At Bingley, Wesley had the genteelest congregation he had lately seen. At Haworth, he had to preach in the churchyard, the congregation being three times larger than the church would hold; while, at the sacramental service following, he and Grimshaw had nearly a thousand communicants. After this, he hurried off to Whitehaven, Cockermouth, and Wigton. In a letter to his friend Blackwell, he writes:—
“Whitehaven, May 28, 1757.
“Dear Sir,—In every place, people flock about me for direction in secular as well as spiritual affairs; and I dare not throw even this burden off my shoulders, though I have employment enough without it. But it is a burden, and no burden; it is no incumbrance, no weight upon my mind. If we see God in all things, and do all for Him, then all things are easy. I think it is fourteen or fifteen days since my wife wrote to me. I am afraid she is not well.
“I am, dear sir, your most affectionate servant,
“John Wesley.”[304]
Wesley now proceeded to Glasgow, where he was welcomed by Mr. Gillies, and preached in the yard of the poorhouse. He “met the members of the praying societies, and earnestly advised them to meet Mr. Gillies every week; and, at their other meetings, not to talk loosely and generally (as their manner had been) on some head of religion, but to examine each other’s hearts and lives.”
At Musselburgh, he was the guest of Bailiff Lindsey, and preached in the poorhouse; two thirds of the society “knew in whom they had believed”; and between forty and fifty dragoons were present.
He found a small society at Dunbar, and went into the street, “and began speaking to a congregation of two men and two women,” which was “soon joined by about twenty little children, and, not long after, by a large number of young and old.”
At Kelso, he and William Coward, “a wise and good man,” who died in 1770, and for whom Wesley preached a funeral sermon, went to the market-house, but “neither man, woman, nor child came near them.” At length, Wesley began singing a Scotch psalm; in due time, a congregation gathered; Wesley used “keen and cutting expressions,” and says: “I believe many felt, for all their form, they were but heathens still.”
He now made his way towards Newcastle. He writes: “About noon, I stood in the street at Wooler; and I might stand; for no creature came near me, till I had sung part of a psalm. Then a row of children stood before me; and, in some time, about a hundred men and women. I spoke full as plain as I did at Kelso; and pharisees themselves are not out of God’s reach.”