Wesley Corpus

It seems that God is at length giving a more general call to this town also; the people whereof seemed before, in every sense, to be “rich and increased in goods, and having need of nothing.” Fri. 25.--I was desired to preach at Freshford; but the people durst not come to the House, because of the small-pox, of which Joseph Allen, “an Israelite indeed,” had died the day before. So they placed a table near the church-yard. But I had no sooner begun to speak, than the bells began to ring, by the procurement of a neighbouring gentleman. However, it was labour lost; for my voice prevailed, and the people heard me distinctly: Nay, a person extremely deaf, who had not been able to hear a sermon for several years, told his neighbours, with great joy, that he had heard and understood all, from the beginning to the end. I preached at Bristol in the evening, on 2 Cor. iv. 17, a Sept. 1767.] JOURNAL, 299 text which had been chosen by William New, a little before God called him hence. He laboured under a deep asthma for several years, and for seven or eight months was confined to his bed; where he was, from time to time, visited by a friend, who wrote the following account : “He was one of the first Methodists in Bristol, and always walked as became the Gospel. By the sweat of his brow he maintained a large family, leaving six children behind him. When he was no longer able to walk, he did not discontinue his labour; and, after he kept his room, he used to cut out glass, (being a glazier,) to enable his eldest son, a child about fourteen, to do something toward the support of his family. Yea, when he kept his bed, he was not idle; but still gave him what assistance he could. “He was formerly fond of company and diversions; but, as soon as God called him, left them all, having a nobler diversion,--visiting the sick and afflicted, in which he spent all his leisure hours. He was diligent in the use of all the means of grace; very rarely, during his health, missing the morning preaching at five, though he lived above a mile from the Room.