Wesley acted upon his own advice. Whatever might be said of others, he was not the man to be made nervous for want of exercise. Many Methodist preachers claim and enjoy a holiday after conference. With Wesley it was otherwise. The conference of 1778 closed on Saturday, August 8; the next day, Wesley preached to a congregation of some thousands in the market place at Dewsbury. He then hurried off to London; and thence to Cornwall, where he preached, in Gwennap amphitheatre, it was believed, to four-and-twenty thousand people. During this lengthened journey, he made the following curious entry in his journal. “September 1--I went to Tiverton. I was musing here on what I heard a good man say long since: ‘Once in seven years I burn all my sermons; for it is a shame if I cannot write better sermons now than I could seven years ago.’ Whatever others can do, I really cannot. I cannot write a better sermon on the Good Steward, than I did seven years ago; I cannot write a better on the Great Assize, than I did twenty years ago; I cannot write a better on the Use of Money, than I did near thirty years ago; nay, I know not that I can write a better on the Circumcision of the Heart, than I did five-and-forty years ago. Perhaps, indeed, I may have read five or six hundred books more than I had then, and may know a little more history, or natural philosophy, than I did; but I am not sensible that this has made any essential addition to my knowledge in divinity. Forty years ago, I knew and preached every Christian doctrine which I preach now.” Let the reader ponder this entry for a threefold purpose. (1) To form an estimate of the extent of Wesley’s reading. (2) To ascertain which sermons Wesley thought his best. (3) To find an answer to the charge that Wesley changed his doctrines. Wesley, on his return from Cornwall, arrived on September 4 in Bristol, in the neighbourhood of which he spent the ensuing month. The remainder of the year was occupied in London, and in his usual tours through the counties of Buckingham, Oxford, Bedford, Northampton, Hertford, and Kent; and it may be mentioned, as an evidence that the Church of England began at last to appreciate its ejected minister, that, during this interval, he preached, by request, to crowded congregations, in not fewer than four of the London churches. It was at this time, also, that he opened, as already noticed, the new chapel in City Road. On the day of opening, he wrote as follows to Mrs. Penelope Cousins. “LONDON, _November 1, 1778_.