Wesley Corpus

DEAR BROTHER, [Charles Wesley was in London from April 9 to June 17.]--It was time for me to give them the ground at Newcastle [See previous letter.] and to fly for my life. I grew more and more honorable every day; the rich and great flocking to us together, so that many times the room would not hold them. Iniquity for the present hath stopped her mouth; and it is almost fashionable to speak well of us. In all appearance, if I had stayed a month longer, the Mayor and Aldermen would have been with us too. On Easter Monday we met at half-hour after four; and the room was full from end to end with high and low, rich and poor, plain and fine people. At nine I preached to almost as large a congregation in the street at Chesterle-Street. All were quiet and still; for the hand of our Lord was in the midst of them. About six I preached at Northallerton in the house: but it should have been (I afterwards found) at the Cross; for the people there are (most of them) a noble people, and receive the word with all readiness of mind. A gentleman of Osmotherley [Mr. Adams. See Journal, iii. 169; W.H.S. vii. 28-31.] (east from Northallerton) telling me he wished I could have come and preached there, I took him at his word, set out immediately, and about ten at night preached at Osmotherley, in a large chapel which belonged a few years since to a convent of Franciscan Friars. I found I was got into the very center of all the Papists in the North of England. Commessatorem haud satis commodum! [‘Terence’s Adelphi, v. ii. 8: ‘A by no means fitting boon companion.’] This also hath God wrought. The classes call me away. I must (for several reasons) see London before Bristol. One is, I shall go from Bristol to Cornwall; so that, if I come to Bristol now, I shall not be at London these three months. What I propose, therefore, is to go from Birmingham, through Oxford (as I wrote before), straight to London. [He reached London on May 11.] You can send me word where you will meet me. All here salute you much. If you could come hither soon (think of it), Leeds would vie with Newcastle. I wish you could. O let us watch! Adieu.