"The devil, I find, has a particular spite against weekly communion; yet I am in hopes we shall have the sacrament administered every Sunday at the cathedral. It would have been mentioned to the bishop before now, but Oxford friends advised to defer it till next summer. "But now I have mentioned the bishop: alas! how should I tremble to tell you how I have been continually disturbed with thoughts that I, a worm, taken from a common public-house, should, ere I die, be one myself! If you remember, sir, in my greatest affliction last Lent, it was told me I should be a bishop, and therefore must be poor in spirit. That thought came home upon me with so much force, and so many circumstances have since occurred to favour the temptation, that I knew not what to do. I communicated it to Mr. Broughton, and, thanks be to God, it is somewhat abated. O heavenly Father! for Thy dear Son's sake, keep me from climbing. Let me hate preferment! For Thy infinite mercies' sake, let me love a low, contemptible life; and never think to compound matters between the happiness of this world and the next! "My friends here are for drawing me into orders; but I trust God will still provide for me without it. I know I am not qualified, and, therefore, by the help of the Lord Jesus, I will not comply. "I hope all our friends continue steadfast and zealous at Oxford. I have been with Madam Grenville" (query, Mary Granville, afterwards the celebrated Mrs. Delany), "who seems to be a Christian indeed. My love, rev. sir, to the young merchant, whose example I hope we shall all be enabled to follow, if God requires our assistance in Georgia. Mr. Charles and Mr. Ingham, I hope, will accept the same from my unworthy hands. "Your very humble servant and son in Christ Jesus, "GEORGE WHITEFIELD."* * _Methodist Magazine_, 1798, p. 359. "Thus employed, I continued in my own city three months longer--despised indeed by man, but highly blessed by the grace of God. My understanding was enlightened, my will broken, and my affections more and more enlivened with a zeal for Christ. Many such, I believe, were added to our little Society as shall be saved. Fresh supplies came from unexpected hands to defray my expenses at the University; and, at the end of nine months, I returned thither, to the natural joy and comfort of my friends, till I was called into holy orders--the particular circumstances of which I shall relate in the following section.