“Were I not afraid of giving your lordship pain, I would speak yet still further. Methinks, you desire I should; that is, to tell you once for all, every thought that rises in my heart. I will then. At present I do not want you, but I really think you want me. For have you a person, in all England, who speaks to your lordship so plain and downright as I do? who considers not the peer, but the man? not the earl, but the immortal spirit? who rarely commends, but often blames, and perhaps would do it oftener if you desired it? who is jealous over you with a godly jealousy, lest you should be less a Christian by being a nobleman, lest, after having made a fair advance towards heaven, you should measure back your steps to earth again? O my lord, is not such a person as this needful for you in the highest degree? If you have any such, I have no more to say, but that I pray God to bless him to your soul. If you have not, despise not the assistance which it may please God to give you by, my lord,
“Your lordship’s ready servant,
“John Wesley.”[589]
We must now hastily trace Wesley’s footsteps during the remainder of the year 1764.
The conference in Bristol being ended, he came to London on August 11. On the 18th he preached, for the first time, in the new chapel at Snowsfields. On the 20th, he says: “I went to Canterbury, and opened our new chapel there.[590] How is it, that many protestants, even in England, do not know that no other consecration of church or chapel is allowed, much less required, in England, than the performance of public worship therein? This is the only consecration of any church in Great Britain which is necessary, or even lawful. It is true, Archbishop Laud composed a form of consecration; but it was never allowed, much less established, in England. Let this be remembered by all who talk so idly of preaching in unconsecrated places!”
On September 3, Wesley returned to Bristol, in the neighbourhood of which he spent the next month, meeting classes and preaching. On Saturday, October 6, he got back to London; preached the next day thrice, and administered the Lord’s supper; and then, a little before midnight, started, by coach, for Norwich, whose society he pronounced the most changeable in all England. In 1759, when James Wheatley’s tabernacle and congregation were taken, there were 760 Norwich Methodists; in two years, the 760 were reduced to 412; a year afterwards they became 630; and now, two years later, they were only 174.
It was during this Norfolk visitation, that Wesley preached, for the first time, at Lowestoft. He writes: “a wilder congregation I have not seen; but the bridle was in their teeth. All attended, and a considerable part seemed to understand something of what was spoken.”
On his return to London, Wesley called the leaders together, and proposed a scheme for defraying the debts on the London chapels, now about £900; and, in six days, by a personal canvas, he raised nearly two thirds of that amount. “What was done,” says he, “was done with the utmost cheerfulness. I remember but one exception; only one gentleman squeezed out ten shillings as so many drops of blood.” Wesley also met the London preachers, every morning, to read with them his “Compendium of Natural Philosophy.” He employed his spare moments in writing; and made short tours to Kent, Sussex, and Essex, for the purpose of visiting his societies there. In this diversified employment, the year was ended.
The amount of labour through which Wesley passed was almost incredible. His preaching, his travelling, his society visitations, his writing and publishing, were enough to have occupied half-a-dozen ordinary men; but to all these must be added his correspondence, and his having to give counsel to all sorts of people, and on all sorts of matters. Even this, single and alone, was no trifle, as will be seen by what follows, and which may be taken as fair specimens of things constantly occurring.
For a quarter of a century, Wesley and his brother had bestowed a large amount of ministerial labour on the inhabitants of Bristol; and it was undeniable, that their services had produced incalculable good. Under such circumstances, there was no presumption in their occasionally taking part in the public business of the city. This they did in 1764. At that time, the Bristol Methodists were alarmed by a proposal to build a new theatre. Charles Wesley and others thought it desirable to send to the Bristol corporation a formal petition against the proposal. Wesley himself thought, that he and his brother were sufficiently well known in Bristol to render a formal petition needless; and that a letter, written on behalf of the Bristol Methodists, would do quite as well. Hence the following, addressed “to the mayor and corporation of Bristol.”