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George Whitefield: A Biography, with special reference to his labors in America

by Joseph Belcher · English · Gutenberg #44140 · 833,683 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: George Whitefield: A Biography, with special reference to his labors in America

Author: Joseph Belcher


        
Release date: November 9, 2013 [eBook #44140]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GEORGE WHITEFIELD: A BIOGRAPHY, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO HIS LABORS IN AMERICA ***

Transcriber's note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: titlepage]

[Illustration: George Whitefield. (handwritten signature)]




  GEORGE WHITEFIELD:

  A BIOGRAPHY,

  WITH

  SPECIAL REFERENCE TO HIS LABORS
  IN AMERICA.

  COMPILED
  BY JOSEPH BELCHER, D. D.,

  AUTHOR OF THE LIFE OF REV. DR. CAREY, MISSIONARY TO INDIA,
  ETC., ETC.

  PUBLISHED BY THE
  AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY,
  150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK.




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I.

  MORAL STATE OF GREAT BRITAIN IN THE EARLY
  PART OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY--WHITEFIELD,
  FROM HIS BIRTH TO HIS FIRST SERMON.

  1714-1736.

  Low state of religion in Great Britain and its dependencies
  when Whitefield appeared--His birth in Gloucester--Hooper--
  Raikes--Whitefield's early life--His entrance at the
  university of Oxford--Becomes connected with the Wesleys
  and other Methodists--Illness and mental trials--Relief--
  Preparation for the ministry--Return to Gloucester--
  Ordination--First sermon                                       13


  CHAPTER II.

  WHITEFIELD'S SUCCESS AS A PREACHER IN ENGLAND--FIRST
  VISIT TO AMERICA.

  1736-1738.

  Whitefield's return to Oxford--Usefulness there--Visits
  London--Great popularity--Georgia--His anxiety as to duty--
  Invited to Georgia by the Wesleys--Preparation and
  departure--Preaching and excitement at Deal--Labors and
  success on board--Arrival and labors at Gibraltar--
  Interesting incidents on the voyage--Sickness and recovery--
  His reception at Savannah--Visit to an Indian king--Origin
  of the Orphan asylum--Visit to Frederica--Return to
  Savannah--Visit to Charleston--Treatment by Garden--
  Embarkation for Europe--Stormy voyage--Arrival in Limerick--
  Journey to London--Meeting with the trustees of Georgia--
  Ordination as priest--Return to London--First extempore
  prayer--First idea of open-air preaching                       40


  CHAPTER III.

  OPEN-AIR PREACHING IN ENGLAND AND WALES--ERECTION
  OF THE TABERNACLE IN LONDON.

  1738, 1739.

  Whitefield's visit to Bristol--New opposition--Interviews
  with the chancellor of the diocese--Preaching at Kingswood--
  Large congregations--Preaching at Bristol--Labors in Wales
  with Howel Harris--Gloucester--Old Mr. Cole--Return to
  London--Conflict with Bishop Warburton and others--
  Moorfields--Kennington Common--Blackheath--Anecdotes--
  Erection of the Tabernacle--New Tabernacle--Certificate--
  Visit to Norwich--Conversion of Robert Robinson--Preaching
  at the West End of London--Liberality of Whitefield's
  congregations--Attendance of the nobility on Whitefield's
  ministry--Architecture of Tabernacle and Tottenham Court
  road chapel                                                    71


  CHAPTER IV.

  WHITEFIELD'S SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA.

  1739, 1740.

  Joseph Periam's release by Whitefield from Bedlam--
  Whitefield's arrival at Philadelphia--Preaches to vast
  crowds in the open air--Testimony of Dr. Franklin and
  others--Account of the Log College--William Tennent, Sen.--
  Whitefield's own account of his preaching at Philadelphia--
  Subsequent discovery of the conversion of Dr. Rodgers--
  Whitefield's first visit to New York--Description of him by
  one of his hearers--Sermons in New Jersey--Old Tennent
  church--Places of preaching at New York--Address to sailors--
  Letter to Pemberton--Interview with Gilbert Tennent--Some of
  Whitefield's sermons printed--Departure from Philadelphia--
  Sermons on his journey to Savannah--Arrival and reception at
  Charleston--Departure for Savannah--Dangers of the way--State
  of things in Georgia--Whitefield revisits Charleston--
  Controversy with Commissary Garden--Lays the foundation-stone
  of the Orphan house--Sermon by Smith on the character of
  Whitefield                                                     97


  CHAPTER V.

  CONTINUATION OF HIS SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA.

  1740.

  Feebleness of Whitefield's health--Again visits Charleston,
  Philadelphia, etc.--Extent of his former success--Extracts
  from Seward's journal--Extracts from newspapers--Whitefield's
  letter to England--His correspondence on marriage--Birth and
  death of his son--His funeral sermon for his wife--Franklin
  and others on Whitefield's eloquence--Anecdote--Extract from
  the New England Weekly Journal--Return to Savannah--Manner of
  his reception--Activity at Savannah--Again visits Charleston--
  Cited into the Commissary's court--Various examinations--
  Whitefield's appeal to the Court of Chancery--Interview with
  the Commissary--Usefulness at Charleston--Sails for New
  England                                                       129


  CHAPTER VI.

  WHITEFIELD'S FIRST VISIT TO NEW ENGLAND.

  SEPTEMBER TO NOVEMBER, 1740.

  State of religion in New England--Testimony of Prince--Dr.
  I. Mather--Dr. Jonathan Edwards' success--Prevalence of
  prayer--Whitefield's arrival and labors at Newport--Interview
  with Clap--Honeyman--Letter from Barber--Journey to Boston--
  Interview with the Commissary and the clergy--Preaches at
  Brattle-street, Old South church, New North, Common, Roxbury,
  Old North, Cambridge, First church--Interview with Governor
  Belcher--Roxbury--Hollis-street--Old South church--
  Brattle-street--Marblehead--Salem--Ipswich--Newbury--Hampton--
  Portsmouth--York--Return to Boston--Frequent preaching--
  Invitation to children--Interesting conversation with a
  child--Anecdote of juvenile usefulness--Remarks on an
  unconverted ministry--Whitefield's character of Boston--
  Preaches at Concord, Sudbury, Marlborough, Worcester,
  Leicester, Brookfield, Cold Spring, Hadley, Northampton--
  Revival there--Whitefield's opinion of Mr. Edwards and
  family--Important interview--Preaching at East Windsor,
  Westfield, Springfield, Suffield--Opinion of Mr. and Mrs.
  Edwards, Sen.--Relinquishment of appointments to preach--
  Visit to New Haven--Interview with Principal Clap--Departure
  from New England--Whitefield's character of it--Conversion
  of Mr. Emerson--Prince's account of Whitefield's visit--Dr.
  Baron Stow on its results--Anecdote,                          148


  CHAPTER VII.

  LABORS IN NEW YORK AND THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN
  STATES.

  1740, 1741.

  Whitefield's arrival and labors at New York, Staten Island,
  and Newark--Mr. Burr--Meeting with Gilbert Tennent--Visit to
  Baskinridge--Tennent's preaching in Cross' barn--Whitefield
  preaches in the new house at Philadelphia--Franklin's advice
  to Gilbert Tennent--Remarkable instances of conversion--
  Success in Philadelphia--Apostrophe in a sermon--Visit to
  Gloucester, Greenwich, Cohansey, Salem, Newcastle, Fagg's
  Manor, Bohemia--Sails from Reedy island to Charleston--
  Arrival at Bethesda--Remarkable escape from death--
  Prosecution at Charleston--Preaching--Letters from Boston--
  Departure for England--Separation from Messrs. Wesley--
  Difficulties in London--Triumph--Howel Harris                 196


  CHAPTER VIII.

  FIRST AND SECOND VISITS TO SCOTLAND--LABORS
  IN ENGLAND AND WALES.

  1741-1744.

  Scheme of comprehension--Account of Rev. John Cennick--
  Voyage to Scotland--Letter to Rodgers--Visit to Erskine--
  Preaching in Edinburgh--Labors at Glasgow--His sermons
  printed--Return to England--Letter from McCulloch--Renewed
  glance at Edinburgh--Public attention deeply riveted--
  Execution of a convict--Improvement of the event in a
  sermon--Conversion of a mimic--A drunken sergeant--Miss
  Hunter--Marquis of Lothian--Conduct of Rev. Mr. Ogilvie--
  Second visit to Scotland--Cambuslang--Kilmarnock--Glance
  at subsequent visits--Orphan-house park, Edinburgh--
  Glasgow--Increasing reputation--Extracts from letters--
  Anecdotes--Visit to Wales--Letters from America--Visit to
  Gloucester, Strand, Tewkesbury--Encouraging news from
  America--Success in London--Awakening at the Tabernacle--
  Visit to Gloucester and its neighborhood--South Wales--
  Return to London--Bristol--Exeter--Mr. Saunders--Conversion
  of Thomas Olivers--Birmingham--Kidderminster--Health--
  Assizes at Gloucester--Plymouth--Deliverance from
  assassination--Conversion of Mr. Tanner--Visits to the
  poor--Anecdote--Embarkation for America                       222


  CHAPTER IX.

  WHITEFIELD'S SECOND VISIT TO NEW ENGLAND.

  1744, 1745.

  Incidents of the voyage from England--Prayer heard--General
  alarm--Whitefield's illness--Arrival at York--Threatening
  sickness--Rev. Mr. Moody--Preaching at York and Portsmouth--
  Apparent danger of death--Departure for Boston--Constant
  preaching there--Chelsea--Malden--Prince's account of his
  preaching and conduct--Objections made to his administration
  of the Lord's supper--Changes in New England--Opposition to
  Whitefield in Connecticut, New Haven, Massachusetts, Harvard
  College--Large meeting in his favor at Boston--Number of
  signatures to the testimony--Progress of revival--
  Proceedings of Harvard College--Whitefield's defence--
  Subsequent act of the College--Expositions at Boston,
  Ipswich, Portland, Exeter--Expedition against Cape Breton--
  Sherburne's request--Sermon to the soldiers--Refusal of
  chaplaincy--Conversion of a colored trumpeter--Of a noted
  scoffer--Anecdote of Whitefield and Dr. Hopkins               254


  CHAPTER X.

  LABORS IN THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES--THE
  BERMUDAS.

  1745-1748.

  Whitefield's preaching in New York, New Jersey,
  Philadelphia--Liberal offer declined--Usefulness of his
  printed sermons in Virginia--Preaches at Hanover--Isaac
  Oliver--Visit to Bethesda--His account of the Orphan-house--
  His character as given by the New York Post-boy--Public
  testimony as to Whitefield's integrity--Preaching tour in
  Maryland--Visit to Charleston--Success of his preaching in
  Maryland--Visits New York, Newport, Portsmouth, Boston--
  Return to Philadelphia--Bohemia--Journey to North Carolina--
  Embarkation for the Bermudas--His progress and labors--
  Honored by the governor and others--Usefulness among the
  negroes--Summary of his proceedings in the Bermudas--
  Kindness of the people there--Voyage to England--His labors
  on the voyage--Arrival at Deal                                277


  CHAPTER XI.

  LABORS IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND--CHAPLAIN
  TO LADY HUNTINGDON.

  1748, 1749.

  Triumphs and trials in London--Becomes chaplain to the
  Countess of Huntingdon--Complimented by the great--
  Bolingbroke and Rev. Mr. Church--Rev. James Hervey--Honors
  conferred on Whitefield--Falsehoods of Horace Walpole--
  Charged with vulgarism--Defence--Third visit to Scotland--
  Return to London--Visit to the west of England--Conversions
  in Gloucestershire--Tour in Cornwall--Brilliant assemblies
  in London--Excursion to Exeter and Plymouth--Rev. Andrew
  Kinsman--Return to London--Decline of health and visit to
  Portsmouth and Wales--Arrival of Mrs. Whitefield from the
  Bermudas--Visit to the north of England--Popularity there--
  Intensely interesting services--Rev. W. Grimshawe--Solemn
  instances of mortality--Return to London for the winter--
  Usefulness                                                    301


  CHAPTER XII.

  LABORS IN GREAT BRITAIN--FOURTH VISIT TO AMERICA--NEW
  TABERNACLE IN LONDON, AND TABERNACLE
  AT BRISTOL.

  1750-1754.

  Efforts made by Whitefield for Bethesda--His ardent love for
  America--Love to his mother--His mourning for sin--Dr.
  Doddridge--London ministers--Interview with Doddridge and
  Hervey--Earthquake in London--Bishop Horne's sermon--
  Universal consternation--Preaching of Whitefield at midnight
  in Hyde park--Whitefield and his friends at Court--Journey to
  Bristol--Taunton--Rev. R. Darracott--Preaching at Rotherham,
  Bolton, Ulverston--Conversion of Mr. Thorpe--Edinburgh and
  other places in Scotland--Testimony of Hume--Second visit to
  Ireland--Opposition on Oxmantown Green--Usefulness in
  Ireland--Rev. John Edwards--Fourth voyage to America--
  Interview with Lady Huntingdon--Moravians--Lady Huntingdon's
  testimony--Letter to Dr. Franklin--Itinerant labors--
  Revision of manuscripts--Erection of the new Tabernacle--
  Again itinerates--Dedication of the Tabernacle at Bristol--
  Somersetshire--Condolence on Mr. Wesley's sickness--Visit of
  Messrs. Davies and Tennent to England--Whitefield's fifth
  voyage to America                                             323


  CHAPTER XIII.

  FIFTH VISIT TO AMERICA--RENEWED LABORS IN
  GREAT BRITAIN--TOTTENHAM COURT-ROAD CHAPEL.

  1754-1763.

  Whitefield's arrival and proceedings in Lisbon--Lands at
  Beaufort, S. C.--Voyage to New York--New Jersey--Interview
  with William Tennent--Accompanies President Burr to New
  England--Popularity at Boston--Correspondence with
  Habersham--Portsmouth--Rhode Island--Franklin's narrative of
  a drummer and Whitefield--Powerful address in Virginia--
  Pleasant interview at Charleston--Embarks for England--
  Arrival at New Haven--His feelings on arriving in England--
  Labors at the Tabernacle--Love for America--Journey to
  Bristol, Gloucestershire, Norwich--Returns to London--
  Reproof from Grimshawe--Serious illness--Earthquake at
  Lisbon--Tottenham Court-road Chapel--Conversion of Mr.
  Crane--Publication of "A short Address"--Personal character
  of Whitefield's preaching--His servant--Shuter--Violent
  persecution--Interference of government--Journey to
  Bristol--Lines on a chair--Journey to Kent, north of England,
  Scotland--Meeting at Leeds--Interview with the new governor
  of Georgia--Prosperity of Tottenham Court--Journey to
  Scotland--Ireland--Returns to London--Ill health--Anecdote--
  Another visit to Scotland--Death of friends--Debts of
  Bethesda paid--Renewed visit to Scotland--Visit to
  Brighton--Foote's mimicry--Activity--Sails on his sixth
  voyage to America                                             350

  CHAPTER XIV.

