The account given by Mr. Whitefield of his visit to Deal, and of the different treatment he received there from different persons, would be almost as correct a description of his labors and reception in a hundred other places. He spent his first evening very comfortably in religious conversation and family prayer, at which a poor woman was much affected. "Who knows," he says, "what a fire this little spark may kindle?" Next evening, eight or nine poor people came to him at the report of this poor woman; and when, after three or four days, the ship in which he had embarked was driven back to Deal, many met together to bewail their own sins and those of others. Soon the landlady who owned the house where he lodged, sent to her tenants, beseeching them not to let any more persons come in, for fear the floor should break under them; and they actually put a prop under it. The minister of Upper Deal, a mile or two from the town, now invited Whitefield to preach in the church; it was much crowded, and many went away for want of room. Some stood on the leads of the building outside, and looked in at the top windows, and all around seemed eager to hear the word. "May the Lord," says the good man, "make them _doers_ of it. In the evening I was obliged to divide my hearers into four companies, and was enabled to expound to them from six till ten. Lord, keep me from being weary of, or in well-doing." The excitement at Deal became very great, in consequence of the conviction of the people that their own minister, the Rev. Dr. Carter, did not preach the gospel. The good man, to disprove the charge, published a volume of his sermons, which, however admired by gay formalists, furnished but too much evidence of the justice of the charge. Just as he had left the church at Upper Deal, where he had been preaching to a vast congregation, Mr. Whitefield, in consequence of a sudden change of the wind, was summoned on board, and the Whitaker sailed for Georgia. A very few hours afterwards, the vessel which brought back John Wesley from that colony anchored in the Downs, when he learned that the ships had passed each other, but neither of these remarkable men then knew how dear a friend was on board the other. When Wesley landed, he found it was still possible to communicate with his friend, and Whitefield was surprised to receive a letter from him, saying, "When I saw God by the wind which was carrying you out brought me in, I asked counsel of God. His answer you have enclosed." The enclosure was a slip of paper with the words, "Let him return to London," which Wesley had obtained by lot, to which he had had recourse. Whitefield prayed for direction, and went on his voyage.