Ten days were spent in London, and, it being Easter time, Wesley writes: “During the octave, I administered the Lord’s supper every morning, after the example of the primitive church.” On Sunday, April 6, he set out on his northern journey, making collections, as he went, for his London chapel. When he had got only as far as Lancashire, he was obliged to return to London to lay the foundation stone on April 21. A week later, he took coach for Newcastle upon Tyne. Here he spent four days, and then again turned his face southward; and, preaching all the way, reached the metropolis on the 17th of May. Having met the building committee, which was his chief business in London, and having, with his brother, visited Dr. Dodd, he, a third time, started north on Sunday, May 25. He now hurried on to Whitehaven, and paid his first visit to the Isle of Man, where he spent the first three days in the month of June, and says: “A more loving, simple hearted people than this I never saw; and no wonder; for they have but six papists, and no Dissenters, in the island.” Here he met with the Rev. E. and Mrs. Smyth, the former a clergyman from Ireland, and the latter a young wife of twenty-two. Mr. Smyth had been ejected from his curacy for preaching the doctrines of the Methodists, and especially for daring to reprove “the great man of the parish” for living the life of an adulterer. Expelled from the Established Church, he began to preach wherever he had a chance, and became more extensively useful than ever. Though the nephew of an archbishop, his home was a thatched cabin, and his trials not a few. Hearing that Wesley was about to visit the Isle of Man, Mr. Smyth and his wife came to meet him. Wesley received them with his customary kindness, and, during their stay, met with a misadventure, which is worth relating. He writes: “I set out for Douglas in the one-horse chaise, Mrs. Smyth riding with me. In about an hour, in spite of all I could do, the headstrong horse ran the wheel against a large stone: the chaise overset in a moment; but we fell so gently on the smooth grass, that neither of us was hurt at all.” Such is Wesley’s account; Mrs. Smyth’s reflects on Wesley’s charioteering capabilities. “He told me,” she writes, “when we got into the carriage, that he could drive a chaise forty years ago; but, poor dear man! his hand seemed out of practice, as I thought we should be overturned several times. At last, one of the wheels being mounted on one side of a ditch, we were both pitched out on a green plain, as the Lord in mercy ordered it; for had we been overset in some parts of the road, it is more than probable we should have been killed on the spot. I found no bad effects from the fall at the time; but the next morning I was scarce able to stir, and felt so sore and bruised that I thought it likely I should lay my bones in the churchyard at Douglas.”[284]