" In the meantime, you stand sometimes in need of an as-
sistant to serve tables and occasionally to fill up a gap. Provi-
dence visibly appointed me to that office many years ago ; and
though it no less evidently called me here, yet I have not
been without doubt, especially for some years past, whether it
would not be expedient that I should resume my place as your
deacon ; not with any view of presiding over the Methodists
after you (God knows!), but to save you a little in your old
age, and be in the way of receiving, and perhaps of doing,
more good. I have sometimes considered how shameful it was
that no clergyman should join you to keep in the Church the
work which the Lord had enabled you to carry on therein ;
and, as the little estate I have in my native country is suffi-
cient for my maintenance, I have thought I would one day or
other ofier you and the Methodists my free services.
" While my love of retirement, and my dread of appearing
upon a higher stage than that I stand upon here, made me
linger, I was providentially called to do something in Lady
Huntingdon's plan ; but being shut out there, it appears to
me I am again called to my first work.
" Nevertheless, I would not leave this place without a, fuller
persuasion that the time is quite come. Not that God uses me



36 Governing ConpereSncb in Mbthodism.