  SIXTH VISIT AND LABORS IN AMERICA--RENEWED
  LABORS IN GREAT BRITAIN.

  1763-1767.

  Improvement of Whitefield's health--Friends in Virginia--
  Proceedings in Philadelphia--New Jersey--A collegiate
  hearer--New York--Letter from Boston Gazette--Opposition of
  Seabury--Arrival and preaching at Boston--Public thanks to
  him--Leaves Boston--New Haven--New York--New Jersey
  College--Philadelphia--Virginia--South Carolina--Bethesda--
  Proceedings of the government--Prosperity of the Orphan-
  house--Thoughts of returning to England--Still detained in
  America--Sails for England--Arrival there--Dedicates a
  church at Bath--Returns to London--Sickness--Interest in
  American affairs--Rev. Samson Occum--Labors with Mr.
  Whitaker in England--Success--Whitefield's journey to
  Bristol--Success in London--Mr. Joss becomes his colleague--
  Rev. Rowland Hill--Whitefield again visits Bath and
  Bristol--Mr. Fletcher's sermons in London--Preface to
  Bunyan's works--Whitefield in Wales and Gloucestershire--
  North of England--Disappointed in obtaining a charter
  for Bethesda                                                  375


  CHAPTER XV.

  HIS LAST LABORS IN GREAT BRITAIN--COLLEGE
  AT TREVECCA--EARL OF BUCHAN--TUNBRIDGE
  WELLS.

  1767-1769.

  Letter to Keen--Whitefield preaches before the Book
  Society--Change in his style and manner of preaching--
  Expulsion of six students from Oxford--Whitefield's letter
  to the Vice-chancellor--Usefulness of the expelled young
  men--Letter to a gentleman at Wisbeach--To Captain Scott--
  To Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley--Death and funeral services
  of the Earl of Buchan--Whitefield's last visit to
  Edinburgh--Death of Mrs. Whitefield--Whitefield's own
  sickness--Dedication of the college at Trevecca--Improvement
  of his health--Letter to Mr. Shirley--Letter of Dr. Franklin
  to Whitefield--Whitefield's remarks on it--Dedication of
  church at Tunbridge Wells--Contemplated voyage to America--
  His last sermon--Account of Rev. George Burder--Messrs.
  Wilson--Embarkation of Whitefield--Detained in the Downs--
  Ordination and preaching at Deal--Anecdote of Dr. Gibbons--
  Clears the Channel--Arrival at Charleston                     400


  CHAPTER XVI.

  SEVENTH VISIT AND LAST LABORS IN AMERICA--DEATH.

  1769, 1770.

  Arrival at Bethesda--Its prosperity--Honors paid him by the
  legislature--Letter at Charleston--Plan of the proposed
  college--Visits Philadelphia--Preaches at Burlington, New
  York, Albany--Attends an execution--Visit to Sharon--
  Conversion of Mr. Randall--Visit to Boston--Letters to
  Messrs. Wright and Keen--Letter in Pennsylvania Journal--
  Arrival at Exeter--Anecdote--Vast congregation--Delivers his
  last sermon--Account of it--His solemnly interesting
  appearance--Rodgers' Journal--Journey of Whitefield to
  Newburyport--Alarming illness--Death--His remarks to Dr.
  Finley--Arrangements for the funeral--Its solemn services--
  Cenotaph                                                      423


  CHAPTER XVII.

  TESTIMONIES AND FACTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF WHITEFIELD'S
  CHARACTER.

  Funeral sermon by Dr. Cooper--Respect shown to his memory in
  Georgia--Whitefield county--Sermon by Rev. Mr. Ellington--
  Arrival of the news in London--Sermon by Rev. J. Wesley--
  Rev. John Newton--Anecdote--Reply of Bacon the sculptor--
  Visits to his tomb--Old man in Ipswich--Whitefield's
  indifference to his reputation and ease--Institution at
  Georgia--Laborious life--Extraordinary voice--Use of common
  facts--Anecdotes--His solemnity of manner--Testimony of an
  American preacher--Of Winter--Anecdotes--Sermons in storms--
  Appearance in the pulpit--Character of his printed sermons--
  His devotional spirit--Visiting the sick--Intercourse with
  society--Neatness                                             445


  CHAPTER XVIII.

  CHARACTER OF WHITEFIELD AS A PREACHER--CENTENNIAL
  COMMEMORATIONS.

  Prominence given by him to the truths of salvation--His
  ardent glow of feeling--His direct address--His habitual
  dependence on the Spirit of God--Dealt with men as immortal
  beings--Dr. Hamilton's estimate of Whitefield--Comparison of
  Whitefield and Wesley--Centennial commemorations--Hymns by
  Mr. Conder--Usefulness--Bristol Tabernacle--Mr. James'
  sermon--Character of Whitefield's ministry, by Mr. Glanville  479




PREFACE.


The excellent Matthew Henry has very truly said, "There are remains
of great and good men, which, like Elijah's mantle, ought to be
gathered up and preserved by the survivors--their sayings, their
writings, their examples; that as their works follow them in the
reward of them, they may stay behind in the benefit of them."

Influenced by this and kindred sentiments, the compiler of this
volume has devoted no small labor to gather from every source to
which he could gain access, whatever appeared to him important to be
known respecting the most distinguished uninspired preacher perhaps
of any age or country. Whatever may be the faults of the work,
to use the language of the Rev. Dr. Campbell, one of the present
pastors of Whitefield's churches in London, in reference to a short
sketch he had himself prepared of our great evangelist, "It will
serve to bring him and his apostolic labors before the minds of
vast multitudes of the rising generation, to whom both are all but
unknown; and this is far from unimportant. Whatever tends to fix
the minds of men afresh upon the character of WHITEFIELD is, and
it always will be, something gained to the cause of true religion.
The contemplation of that character is one of the most healthful
exercises that can occupy a Christian heart, or a Christian
understanding. It is an admirable theme for ministerial meditation.
It tends equally to humble, to instruct, and to encourage; to excite
love to Christ, zeal for his glory, and compassion for the souls of
men. What Alexander and Cæsar, Charles XII. of Sweden and Napoleon
the first, are to those of the sons of men who have not yet ceased
to 'learn war,' that Whitefield and Wesley are to those who aspire
to eminent usefulness as ministers and missionaries of the cross."

In the preparation of this memoir, the compiler has sought to
collect together incidents which might interest and instruct,
especially in connection with Whitefield's labors in America; to
present him as much as possible in his own dress; and to use the
facts of his life to excite and cherish his own spirit, so far as
he had the spirit of Christ. Facts reflecting on the reputation and
feelings of others have been used only as the interests of truth
seemed to demand.

It would have been easy to place on almost every page an array of
authorities, and to give here a long list of friends to whom the
writer has been indebted for aid; but the sole object of the volume
is the honor of Christ in the salvation of men, and that this may be
accomplished, we pray that the blessing of Heaven may rest upon it.

PHILADELPHIA, 1857.




GEORGE WHITEFIELD.




CHAPTER I.

     MORAL STATE OF GREAT BRITAIN IN THE EARLY PART OF THE EIGHTEENTH
     CENTURY--WHITEFIELD FROM HIS BIRTH TO HIS FIRST SERMON.


That we may have a clear and comprehensive view of the labors and
success of George Whitefield, it is important that we consider
the moral condition of Great Britain and its dependencies when
the Head of the church brought him on the field of action. The
latter part of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth
centuries presented in that country a scene of moral darkness, the
more remarkable as it so soon succeeded the triumph of evangelical
truth which distinguished the seventeenth century, and which is
perpetuated in a religious literature that will bless the world.
Causes had long been at work which produced such insensibility and
decline as to all that is good, and such a bold and open activity in
evil, as it is hoped the grace of God may avert from his churches
in all future time. The doctrine of the divine right of kings to
implicit obedience on the part of their subjects; the principle
of priestly control of the minds of men in religious matters; and
clerical influence, sustained by kingly authority, in favor of
sports on the Lord's day, together with the evil examples of men
high in rank and power, had produced their natural results on the
masses of the people, and make it painful, even at this distant
period, to survey the scene.

Nor were these all the evils of that day. The expulsion from their
pulpits, by the "Act of Uniformity," of two thousand of the most
able and useful of the clergy in England, had led to great ignorance
and neglect of religion; and though men like Leighton and Owen,
Flavel and Baxter, with Bunyan and a host of others, had continued,
in spite of opposing laws, to preach when they were not shut up in
prison, and to write their immortal practical works, by the time of
which we are speaking they had been called to their eternal reward,
leaving very few men of like spirit behind them. Thus infidelity,
profligacy, and formalism almost universally prevailed.

The low state of religion in the established church at that time
may be learned from the Rev. Augustus M. Toplady, himself one of
its ministers, who died in 1778. In a sermon yet extant he says,
"I believe no denomination of professing Christians, the church
of Rome excepted, were so generally void of the light and life of
godliness, so generally destitute of the doctrine and of the grace
of the gospel, as was the church of England, considered as a body,
about fifty years ago. At that period a _converted_ minister in the
establishment was as great a wonder as a comet; but now, blessed
be God, since that precious, that great apostle of the English
empire, the late dear Mr. Whitefield, was raised up in the spirit
and power of Elias, the word of God has run and been glorified;
many have believed and been added to the Lord all over the three
kingdoms; and blessed be his name, the great Shepherd and Bishop of
souls continues still to issue his word, and great is the company of
preachers, greater and greater every year."

If it be said that Toplady, as he belonged to a different school of
theology from that which then generally prevailed, could scarcely
be expected to be impartial, we ask leave to transcribe a few lines
from Bishop Butler, who within six months of Whitefield's ordination
wrote thus: "It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted
by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of
inquiry; but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious.
And accordingly they treat it as if in the present age this were an
agreed point among all people of discernment; and nothing remained
but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as
it were by way of reprisals for its having so long interrupted
the pleasures of the world." Bishop Warburton, who commenced his
ministry a few years before Whitefield, and who cannot be charged
with enthusiasm, says, "I have lived to see that fatal crisis, when
religion hath lost its hold on the minds of the people."

Many other witnesses might be brought to testify that error and
worldly mindedness had made mournful havoc among the clergy,
and that spiritual religion had been almost buried in forms and
ceremonies. A recent writer has well described the state of religion
in the established church at that time, as only to be compared to a
frozen or palsied carcass. "There," says this Episcopal clergyman,
"were the time-honored formularies which the wisdom of the reformers
had provided. There were the services and lessons from Scripture,
just in the same order as we have them now. But as to preaching
the gospel, in the established church there was almost none. The
distinguishing doctrines of Christianity--the atonement, the work
and office of Christ and the Spirit--were comparatively lost sight
of. The vast majority of sermons were miserable moral essays,
utterly devoid of any thing calculated to awaken, convert, save, or
sanctify souls." Southey, a biographer of Wesley, who assuredly will
not be accused of too strong a tendency to evangelical truth, is
compelled to say, "A laxity of opinions as well as morals obtained,
and infidelity, a plague which had lately found its way into the
country, was becoming so prevalent, that the vice-chancellor of
the university at Oxford, in a _programma_, exhorted the tutors to
discharge their duties by double diligence, and had forbidden the
under-graduates to read such books as might tend to the weakening of
their faith."

There were undoubtedly some learned and conscientious bishops
at this era. Such men were Secker and Gibson, Lowth and Horne,
Butler, and others. But even the best of them seem sadly to have
misunderstood the requirements of the day they lived in. They spent
their strength in writing apologies for Christianity, and contending
against infidels. They could not see that without the direct
preaching of the essential doctrines of the gospel, their labors
must be sadly defective. The man who dared to preach the doctrines
of the Bible, and in harmony with the Articles and Homilies of his
church, was set down as an enthusiast or fanatic.

Among those who had dissented from the established hierarchy, and
who were untrammelled by the impositions of secular authority, the
state of vital godliness was also unhappily very low. The noble
spirits of early non-conformity had passed from earth, or crossed
the Atlantic to the frozen shores of New England, and a race of men
had sprung up, some of whom retained the tenets of orthodoxy, but
had lost its power; while others reposed on comfortable endowments,
and lulled themselves, or were drawn by favorable breezes, into the
cold elements of Arianism and Socinianism. As persons in the frozen
regions are said to sleep longer and more soundly than others, so
did they; and a more terrific blast of the trumpet of the gospel
was required to rouse and awake them from their spiritual slumbers.
Happily indeed for the world, and for the church in it, there were
some exceptions. Watts and Guyse and Doddridge, and their pious
associates in different parts of the land, were laborers together in
"God's husbandry," and ceased not to cultivate it with affectionate
faithfulness and care; and wherever their labors extended, the
plants of grace grew and flourished. Darracott, "the star of the
west," threw his mild rays over the vales of Somerset; and in the
north also a few faithful men were found.

Nor have we even now said all that should be written as to the
character of those times. The highest personages in the land then
openly lived in ways contrary to the law of God, and no man rebuked
them. Profligacy and irreligion were reputable and respectable.
Judging from the description we have of men and manners in those
days, a gentleman might have been defined as a creature who got
drunk, gambled, swore, fought duels, and violated the seventh
commandment, and for all this very few thought the worse of him.

Those too were the days when the men whom even kings delighted
to honor were such as Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, Walpole, and
Newcastle. To be an infidel, to obtain power by intrigue, and
to retain it by the grossest and most notorious bribery, were
considered no disqualifications even for the highest offices. Such
men indeed were not only tolerated, but praised. In those days
too, Hume, an avowed infidel, put forth his History, and obtained
a pension. Sterne and Swift then wrote their talented, but obscene
books; both of them were clergymen, but the public saw little
inconsistency in their conduct. Fielding and Smollett were the
popular authors, and the literary taste of high and low was suited
by Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle, Joseph Andrews, and Tom Jones.
These authors were ingenious heathen philosophers, assuming the name
of Christians, and forcibly paganizing Christianity for the sake of
pleasing the world.

