It is characteristic that while Whitefield simply took to the work of field-preaching, and preaching in the open air, and troubled himself very little about finding or giving reasons for the irregularity of the proceeding, Wesley defended the practice with formidable arguments. It is remarkable that the practice should have been deemed so irregular, or should need vindication, considering that our Lord had given to it the sanction of His example, and that it had been adopted by the apostles and fathers, the greatest of the Catholic preachers, and the reformers of every age. A history of field and street-preaching would form a large and interesting chapter of Church history. Southey quotes a very happy series of arguments from one of Wesley’s appeals: “What need is there,” he says, speaking for his antagonists, “of this preaching in the fields and streets? Are there not churches enough to preach in?” “No, my friend, there are not, not for us to preach in. You forget we are not suffered to preach there, else we should prefer them to any place whatever.” “Well, there are ministers enough without you.” “Ministers enough, and churches enough! For what? To reclaim all the sinners within the four seas? and one plain reason why these sinners are never reclaimed is this: they never come into a church. Will you say, as some tender-hearted Christians I have heard, ‘Then it is their own fault; let them die and be damned!’ I grant it may be their own fault, but the Saviour of souls came after us, and so we ought to seek to save that which is lost.” He went on to confess the irregularity, but he retorted that those persons who compelled him to be irregular had no right to censure him for irregularity. “Will they throw a man into the dirt,” said he, “and beat him because he is dirty? Of all men living those clergymen ought not to complain who believe I preach the Gospel; if they will not ask me to preach in their churches, they are accountable for my preaching in the fields.” This is a fair illustration of the neat shrewdness, the compact, incisive common sense of Wesley’s mind. Thus he argued himself into that sphere of labour which justified him in after years in saying, without any extravagance, “The world is my parish.”