Wesley now began to enlarge the sphere of his operations. Hitherto, his only stated congregations had been at Kingswood, at Bristol, and at the Foundery, London. For these, the ministrations of himself and his brother were sufficient; but, as the work increased, new preachers became needful. Cennick and Humphreys had both left him; but others supplied their places. John Nelson came to London, was converted, and, at the end of the year 1740, returned to Birstal in Yorkshire, where, impelled by the love of Christ, and almost without knowing it, he began to preach to his unconverted neighbours. Thomas Maxfield also, one of the first converts in Bristol, and who, for a year or two, seems to have travelled with Charles Wesley, perhaps in the capacity of servant, being left in London, to meet during Wesley’s absence the Foundery society, pray with them, and give them suitable advice, was insensibly led from praying to preaching,—his sermons being accompanied with such power, that numbers were made penitent and were converted. Wesley, hearing of this irregularity, hurried back to London, for the purpose of stopping it. His mother, living in his house, adjoining the Foundery, said: “John, take care what you do with respect to that young man, for he is as surely called of God to preach, as you are. Examine what have been the fruits of his preaching, and hear him yourself.” The Countess of Huntingdon also wrote: “Maxfield is one of the greatest instances of God’s peculiar favour that I know. He is my astonishment. The first time I made him expound, I expected little from him; but, before he had gone over one fifth part of his discourse, my attention was riveted, and I was immovable. His power in prayer, also, is very extraordinary.”[430] Wesley was convinced, and the Rubicon was passed. “I am not clear,” he writes under the date of April 21, 1741, “that brother Maxfield should not expound at Greyhound Lane; nor can I as yet do without him. Our clergymen” (Stonehouse, Hall, and others) “have miscarried full as much as the laymen; and that the Moravians are other than laymen, I know not.”[431] Wesley wrote again, about four years after employing Maxfield:—