Turning to _Scotland_, we find that the bold proclamation of the
discriminating truths of the gospel which characterize the preaching
of Knox, Welsh, and others, was being rapidly laid aside, and
cold formal addresses, verging towards a kind of Socinianism were
becoming fashionable. Old Mr. Hutchinson, minister of Kilellan, in
Renfrewshire, who saw but the beginning of this sad change, used to
say to Wodrow the historian, "When I compare the times before the
restoration with those since the revolution, I must own that the
young ministers preach accurately, and methodically; but there was
far more of the power and efficacy of the Spirit and of the grace
of God went along with sermons in those days than now. For my own
part--all the glory be to God--I seldom set my foot in a pulpit in
those days, but I had notice of the blessed effects of the word." It
is true, that even then there were a few faithful witnesses for God
in Scotland, such as the brothers Erskine, in the Secession church;
but for the most part, coldness, barrenness, and death prevailed.
The people knew not God, and were strangers to the life-giving
influence and power of the gospel.

The Arianism of England had been carried to the north of _Ireland_,
and finding a state of feeling suitable to its reception, it took
root and grew up, so as to characterize a distinct section of the
Presbyterian church, then and still distinguished by the name of the
Remonstrant Synod. The south and west of Ireland were subjected to
a blight not less withering, though of a different kind, and which
continued much longer--continued, to a great extent, throughout
the whole of the last century. The clergy were usually sons of the
gentry, and accustomed to their sporting, drinking, and riotous
habits. They had no preparation for ministerial duties but a college
degree; and no education, either literary or moral, which had not
been obtained among wild young men at the university. According
to the interest which they happened to have, they passed at once
from college to ministerial charges, and again mixed in all the
dissipations of the districts where these lay. Ignorant of the
truth, they and their congregations were satisfied with some short
moral discourse. Many of the people were almost as ignorant of the
Scriptures and scripture truth as the inhabitants of Hindostan.
The Catholic priests meanwhile were at work among the people, and
they had many to help them. The sick and the dying were watched;
their fears were wrought upon; they were told of the power which
the priests had, of the influence possessed by the Virgin, and much
about the _old church_; and as soon as any seemed to give way, on
whatever point, the priest was sent for, who plied them anew, and
seldom failed in succeeding with the poor ignorant people. They were
now ready to receive absolution; but he had farther conditions to
propose. The whole family must submit to be rebaptized, or at least
promise to attend mass--and this also was not unfrequently gained;
the Protestant clergyman being all the while at a distance, neither
knowing nor much caring what was going on. In this way great numbers
of the lower and middle classes of the Protestants went over to the
church of Rome. Throughout whole districts the Protestant churches
were almost emptied, and many of those in rural districts were
allowed to fall into ruins.

Of _Wales_ it is not important at present to say much. From the
middle ages downwards, great darkness and superstition had prevailed
among its mountains. It is true that in the days of James I.,
a clergyman named Wroth, whose conversion to the truth had been
remarkable, had labored with eminent zeal and success, but at the
period of which we are now writing declension had succeeded. Within
the establishment all was cold and dead; nearly every minister
was ignorant of the Welsh language, a fact which also applied to
several successive bishops, while the state of morals, among even
the leaders of the hierarchy, was truly deplorable. An old Methodist
simply but truly described the country at this period, and of his
correct narrative we will here give a free translation.

The land, he tells us, was dark indeed. Scarcely any of the lower
ranks could read at all. The morals of the country were very
corrupt; and in this respect there was no difference between
high and low, layman and clergyman. Gluttony, drunkenness, and
licentiousness prevailed through the whole country. Nor were the
operations of the church at all adapted to repress these evils. From
the pulpit the name of the Redeemer was scarcely heard; nor was much
mention made of the natural sinfulness of man, or of the influence
of the Holy Spirit. On Sunday mornings, the poor were more constant
in their attendance at church than the gentry; but the Sunday
evenings were spent by all in idle amusements. Every Sabbath there
was practised a kind of sport, called in Welsh _Achwaren-gamp_,
in which all the young men of the neighborhood had a trial of
strength, and the people assembled from the surrounding country
to witness their feats. On a Saturday night, particularly in the
summer, the young men and women held what they called _Nosweithian
cann_, or singing eves; that is, they met together and amused
themselves by singing in turns to the harp, till the dawn of the
Sabbath. These things, with the performance of rustic dramas, would
occupy sometimes the whole of the sacred day itself; while a set of
vagabonds, called the _Bobl gerdded_, or walking people, used to
traverse the villages, begging with impunity, to the disgrace alike
of the law and the country. With all this social sprightliness, the
Welsh were then a superstitious, and even a gloomy people. They
still retained many habits apparently derived from paganism, and
not a few of the practices of popery. Their funerals, like those of
the Irish, were scenes of riot and drunkenness, followed by prayers
for the release of the deceased from the pains of purgatory. Such
was the superstition of the people, that when Methodism was first
introduced among them, many of the peasantry expressed their horror
of the new opinions by the truly Popish gesture of crossing the
forehead; and when Wesley first visited them, he pronounced them
"as little versed in the principles of Christianity as a Creek or
Cherokee Indian." To this declaration he added the striking remark,
that, "notwithstanding their superstition and ignorance, the people
'were ripe for the gospel,' and most enthusiastically anxious to
avail themselves of every opportunity of instruction."

As an illustration of the truth of the remark we have just
introduced from the discerning Wesley, we may mention an incident
which occurred in 1736. At this period dissent itself was reduced so
low in the country, that there were only six dissenting houses of
worship in all North Wales. One Sunday, Mr. Lewis Rees, a dissenting
minister from South Wales, and the father of Dr. Rees, the author of
the celebrated Cyclopedia which bears his name, visited Pwllheli, a
town on the promontory of Slëyn, in Caernarvonshire, and one of the
few places in which the Independents still had a chapel. After the
service, the congregation, collecting around him, complained very
sorely that their numbers were rapidly diminishing, that the few
who yet remained were for the most part poor, and that every thing
connected with their cause looked gloomy. To which the minister
replied, "The dawn of religion is again breaking out in South
Wales," referring them to the fact, that already a distinguished
man--Howel Harris--had risen up, going about instructing the people
in the truths of the gospel. Such was the character of the times
when God was raising up agents to revive and extend his cause. We
shall before long return to Wales with lively interest.

"Such," says the eloquent Robert Hall, "was the situation of things
when Whitefield and Wesley made their appearance, who, whatever
failings the severest criticism can discover in their character,
will be hailed by posterity as the second reformers of England.
Nothing was farther from the views of these excellent men than to
innovate on the established religion of their country; their sole
aim was to recall the people to the good old way, and to imprint the
doctrines of the Articles and Homilies on the spirits of men. But
this doctrine had been so long a dead letter, and so completely
obliterated from the mind by contrary instructions, that the attempt
to revive it met with all the opposition that innovation is sure to
encounter, in addition to what naturally results from the nature
of the doctrine itself, which has to contend with the whole force
of human corruption. The revival of the _old_, appeared like the
introduction of a _new_ religion; and the hostility it excited
was less sanguinary, but scarcely less virulent, than that which
signalized the first publication of Christianity. The gospel of
Christ, or that system of truth which was laid at the foundation of
the Reformation, has since made rapid advances, and in every step of
its progress has sustained the most furious assaults."

It ought here to be stated, as illustrating the providence of God in
preparing the British empire for the reception of the gospel, that
the revolution of 1688 introduced the spirit of toleration, and in
1714, the very year of Whitefield's birth, Anne, the last English
sovereign of a persecuting spirit, died, and the throne was assumed
by George I., the first prince of the house of Hanover. The way of
the Lord was thus prepared for bright illustrations of his mercy.

       *       *       *       *       *

Rising from the beautiful valley of the Severn, and on the borders
of that noble stream, reposes in antique glory the affluent city of
GLOUCESTER, with its regular streets, and its majestic cathedral
and other relics of bygone days. In that city the traveller may
examine three spots which will long be interesting to the student of
ecclesiastical curiosities. The first of these is the ancient church
of Mary de Crypt, where reposes the dust of Robert Raikes, the
founder of Sunday-schools; the second, is the little stone which,
in a pensive-looking inclosure, marks the site on which the truly
noble-minded and Protestant Bishop Hooper was burnt, an early martyr
of bloody Mary's reign. There wicked men stood around to light up
the flames, and to mock his sorrows; but as we stand and look, we
exult in the subsequent triumphs of truth.

The third spot, and the one to us at the present moment the most
interesting, is the Bell inn or hotel, yet standing, though
enlarged and beautified since the period of which we write. There
WHITEFIELD--the saint, the seraph, the "angel flying in the midst of
heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell
on the earth"--first breathed the vital air. Venerable city, we
will rejoice that though within thy walls one glorious luminary of
salvation was extinguished, another "burning and shining light" was
raised up to diffuse joy and happiness over the two most influential
quarters of the globe, and a third has since been given to suggest
the simple plan by which millions of the young have already acquired
the knowledge of salvation.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD, the sixth son of Thomas and Elizabeth Whitefield,
was born December 16, 1714, old style. Concerning his father and
mother he writes, "The former died when I was two years old; the
latter died in December, 1751, in the seventy-first year of her age,
and has often told me how she endured fourteen weeks' sickness after
she brought me into the world; but was used to say, even when I
was an infant, that she expected more comfort from me than from any
other of her children. This, with the circumstance of my being born
in an inn, has often been of service to me, in exciting my endeavors
to make good my mother's expectations, and so follow the example of
my dear Saviour, who was laid in a manger belonging to an inn."

In one of his journals, which he commenced at a very early part
of his ministry, Whitefield details with great simplicity many
incidents of his childhood and youth; from which it appears, that
though at times he had many serious thoughts and impressions,
the general course of his life, till the age of sixteen, was
irreligious. He tells us that in early youth he was "so brutish as
to hate instruction, and used purposely to shun all opportunities
of receiving it," and that he spent much money, improperly obtained
from his mother, in cards, plays, and romances, "which," says he,
"were my heart's delight. Often have I joined with others in playing
roguish tricks; but was generally, if not always, happily detected:
for this I have often since, and do now bless and praise God." His
full confessions of this character are very affecting, and should be
a caution to young persons to repel all such temptations.

When George was about ten years of age, his mother married a second
time, thus forming a connection which led to much unhappiness.
He was, however, continued at school; and when twelve years old,
was transferred to the grammar-school of St. Mary de Crypt, where
he remained about three years. Having a graceful elocution and a
good memory, he gained much credit for delivering speeches before
the city corporation at the annual visitation of the school, and
received pecuniary rewards for his performances on those occasions.
How deeply he afterwards deplored these celebrations, especially
the performance of plays in connection with his school-fellows,
may be learned from his own words: "I cannot but observe here,
with much concern of mind, how this way of training up youth has
a natural tendency to debauch the mind, to raise ill passions,
and to stuff the memory with things as contrary to the gospel of
Christ, as darkness to light, hell to heaven." This sad tendency
was but too clearly evinced in the case of Whitefield himself. "I
got acquainted," he says, "with such a set of debauched, abandoned,
atheistical youths, that if God, by his free, unmerited, and special
grace, had not delivered me out of their hands, I should have sat
in the scorner's chair, and made a mock at sin. By keeping company
with them, my thoughts of religion grew more and more like theirs.
I went to public service only to make sport, and walk about. I took
pleasure in their lewd conversation. I began to reason as they did,
and to ask why God had given me passions, and not permitted me to
gratify them. In short, I soon made great proficiency in the school
of the devil. I affected to look rakish, and was in a fair way of
being as infamous as the worst of them." These were the things, and
not oratory, as has sometimes been said, which Whitefield learned
from plays and acting.

In the midst of all this, his conscience often made him unhappy; and
he wished, if possible, to combine religion with his pleasures. He
purchased and carefully read "Ken's Manual for Winchester Scholars,"
a book which commended itself as having comforted his mother in her
afflictions, and which he afterwards considered to have been "of
great benefit to his soul."

At the age of fifteen, he thought he had acquired learning enough
for any ordinary occupation in life, and as his mother's business
was declining, he persuaded her to allow him to leave school and
assist in labor. "I began," says he, "to assist her occasionally
in the public-house, till at length I put on my blue apron and
my snuffers, washed mops, cleaned rooms, and in one word, became
professed and common _drawer_ for nearly a year and a half." In the
midst of the activity called for in such a situation, it pleased God
to renew his religious impressions, which induced him, at least at
intervals, to attend with much earnestness to the concerns of his
soul.

From his childhood, Whitefield tells us, he "was always fond of
being a clergyman, and used frequently to imitate the ministers'
reading prayers." Nor did this tendency towards clerical engagements
cease as he became older. "Notwithstanding," he says, "I was thus
employed in a large inn, and had sometimes the care of the whole
house upon my hands, yet I composed two or three sermons, and
dedicated one of them to my elder brother. One day, I remember, I
was very much pressed to self-examination, and found myself very
unwilling to look into my heart. Frequently I read the Bible when
sitting up at night. And a dear youth, now with God, would often
entreat me, when serving at the bar, to go to Oxford. My general
answer was, 'I wish I could.'"

His mother's difficulties increasing, it became necessary for her
to leave the inn; in which she was succeeded by one of her married
sons, with whom George for some time remained to continue his
assistance in the business. Some disagreement, however, arising
between them, he after a time took his departure from the inn, and
went to spend a month with his eldest brother at Bristol. Returning
from that city to Gloucester, he resided for a short season with his
mother. While thus living unemployed, without any definite object
before him, and waiting the openings of providence, his mother
was visited by an Oxford student, a servitor of Pembroke college
in that university. In the course of their conversation, he told
her, that after all his expenses at college for the quarter were
discharged, he had one penny remaining. She immediately exclaimed,
"This will do for my son!" and turning to him, said, "Will you go
to Oxford, George?" He replied, "With all my heart." Application
was immediately made to several friends who had influence at
the college, and they pledged themselves to serve her. In this
confidence, her favorite son returned to the grammar-school,
where he not only resumed his studies with greater diligence, but
endeavored, and not altogether in vain, to promote religion and
virtue among his associates.

