It frequently happens that when a controversy has arisen between friends,
both parties look backward and read into former words and deeds
a meaning they did not have at the time they transpired,
and most probably this is what has happened in regard to the trip to Germany
and its effect on Wesley.
Immediately on his return to England, Wesley began
an active religious campaign, drawing such crowds of all kinds of people
that the various churches in turn closed their doors upon him,
and eight months later he followed Whitefield into open air preaching,
after consultation with the Fetter Lane Society. This Society
had been organized at the time of Boehler's visit to London,
and was composed of members of the earlier Methodist societies,
Germans residing in London, and English who had been interested in salvation
by Zinzendorf and the Moravian companies bound for Georgia.
It had met in the home of James Hutton until it outgrew the rooms,
and was then transferred to the Chapel at 32 Fetter Lane.
It was an independent Society, with no organic connection
with the Moravian Church, and the religious work was carried on
under the leadership of John Wesley, and, in his frequent absences,
by James Hutton and others who leaned strongly toward the Moravians,
some of whose customs had been adopted by the Society.
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