On June 13, Wesley wrote: “I accepted of an invitation from a gentleman at Lincoln, in which I had not set my foot for upwards of fifty years. At six in the evening, I preached in the castle yard to a large and attentive congregation. They were all as quiet as if I had been at Bristol. Will God have a people here also?” For seven years after this, there was not a Methodist in Lincoln. After an interval of many years, Wesley preached again at Boston, where, in 1757, Alexander Mather, the first Methodist preacher there, had his face plastered with mire taken from the kennels of the streets, and his head laid open with a stone. Wesley spent his birthday in Sheffield, and wrote: “June 28--I can hardly think I am entered this day into the seventy-eighth year of my age. By the blessing of God, I am just the same as when I entered the twenty-eighth. This hath God wrought, chiefly by my constant exercise, my rising early, and preaching morning and evening.” The next day, he preached his first and last sermon at Worksop. He says: “I was desired to preach at Worksop; but when I came, they had not fixed on any place. At length, they chose a lamentable one, full of dirt and dust, but without the least shelter from the scorching sun. This few could bear; so we had only a small company of as stupid people as I ever saw.” After this, Wesley made his way to London, where he spent a week; and, then, he and his brother set out for Bristol, for the purpose of holding his annual conference. He writes: “August 1--Our conference began. We have been always, hitherto, straitened for time. It was now resolved, ‘For the future, we will allow nine or ten days for each conference; that everything, relative to the carrying on of the work of God, may be maturely considered.’”