Having fully secured his literary preparation for the university,
Whitefield removed to Oxford in his eighteenth year, and was
immediately admitted, as a servitor, into Pembroke college. He soon
found that the seat of learning was also a scene of danger. From
the period of 1662, when the two thousand Non-conformists had been
expelled from the church, the universities had been sinking into a
moral lethargy, preferring uniformity to vital religion. Our young
servitor was shocked with the impiety of the students in general,
and dreading their influence on himself, he as much as possible
abstained from their society, and shut himself up in his study.

Before he went to Oxford, Whitefield had heard of a class of
young men in the university who "lived by rule and method," and
were therefore called _Methodists_. They were much talked of, and
generally despised. Of this party, John Wesley, a Fellow of Lincoln
college, and already in holy orders, was the leader, his brother
Charles being also as warmly attached to it. They avowed that the
great object of their lives was to save their souls, and to live
wholly to the glory of God; and rarely have men subjected themselves
to greater self-denials and austerities. Drawn towards them by
kindred feelings, Whitefield strenuously defended them whenever he
heard them reviled, and when he saw them going, through a crowd
manifesting their ridicule, every Sunday to receive the sacrament
at St. Mary's or Christ church, he was strongly inclined to follow
their example.

For more than a year he intensely desired to be acquainted with
them, but a sense of his pecuniary inferiority to them prevented his
advances. At length, learning that a pauper had attempted suicide,
Whitefield sent a poor woman to inform Charles Wesley, that so he
might visit her, and administer religious instruction. He charged
the woman not to tell Mr. Wesley who sent her, but, contrary to
this injunction, she told his name; and Charles Wesley, who had
frequently seen Whitefield walking by himself, on the next morning
invited him to breakfast. An introduction to the little brotherhood
soon followed, and he also, like them, "began to live by rule, and
pick up the very fragments of his time, that not a moment might be
lost."

It is painful to read Whitefield's own account of the mortifications
of body to which he now submitted; and we are not surprised that, as
the result, his health was so reduced as to place even his life in
danger. All this time he had no clear view of the way of salvation,
and was "seeking to work out a righteousness of his own." In this
state he lay on his bed, his tongue parched with fever, and the
words of the dying Saviour, "I thirst," were impressed on his mind.
Remembering that this thirst occurred near the end of the Saviour's
sufferings, the thought arose in his mind, "Why may it not be so
with me? Why may I not now receive deliverance and comfort? Why
may I not now dare to trust and rejoice in the pardoning mercy of
God?" There was, as Tracy has said, no reason why he might not--why
he ought not. He saw nothing to forbid him. He prayed in hope,
borrowing language from the fact which suggested the train of
thought--"I thirst, I thirst for faith in pardoning love. Lord, I
believe; help thou mine unbelief." His prayer was heard. He dared
to trust in the mercy of God, as revealed in the death of Jesus
Christ for sinners. Conscience and his Bible bore witness that he
did right. The load that had so heavily oppressed him, the load of
guilt and terror and anxiety, that weighed down his spirit while he
sinfully and ungratefully hesitated to trust in divine mercy, was
gone. He saw the trustworthiness of the mercy of God in Christ, and
his heart rejoiced.

"Though," as Tracy has well said, "the English universities were
established mainly for the purpose of educating men for the
ministry, Whitefield was not likely to gain a good knowledge of
theology there. He took another, and a characteristic course. Some
time after his conversion, when he was at Gloucester, he says,
'I began to read the holy Scriptures upon my knees; laying aside
all other books, and praying over, if possible, every line and
word. This proved meat indeed and drink indeed to my soul. I daily
received fresh life, light, and power from above. I thus got more
true knowledge in reading the book of God in one month, than I could
ever have acquired from all the writings of men.'"

Every hour of Whitefield's time, especially after he had been
"filled with peace and joy in believing," was sacredly devoted to
preparation for the great work to which he had now solemnly devoted
himself. He visited the prisoners in the jail, and the poor in their
cottages, and gave as much time as he could to communion with God in
his closet. His friends now earnestly importuned him to apply for
ordination; but from this his deep sense of unworthiness made him
shrink. Besides, he intended to have a hundred and fifty sermons
carefully written before he began to preach. He had as yet but one,
and he lent that to a neighboring clergyman, to convince him that
he was not yet fit to be ordained. The clergyman kept it for two
weeks, divided it into two, preached it to his own people, and then
returned it to Whitefield, with a guinea for the use of it.

Still, however, the work of preparation for the ministry was rapidly
going on. The state of his health compelled him to retire for a
season from Oxford, and he returned home to increase the depth of
his piety, and to be led, little as he thought of it, at once to the
pulpit. He writes, "O what sweet communion had I daily vouchsafed
with God in prayer, after my coming to Gloucester. How often have
I been carried out beyond myself, when meditating in the fields.
How assuredly I felt that Christ dwelt in me, and I in him; and how
daily did I walk in the comforts of the Holy Ghost, and was edified
and refreshed in the multitude of peace. I always observed that
as my inward strength increased, so my outward sphere of action
increased proportionably."

Thus, happy in himself, and thankful to the gracious God who made
him so, the affectionate soul of George Whitefield ardently desired
that others might participate in his sacred joys. In order to
advance this object, he mixed in the society of young people, and
endeavored to awaken them to a just sense of the nature of true
religion. Some were convinced of the truth, and united with him in
religious exercises; and these were some of the first-fruits of his
pious labors. His discovery of the necessity of regeneration, like
Melancthon's great discovery of the truth, led him to imagine that
no one could resist the evidence which convinced his own mind. He
writes, "Upon this, like the woman of Samaria, when Christ revealed
himself to her at the well, I had no rest in my soul till I wrote
letters to my relations, telling them there was such a thing as the
_new birth_. I imagined they would have gladly received it; but,
alas, my words seemed to them as idle tales. They thought I was
going beside myself." He visited the jail every day, and read and
prayed with the prisoners; attended public worship very frequently,
and read twice or three times a week to some poor people in the
city. In addition to all this, he tells us, "During my stay here,
God enabled me to give a public testimony of my repentance as to
seeing and acting plays; for hearing the strollers had come to
town, and knowing what an egregious offender I had been, I was
stirred up to extract Mr. Law's excellent treatise, entitled, "The
absolute Unlawfulness of the Stage Entertainment." The printer,
at my request, put a little of it in the newspaper for six weeks
successively; and God was pleased to give it his blessing."

In this manner Whitefield employed himself during nine months; and
one effect of so doing was, that the partition wall of bigotry was
soon broken down in his heart. He says, "I loved all, of whatever
denomination, who loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity." This
statement in his diary is connected with an account of the benefit
he derived from studying the works of the Non-conformists. "Baxter's
Call," and "Alleine's Alarm," so accorded with his own ideas of
fidelity and unction, that wherever he recognized their spirit he
acknowledged "a brother beloved." On this portion of his history
we dwell with unspeakable delight; the only drawback is an undue
importance he appears to have attached to _dreams_; and even those,
considered as an _index_ to his waking hours, are interesting,
revealing as they do his deep solicitude on the behalf of souls.

Here then, before he had completed his twenty-first year, we see
Whitefield returned to Gloucester, and such was already the fame of
his piety and talents, that Dr. Benson, the bishop of the diocese,
offered to dispense, in his favor, with the rule which forbids the
ordination of deacons at so unripe an age. Thus graphically did he
afterwards describe his acceptance of this proposal.

"I never prayed against any corruption I had in my life so much as
I did against going into holy orders so soon as my friends were for
having me go. Bishop Benson was pleased to honor me with peculiar
friendship, so as to offer me preferment, or to do any thing for me.
My friends wanted me to mount the church betimes. They wanted me
to knock my head against the pulpit too young; but how some young
men stand up here and there and preach, I do not know. However it
be to them, God knows how deep a concern entering into the ministry
and preaching was to me. I prayed a thousand times, till the sweat
has dropped from my face like rain, that God of his infinite mercy
would not let me enter the church till he called me and thrust me
forth in his work. I remember once in Gloucester--I know the room; I
look up to the window when I am there and walk along the street--I
said, 'Lord, I cannot go; I shall be puffed up with pride, and fall
into the condemnation of the devil. Lord, do not let me go yet.' I
pleaded to be at Oxford two or three years more. I intended to make
one hundred and fifty sermons, and thought that I would set up with
a good stock in trade. I remember praying, wrestling, and striving
with God. I said, 'I am undone, I am unfit to preach in thy great
name. Send me not. Lord, send me not yet.' I wrote to all my friends
in town and country to pray against the bishop's solicitation; but
they insisted I should go into orders before I was twenty-two. After
all their solicitations these words came into my mind: 'Nothing
shall pluck you out of my hands;' they came warm to my heart. Then,
and not till then, I said, 'Lord, _I will go_; send me when thou
wilt.'"

Sunday, June 20, 1736, was the day appointed for his ordination
in the cathedral at Gloucester. On the preceding evening he spent
two hours in prayer for himself and the others who were to be set
apart to the sacred office with him; and on the day itself he rose
early, and passed the morning in prayer and meditation on the
qualifications and duties of the office he was about to undertake.
On a review of the solemn services of the day, he says, "I trust I
answered every question from the bottom of my heart, and heartily
prayed that God might say, Amen. And when the bishop laid his hands
upon my head, if my vile heart do not deceive me, I offered my whole
spirit, soul, and body to the service of God's sanctuary. Let come
what will, life or death, depth or height, I shall henceforward
live like one who this day, in the presence of men and angels, took
the holy sacrament, on the profession of being inwardly moved by
the Holy Ghost to take upon me that ministration in the church. I
call heaven and earth to witness, that when the bishop laid his
hands upon me, I gave myself up to be a martyr for Him who hung
upon the cross for me. Known unto him are all future events and
contingencies; I have thrown myself blindfold, and I trust without
reserve, into his almighty hands. When I went up to the altar, I
could think of nothing but Samuel's standing before the Lord with a
linen ephod."

Having thus received ordination as a deacon of the church of
England, he delayed not to enter upon the work to which he was
appointed; and accordingly, on the next Sabbath he preached his
first sermon in his native city of Gloucester, selecting for his
subject, "The necessity and benefit of religious society." At the
appointed time he ascended the pulpit, in the church of St. Mary de
Crypt. We have his own record of the service: "Last Sunday, in the
afternoon, I preached my first sermon in the church where I first
received the Lord's supper. Curiosity drew a large congregation
together. The sight, at first, a little awed me; but I was comforted
with a heartfelt sense of the divine presence, and soon found the
advantage of having been accustomed to public speaking when a boy
at school, and of exhorting and teaching the prisoners and the
poor people at their private houses, while at the university. By
these means I was kept from being daunted overmuch. As I proceeded,
I perceived the fire kindled, till at last, though so young, and
amidst a crowd of those who knew me in my childish days, I trust
I was enabled to speak with some degree of gospel authority. Some
few mocked, but most, for the present, seemed struck; and I have
since heard that a complaint was made to the bishop, that I drove
fifteen people mad the first sermon. The worthy prelate, as I am
informed, wished that the madness might not be forgotten before the
next Sunday. Before then, I hope that my sermon upon, 'He that is in
Christ is a new creature,' will be completed. Blessed be God, I now
find freedom in writing. Glorious Jesus,

    "'Unloose my stammering tongue to tell
      Thy love immense, unsearchable.'"

It is remarkable, under all the circumstances of the case, that
Bishop Benson, a man never distinguished for his evangelical views,
always showed his friendship for Whitefield. Not only did he offer
him ordination when others might have refused, and defend him
against the persecutions to which he was exposed, but he more than
once gave him pecuniary help when it was much needed, though the
young clergyman had never complained.

Thus early apprized of the secret of his strength, his profound
aspirations for the growth of Christianity, the delight of
exercising his rare powers, and the popular admiration, operating
with combined and ceaseless force upon a mind impatient of repose,
urged him into exertions which, if not attested by irrefragable
proofs, might appear incredible. It was the statement of one who
knew him well, and who was incapable of wilful exaggeration, and it
is confirmed by his letters, journals, and a "cloud of witnesses,"
that "in the compass of a single week, and that for years, he
spoke in general forty hours, and in very many sixty, and that to
thousands: and after his labors, instead of taking any rest, he
was engaged in offering up prayers and intercessions, with hymns
and spiritual songs, as his manner was, in every house to which he
was invited." Never perhaps, since the apostolic age, has any man
given himself so entirely to preaching the gospel of Christ for
the salvation of souls, adopting as his motto the language of the
apostle Paul, "_This one thing I do_."




CHAPTER II.

WHITEFIELD'S SUCCESS AS A PREACHER IN ENGLAND--FIRST VISIT TO
AMERICA.

1736-1738.


Whitefield, though thus prepared for action, was not impatient,
but willing to wait till his duty was fully ascertained. On the
Wednesday after his first sermon he went to Oxford, where, he says,
"I was received with great joy by my religious friends. For about
a week I continued in my servitor's habit, and then took my degree
of Bachelor of Arts, after having been at the university three
years and three quarters, and going on towards the twenty-second
year of my age. My dear and honored friends, the Rev. Messrs. John
and Charles Wesley, being now embarked for Georgia, and one or
two others having taken orders, the interest of Methodism, as it
was then and is now termed, had visibly declined, and very few of
this reputedly mad way were left at the university. This somewhat
discouraged me at times, but the Lord Jesus supported my soul, and
made me easy by giving me a strong conviction that I was where he
would have me to be. My degree, I soon found, was of service to
me, as it gave me access to those I could not be seen with when in
an inferior station; and as opportunity offered, I was enabled to
converse with them about the things which belonged to the kingdom of
God. The subscriptions for the poor prisoners, which amounted to
about forty pounds per annum, were soon put into my hands; two or
three charity schools, maintained by the Methodists, were under my
more immediate inspection; which, with the time I spent in following
my studies, private retirement, and religious converse, sweetly
filled up the whole of my day, and kept me from that unaccountable
but too common complaint of having any time hang upon my hands."

The stay of Mr. Whitefield at Oxford, however, was very short. He
says, "By a series of unforeseen, unexpected, and unsought-for
providences, I was called in a short time from my beloved retirement
to take a journey to the metropolis of England. While I was an
under-graduate, among the religious friends, I was very intimate
with one Mr. B----n, a professed Methodist, who had lately taken
orders, and was curate at the Tower of London. With him, when
absent, I frequently corresponded, and when present took sweet
counsel, and walked to the house of God as friends. He mentioned
me to that late good and great man, Sir John Phillips; and being
called down for a while into Hampshire, he wrote to me to be of
good courage, and in the strength of God bade me hasten to town to
officiate in his absence, and to be refreshed with the sight and
conversation of many who loved me for Christ's sake, and had for a
long time desired to see me."

