“I am now in the west, and have begun to take the field. Great multitudes flock to hear. I find it is a trial, to be thus divided between the work on this and the other side of the water. I am convinced I have done right in coming over now; but I keep myself quite disengaged, that I may be free to leave England the latter end of the summer, if the Lord is pleased to make my way clear. I long to have Bethesda a foundation for the Lord Jesus. If I can procure a proper person, of good literature, who will be content to stay two or three years, something may be done.”
Before his departure from Plymouth, Whitefield preached at Tavistock; where, he says, “I was rudely treated; for, whilst I was praying, some of the baser sort brought a bull and dogs, and disturbed us much; but I hope good was done.”
On reaching Exeter, he wrote to his friend Robert Cruttenden, once a minister of Christ, then an infidel, and now re-converted:――
“I suppose you will be pleased that I am thus far in my return to London. O my friend, my friend, I come with fear and trembling. To speak to the rich and great, so as to win them to the blessed Jesus, is indeed a task. But, wherefore do we fear? We can do all things through Christ strengthening us. But why does Mr. Cruttenden think it strange that no one can be found to help me in the country? Is it not more strange that you should lie supine, burying your talents in a napkin, complaining you have nothing to do, and yet souls everywhere are perishing about you for lack of knowledge? Why do you not preach or print? At least, why do you not help me, or somebody or another, in a more public way? You are in the decline of life, and if you do not soon reassume the place, you are now qualified for, you may lose the opportunity for ever. I write this in great seriousness. May the Lord give you no rest, till you lift up your voice like a trumpet! Up, and be doing; and the Lord will be with you.”
Whitefield arrived in London at the beginning of the month of March. On his way, at Bristol, he and Charles Wesley met. Charles was to be married to Miss Gwynne a month afterwards, and wrote: “March 3. I met George Whitefield, and made him quite happy by acquainting him with my design.”[231] Whitefield spent a month in London, and was fully occupied, not only with preaching in the Tabernacle, and in the house of Lady Huntingdon, but with work that was not at all congenial to him.