George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

70 GEORGE WHITEFIELD
wonder he felt a ' little oppressed with drowsiness !
' That
society at Fetter Lane was at present the heart of the
Methodist movement, its central fire. The engagements of
Christmas Eve, 1738, were only an example of the pro-
longed, fervent, and, one would have thought, exhausting, but
Whitefield says, refreshing and invigorating, devotions which
the brethren engaged in there.
Sympathy of thought and feeling drew the band of men
close together, and their souls glowed with a passion of
religious zeal which must, sooner or later, break forth upon
the land for good or evil, or both, while the opposition from
without only fanned the flame. It was a hopeful and a
dangerous time. First-fruits of the coming movement
abounded in the meeting—first ' watchnight meeting ' (?)—in
which the leaders and a company of sixty brethren celebrated
the departure of the old year and the coming of the new.
' About three in the morning,' Wesley says, ' as we were continuing
instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that
many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as
we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of
His majesty, we broke out with one voice, "We praise Thee, O God;
! we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord " '
Five nights afterwards, eight ' ministers of Jesus Christ,
despised Methodists, whom God in His providence brought
together,' met at Islington to confer upon several things of
importance, and continued in fasting and prayer until three
o'clock, when they parted with ' the conviction that God was
about to do great things.' The whole of the second night
after that Whitefield spent at Fetter Lane in the same devout
engagements, and the next day was got through with one
hour's sleep. ' There was a great deal of Divine influence
among us,' he says.
Amid these numerous engagements, the object of his return