Three months were spent in itinerating the sister kingdom. Scores of towns and villages, between Dublin and Galway, Belfast and Cork, were favoured with his ministry; and diversified were the incidents with which he met. At Eyrecourt, the crowd gave him a loud huzza as he passed into the market place to preach. At Clare, for want of other accommodation, he was glad to accept a bed in the soldiers’ barracks. At Castlebar, on finding the “Charter school a picture of slothfulness, nastiness, and desolation; and all the children, not only dirty, but with their stockings hanging about their heels, and in a most disreputable plight, he reported the facts to the trustees at Dublin, with the hope of effecting a reformation.” At Limerick, William Myles, a youth in the seventeenth year of his age, was one of Wesley’s hearers, began to meet in class, and, five years afterwards, became an itinerant preacher.[194] At Armagh, he wrote his invaluable sermon “On Predestination,” preached it at Londonderry, and, at the request of several of the clergy, published it.[195] At Armagh, also, he heard what he had not heard for fifty years,--an anthem in a church. At Lisburn, all his spare time was taken up by poor patients, who came to him for physic. He writes: “What has fashion to do with physic? Why, in Ireland almost as much as with headdress. Blisters, for anything or nothing, were all the fashion when I was in Ireland last. Now the grand fashionable medicine, for twenty diseases, is mercury sublimate! Why is it not a halter, or a pistol? They would cure a little more speedily.” On the 5th of July, Wesley started for England, having to hold his annual conference in London. He says: “About eleven we crossed Dublin bar, and were at Hoylake the next afternoon. This was the first night I ever lay awake in my life, though I was at ease in body and mind. I believe few can say this: in seventy years I never lost one night’s sleep.” Wesley reached the metropolis on the 17th of July; and, on the 21st, made the following entry in his journal: “We had our quarterly meeting at London; at which I was surprised to find, that our income does not yet meet our expense. We were again near £200 bad. My private account I find still worse. I have laboured as much as many writers; and all my labour has gained me, in seventy years, a debt of five or six hundred pounds.” There is some obscurity in this, as will appear from the following correspondence. “To Messrs. THOMAS BALL and ALEXANDER MATHER. “LEWISHAM, _February 27, 1772_.[196] “THE thing which I desire you to do is this, to see that an exact account be kept of all the books in Great Britain and Ireland, printed and sold on my account. You comprehend how many particulars are contained under this general. To do this accurately will require much thought. But you will bear that burden for God’s sake, and for the sake of your affectionate brother,