Monday, February 28, 2011

Will the world end tonight

Mon 28 Feb 1763: Preaching in the evening at Spitalfields, on ‘Prepare to meet thy God,’ I largely showed the utter absurdity of the supposition that the world was to end that night. But notwithstanding all I could say, many were afraid to go to bed, and some wandered about in the fields, being persuaded that if the world did not end, at least London would be swallowed up by an earthquake. I went to bed at my usual time, and was fast asleep about ten o’clock.’