Wesley Corpus

Spooner, willingly gave me the use of his meeting-house. I found the little society much alive; many knowing in whom Oct. 1771.] JOURNAL. 445 they had believed; several enjoying, and others thirsting after, the whole image of God. On Saturday I had a pleasant journey to London. Mon. 21.--As I drove to Chatham, I read Mr. Hoole's fine translation of Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered; ” allowed, I suppose, by most judges of poetry, to be not much inferior to the AEneid. But I wonder Mr. Hoole was so imprudently faithful, as to present Protestants with all Tasso's Popish fooleries. Those excrescences might have been pared off, without the least injury to the work. In the evening I preached to a crowded audience, ripe for all the promises of God. How good is it for fallen man to earn his food by the sweat of his brow ! Every where we find the labouring part of mankind the readiest to receive the Gospel. Tues. 22.--I went down to Sheerness, and preached in the new Room. But it would not near contain the congregation. I believe all that could hear found that God was there. Both morning and evening I warned them against being sick of opinions and strife of words; which has been the main hinderance of the work of God here from the beginning. Thur. 24.--I returned to Chatham, and on Friday to London. Saturday, 26. Mr. N gave me a melancholy account of his dismission from the Tabernacle. Surely affairs will not stand thus at the Foundery when my head is laid ' If I thought they would, I would do just as I do now,-all the good I can while I live. Mon. 28.--I rode to Staplehurst, to Mr. Ch ’s, a pattern of love and patience. One eye is quite lost by his late illness. His reflection upon it was, “I bless God that I had one eye to give him; and if he calls for it, I am ready to give him the other.” I preached at six to a willing people, simply desiring to save their souls; and the next evening at Rye, to a far more numerous but not more earnest congrega tion. Wednesday, 30.