Wesley Corpus

I now found a lively society, and one of the most elegant congregations I had seen for many years. Yet they seemed as willing to be instructed, as if they had lived in Kingswood. Wednesday, 19. 296 Rev. J. wesley’s [Feb. 1785. I returned to Colchester; and on Thursday, 20, preached to a lovely congregation at Purfleet, and the next morning returned to London. Sun. 23.--I preached morning and afternoon at West Street, and in the evening in the chapel at Knightsbridge : I think, it will be the last time; for I know not that I have ever seen a worse-behaved congregation. Tues. 25.-I spent two or three hours in the House of Lords. I had frequently heard that this was the most vene rable assembly in England. But how was I disappointed What is a Lord, but a sinner, born to die! Sun. 30.--From those words, “Righteous art thou, O Lord, and true are thy judgments,” I endeavoured to point out those sins which were the chief cause of that awful trans action we commemorate this day. I believe the chief sin which brought the King to the block, was his persecuting the real Christians. Hereby he drove them into the hands of designing men, which issued in his own destruction. Sun. FEBRUARY 6.--We had a love-feast. I could not but observe the manner wherein several of them spoke one after another. Not only the matter, but the language, the accent, the tone of voice, wherewith illiterate persons, men and women, young and old, spoke, were such as a scholar need not be ashamed of. Who teacheth like Him? Sun. 13.--I met the single women, and exhorted them to consider, to prize, and to improve, the advantages they enjoyed. On the following days, I visited many of our poor, to see with my own eyes what their wants were, and how they might be effectually relieved. Sun. 20.-I preached in Spitalfields church in the morning, and in the afternoon at St. Ethelburg's, and in the evening at the new chapel. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I visited the residue of the sick and poor. Friday, 25. I received letters from the Preachers, Stewards, and Leaders at Plymouth-Dock, informing me, that William Moore had renounced the Methodists, hired a place to preach in, and drawn away about forty of our members, to form a society for himself.