The Society's Benefactor

About noon I preached at the New Mills, nine miles from Banff, to a large congregation of plain, simple people. As we rode in the afternoon the heat overcame me, so that I was weary and faint before we came to Keith. But I no sooner stood up in the market place than I forgot my weariness, such were the seriousness and attention of the whole congregation, though as numerous as that at Banff. Mr. Gordon, the minister of the parish, invited me to supper and told me his kirk was at my service. A little society is formed here already and is in a fair way of increasing. But they were just now in danger of losing their preaching house, the owner being determined to sell it. I saw but one way to secure it for them, which was to buy it myself. So (who would have thought it?) I bought an estate, consisting of two houses, a yard, a garden, with three acres of good land. But he told me flat, "Sir, I will take no less for it than sixteen pounds ten shillings, to be paid, part now, part at Michaelmas, and the residue next May."

The Journal of John Wesley