Wesley Corpus

Wed. 28.--We rode to Bristol. I now looked over Mr. Prince’s «Christian History.” What an amazing difference is there in the manner wherein God has carried on his work in England and in America! There, above a hundred of the established clergy, men of age and experience, and of the greatest note for sense and learning in those parts, are zealously engaged in the work. Here, almost the whole body of the aged, experienced, learned clergy, are zealously engaged against it; and few, but a handful of raw young men engaged in it, without name, learning, or eminent sense. And yet by that large number of honourable men, the work seldom flourished above six months at a time, and then followed a lamentable and general decay, before the next revival of it; whereas that which God hath wrought by these despised instruments, has continually increased for fifteen years together ; and at whatever time it has declined in any one place, has more eminently flourished in others. Mon. March 5.--I called on Mr. Farley, and saw a plain confutation of that vulgar error, that consumptions are not catching : he caught the consumption from his son, whereby he soon followed him to the grave. Wed. 14.--I preached at Frome, a dry, barren, uncomfortable place. The congregation at Shaftesbury in the evening were of a more gn ie? ot ws 548 REV. Je WESLEY'S JOURNAL. [ March, 1753 excellent spirit. Thur. 15.--I met the stewards of the neighbouring societies at Bearfield, and was much refreshed among them. Fri. 16.--I returned to Bristol ; and on Monday, 19th, set out with. my wife for the north. I preached in the evening at Wallbridge, near Stroud. The house being too small, many stood without ; but neither before nor after preaching, (much less while I was speaking,) did 1 hear the sound of any voice; no, nor of any foot; in so deepa silence did they both come, hear, and go away. Tues. 20.--I preached in the Town Hall at Evesham. At the upper end of the room a large body of people were still and attentive. Meantime, at the lower end, many were walking to and fro, laughing and talking, as if they had been in Westminster Abbey.