Wesley Corpus

Mon. '7.--I was advised to take the Derbyshire road to Manchester. We baited at a house six miles beyond Lichfield. Observing a woman sitting in the kitchen, I asked, “ Are you not well?” And found she had just been taken ill, (being on her journey,) with all the symptoms of an approaching pleurisy. She was glad to hear of an easy, cheap, and (almost) infallible remedy,--a handful of nettles, boiled a few minutes, and applied warm to the side. While I was speaking to her, an elderly man, pretty well dressed, came in. Upon inquiry, he told us he was travelling, as he could, toward his home near Hounslow, in hopes of agreeing with his creditors, to whom he had surrendered his all. But how to get on he knew not, as he had no money, and had caught a tertian ague. I hope a wise providence directed this wanderer also, that he might have a remedy for both his maladies. Soon after we took horse we overtook a poor man creeping forward on two crutches. I asked, whither he was going. He said, toward Nottingham, where his wife lived: but both his legs had been broke while he was on shipboard, and he had now spent all his money. This man likewise appeared exceeding thankful, and ready to acknowledge the hand of God. In the afternoon we came to Barton Forge; where a gentleman of Birmingham has set up a large iron work, and fixed five or six families, with a serious man over them, who lost near all he had in the great riot at Wednesbury. Most of them are seeking to save their souls. I preached in the evening, not to them only, but to many gathered from all parts, and exhorted them to love and help one another. Tues. 8.--I had designed to go straight on to Hayfield; but one 576 REV. J. WESLEY’S JOURNAL. | April, 1755.