Returning to London, he retired to Lewisham, to write his sermon for the Bedford assizes. This was preached, in St. Paul’s church, on Friday, the 10th of March, from the text, “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ,” and was published at the request of William Cole, Esq., high sheriff of the county, and others. The sermon is a remarkable production, full of bold thoughts, and fiery eloquence. The judge, Sir Edward Clive, immediately after the service was concluded, forwarded an invitation to Wesley to dine with him; but, having to be at Epworth, a distance of a hundred and twenty miles, the night following, he was obliged to send an excuse; and, at once, set out, amid a piercing storm of wind, snow, sleet, and hail; and, by almost continuous travelling, sometimes on a lame horse, and sometimes in a post chaise, reached Epworth on Saturday night at ten, having, on that day only, travelled ninety miles of execrable roads, in seventeen hours; and yet, he tells us, that he, a man fifty-five years old, was nearly as fresh at the end of his journey as he was at the beginning. The next day, he attended the morning and afternoon services in his father’s church; after which he took his stand in the market-place, and, in the midst of wintry winds and wintry rain, preached to an unflinching multitude, collected together from all the country round about. The day following, March 13, he “preached in the shell of the new meeting-house,” and then set out for York. Wesley was now on one of the longest journeys that he ever took, extending from the 6th of March to the 21st of October following. Let us hastily endeavour to track his wide wanderings. After, visiting York, Leeds, Manchester, and Bolton, he preached, on Easter Sunday, at Liverpool, and never “saw the house so crowded, especially with rich and genteel people, whom he did not spare.”