On his arrival in London, Whitefield delivered his first sermon
there in Bishopsgate church, on the afternoon of Lord's day, August
8. On entering the pulpit, his juvenile aspect excited a general
feeling of his unfitness for the station, but he had not proceeded
far in his sermon before it gave place to universal expressions of
wonder and pleasure. If however he was thus exposed to the danger
of vanity, as he says, "God sent me something to ballast it. For as
I passed along the streets, many came out of their shops, admiring
to see so young a person in a gown and cassock. One I remember in
particular, cried out, 'There's a boy parson;' which, as it served
to mortify my pride, put me also upon turning that apostolical
exhortation into prayer, 'Let no man despise thy youth.'" From
his first sermon to his departure, at the end of two months, his
popularity in London continued to increase, and the crowds were
so vast that it was necessary to place constables both inside and
outside of the churches to preserve the peace. He tells us himself,
"Here I continued for the space of two months, reading prayers twice
a week, catechizing and preaching once, visiting the soldiers in the
infirmary and barracks daily. I also read prayers every evening at
Wapping chapel, and preached at Ludgate prison every Tuesday. God
was pleased to give me favor in the eyes of the inhabitants of the
Tower; the chapel was crowded on Lord's days; religious friends from
divers parts of the town attended the word, and several young men
came on Lord's-day morning, under serious impressions, to hear me
discourse about the _new birth_, and the necessity of renouncing all
in affection in order to follow Jesus Christ."

The preaching of Mr. Whitefield now excited an unusual degree
of attention among persons of all ranks. In many of the city
churches he proclaimed the glad tidings of great joy to listening
multitudes, who were powerfully affected by the fire which was
displayed in the animated addresses of this man of God. Lord and
Lady Huntingdon constantly attended wherever he preached, and Lady
Anne Frankland became one of the first-fruits of his ministry among
the nobility of the metropolis. Her ladyship spent much of her
time with Lady Huntingdon, from whose society and conversation she
derived great comfort. She was a daughter of Richard, the first
Earl of Scarborough; was for many years lady of the bedchamber to
the Princess Anne, and to the Princesses Amelia and Caroline; and
finally became the second wife of Frederic Frankland, Esq., a member
of Parliament, from whose cruelty she endured much.

       *       *       *       *       *

We have already said, that some time before this Messrs. John and
Charles Wesley had embarked for Georgia, and to their names we
might have added that of Mr. Ingham, also a member of the Methodist
fraternity at Oxford.

Georgia, which was explored by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, had been
colonized by debtors from Europe, by multitudes who had fled from
the grasp of persecution, and by others who were interested in
constructing a barrier against Spanish aggression. It originally had
trustees in England, concerned for its interests, including sons of
the nobility. The chief agent in executing the benevolent designs
in view was the truly excellent General Oglethorpe, who admirably
carried out the motto he gave to his companions in the work, "_Non
sibi sed aliis_"--"Not for themselves, but for others." The children
of poverty, taken from the overgrown agricultural population,
already a tax upon parish bounty at home, were to be transferred
in large numbers to the silk and indigo plantations which were
established on the savannahs and bottoms south and west of the
river, which thence derived its name from the peculiar conformation
of the adjoining plains. Combined with these leading purposes, it
was a cherished principle with the early patrons of this colony,
that it should become the centre for the diffusion of the gospel
among the natives; while charitable foundations were also laid for
the secular and religious education of all who would take advantage
of such provisions. The first Christians who left Europe to advance
the spiritual interests of Georgia were Moravians, and the next
were the Wesleys and Ingham. The records of the colony, as quoted
in White's Historical Collections of Georgia, show that, Sept. 14,
1735, Charles Wesley was appointed "Secretary for the Indian affairs
in Georgia," and that, Oct. 10, 1735, John Wesley was appointed
"missionary at Savannah."

Whitefield had left London, and was laboring among a poor and
illiterate people in Hampshire, when his attention was directly
drawn to Georgia. This was not, indeed, the first time his heart had
been interested in the matter. He writes, "When I had been about a
month in town, letters came from the Messrs. Wesley, and the Rev.
Mr. Ingham their fellow-laborer, an Israelite indeed, from Georgia.
Their accounts fired my soul, and made me long to go abroad for God
too. But having no outward call, and being as I then thought too
weak in body ever to undertake a voyage at sea, I endeavored to
lay aside all thoughts of going abroad. But my endeavors were all
in vain; for I felt at times such a strong attraction in my soul
towards Georgia, that I thought it almost irresistible. I strove
against it with all my power, begged again and again, with many
cries and tears, that the Lord would not suffer me to be deluded,
and at length opened my mind to several dear friends. All agreed
that laborers were wanted at home, that I had as yet no visible call
abroad, and that it was my duty not to be rash, but wait and see
what Providence might point out to me. To this I consented with my
whole heart."

The path of duty, however, soon opened before him. While fulfilling
his duties at Dummer, in Hampshire, preaching for the Rev. Mr.
Kinchin, who was now absent from home, to which labors we have
already referred, he received an invitation to a lucrative curacy in
London; but Georgia still rested like one of the prophetic "burdens"
on his mind. At this juncture he received a letter from his clerical
friend at the Tower, saying that Mr. Charles Wesley had arrived in
London. Very soon Mr. Wesley himself wrote to Whitefield, saying,
that he was come over to procure laborers, "but," added he, "I dare
not prevent God's nomination." "In a few days after this," writes
Mr. Whitefield, "came another letter from Mr. John Wesley, wherein
were these words: 'Only Mr. Delamotte is with me, till God shall
stir up the hearts of some of his servants, who putting their lives
in their hands, shall come over and help us, where the harvest is
so great, and the laborers so few. What if thou art the man, Mr.
Whitefield?' In another letter were these words: 'Do you ask me what
you shall have? Food to eat and raiment to put on, a house to lay
your head in--such as our Lord had not--and a crown of glory that
fadeth not away.' Upon reading this my heart leaped within me, and
as it were echoed to the call."

After having consulted his bishop, Dr. Benson, as also the
archbishop of Canterbury, and the trustees of Georgia including
General James Oglethorpe who was then in London, he went to Bristol,
Bath, and other places, to take leave of his personal friends. As
he could not refrain from preaching, so every sermon increased his
popularity. We give his account of his preaching at Bristol, as a
specimen of the reception he met with.

"It was wonderful to see how the people hung upon the rails of
the organ-loft, climbed upon the leads of the church, and made
the church itself so hot with their breath, that the steam would
fall from the pillars like drops of rain. Sometimes almost as many
would go away for want of room as came in, and it was with great
difficulty I got into the desk to read prayers or preach. Persons
of all ranks not only publicly attended my ministry, but gave me
private invitations to their houses. A private society or two were
erected. I preached and collected for the poor prisoners in Newgate
twice or thrice a week, and many made me large offers if I would not
go abroad."

Having mentioned General James Edward Oglethorpe, the first
governor, and indeed the founder of the colony of Georgia, and to
the end of Whitefield's life his cordial friend, a few additional
facts concerning him may here be stated. He was the son of Sir
Theophilus Oglethorpe, and was born in London, December 21, 1688.
At sixteen he was admitted a student at Oxford, but did not finish
his studies, as the military profession had more charms for him
than literary pursuits. He was first commissioned as an ensign.
After the death of Queen Anne, he entered into the service of Prince
Eugene. When he attained the age of twenty-four years, he entered
Parliament, for Haslemere, where he continued thirty-two years. In
November, 1732, Oglethorpe, with one hundred and sixteen settlers,
embarked for Georgia, and landed at Charleston, S. C., January 13,
1733. They shortly afterwards proceeded to Georgia, where Oglethorpe
laid out a town, and called it Savannah. He very happily secured
the good will of the Indians. In 1743, he left Georgia for England,
to answer charges brought against him by Lieutenant-colonel Cook.
A court martial declared the charges groundless and malicious, and
Cook was dismissed from the service. In 1744 he was appointed one of
the field-officers under field-marshal the Earl of Stair, to oppose
the expected invasion of France. He died in 1785. He was truly a
noble man.

As the period approached when Whitefield was to leave England,
the people showed their esteem for him in almost every possible
way. They followed him so closely, and in such numbers, for holy
counsels, that he could scarcely command a moment for retirement.
They begged to receive from him religious books, and to have their
names written therein with his own hand, as memorials of him,
and very many followed him from place to place till his final
embarkation.

It was indeed a surprising fact, that a young man, scarcely more
than twenty-two years of age, and previously unknown to the world,
should be able to collect such immense congregations, and rouse
and command their attention; multitudes hanging upon and receiving
instructions from his lips. But God had endowed him with a singular
union of qualities, which most eminently fitted him for the work of
an evangelist. He was faithful to his trust, and his divine Master
abundantly blessed and honored him in the discharge of its momentous
duties.

We have now traced the amazing effects of Whitefield's _first_
sermons, and it may be interesting briefly to inquire into their
general character, and to ascertain what truths thus aroused the
public mind. Three of these sermons can, happily, be identified
with these "times of refreshing;" and they may be depended on,
as specimens of both the letter and the spirit of his preaching,
because they were printed from his own manuscripts: they are those
on "_Early Piety_," "_Regeneration_," and "_Intercession_." Whoever
will read the appeals in these sermons, realizing the circumstances
under which they were made, will scarcely wonder at the effect
produced by them. The topics of the second and third, and the tone
of all the three, are very different from the matter and manner of
sermonizing then known to the masses of the people. They do not
surprise _us_, because happily neither the topics nor the tone
of them are "strange things to our ears." Both, however, were
novelties in those days, even in London. When or where had an appeal
been made like this?

"I beseech you, in love and compassion, to come to Jesus. Indeed,
all I say is in love to your souls. And if I could be but an
instrument of bringing you to Jesus, I should not envy, but rejoice
in your happiness, however much you were exalted. If I was to
make up the _last_ of the train of the companions of the blessed
Jesus, it would rejoice me to see you above me in glory. I could
willingly go to prison or to death for you, so I could but bring
one soul from the devil's strong-holds, into the salvation which
is by Christ Jesus. Come then to Christ, every one that hears me
this night. Come, come, my guilty brethren; I beseech you, for your
immortal souls' sake, for Christ's sake, come to Christ. Methinks I
could speak till midnight unto you. Would you have me go and tell
my Master that you will not come, and that I have spent my strength
in vain? I cannot bear to carry such a message to him. I would not,
indeed, I would not be a swift witness against you at the great day
of account; but if you will refuse these gracious invitations, I
must do it."

In this spirit, not very prevalent even now, Whitefield began his
ministry. There is a fascination as well as fervor, or rather a
fascination arising from fervor, in some of his earliest as well as
his later discourses. How bold and beautiful is the peroration of
that on "_Intercession_." Referring to the holy impatience of "the
souls under the altar," for the coming of the kingdom of God, he
exclaims,

"And shall not we who are on earth be often exercised in this
divine employ with the glorious company of the spirits of just men
made perfect? Since our happiness is so much to consist in the
communion of saints in the church triumphant above, shall we not
frequently intercede for the church militant below, and earnestly
beg that we may be all one? To provoke you to this work and labor
of love, remember, that it is the never-ceasing employment of the
holy and highly exalted Jesus himself; so that he who is constantly
interceding for others, is doing that on earth which the eternal
Son of God is always doing in heaven. Imagine, therefore, when
you are lifting up holy hands for one another, that you see the
heavens opened, and the Son of God in all his glory, as the great
High-priest of your salvation, pleading for you the all-sufficient
merit of his sacrifice before the throne. Join your intercession
with his. The imagination will strengthen your faith, and excite a
holy earnestness in your prayers."

The nearer the time approached for his leaving the country, the more
affectionate the people grew towards him, and the more eagerly did
they attend on his ministry. Many thousands of ardent petitions were
presented to heaven on behalf of his person and his ministry; and
multitudes would stop him in the aisles of the churches, or follow
him with their tearful looks. Most of all was it difficult for him
to part from his friends at St. Dunstan's, where he administered the
sacrament, after spending the night before in prayer.

The man who had produced these extraordinary effects, says Dr.
Gillies, had many natural advantages. He was something above the
middle stature, well proportioned, though at that time slender, and
remarkable for native gracefulness of manner. His complexion was
very fair, his features regular, his eyes small and lively, of a
dark blue color: in recovering from the measles, he had contracted
a squint with one of them; but this peculiarity rather rendered the
expression of his countenance more rememberable, than in any degree
lessened the effect of its uncommon sweetness. His voice excelled
both in melody and compass, and its fine modulations were happily
accompanied by the grace of action which he possessed in an eminent
degree, and which is said to be the chief requisite of an orator.
An ignorant man described his eloquence oddly, but strikingly,
when he said that Mr. Whitefield preached like a lion. So strange
a comparison conveyed no unapt idea of the force, and vehemence,
and passion--of the authority which awed the hearers, and made them
tremble like Felix before the apostle. Believing himself to be the
messenger of God, commissioned to call sinners to repentance, he
spoke as one conscious of his high credentials, with authority and
power; yet in all his discourses there was a fervor and melting
charity, an earnestness of persuasion, an outpouring of redundant
love, partaking of the virtue of the faith from which it flowed,
insomuch that it seemed to enter the heart which it pierced, and to
heal it as with a balm.

At length, having preached in a considerable number of the London
churches, collected about a thousand pounds for the charity
schools, and obtained upwards of three hundred pounds for the
poor in Georgia, Whitefield left London, December 28, 1737, in the
twenty-third of his age, and went in the strength of God, as a poor
pilgrim, on board the Whitaker.

Scarcely had he entered on his voyage from London, when he
discovered that but little comfort was to be expected in the ship
on which he had embarked. There was no place for retirement, no
disposition to receive him as an ambassador of Christ, and a decided
dislike even to the forms of religion. They moved but slowly to
the Downs, where they were detained for nearly a month, and where
Whitefield went on shore to visit Deal, an ancient town, one of the
Cinque-ports, so called, where "the common people," as in the case
of his great Master, "heard him gladly." With him, through his whole
ministry, it was of small importance whether he preached to the
rich or the poor; for he viewed the gospel as a message of mercy to
_sinners_, and wherever men were found, he was willing to persuade
them to be reconciled to God.

