The work and its accompaniments at Everton created anxiety in London. No wonder. Twenty years previously, the same sort of scenes had been witnessed at Bristol, Kingswood, and Newcastle. Thoughtful and even religious people disliked them; but what then? Were they altogether fanatical, the work of the devil, and intended to injure the work of God? Many thought so; but Wesley did not. After narrating what he saw at Everton, he writes: “I have generally observed more or less of these outward symptoms to attend the beginning of a general work of God; so it was in New England, Scotland, Holland, Ireland, and many parts of England; but, after a time, they gradually decrease, and the work goes on more quietly and silently. Those whom it pleases God to employ in His work ought to be quite passive in this respect; they should choose nothing, but leave entirely to Him all the circumstances of His own work.” On the 8th of August, the day after his arrival in London, Wesley opened the annual conference of his preachers, which lasted the next three days. Almost the whole time was spent “in examining whether the spirit and lives of the preachers were suitable to their profession.” The conference throughout was marked with great unanimity and love. Three weeks were spent in London and its neighbourhood; and then Wesley set out for Norwich, taking Everton on his way. He again preached in the church of his friend Berridge. He writes: “I went to the church unusually heavy, and hardly expecting to do any good. I preached on these words in the second lesson, ‘We know that we are of God.’ One sunk down, and another, and another. Some cried aloud in agony of prayer. I would willingly have spent some time in prayer with them; but my voice failed, so that I was obliged to conclude the service, leaving many in the church, crying and praying, but unable either to walk or stand.” Arriving at Norwich, Wesley found that, in taking Wheatley’s chapel and congregation, he had not taken an unmixed comfort. He says: “August 30—I preached to a large, rude, noisy congregation. I took knowledge what manner of teachers they had been accustomed to, and determined to mend them or end them. Accordingly, the next evening, after sermon, I reminded them of two things: the one, that it was not decent to begin talking aloud as soon as service was ended, and hurrying to and fro, as in a bear garden; the other, that it was a bad custom to gather into knots just after sermon, and turn a place of worship into a coffee house. I, therefore, desired that none would talk under that roof, but go quietly and silently away. And on Sunday, September 2, I had the pleasure to observe, that all went as quietly away, as if they had been accustomed to it for many years.”