In the spring of 1758, he laid the foundation-stone of his almshouse, and in June of the same year began to select its inmates. Pointing to these houses, some years afterwards, he said to a gentleman who was visiting him, "Those are my redoubts. The prayers of the poor women who reside in them, protect me in my house." Having arranged for the supply of his London pulpits, Whitefield went into the west of England, and proceeded from thence into Wales. But his health was so feeble, that he could not bear to drive, nor even ride in a one-horse chaise. The roads were rough, and riding shook him nearly to pieces. "Every thing," he says, "wearies this shattered bark now." A friend purchased for him a close chaise, advancing the money until he could conveniently repay it. He deeply felt this kindness, because by no other means could he have itinerated. "I would not," he says, "lay out a single farthing but for my blessed Master; but it is inconceivable what I have undergone these three weeks. _I never was so before._ O for a _hearse_ to carry my weary carcass to the wished for grave." During all this tour he was unable to sit up in company even once; yet he often preached to ten or fifteen thousand people, and made their "tears flow like water from the rock." His views of himself at this time were more than usually humble. He said to Lady Huntingdon, "Oh, I am sick--sick in body, but infinitely more so in mind, to see so much dross in my soul. Blessed be God, there is One who will sit as a refiner's fire, to purify the sons of Levi. I write out of the burning bush. Christ is there; Christ is there!" Among the many illustrations of Scripture which Whitefield often introduced into his sermons, one is truly worthy of record. Preaching from the words, "Wherefore, glorify ye the Lord in the fires," Isa. 24:15, he says, "When I was, some years ago, at Shields, I went into a glass-house, and standing very attentively, I saw several masses of burning glass of various forms. The workman took one piece of glass, and put it into one furnace, then he put it into a second, and then into a third. I asked him, 'Why do you put that into so many fires?' He answered me, 'Oh, sir, the first was not hot enough, nor the second, and therefore we put it into the third, and that will make it transparent.' 'Oh,' thought I, 'does this man put this glass into one furnace after another, that it may be rendered perfect? Oh, my God, put me into one furnace after another, that my soul may be transparent, that I may see God as he is.'"