If you will speak only to those who are ‘willing to hear’

Wed 23 Jun 1736: I had a long conversation with Mr. - upon the nature of true religion. I then asked him why he did not endeavour to recommend it to all with whom he conversed. He said, ‘I did so once; and for some time I thought I had done much good by it. But I afterwards found they were never the better, and I myself was the worse. Therefore now, though I always strive to be inoffensive in my conversation, I don’t strive to make people religious, unless those that have a desire to be so, and are consequently willing to hear me. But I have not yet (I speak not of you or your brother) found one such person in America.’
‘He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!’ Mark the tendency of this accursed principle! If you will speak only to those who are ‘willing to hear’, see how many you will turn from the error of their ways! If therefore, striving to do good, you have done hurt, what then? So did St. Paul. So did the Lord of life. Even his word was ‘the savour of death’, as well as ‘the savour of life’. But shall you therefore strive no more? God forbid! Strive more humbly, more calmly, more cautiously. Do not strive as you did before—but strive, while the breath of God is in your nostrils!
Being to leave Frederica in the evening, I took the more notice of these words in the Lesson for the day: ‘Whereunto shall I liken the men of this generation . . . ? They are like unto children sitting in the market-place, . . . and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.’
About eleven at night we took boat. And on Saturday 26, about one in the afternoon, came to Savannah. O what do we want here, either for life or godliness! If suffering, God will send it in his time.