Relegated to the Cork and Bandon circuit, he had a very trying time of it for about a year. One of his memoranda made at this time gives us a glimpse of his acquirements from his own common-sense point of view, for Bradburn was a thoroughly sensible and humble man, who never yielded to ignorant flattery of his pulpit eloquence, nor gave way, as some self-made men and popular preachers have done, to vanity and conceit. Self-examination was with him a genuine business, conducted in a reverent spirit and an honest and altogether healthy fashion. By this means he came to know himself and act accordingly. Not many men in his position would have written so sensibly as this: "_Cork, March 31st_ (1779).--I have read and written much this month, but sadly feel the want of a friend to direct my studies. All with whom I have any intimacy, know nothing of my meaning when I speak of my ignorance. They praise my sermons, and consider me a prodigy of learning; and yet what do I know? a little Latin, a little philosophy, history, divinity, and a little of many things, all of which serves to convince me of my own ignorance!" At this time, and for many years after, he preached forty sermons a month, and sometimes fifty. Even if they were _all_ old sermons, which would not often be the case, how could a man so employed find time or energy for close and continuous study? The next four years are spent at Keighley, Bradford, and Leeds in Yorkshire. When at Keighley he "travelled" for a time with Wesley, and had an opportunity of observing the way in which that sainted man wholly devoted his gifts, his time, and his money to the service of God and his fellow-men. Wesley's stipend from the Society in London was £30 a year, but the sale of books, the generosity of the friends at Bristol, and occasional preaching fees and sundry legacies, brought his yearly income up to £1000 or £1200; yet he rarely spent more for himself than his meagre stipend, and regularly gave away _all the rest_. "Thus literally having nothing, he possessed all things; and though poor, he made many rich."[18] At Leeds, Bradburn was offered the pastorate of an Independent Church with a greatly increased salary, but the loyal Methodist refused the tempting offer. His next appointment was to Bristol, where he had the misfortune to lose his darling Betsey, who died of decline in her twenty-ninth year. His colleague had suffered a similar bereavement, and the stern yet tender-hearted Wesley, then in his eighty-third year, actually set off from London "in the driven snow" to go down to Bristol and comfort the two sorrowing preachers. Bradburn did not long remain a widower. At Gloucester he met Sophia Cooke, "the pious and godly" Methodist to whom Robert Raikes of Sunday-school fame had spoken about the poor children in the streets, and asked her, "What can we do for them?" Miss Cooke replied, "Let us teach them, and take them to church!" The hint was acted upon, and Raikes and Miss Cooke