ly Carpenter of Nazareth.

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CHAPTER XV.

Fetter Lane.--Popular preachers.--Old friends meet
again.--Love-feasts.--1739--Small beginning of a
great gathering.--A crowded church.--A lightning
thought.--But a shocking thing.--George
Whitefield's welcome at Bristol.--"You shall not
preach in my pulpit."--"Nor mine."--"Nor
mine."--Poor Mr. Whitefield.

WHILE Mr. Wesley was in Germany, his brother Charles had been preaching
and working in London, and when Mr. John returned he found about
thirty-two people had joined the society there. They had hired a room in
Fetter Lane, and here they held their meetings. Mr. Wesley had come back
so full of love to Jesus Christ, and therefore so full of love to
everybody, and so eager for all to be as happy as he was, that he soon
got many others to join them. When he wrote to his German friends, he
said: "We are trying here, by God's help, to copy you as you copy
Christ."

He and his brother still preached in any church where they were allowed,
and wherever they went crowds of poor people followed to hear them. They
used to go, too, to the prisons, and the hospitals, and preach to the
sinful and the suffering. They told them how Jesus forgave sins, and how
He used to heal the sick; and the sinful were made sorry, and the
suffering ones were comforted, and many believed in Jesus and prayed for
forgiveness.

Mr. Wesley had returned from Germany in September; a few months later
Mr. George Whitefield came back from Georgia. He had got on very well
with the people there, because he did not try to alter the ways they had
been accustomed to, unless it was really necessary.

Mr. Wesley went to meet his old friend, and, oh! how pleased they were
to see each other again. Mr. Whitefield joined the little society in
Fetter Lane, and they all worked together most happily.

I dare say most of my Methodist readers will have been to a love-feast;
those of you who have not, will at any rate have heard of them. Well, it
was just about this time that love-feasts were first started. The little
bands or companies that I told you about used to join together, and have
a special prayer meeting once a month on a Saturday; and the following
day, which, of course, was Sunday, they all used to meet again between
seven o'clock and ten in the evening for a love-feast--a meal of bread
and water