The account given by Mr. Whitefield of his visit to Deal, and of the
different treatment he received there from different persons, would
be almost as correct a description of his labors and reception in a
hundred other places. He spent his first evening very comfortably in
religious conversation and family prayer, at which a poor woman was
much affected. "Who knows," he says, "what a fire this little spark
may kindle?" Next evening, eight or nine poor people came to him at
the report of this poor woman; and when, after three or four days,
the ship in which he had embarked was driven back to Deal, many met
together to bewail their own sins and those of others. Soon the
landlady who owned the house where he lodged, sent to her tenants,
beseeching them not to let any more persons come in, for fear the
floor should break under them; and they actually put a prop under it.

The minister of Upper Deal, a mile or two from the town, now invited
Whitefield to preach in the church; it was much crowded, and many
went away for want of room. Some stood on the leads of the building
outside, and looked in at the top windows, and all around seemed
eager to hear the word. "May the Lord," says the good man, "make
them _doers_ of it. In the evening I was obliged to divide my
hearers into four companies, and was enabled to expound to them from
six till ten. Lord, keep me from being weary of, or in well-doing."

The excitement at Deal became very great, in consequence of the
conviction of the people that their own minister, the Rev. Dr.
Carter, did not preach the gospel. The good man, to disprove the
charge, published a volume of his sermons, which, however admired by
gay formalists, furnished but too much evidence of the justice of
the charge.

Just as he had left the church at Upper Deal, where he had been
preaching to a vast congregation, Mr. Whitefield, in consequence of
a sudden change of the wind, was summoned on board, and the Whitaker
sailed for Georgia. A very few hours afterwards, the vessel which
brought back John Wesley from that colony anchored in the Downs,
when he learned that the ships had passed each other, but neither
of these remarkable men then knew how dear a friend was on board
the other. When Wesley landed, he found it was still possible to
communicate with his friend, and Whitefield was surprised to receive
a letter from him, saying, "When I saw God by the wind which was
carrying you out brought me in, I asked counsel of God. His answer
you have enclosed." The enclosure was a slip of paper with the
words, "Let him return to London," which Wesley had obtained by lot,
to which he had had recourse. Whitefield prayed for direction, and
went on his voyage.

This first voyage of Whitefield to America was invested with scenes
of far more than common interest. Perhaps, since the apostle Paul's
memorable voyage to Rome, the ocean had never exhibited a more
remarkable spectacle than that furnished by this ship. He was but
a stripling in his twenty-third year, and a faint and hesitating
homage once on a Sabbath-day, from a few of the less obdurate
sinners among his hearers, would be all that such a clergyman
could expect from an assemblage of gentlemen, of soldiers with
their wives and families, and the ship's crew. Yet in the hands of
this remarkable youth all became pliant as a willow. He converted
the chief cabin into a cloister, the deck into a church, and the
steerage into a school-room. He so bore down all opposition by love,
reason, and Scripture, that we soon see him, at the request of the
captain and officers, with the hearty concurrence of the gentlemen
who were passengers, reading "full public prayers" to them twice a
day in the great cabin, and expounding every night after the evening
prayers, besides daily reading prayers, and preaching twice a day
on deck to the soldiers and sailors, and increasing the services
on Sundays. In addition to all this, he daily catechized a company
of young soldiers, and engaged in the same exercise with the women
apart by themselves.

Nor did even all this suffice to expend his zeal, for he commenced
a course of expositions on the creed and ten commandments; and so
convinced was he of the value of catechetical teaching, that on
February 3d he writes, "I began to-night to turn the observations
made on the lessons in the morning into catechetical questions, and
was pleased to hear some of the soldiers make very apt answers."

Nor were the children forgotten; the Hon. Mr. Habersham, a personal
friend who accompanied him, assumed their instruction as his
department of holy labor. Mr. Whitefield wrote of him, that he was
"pleased to see Mr. Habersham so active in teaching the children. He
has now many scholars--may God bless him."

Friendship for Whitefield had influenced Mr. Habersham to accompany
the young evangelist to Georgia. Mr. Habersham's friends, at
Beverly, in Yorkshire, where he was born in 1712, were greatly
opposed to his plans, but surely the hand of God directed them.
He presided over the Orphan-house till 1744, when he entered into
a commercial partnership. He occupied several important stations,
till he became president of the colony in 1769. The proceedings
connected with the revolutionary war more than once placed him in
great difficulties; he did not live to see its happy results, for in
1775 the state of his health compelled him to visit the north, in
hope of its renovation. The change, however, was of no benefit, and
he died at New Brunswick, New Jersey, August 28, 1775. The "Gazette"
of the day said of him, "In the first stations of the province he
conducted himself with ability, honor, and integrity, which gained
him the love and esteem of his fellow-citizens; nor was he less
distinguished in private life by a conscientious discharge of the
social duties, as a tender and affectionate parent, a sincere and
warm friend, and a kind and indulgent master. Mr. Habersham was
married by the Rev. Mr. Whitefield to Mary Bolton at Bethesda, on
the 26th of December, 1740, by whom he had ten children, three of
whom, sons, survived him, and were zealous in the cause of American
liberty."

In harmony with the solemn duties which Mr. Whitefield had assumed,
he watched over the conduct of all around him. He tells us that the
ship's cook was awfully addicted to drinking, and when reproved for
this and other sins, he boasted that he would be wicked till within
two years of his death, and would then reform. Alas, he died on the
voyage, after an illness of six hours, brought on by drinking.

One day on this voyage, finding on Captain Whiting's pillow "The
Independent Whig," Whitefield exchanged it for a book entitled "The
Self-Deceiver." The next morning, the captain came smiling and
inquired who made the exchange. Mr. Whitefield confessed the fact,
and begged his acceptance of the book, which he said he had read,
and liked very well. From thenceforward a visible alteration took
place in the conduct of the captain.

On their arrival at Gibraltar, where they had to continue some time,
Mr. Whitefield found that Major Sinclair, without solicitation, had
provided a lodging for him, and the governor and military invited
him to their table. Being apprehensive that at a public military
table he might be more than hospitably treated, to prevent any
thing disagreeable, he reminded his excellency that, at the court
of Ahasuerus, "none did compel." The governor took the hint, and
pleasantly replied, "No compulsion of any kind shall be used at my
table;" and every thing was conducted with the greatest propriety.
Here he often preached, and was heard by many, including all in high
offices. Unusual indeed were the scenes, both with respect to the
place and the people. The adjacent promontories, and the vastness of
the rock of Gibraltar, aided in the enlargement of the ideas of the
preacher as to Him, who "in his strength setteth fast the mountains,
and is girded about with power." And the place being a sort of
public rendezvous of all nations, he thought, he says, "he saw the
world in epitome."

The success of Whitefield's ministry at Gibraltar was truly
remarkable. He quaintly says of it, "Samson's riddle was fulfilled
there: 'out of the strong came forth sweetness.' Who more unlikely
to be wrought upon than soldiers? And yet, among any set of people,
I have not been where God has made his power more known. Many that
were quite blind, have received their sight; many that had fallen
back, have repented and turned to the Lord again; many that were
ashamed to own Christ openly, have waxed bold; and many saints have
had their hearts filled with joy unspeakable, and full of glory."

Among other religions societies to which Whitefield was introduced
at Gibraltar, he one day attended the Jewish synagogue, and was
agreeably surprised when one of the rulers handed him into the chief
seat. The rabbi had the day before heard him preach against profane
swearing, and now thanked him for his sermon. He remained in the
synagogue during the whole service, engaged, he says, "in secret
prayer that the veil might be taken from the heart of the Jews, and
they grafted again into their own olive-tree."

Several facts occurred on the way to Savannah after their
embarkation from Gibraltar, which are too interesting to pass
without notice. On one occasion Captain Mackay, after Whitefield
had preached against drunkenness, urged the men to attend to the
things which had been spoken; telling them that he was a notorious
swearer until he did so; and beseeching them for Christ's sake to
give up their sins. On another occasion, while marrying a couple on
deck, Whitefield suddenly shut the prayer-book in the midst of the
ceremony, because the bridegroom had behaved with levity; and not
until the laughter was turned into weeping, would he proceed. At the
close of the service he gave the bride a Bible. When a shark was
caught, with five pilot-fish clinging to its fins, he said, "Go to
the pilot-fish, thou that forsakest a friend in adversity; consider
his ways, and be abashed." When a dolphin was caught, the change
of its hues from lovely to livid, reminded him to say, "Just so is
man; he flourishes for a little while, but when death cometh, how
quickly his beauty is gone! A Christian may learn instruction from
every thing he meets with." While he was preaching on the death
of Christ darkness came on, and he said, "It puts me in mind of
that darkness which overwhelmed the world when the God of nature
suffered."

In the latter part of the voyage, fever laid prostrate all in the
ship except four persons, and at length it seized Whitefield, and
confined him to his bed for a week. The attack, though short, must
have been severe; for besides other remedies, he was bled three
times. During his illness, the captain gave up his own bed to
him, and Mr. Habersham watched him day and night; but that which
gratified him most was, that the sick between decks, whom he had
endangered his life to console, prayed for him with great fervor. He
recovered, and repaid the kindness of all. At length, on May 5, they
came in sight of Savannah river, and sent off for a pilot; and such
was the joy of all, when they came to anchor at Tybee island, that
he could not help exclaiming, "How infinitely more joyful will the
children of God be, when, having passed through the waves of this
troublesome world, they arrive at the haven of everlasting rest!"
Though still weak, he preached a farewell sermon to his "red-coated
and blue-jacketed parishioners," as he called his military and naval
congregation. It was heard with floods of tears.

Upon this voyage, says Dr. Gillies, he made these reflections many
years after: "Even at this distance of time, the remembrance of the
happy hours I enjoyed in religious exercises on deck, is refreshing
to my soul; and although nature sometimes relented at being taken
from my friends, and I was little accustomed to the inconveniences
of a sea-life, yet, a consciousness that I had the glory of God
and the good of souls in view, afforded me, from time to time,
unspeakable satisfaction."

Whitefield was cordially welcomed at Savannah by Delamotte and
other friends of the Wesleys: the magistrates also offered to wait
upon him to pay their respects; but this he declined, and waited
upon them. They agreed to build him a tabernacle and a house at
Frederica, and to accept his services at Savannah as long as he
pleased. He was soon, however, again laid aside by the return of his
fever, now accompanied with ague. This attack in a few days brought
him so low, and made so great an alteration in his person, that he
says, "Had my friends seen me at that hour, they might have learned
not to have any man's person in admiration, and not to think more
highly of me than they ought to think."

The first thing which Whitefield did after his recovery was to
visit _Tomo-Chici_, the Indian king, then on his death-bed. This
was the micoe, or king, whom Oglethorpe had taken to England, in
1734, and introduced to king George the Second. He was accompanied
by his wife and son, and seven other Indians of the Creek nation.
His eloquent speech to the king and queen was so well received at
court, that he was loaded with presents, and when he had again to
embark, was sent in one of the royal carriages to Gravesend. "He now
lay," says Whitefield, "on a blanket, thin and meagre; little else
but skin and bones. Senanki, his wife, sat by, fanning him with
Indian feathers. There was no one could talk English, so I could
only shake hands with him and leave him. A few days afterwards,
Mr. Whitefield again went to visit Tomo-Chici, and found that
his nephew, Tooanoowee, could speak English. Whitefield says, "I
desired him to ask his uncle, whether he thought he should die;
who answered, 'I cannot tell.' I then asked where he thought he
should go after death. He replied, 'To heaven.' But alas, how can
a drunkard enter there? I then exhorted Tooanoowee, who is a tall,
proper youth, not to get drunk; telling him that he understood
English, and therefore would be punished the more if he did not live
better. I then asked him whether he believed in a heaven. He said,
'Yes.' I then asked whether he believed in a hell, and described it
by pointing to the fire. He replied, 'No.' From whence we may easily
gather, how natural it is to all mankind to believe there is a place
of happiness, because they wish it to be so; and on the contrary,
how averse they are to believe in a place of torment, because they
wish it may not be so. But God is just and true; and as surely as
the righteous shall go away into everlasting happiness, so the
impenitently wicked shall go into everlasting punishment."

The records of Georgia say, under date of December 21, 1737,
"Ordered, that a license be made out for the Rev. Mr. George
Whitefield to perform ecclesiastical offices in Georgia, as a deacon
in the church of England."

Before Whitefield had any thoughts of going abroad, Charles Wesley
talked to him of an orphan-house in Georgia, which he and General
Oglethorpe had contemplated. When he arrived in Savannah, and had
sufficiently recovered from his illness to examine the state of
the colony, the condition of the children deeply affected him; and
he set his heart on founding the projected institution as soon
as he should be able to collect the needful funds. In the mean
time he opened schools in the villages of Highgate and Hampstead,
and one also, for girls, in Savannah. He afterwards visited the
Saltzburgher's orphan-school at Ebenezer; and if any thing had been
wanted to settle his own determination, or to inflame his zeal, he
found it there. The Saltzburghers were exiles for conscience' sake,
and were eminent for piety and industry. Their ministers, the Rev.
Messrs. Grenaw and Boltzius, were eminently evangelical, and their
asylum, which they had been enabled to found by British benevolence,
for widows and orphans, was flourishing. Whitefield was so delighted
with the order and harmony of Ebenezer, that he gave a share of
his own "poor's store" to Boltzius, for his orphans. Then came the
scene which entirely completed his purpose: Boltzius "called all the
children before him; catechized and exhorted them to give God thanks
for his good providence towards them; then prayed with them, and
made them pray after him; then sung a psalm. Afterwards, the little
lambs came and shook me by the hand, one by one, and so we parted."
Whitefield was now pledged to this cause for life.

Most of our readers probably know that the conductors of "The
Gentleman's Magazine," a work which has now been regularly
published in London for much more than a century, have never been
favorable to evangelical truth, or its ministers; it is therefore
the more gratifying to copy from that work for November, 1737, the
following lines: it will be seen that they were published more than
a month before Mr. Whitefield's departure to the American colonies.


"TO THE REV. MR. WHITEFIELD, ON HIS DESIGN FOR GEORGIA.

