Wesley Corpus

Fri. 22.--There was so much snow about Boroughbridge, that we could go on but very slowly; insomuch, that the night overtook us when we wanted six or seven miles to the place where we designed to lodge. But we pushed on at a venture, across the moor, and about eight came safe to Sandhutton. Sat. 23.--We found the roads abundantly worse than they had been the day before; not only because the snows were deeper, which made the causeways in many places unpassable, (and March, 1745. ] REV. J. WESLEY’S JOURNAL. 229 turnpike roads were not known in these parts of England till some years after,) but likewise because the hard frost, succeeding the thaw, had made all the ground like glass. We were often obliged to walk, it being ___ impossible to ride, and our horses several times fell down while we were Z leading thea, but not once while we were riding them, during the whole 4 journey. It was past eight before we got to Gateshead Fell, which appeared a great pathless waste of white. The snow filling up and covering all the roads, we were at a loss how to proceed; when an honest man of Newcastle overtook and guided us safe into the town. Many a rough journey have I had before, but one like this I never had; between wind, and hail, and rain, and ice, and snow, and driving sleet, and piercing cold: but it is past: those days will return no more, and are, therefore, as though they had never been. Pain, disappointment, sickness, strife, ‘Whate’er molests or troubles life, However grievous in its stay, It shakes the tenement of clay, When past, as nothing we esteem; And pain, like pleasure, is a dream. On Monday and Tuesday I diligently inquired who were offended at each other; this being the sin which, of all others, most easily besets the people of Newcastle. And as many of them as had leisure to meet, I heard face to face. It was now an easy thing to remove their offences ; for God was in the work; so that they were, one and all, as willing to be reconciled to each other, as I was to have them.