Even while travelling, Whitefield could not refrain from preaching. At Windsor, he "expounded in the school-house to a great number of people with freedom and power." At Basingstoke, he preached for an hour in a large room thronged with people, while a mob outside shouted and threw stones at the windows. The next day, three large rooms were filled. Some began to interrupt: but "God," says he, "enabled me to speak with such power that they were quite struck dumb and confounded. Near twenty came to converse with me, and to hear the word of God. How thankful ought I to be to my dear Master for sending me hither! A vestry, I find, was called to stop my proceedings, and I hear I am to be presented to the Diocesan." At Basingstoke, also, he wrote a letter to a friend, which contains a paragraph too valuable to be omitted. "BASINGSTOKE, _February 8, 1739_. "Just now God has brought us to Basingstoke, where I hope an effectual door will be opened before we leave. Oh, my dear friend, more and more do I see the benefit of confessing our blessed Lord before men. He has begun, He will carry on, He will finish the good work in our souls. We have nothing to do, but to lay hold on Him by faith, and to depend on Him for wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Not but we must be workers together with Him; for a true faith in Jesus Christ will not suffer us to be idle. No: it is an active, lively, restless principle; it fills the heart, so that it cannot be easy till it is doing something for Jesus Christ." At Dummer, the little parish where he once was curate, Whitefield met his old Oxford friends, Messrs. Kinchin and Hutchins, with whom he took sweet counsel, sung psalms, and prayed. At Salisbury, he writes, "I paid a visit to an old disciple, my brother Wesley's mother," at that time visiting her son-in-law, Westley Hall.[178] Here also he sought an interview with the well-known sceptic, Thomas Chubb, resident in an adjoining village, respecting his "True Gospel of Jesus Christ asserted;" but the "free-thinker," (who, by the way, regularly attended the services of his parish church,) happened not to be at home.