    "How great, how just thy zeal, adventurous youth,
     To spread in heathen climes the light of truth!
     Go, loved of heaven, with every grace refined,
     Inform, enrapture each dark Indian's mind;
     Grateful, as when to realms long hid from day,
     The cheerful dawn foreshows the solar ray.
     How great thy charity, whose large embrace
     Intends the eternal weal of all thy race;
     Prompts thee the rage of waves and winds to scorn,
     To effect the work for which thy soul was born.
     What multitudes, whom Pagan dreams deceive,
     Shall, when they hear thy heavenly voice, believe!
     On Georgia's shore thy Wesley shall attend,
     To hail the wished arrival of his friend;
     With joy the promised harvest he surveys,
     And to his Lord for faithful laborers prays;
     Though crowded temples here would plead thy stay,
     Yet haste, blest prophet, on thy destined way.
     Be gentle, winds, and breathe an easy breeze,
     Be clear, ye skies, and smooth, ye flowing seas!
     From heaven, ye guardian angels, swift descend,
     Delighted his blest mission to attend;
     Which shall from Satan's power whole nations free,
     While half the world to Jesus bow the knee.
     Long as Savannah, peaceful stream, shall glide,
     Your worth renowned shall be extended wide;
     Children as yet unborn shall bless your lore,
     Who thus to save them left your native shore;
     The apostles thus, with ardent zeal inspired,
     To gain _all nations_ for their Lord desired.
     They measured seas, a life laborious knew,
     And numerous converts to their Master drew;
     Whose hallelujahs, on the ethereal plains,
     Rise scarce beneath the bright seraphic strains.

    "GLOUCESTER, Nov. 1, 1737."

After spending a few weeks at Savannah, laboring as much as his
health would permit, Whitefield went to Frederica, where he was
gladly received; the people "having had a famine of the word for a
long season." They had no sanctuary, and therefore he had to preach
under a tree, or in Mr. Habersham's house. This visit, although
short, endeared him to all the people; and he had the satisfaction
before he left, to see them "sawing timber for a commodious place
of worship, until a church could be built." His return, however,
to Savannah was hastened by a somewhat painful event. One of his
friends was lost in the woods, and missing from Tuesday till Friday.
The great guns had been fired to direct the wanderer, but in vain;
and some of the people had searched for him day and night, without
success. This report was sent to Whitefield, and it hurried him away
from Frederica. He had the pleasure, however, on his arrival at
Savannah, to find his "lost sheep."

During the stay of Whitefield in Georgia, the weather was intensely
hot, sometimes almost burning his feet through his shoes. Seeing
others do it, he determined to accustom himself to hardship by
lying constantly on the floor; which by use he found to be so far
from being uncomfortable, that afterwards it became so to lie on a
bed. Nor was he more ready to deny himself than he was assiduous
to do good; preaching often, catechizing the young, visiting the
sick, and exhorting from house to house. Entirely independent and
unrestrained, he knew no fear in the discharge of what he regarded
as his duty. Knowing that some men of influence, to whom his voice
could not be addressed from the pulpit, were living in open defiance
of morality and shame, he went into the court and made an address to
the grand jury, urging them to present all such offenders without
partiality or fear, since the miserable state of the colony was
doubtless owing to divine displeasure against their sins.

Reflection on the character, labors, and success of his
predecessors, stimulated his zeal and encouraged his hope. It could
not be denied that John Wesley had been misrepresented and unkindly
treated, both in Savannah and Frederica, and Whitefield therefore
rejoiced to bear honorable testimony of him and his colleagues.
He says, "Surely I must labor most heartily, since I come after
such worthy men. The good Mr. John Wesley has done in America is
inexpressible. His name is very precious among the people, and he
has laid such a foundation, that I hope neither men nor devils will
be able to shake it. O that I may follow him as he has followed
Christ."

Mr. Whitefield having as yet only received deacon's orders, and
wishing to be ordained priest, for the more complete performance
of his duty as a minister of the church of England, it became
necessary for him to return to Europe for that purpose; and being
also desirous of making collections for his Orphan-house, he left
Mr. Habersham at Savannah, and went to Charleston, S. C., on his way
to England.

At Charleston he became acquainted with the Rev. Alexander Garden,
the ecclesiastical commissary of the Bishop of London, who with
apparent cordiality twice invited him into his pulpit, and assured
him that he would defend him with his life and property, should the
same arbitrary proceedings ever be commenced against him which Mr.
Wesley had met with in Georgia. Dr. Deems, in his recently published
volume, "The Annals of Southern Methodism," tells us, when speaking
of his first sermon, "The people at first despised his youth, but
his engaging address soon gained their general esteem, and Mr.
Garden thanked him most cordially." In an after-period, however,
when Mr. Garden more fully understood the evangelical character of
Mr. Whitefield's preaching, he frequently took occasion to point
out what he called the pernicious tendency of his doctrines, and
irregular manner of life. He represented him as a religious quack,
who had an excellent way of setting off and rendering palatable his
poisonous tenets. On one occasion Garden, to keep his flock from
going after this strange pastor, preached from the text, "These that
have turned the world upside down are come hither also." Whitefield,
however, was not to be silenced in this way, and returned the
compliment by preaching from the words, "Alexander the coppersmith
did me much evil; the Lord reward him according to his works."

On September 6, 1738, Whitefield embarked for London. The voyage was
perilous in the extreme. They were tossed about with bad weather,
in a ship out of repair, and in sad want of provisions. When they
were over about one-third of the Atlantic, a vessel from Jamaica
would have gladly received him, but he chose to share the lot of
his shipmates. They highly valued his services, and one of his
fellow-passengers, Captain Gladman, became, as the result of this
voyage, a truly pious man. The captain, in a subsequent period, at
his own earnest request, became the fellow-traveller of his teacher.

After a passage of about nine weeks, they made the port of Limerick,
in Ireland. "I wish," Whitefield says, "I could never forget what
I felt when water and provisions were brought us from the shore.
Mr. M'Mahon, a country gentleman, came from his seat at midnight
on purpose to relieve us, and most kindly invited me, though
unknown, to his house, to stay as long as I pleased." At Limerick
he was cordially received by that worthy prelate, Bishop Birscough,
who engaged him to preach at the cathedral. From thence he went
to Dublin, where he preached, and was hospitably entertained by
Archbishop Bolton, Bishop Rundel, and Dr. Delany.

Remaining but a short time in Ireland, he proceeded to London, where
he arrived December 8. Here he had the pleasure of conversing with
some of the Moravian brethren, whose faith and love refreshed his
spirit, though he did not entirely approve some of their views. He
soon discovered somewhat of a change of feeling towards him on the
part of many of the London clergy. Within two days, he found five
of the churches were closed against him. He called on the Archbishop
of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, who received him with cold
civility. The bishop asked him if his journals were not tinctured
with enthusiasm; and he replied, with his usual meekness and candor,
that they were written only for his own use, and that of his private
friends, and that they were published without his knowledge. So
anxious was he to avoid giving offence, that he took the earliest
opportunity to expunge from his journals whatever he discovered to
be erroneous, and whatever he had said without imperative necessity,
or which was likely to injure the character and feelings of any one.

The trustees of Georgia, at a meeting in London, received Whitefield
with great cordiality, and in compliance with the wishes of the
colonists, they presented him with the living of Savannah, the
salary of which he declined to receive; but he thankfully accepted
five hundred acres of land, on which he proposed to erect his
orphan-house.

On Sunday, January 14, 1739, being then in his twenty-fifth year,
Whitefield was ordained priest at Oxford, by his worthy friend
Bishop Benson. Having preached twice to very crowded congregations,
and administered the Lord's supper at the castle, he returned to
London the next day. As Dr. Benson once expressed regret that he
had ordained Mr. Whitefield, it may be proper here to explain the
circumstances. Shortly after the late Countess of Huntingdon first
became acquainted with the truth as it is in Jesus, Bishop Benson,
who had been lord Huntingdon's tutor, was sent for to remonstrate
with her ladyship, and to induce her to relinquish what were then
considered her erroneous views; but she pressed him so hard with
the Articles and Homilies of his own church, and so plainly and
faithfully urged upon him the awful responsibility of his station,
that for the moment his mind was hurt, and he rose up to depart,
lamenting that he had ever laid his hands upon George Whitefield, to
whom he imputed the change which had been wrought in her ladyship.
"My lord," said she, "mark my words; when you come upon your dying
bed, that will be one of the few ordinations you will reflect upon
with pleasure." It would seem that it was so; for, on his death-bed,
the Bishop sent ten guineas to Mr. Whitefield as a token of his
favor and approbation, and begged to be remembered by him in his
prayers.

The interval between his taking priests' orders, and embarking a
second time for Georgia, was employed by Whitefield, with his usual
energy and success, in preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
and in making collections for his Orphan-house. Having, before his
visit to America, collected large sums for the charity schools in
the metropolis, he naturally expected that the pulpits would not be
denied him now, in which to plead the interests of his own poor.
But he was scarcely yet aware that the tide of clerical opinion had
turned so extensively and strongly against him. The doctrines he had
preached, and the manner in which he had preached them, had produced
a sensation so strong, that he found himself excluded from most of
the churches in London. A few, however, were yet open to him for
his benevolent design. The Rev. Mr. Broughton conducted himself,
among others, very nobly. Having been urged to refuse his pulpit,
as some of his neighbors had done, he boldly replied, that "having
obtained the lectureship of St. Helen's by Whitefield's influence,
he should have the pulpit if he desired it." Mr. Whitefield
preached, but Mr. Broughton thus losing the lectureship, Whitefield
blamed himself for having done so. Whatever he might himself be
willing to suffer, he was not willing to inflict inconvenience on
others.

Only a few days before his being ordained as priest, Whitefield
offered his first public _extempore_ prayer, in a large meeting
in Red Cross-street, London. He mentions this fact in a note of
his diary as "the first time I ever prayed extempore before such a
number." He did not even then suppose that his preaching, as well
as his prayers in this manner, were to develop his mighty power.
The crowding of the churches now suggested the idea of preaching in
the open air. He says, "When I was informed that nearly a thousand
people stood out in the church-yard, and that hundreds returned
home, this put me first upon thinking of preaching without doors. I
mentioned it to some friends, who looked upon it as a _mad_ motion.
However, we kneeled down and prayed that nothing might be done
rashly. Hear and answer, O Lord, for thy name's sake."

We shall soon see how his extempore expositions and prayers were
fitting him for this new enterprise. He would have commenced in
London now, but he lacked a fair opportunity.




CHAPTER III.

OPEN-AIR PREACHING IN ENGLAND AND WALES--ERECTION OF THE TABERNACLE
IN LONDON.

1738-1739.


Under the circumstances we have related in our last chapter,
Whitefield paid another visit to Bristol, and soon found that he had
to meet with new and very unexpected opposition. When he arrived in
the city, the chancellor of the diocese, while he did not approve
of what he considered his irregular conduct, told him that he would
not prohibit any clergyman from lending him his church; but in a
few days afterwards he sent for the evangelist, and announced his
entire opposition to his movements. Strangely enough, he now asked
Whitefield by what authority he preached in the diocese of Bristol
without a license. The reply of the intrepid minister was, that he
supposed such a custom had become obsolete, and asked the chancellor
in his turn, "And pray, sir, why did you not ask the clergyman who
preached for you last Thursday this question?" The chancellor then
read to him the canons which forbid any clergyman from preaching
in a private house; to which Whitefield replied, that he did not
suppose these canons referred to professed ministers of the church
of England; and when the chancellor told him he was mistaken, he
reminded his superior, "There is also a canon, sir, forbidding all
clergymen to frequent taverns and play at cards; why is not that
put in execution?" And he then added, that notwithstanding any
canons to the contrary, he could not but speak the things which
he knew, and that he was resolved to proceed as usual. His answer
was written down, and the chancellor closed the interview with the
words, "I am resolved, sir, if you preach or expound anywhere in
this diocese till you have a license, I will first suspend, and then
excommunicate you." The crisis was now come; the Rubicon had been
passed, and the inquiry might well be made, "What will Whitefield
now do?"

Already have we seen that he had earnestly desired, in London, to
preach in the open air, for want of room in the churches, and indeed
also from the opposition of the clergy, which had begun so strongly
to manifest itself; and during this journey to Bristol, he found it
necessary to preach in the open air or not at all. As this event was
of vast importance in its results, both in his own history and that
of Mr. Wesley, who also began to preach on the same spot within two
months after Whitefield had opened the way, we must stay a while to
narrate the facts.

[Illustration: TABERNACLE, p 89.]

[Illustration: HANHAM MOUNT]

At that time, the colliers of Kingswood, near the city of Bristol,
were a most depraved and reckless class of men. Inconceivably
barbarous and ignorant, they trampled on all laws, human and divine,
and hesitated not to set the magistrates at defiance. It was
dangerous to pass near the scene of their labors, even in open day,
for robberies and murders were of frequent occurrence; in a word, it
was truly "a seat of Satan." When Whitefield was at Bristol, making
collections for his projected orphan institution in Georgia, not a
few persons had said to him, "Why go abroad; have we not Indians
enough at home? If you have a mind to convert Indians, there are
colliers enough in Kingswood." "I thought," says he, "it might be
doing the service of my Creator, who had a mountain for his pulpit,
and the heavens for his sounding-board, and who, when his gospel
was refused by the Jews, sent his servants into the highways and
hedges." After much prayer and many inward struggles, he went one
day to a gentle elevation on the south side of Kingswood, called
Hanham Mount, and there, under an old sycamore-tree, he preached his
first sermon in the open air to about a hundred colliers. The scene
must have been very impressive. Before him stretched the rich and
beautiful valley of the Avon, through which the river was gently
winding, bordered in the distance by the undulating hills; while on
his right and left the cities of Bath and Bristol were within sight.

The fact of his preaching here soon and extensively spread, and at
meeting after meeting his audience increased, till he found himself
addressing _nearly twenty thousand persons_. His own account of the
effects produced is very striking. He says, "The first discovery of
their being affected, was in the white gutters made by their tears,
which plentifully fell down their black cheeks, as they came out of
their coal pits. Hundreds and hundreds of them were soon brought
under deep convictions, which happily ended in sound and thorough
conversion. As the scene was quite new, and I had just begun to
be an extempore preacher, I had often many inward conflicts.
Sometimes, when twenty thousand people were before me, I had not,
as I thought, a word to say; but I was never deserted; and I was
often so assisted as to understand what that meaneth, 'Out of his
belly shall flow rivers of living water.' The open firmament above;
the prospect of the adjacent fields; with the sight of thousands
and thousands, some in coaches, some on horseback, and some in the
trees, and all so affected as to be drenched in tears together, to
which sometimes was added the solemnity of the approaching night,
were almost too much for me; I was occasionally all but overcome."
Writing to Mr. Wesley a few weeks afterwards, he says, "Yesterday I
began to play the madman in Gloucestershire, by preaching on a table
in Thornbury-street. To-day I have exhorted twice, and by and by
I shall begin a third time; nothing like doing good by the way. I
suppose you have heard of my proceedings in Kingswood."

