“Contrary to my intentions, I have been prevailed on to stay all this week in Gloucester; so that I do not expect to be at Bristol till the 12th instant. I am sorry to hear you are ill of an ague. Everything we meet with here, is only to fit us more and more for a blessed hereafter. Christ is the believer’s _hollow square_; and if we keep close in that, we are impregnable. Here only I find my refuge. Garrisoned in this, I can bid defiance to men and devils. O, my dear sir, what did I experience on the road this day! How did I rejoice at the prospect of a judgment to come, and in the settled conviction that I have no designs but to spend and be spent for the good of precious and immortal souls. The hand of the Lord Jesus, without adding our carnal policy to it, will support His own cause. When human cunning is made use of, what is it, but, like Uzzah, to give a wrong touch to the ark of God, and to provoke God to smite us? A bigoted, sectarian, party spirit cometh not from above, but is sensual, earthly, devilish. Many of God’s children are infected with it. They are sick of a bad distemper. May the Spirit of God convince and cure them!” On arriving at Bristol, Whitefield wrote to the Countess of Huntingdon, as follows:―― “BRISTOL, _February 12, 1750_. “HONOURED MADAM,――Since I wrote last, we have been favoured both in Gloucester city, and in the country, with very pleasant and delightful seasons. I have preached about twenty times within these eight or nine days; and, though frequently exposed to rain and hail, am much better than when I left London. Everything I meet with seems to carry this voice with it,――‘Go thou and preach the gospel. Be a pilgrim on earth. Have no party, or certain dwelling-place; but be continually preparing for, and labouring to prepare others for, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.’ My heart echoes back,――‘Lord Jesus, help me to do or suffer Thy will! And, when Thou seest me in danger of nestling, in pity, put a thorn in my nest, to preserve me from it!’” On his way to Plymouth, Whitefield held sweet intercourse with two eminently pious Dissenting ministers,――the well-known Rev. Richard Pearsall, of Taunton, and the Rev. Risdon Darracott, of Wellington. Writing to Lady Huntingdon, he said:―― “PLYMOUTH, _February 25, 1750_.