The Ride from Pembroke to Swansea

An honest man at Kidwelly told us there was no difficulty in riding the sands; so we rode on. In ten minutes one overtook us who used to guide persons over them; and it was well he did, or, in all probability, we had been swallowed up. The whole sands are at least ten miles over, with many streams of quicksands intermixed. But our guide was thoroughly acquainted with them and with the road on the other side. By his help, between five and six, we came well tired to Oxwych in Cower.

I had sent two persons on Sunday that they might be there early on Monday, and so sent notice of my coming all over the country; but they came to Oxwych scarcely a quarter of an hour before me. So the poor people had no notice at all, nor was there any to take us in; the person with whom the preacher used to lodge was three miles out of town. After I had stayed a while in the street (for there was no public house), a poor woman gave me house room. Having had nothing since breakfast, I was very willing to eat or drink; but she simply told me that she had nothing in the house but a dram of gin. However, I afterward procured a dish of tea at another house and was much refreshed. About seven I preached to a little company, and again in the morning. They were all attention so that even for the sake of this handful of people I did not regret my labor.

Sunday, November 4.--I proposed to the leaders the assisting the Society for the Reformation of Manners with regard to their heavy debt. One of them asked, "Ought we not to pay our own debt first?" After some consultations, it was agreed to attempt it. The general debt of the society in London, occasioned chiefly by repairing the Foundry and chapels and by building at Wapping and Snowsfields, was about nine hundred pounds. This I laid before the society in the evening and desired them all to set their shoulders to the work, either by a present contribution or by subscribing what they could pay, on the first of January, February or March.

Monday, 5 (London).—My scraps of time this week I employed in setting down my present thoughts upon a single life, which indeed, are just the same they have been these thirty years; and the same they must be, unless I give up my Bible.