r the
sermon, invited me to spend some time at their house, showed me the
greatest possible kindness, and did as much as good and kind people
could do to make my stay in London a pleasure never to be forgotten.

A meeting was called in the Assembly room of the Crown and Anchor, or
the city of London Tavern, to give me a public welcome to London, and a
great number, the principal part, I suppose, of the London Unitarians
met me there, to give me a demonstration of their respect and good
wishes. I spoke, and my remarks were very favorably received; and so
many and kind were the friends that gathered round me, and so strange
and gratifying the position in which I found myself, that I seemed in
another world. The contrast was so great between the treatment to which
I had so long been accustomed in the New Connexion, and the
long-continued and flattering ovation I was receiving from so large a
multitude of the most highly cultivated people in the country, that if I
had lost my senses amid the delightful excitement it could have been no
matter for wonder.

But it was more than I was able to enjoy. I longed for quiet. I wanted
to be at home with my wife and children, and in the society of my less
distinguished, but older and more devoted friends. I fear I hardly
showed myself thankful enough for the honor done me, or made the returns
to my new friends to which they were entitled. They must have thought me
rather cool in private; but they knew that I had been bred a Methodist,
a plain Methodist, and had lived and moved among Methodists of the
plainer kind, and never before been fairly outside the Methodist world.
And some of them knew that I had not much time for pleasure-taking,
sight-seeing, and the current kind of chat, or even the multiplication
of new friends and acquaintances. They knew too that I had a business
which required my attention, and a vast quantity of letters to answer,
and parties calling for my help in almost every part of the country.

I was happy at length to find myself at liberty to leave the metropolis,
and my many new, agreeable and generous friends and acquaintances there,
and return to quieter and calmer scenes, and more customary occupations,
in the country.

But I never was permitted to confine myself within my old circle of
acquaintances, and my old sphere of labor, after my visit to London.
Accounts of my London meetings were given in the Unitarian newspapers
and periodicals, and spread abroa