From Scarborough he proceeded to Bridlington, Driffield, Beverley, Hull, York, Tadcaster, Pateley Bridge, Otley, Heptonstall, Keighley, Haworth, Bingley, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Morley, Birstal, Doncaster, Sheffield, Epworth, Brigg, Horncastle, Louth, Grimsby, Pontefract, Horbury, Wakefield, and other places, preaching at all of them, until, on August 2, he got to Leeds, for the purpose of holding his annual conference. This was enormous labour for any man, and especially for an old man, suffering from a severe and painful malady. To all this must be added, cottage accommodation, hard beds, and often hard living; and, though brutal persecution had considerably abated, Wesley was not entirely exempt from this; for, at Halifax, on July 8, a ruffian struck him most violently on the face, when, with tears starting from his eyes, the venerable saint acted upon the precept of his Master: “Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”; a display of heroic meekness which cowed the brutal coward, and made him slink away into the ignoble crowd.[168] Yet, in the midst of all this, there is not a single syllable, in his journal, concerning either persecution, hardship, debility, or disease. He writes: “On Tuesday, August 4, our conference began. Generally, during the time of conference, as I was talking from morning to night, I had used to desire one of our brethren to preach in the morning; but, having many things to say, I resolved, with God’s help, to preach mornings as well as evenings. And I found no difference at all; I was no more tired than with my usual labour; that is, no more than if I had been sitting still in my study from morning to night.” One of Wesley’s sermons, preached to an immense congregation, in a field behind the chapel, was from Isaiah lxvi. 8, 9: “Who hath heard such a thing?” etc.; in which he dwelt upon the great work which God had wrought among the Methodists, discoursing on its rapidity, depth, extensiveness, and its growing character. “It was,” says good old Thomas Rutherford, “marrow and fatness to my soul.”[169] Wesley, in needful cases, was a brave defender of his preachers. The following, addressed to Mr. Alexander Clark, of Dublin, and written at this period, will be read with interest. “SHEFFIELD, _August 10, 1772_.