It is only fair to add, that, except at Belfast and the adjacent towns, Whitefield was treading in the steps of his old friend Wesley. At Dublin, Wesley had had a Society since 1747. He had preached at Athlone with great success as early as 1748. He had a Society in Limerick in 1749. Methodism in Cork has been already noticed. At Bandon, Wesley speaks of having had “by far the largest congregations he had seen in Ireland.” And, at Kinsale, he had preached in the Exchange, “to a few gentry, many poor people, and abundance of soldiers.”[300] The following hitherto unpublished letter,[301] by Whitefield’s wife, belongs to this period. It was addressed to the Countess of Huntingdon. “LONDON, _July 13, 1751_. “HONOURED MADAM,――I am almost ashamed to write to your ladyship now; but have not been able to write sooner. I have been so ill since I came home, that Dr. Lobb and Dr. Nisbett have attended me, more or less, ever since. I was in bed when I received your ladyship’s letter, and was not able to read it. I had a pleuritic fever, and was so low that the doctor durst not bleed me. I am glad to hear, by Mr. Smith, that your ladyship is so well. God be praised! O may the good Lord give your ladyship a prosperous soul in a healthy body, to His own glory, and the good of very many poor souls! “Your ladyship has heard of God’s goodness to my dear honoured master in Ireland. A gentleman writes me thus: ‘Dear Mr. Whitefield has left Dublin very sorrowful. His going away is lamented by many of all denominations,’ etc., etc. My master left Dublin on the 2nd inst.; but I have not heard from him since the 22nd of June. Here are letters from Georgia, bringing good and bad news; the good, they are all well; the bad, they run him behind very much. But all is well. The Lord has been and is exceedingly good to us at the poor Tabernacle, and lets it often be filled with His glory. O, dear madam, what am I, and what my father’s house, that I am so highly favoured to be called a child of God! Oh, to be a _child!_ Dear, dear madam, I am almost lost in thought. What! to have the great Jehovah, the God of heaven and earth, to be my Father; to make my bed in my sickness; to be afflicted in all my affliction; to support me in and under all my trials and temptations, and to make His abode with me! Thinking of this has sometimes been too much for my weak nature to bear. Oh for the time when we shall be dissolved, and be for ever with the Lord!