"They have convarted my wife."

Wed 9 June 1742: I rode over to a neighbouring town to wait upon a justice of peace, a man of candour and understanding; before whom (I was informed) their angry neighbours had carried a whole waggon-load of these new heretics. But when he asked what they had done, there was a deep silence; for that was a point their conductors had forgot. At length one said, ‘Why, they pretended to be better than other people. And besides, they prayed from morning to night.’ Mr. Stovin asked, ‘But have they done nothing besides?’ ‘Yes, sir’, said an old man, ‘an’t please your worship, they have convarted my wife. Till she went among them she had such a tongue! And now she is as quiet as a lamb.’ ‘Carry them back, carry them back’, replied the justice, ‘and let them convert all the scolds in the town.’
I went from hence to Belton to Henry Foster’s, a young man who did once run well, but now said he saw the devil in every corner of the church, and in the face of everyone who had been there. But he was easily brought to a better mind. I preached under a shady oak, on, ‘The Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins.’ At Epworth, in the evening, I explained the story of the Pharisee and the publican. And I believe many began in that hour to cry out, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner.’