A week after Watts’s death, Whitefield set out for Gloucester and Bristol. In the latter city, his preaching was the means of converting a Welsh shoemaker, who subsequently became one of Wesley’s best itinerant preachers, and who, in his wide wanderings, composed a few of the finest hymns ever sung in the Christian Church,――hymns not surpassed by the best of Dr. Watts’s, and which, after a century’s use, are as much in favour among the Methodists as ever. Thomas Olivers was now twenty-three years of age. His life had been rambling and wicked. Getting into debt had been a regular practice, and profane swearing had become his habitual sin. The first night that he spent in Bristol he was literally penniless. Having obtained work, he went to lodge in the house of a man who had been a Methodist, but was now “a slave to drunkenness.” In the same house, there was “a lukewarm Moravian.” Olivers and the Moravian disputed “about election,” till they quarrelled. The Moravian, a tall, lusty fellow, struck the Welshman. Olivers says, “I knew I should have no chance in fighting him, and therefore, for a whole hour, I cursed and swore, with all the rage of a fiend, in such a manner as is seldom equalled on earth, or exceeded even in hell itself.” Soon after this, Olivers met a multitude of people in the streets of Bristol, and asked where they had been. One answered, “To hear Mr. Whitefield.” Olivers thought, “I have often heard of Mr. Whitefield, and have sung songs about him: I’ll go and hear him myself.” Accordingly, he went. Whitefield’s text was, “Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” Olivers was there and then convinced of sin, and resolved to give his heart to God. The next Sunday, he went to the cathedral at six in the morning; and, as the Te Deum was read, “felt as if he had done with earth, and was praising God before His throne.” At eight, he went to hear Whitefield preach; at ten, he went to Christchurch; at two in the afternoon, he again attended church; at five, he heard Whitefield, and concluded the day at a Baptist meeting. He writes: “The love I had for Mr. Whitefield was inexpressible. I used to follow him as he walked the streets, and could scarce refrain from kissing the very prints of his feet.” Five years after this, Thomas Olivers had paid all his debts, and was one of Wesley’s itinerant preachers. His subsequent history was too remarkable to be condensed in a work like this.