And so John Wesley went riding the circuit from Land's End to John
O'Groat's, from Cork to Londonderry, eight thousand miles, and eight
hundred sermons every year. In London he spoke to the limit of his
voice--ten thousand people. Yet when chance sent him but fifty
auditors he spoke with just as much feeling. His sermons were full of
wit, often homely but never coarse. He knew how to interest tired men;
how to keep the children awake. He interspersed anecdote with
injunction, and precept with homely happenings. He yearned to better
this life, and to evolve souls that were worth saving.

Wesley grew with the years, and fully realized that preaching is for
the preacher. "Always in my saddlebags beside my Bible and hymnal I
carried one good book." He knew history, science as far as it had been
carried, and all philosophy was to him familiar. The itineracy he
believed was a necessity for the preacher as well as for the people. A
preacher should not remain so long in a place as to become cheap or
commonplace. New faces keep one alive and alert. And the circuit-rider
can give the same address over and over and perfect it by repetition
until it is most effective.

The circuit-rider, the local preacher or class-leader, the classes,
the "love-feast," or general meeting--these were quite enough in the
way of religious machinery.

Finally, however, Wesley became convinced that in large cities an
indoor meeting-place was necessary in order to keep the people banded
together. Often the weather was bad, and then it was too much to
expect women and children to stand in the rain and cold to hear the
circuit-rider.