From Madeley, Wesley went to Shrewsbury, where, as early as 1744, there was a poor woman, who had been converted in London under the preaching of the Methodists, and who now obtained a living, by mending her neighbours’ stockings. While thus employed, at their respective houses, she would relate to them her religious experience, read to them a sermon, and then engage in prayer. By this means, she had already formed a society of sixteen or eighteen persons; and the Rev. Job Orton, the well known author, a native of Shrewsbury, and at this time its presbyterian minister, declared that this poor stocking-mending Methodist was not only of “an excellent and serious spirit,” but had had more success in converting sinners than he had had by all his preaching.[29] Leaving Shrewsbury, Wesley rode right through Wales to Pembroke, where he “read prayers, preached, and administered the sacrament to a serious congregation at St. Daniels;” and so tried to remove some misunderstandings among the Methodists, that he “left the people full of good desires, and in tolerable good humour with each other.” Here Methodism had been begun seven years before, when Thomas Taylor traversed mountains, forded rivers, and plunged through bogs, with an empty purse and an empty stomach, seeking to save sinners with a zeal and a spirit of self denial worthy of the noblest missionary that ever lived.[30] At Neath, where the minister of the parish was just dead, the churchwardens announced, that Wesley would preach in the parish church. He did so, but says: “I was greatly disgusted at the manner of singing. 1. Twelve or fourteen persons kept it to themselves, and quite shut out the congregation. 2. These repeated the same words, contrary to all sense and reason, six, or eight, or ten times over. 3. According to the shocking custom of modern music, different persons sung different words at one and the same moment; an intolerable insult on common sense, and utterly incompatible with any devotion.”