Wesley Corpus

Having spent the time proposed here, with much satisfaction, in the evening I returned to Cork. Sunday, AUGUST 3. I had wrote to the Commanding Officer for leave to preach near the barracks; but he was just gone out of town; so I was obliged once more to coop myself up in the Room. Monday, 4. Knowing by the experiment I made two years since, that it was an entertainment above the taste of our evening congregation, I read some select letters at five in the morning, to those who desired to hear them. And many of them were not a little comforted and established in the ways of God. In the afternoon I set out for Kinsale. In the way a violent storm drove us into a little hut, where a poor woman was very thankful for physical advice, and another for a little money to buy her food. The sky then clearing, we soon reached Kinsale, where I preached at six in the Exchange, to a multitude of soldiers, and not a few of the dull, careless townsfolk. At five in the morning, it being a field-day, the soldiers could not attend; but I had a large and serious congregation notwithstanding. Surely good might be done here also, would our Preachers always preach in the Exchange, as they may without any molestation, instead of a little, ugly, dirty garret. About nine, a sharp storm having put an end to their exercise, I went to the soldiers in the field. I stood so near the intrenchments of the fort, that they could hear within as well as without. The sun indeed shone extremely hot on my head; but presently a cloud interposed. And when I began to be chill (for the wind was high and sharp) it removed till I wanted it again. How easily may we see the hand of God in small things as well as great ! And why should a little pointless raillery make us ashamed to acknowledge it? In the evening I preached to the usual congregation in the main street at Bandon, on, "Her ways are ways of pleasant ness, and all her paths peace." The congregation was near Aug. 1760. JOURNAL. 13 twice as large, at five in the morning, as it was last week when I preached an hour later. Sun.