ing
of December, 1827, to the committee in London.

At Christmas I spent a few days at Belleben, a village about fifteen
miles from Halle, where I had been once or twice before, both for the sake
of refreshing the few brethren living there, and also of having my own
spirit refreshed by their love. One evening, when I was expounding the
Scriptures to them, an unconverted young man happened to be present, and
it pleased the Lord to touch his heart, so that he was brought to the
knowledge of the truth.

In the beginning of the year 1828 there was a new workhouse established
at Halle, into which persons of bad character were put for a time, and
made to work. Being disposed to benefit unbelievers, I heartily desired to
have permission statedly to preach the word of truth to them while I
stayed at Halle, particularly as I understood that one of the lecturers of
divinity in the university, who was a Socinian, had applied for this
living. I wrote to the magistrates of the city, and offered to preach to
those criminals gratuitously, hoping that in this way there would be less
objection to my doing so. The reply was, that Dr.--had applied for this
living, and that it had been laid before the provincial government for
consideration, but that they would be glad if I would preach in the
workhouse till the matter was decided. The decision did not come for some
time, and I had thus an opportunity of preaching twice every Lord's day,
and once or twice on the week evenings; and besides this I took the
criminals one by one into a room, to converse with them about their souls.
Thus the Lord condescended to give to one so unworthy, so ignorant, so
weak in grace, and so young in the faith and in years, a most important
field of labour. However, it was well, that even under these circumstances
I should have laboured there; for humanly speaking, had I not been there,
they would have had either no instruction at all, or a Socinian, or an
unenlightened preacher would have preached to them. And besides this, I
had at least some qualification for ministering there; for I knew the
state of those poor sinners, having been myself formerly, in all
probability, a great deal worse than most of them, and my simplicity and
plainness of speech they would not have found in every minister. After
some months the matter was decided, the Socinian lecturer of divinity, Dr.
--, was appointed to the living, and I had to discontinue my labours.

It was not befor