"The Scriptures are now my sole study; but I am in great want of your advice, sir, how to prosecute them, intending to read them as practicably as possible. What do you think of Patrick on the Proverbs? I trust God has opened a door for me, to be an instrument of propagating the Gospel at Swansea, in Wales. The particulars you shall hear hereafter. I want sadly some more religious books, and a set of your 'Prayers.' Be so good, sir, as to let me have them, with a letter, next coach. "I have not time to write to my dear brethren as I would; but if Mr. Broughton, Mr. Salmon, etc., would send me a line, they cannot imagine what service they might do. If one of them would enlarge a little on the vanity of worldly pleasures, who knows how God may work by them? I have a great deal more to say, but must refer it to another opportunity. Give me leave, sir, only to send my due respects to all my brethren, and, with my earnest petition for their importunate prayers, to subscribe myself, "Rev. Sir, your very humble servant, "GEORGE WHITEFIELD."[35] [35] _Methodist Magazine_, 1798, p. 440. _WHITEFIELD ORDAINED._ MAY 1735 TO JUNE 1736. Whitefield left Pembroke College, Oxford, at the end of May, 1735, and returned to it in the month of March, 1736. The history of this long interval shall be given in his own words, from the Autobiography first published in 1740, and revised and re-issued in 1756. He writes: "As fast as I got strength after my sickness, my tutor, physician, and some others were still urging me to go into the country, hoping thereby to divert me, as they thought, from a too intense application to religion.[36] [I had for some time been aware of their design, and wrote letters beseeching my mother, if she valued my soul, not to lay her commands on me to come down. She was pleased to leave me to my choice; but,] finding at last it was necessary for my health, and many other providential circumstances pointing out my way, after earnest prayer for support, by the advice of my friends, I left my sweet retirement at Oxford, and went to Gloucester, the place of my nativity. [36] As heretofore, the passages which Whitefield omitted in the edition of 1756 are enclosed in brackets.