There had been one anxious moment.

“I like to read,” she had said, the first time he had called on her, and his heart sank. It was not any book of philosophy she showed him, however, but the jolly Almanack of Ben Franklin, the Philadelphia printer. Even he could dip into that book of stories and jokes with pleasure.

For months he’d just thought of her as a friend. He’d call at her house, in an easy, familiar manner. If they met at someone else’s house, he’d chat with her, and scarcely realize that he’d spent more time in her company than with anyone else. Their conversations were never romantic. They talked of everyday things, and business matters. Like most Quaker girls she was brought up, in a quiet way, to be the equal of any man; and she certainly had a good head for business. When she asked him about shipping, she showed a quick and intelligent grasp of anything he told her. She did not flirt with him; and he did not flirt with her. She did not challenge him; she seemed content to accept him exactly as he was. He felt easy, and happy in her presence.

Once or twice, he had found himself giving her an affectionate smile, or touching her shoulder lightly, in a way that might have invited a response. But she had always chosen to treat these as signs of friendship, and nothing more. Indeed, he’d even wondered recently if she might deliberately be keeping him at a distance.

It was when they went to the preaching that everything changed.

Many times in Christianity’s history there have been charismatic preachers: men who gather others to them and inspire more, so that a movement begins—each movement, like a river in flood, leaving a rich deposit of fertile soil for future generations.

John Master had heard of the Wesley brothers some years ago. Inspired by an intense faith and a desire to preach, they and some Oxford friends had begun an evangelical movement within the Anglican Church. In 1736, John Wesley had arrived in the American colonies, at Savannah, Georgia, hoping to convert the native American Indians there. And although he’d returned somewhat disappointed after a couple of years, he had immediately been replaced in Georgia by his Oxford friend George Whitefield. Meanwhile, the Wesleys’ evangelical mission in England was quietly growing. Texts of their sermons had crossed the Atlantic to Philadelphia, Boston and New York. Some churchmen thought the movement unseemly, and contemptuously referred to these earnest young men as “Methodists.” But many more were inspired by their fervent preaching.

In the summer of 1739, after a visit to consult with the Wesleys in England, George Whitefield had returned to spread the word more widely in the colonies. His first stop had been in Philadelphia.

“He is quite remarkable, you know,” Mercy told John Master.

“You went to hear him preach?”