time on a Sunday evening. So has God stilled the madness of the people. Are not the hearts of all men in his hand? Mon. 15.--At the request of many, I had given notice of a watch-night. We had but an indifferent prelude: Between six and seven the mob gathered in great numbers, made an huge noise, and began to throw large stones against the out ward doors. But they had put themselves out of breath before eight, so that when the service begun they were all gone. Tues. 16.-In the evening the whole congregation seemed not a little moved, while I was enforcing those solemn words, “He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again.” The same was observable, and that in an higher and higher degree, the two following evenings. If I could stay here a month, I think there would be a society little inferior to that at Bristol. But it must not be; they who will bear sound doctrine only from me, must still believe a lie. Sat. 20.--My horses meeting me at Burntwood, I rode on to Leytonstone, and preached to a serious congregation, on, “I will; be thou clean.” The following week I made a little tour through part of Kent and Sussex, where some of our brethren swiftly increase in goods. Do they increase in grace too? If not, let them take care that their money do not perish with them. Sun. NovEMBER. 4.--I proposed to the Leaders, the assist ing the Society for the Reformation of Manners, with regard to their heavy debt. One of them asked, “Ought we not to pay our own debt first?” After some consultations, it was agreed to attempt it. The general debt of the society in London, occasioned chiefly by repairing the Foundery, and chapels, and by building at Wapping and Snowsfields, was about nine hundred pounds. This I, laid before the society in the evening, and desired them all to set their shoulders to the Dec. 1764.] JOURNAL. 201 work, either by a present contribution, or by subscribing what they could pay, on the first of January, February, or March.