We scarcely need to remark here, that Kingswood has ever since been
regarded as a sacred spot in ecclesiastical history. Here houses
for Wesleyan Methodists and Independents were soon erected, and in
them thousands have been converted to God. Here was placed the first
school for the sons of Methodist preachers, and on Hanham Mount,
besides the voice of Whitefield, those of the Wesleys, Coke and
Mather, Pawson and Benson, and Bradburn, accomplished some of the
mightiest effects which attended their powerful preaching. There are
yet some living in the neighborhood who were awakened under their
ministry, and whose eyes glisten as they tell of the blessed days
that are past.

Besides the colliers, and thousands from the neighboring villages,
persons of all ranks daily flocked out of Bristol. And he was
soon invited by many of the most respectable people to preach
on a large bowling-green in the city itself. Many of the people
indeed sneered to see a stripling with a gown mount a table on
unconsecrated ground; this even excited once or twice the laugh of
some of the higher ranks, who had admired him in the churches. But
he was unmoved, and his preaching was so blessed, that many were
awakened. Sometimes he was employed almost from morning till night
answering those who, in distress of soul, cried out, "What shall I
do to be saved?" He now sought the help of Mr. John Wesley, who,
after much reasoning with himself on the subject, complied with
the invitation, and followed Whitefield's example, who immediately
committed the work to him. Before leaving the neighborhood, however,
Whitefield had the satisfaction of laying the foundation of a school
for Kingswood; for the support of which the colliers liberally and
cheerfully subscribed.

Taking an affectionate leave of his Bristol friends, Whitefield made
an excursion into Wales, where a revival of religion had commenced
several years before, under the ministry of the Rev. Griffith Jones,
and was now carried on by the ministry of Mr. Howel Harris, a man
of strong mental powers, great Christian zeal, and considerable
learning. They met at Cardiff. Whitefield's heart was then glowing
with the fire he had himself kindled at Bristol and Kingswood. On
his way from Bristol to Cardiff, he was delayed at the New Passage
by contrary winds. He says, "At the inn there was an unhappy
clergyman who would not go over in the passage-boat, because I was
in it. Alas, thought I, this very temper would make heaven itself
unpleasant to that man, if he saw me there. I was told that he
charged me with being a dissenter. I saw him, soon after, shaking
his elbows over a gaming-table. I heartily wish those who charge
me causelessly with schism and being righteous overmuch, would
consider that the canons of our church forbid the clergy to frequent
taverns, or to play at cards or dice, or any other unlawful games.
Their indulging themselves in these things is a stumbling-block to
thousands."

We have said that Whitefield first met Howel Harris at Cardiff.
After preaching in the town-hall, from the judges' seat, he says, "I
was much refreshed with the sight of Mr. Howel Harris; whom, though
I knew not in person, I have long loved, and have often felt my
soul drawn out in prayer in his behalf.... When I first saw him, my
heart was knit closely to him. I wanted to catch some of his fire,
and gave him the right hand of fellowship with my whole heart. After
I had saluted him, and given an exhortation to a great number of
people, who followed me to the inn, we spent the remainder of the
evening in taking sweet counsel together, and telling one another
what God had done for our souls. A divine and strong sympathy
seemed to be between us, and I was resolved to promote his interest
with all my might. Accordingly we took an account of the several
societies, and agreed on such measures as seemed most conducive to
promote the common interest of our Lord. Blessed be God, there seems
a noble spirit gone out into Wales; and I believe that, ere long,
there will be more visible fruits of it. What inclines me strongly
to think so is, that the partition wall of bigotry and party spirit
is broken down, and ministers and teachers of different communions
join, with one heart and one mind, to carry on the kingdom of
Jesus Christ. The Lord make all the Christian world thus minded;
for, until this is done, we must, I fear, despair of any great
reformation in the church of God."

Before leaving Cardiff, Whitefield preached again in the town-hall,
to a large assembly. He says, "My dear brother Harris sat close by
me. I did not observe any scoffers within; but without, some were
pleased to honor me so far as to trail a dead fox, and hunt it
about the hall. But, blessed be God, my voice prevailed. This being
done, I went, with many of my hearers, among whom were two worthy
dissenting ministers, to public worship; and in the second lesson
were these remarkable words: 'The high-priests, and the scribes,
and the chief of the people sought to destroy him; but they could
not find what they might do to him; for all the people were very
attentive to hear him.'

"In the afternoon I preached again, without any disturbance or
scoffing. In the evening, I talked for above an hour and a half
with the religious society, and never did I see a congregation more
melted down. The love of Jesus touched them to the quick. Most
of them were dissolved in tears. They came to me after, weeping,
bidding me farewell, and wishing I could continue with them longer.
Thanks be to God, for such an entrance into Wales. I wrestled with
God for them in prayer, and blessed be His holy name for sending me
into Wales. I hope these are the first-fruits of a greater harvest,
if ever it should please God to bring me back from Georgia. 'Father,
thy will be done.'"

Whitefield returned from this short excursion, to Bristol, baptized
with Welsh fire, and renewed his labors among the Kingswood colliers
with more than his usual power and success. He could not, however,
forget the tears which had entreated him to stay longer in Wales,
and in three or four weeks he visited Usk and Pontypool, where he
was again met by Howel Harris. At Usk, "the pulpit being denied, I
preached upon a table, under a large tree, to some hundreds, and God
was with us of a truth. On my way to Pontypool, I was informed by
a man who heard it, that Counsellor H---- did me the honor to make
a public motion to Judge P---- to stop me and brother Howel Harris
from going about teaching the people. Poor man, he put me in mind of
Tertullus, in the Acts; but my hour is not yet come. I have scarcely
begun my testimony. For my finishing it, my enemies must have power
over me from above. Lord, prepare me for that hour."

The report to which we have just referred did not prevent the curate
of Pontypool from cordially inviting Whitefield into his pulpit. He
also read prayers for him. After the sermon, it was found that so
many had come to hear who could not find room in the church, that
another sermon was loudly called for. He says, "I went and preached
to all the people in the field. I always find I have most power
when I preach in the open air; a proof to me that God is pleased
with this way of preaching. I betook myself to rest, full of such
unutterable peace as no one can conceive of but those who feel it."

In several other places did our evangelist, during this excursion,
unfurl the banner of the cross; and at its close he writes, "Oh how
swiftly this week has glided away. To me it has been but as one day.
How do I pity those who complain that time hangs on their hands! Let
them but love Christ, and spend their whole time in his service,
and they will find but few melancholy hours." Nor will any wonder
that he should thus speak, who consider the spirit which animated
his soul. What he some time afterwards wrote to Howel Harris,
from Philadelphia, indicated the spirit he himself cherished:
"Intersperse prayers with your exhortations, and thereby call down
fire from heaven, even the fire of the Holy Ghost,

    "'To soften, sweeten, and refine,
      And melt them into love.'

Speak every time, my dear brother, as if it were your last; _weep
out_, if possible, every argument, and compel them to cry, 'Behold
how he loveth us.'"

From Wales, Whitefield went to visit his native city, Gloucester;
and after one or two sermons, he found himself here also excluded
from the parochial pulpits. But notwithstanding his persecutions,
and the infirm state of his health at that time, his labors in
Gloucester and its vicinity were constant and eminently successful.
Bowling-greens, market-crosses, highways, and other such places,
bore witness to his faithful and tearful labors.

At Gloucester lived at that time the Rev. Mr. Cole, an old
dissenting minister, who often heard Whitefield preach, and used to
say, "These are the days of the Son of man indeed!" Whitefield, when
a boy, had been taught to ridicule this Mr. Cole; and when he was
once asked what profession he would engage in, replied, "I will be a
minister, but I will take care never to tell stories in the pulpit
like old Cole." Twelve years afterwards, the old minister heard the
young one preach, and tell some story to illustrate his subject,
when the venerable servant of Christ remarked, "I find young
Whitefield can tell stories now as well as old Cole." The good man
was much affected with the preaching of his young friend, and was so
humble, that he used to subscribe himself his curate, and went about
in the country preaching after him. One evening, while preaching, he
was struck with death, and asked for a chair to lean on till he had
finished his sermon. Having done this, he was carried up stairs and
died. When the fact was told to Whitefield, he said, "O blessed God,
if it be thy holy will, may my exit be like his!" How striking is
this fact when looked at in connection with the circumstances of his
own removal from earth.

Intent on the advancement of his orphan-house in Georgia, Whitefield
soon went to London, passing on his way through Oxford. At both
places he found opposition, and in London was shut out of the
churches. He preached to thousands in Islington churchyard, and now
resolved to give himself to the work in the open air.

From the conflict with the enemies who a few years before had
threatened her existence, the polemics of the church of England now
turned to resist the unwelcome ally who menaced her repose. Bishop
Warburton led the van, and behind him many a mitred front scowled
on the audacious innovator. Divested of the logomachies which
chiefly engaged the attention of the disputants, the controversy
between Whitefield and the bishops lay in a narrow compass. It
being mutually conceded that the virtues of the Christian life can
result only from certain divine impulses, and that to lay a claim
to this holy inspiration when its legitimate fruits are wanting,
is a fatal delusion, he maintained, and they denied, that the
person who is the subject of this sacred influence has within his
own bosom an independent attestation of its reality. So abstruse a
debate required the zest of some more pungent ingredients, and the
polemics with whom Whitefield had to do were not such sciolists in
their calling as to be ignorant of the necessity of riveting upon
him some epithet at once opprobrious and vague. While therefore
milder spirits arraigned him as an _enthusiast_, Warburton, with
constitutional energy of invective, denounced him as a _fanatic_. In
vain Whitefield demanded a definition of these reproachful terms. To
have fixed their meaning would have been to blunt their edge. They
afforded a solution, at once compendious, obscure, and repulsive, of
whatever was remarkable in his character, and have been associated
with his name from that time to the present.

The spots on which Whitefield now began, in his own language,
"to take the field," and publicly to erect the standard of the
Redeemer's cross, are well known. Moorfields, then a place of
general rendezvous and recreation from the crowded city, Kennington
Common then about two, and Blackheath about five miles from London,
were the favorite sites to which he loved to resort, and "open his
mouth boldly" to listening thousands, in honor of his crucified and
glorified Lord. Recording his first engagement of this kind in his
diary of Sabbath evening, April 29, 1739, he writes, "Begun to be
yet more vile this day, for I preached at Moorfields to an exceeding
great multitude; and at five in the evening went and preached at
Kennington Common, where upwards of twenty thousand were supposed
to be present. The wind being for me, it carried my voice to the
extreme part of my audience. All stood attentive, and joined in
the psalm and the Lord's prayer so regularly, that I scarce ever
preached with more quietness in a church. Many were much affected.

    "'For this let men revile my name,
      I'll shun no cross, I'll fear no shame;
      All hail, reproach, and welcome pain,
      Only thy terrors, Lord, restrain.'"

For several successive months, the places we have named were his
chief scenes of action. At a moderate computation, the audience
frequently consisted of twenty thousand. It is said that the singing
could be heard two miles, and the voice of the preacher nearly
one. Sometimes there were upwards of a hundred coaches, besides
wagons, scaffolds, and other contrivances by which a sight of him
could be obtained. The rising ground on Blackheath, from which
Whitefield preached, is still known as "Whitefield's mount," and
after his death, Lord Dartmouth planted it with fir-trees. It will
ever be a grateful recollection to the author of this volume, that
during the summer of 1839 he prevailed on some of the most eminent
ministers of England to preach on every successive Monday evening
on this hallowed spot; and that here many thousands then heard
the way of salvation, and not a few were brought to the cross of
Christ. In that immediate neighborhood too, now densely populated,
he organized, and for some years preached to a Christian church.
Memorable times! Many were the manifestations of the Redeemer's
favor.

An anecdote which we heard many years ago from one of Whitefield's
Blackheath hearers, may here be related. While one day preaching on
"the heath," there passed along the road at some distance, an old
man and "Mary" his wife, with their ass and his loaded panniers,
returning from London to their home in Kent. Attracted alike by the
crowd and the preacher's voice, the old man and his wife turned a
little out of their way to hear "what the man was talking about."
Whitefield spoke of somewhat which occurred eighteen hundred years
ago, and the old man said, "Mary, come along, it is only something
which happened a long while ago;" but Mary's attention had been
arrested, and she wished to stay a minute or two longer. They were
both soon in tears, and the inquiry was excited in their hearts,
"What shall we do to be saved?" On their way home, while "talking
of all these things," the old man recollected his neglected Bible,
and asked, "Why, Mary, does not our old book at home say somewhat
about these things?" They went home, and examined the old book with
new light. "Why, Mary," asked the old man, "is this indeed our old
book? why, every thing in it seems quite new." So true is it, that
the teaching of the Spirit gives new discernment as to the truths of
divine revelation.

A fact strikingly illustrating the children's love to our evangelist
may be here mentioned. In his open-air preachings, especially in and
about London, he was usually attended by many of them, who sat round
him, in and about the pulpit, and handed to him the notes of those
who desired his counsels and prayers. These children were exposed to
the missiles with which he was often assailed, but however terrified
they might be, or even hurt, they seldom shrunk; "but," says he, "on
the contrary, every time I was struck, they turned up their little
weeping eyes, and seemed to wish they could receive the blows for
me."

Speaking of his open-air labors, the devoted preacher says, "Words
cannot express the displays of divine grace which we saw, and heard
of, and felt. Lord, not unto me, but unto thy name be all the
glory." On a subsequent occasion he writes, "We have had a glorious
season, a true Easter. Jesus Christ is risen indeed. I have been
preaching in Moorfields, and our Saviour carries all before us.
Nothing can resist his conquering blood. It would have delighted you
to see poor sinners flock from the booths to see Jesus lifted up on
the pole of the gospel." The climax of his success there, is one of
the most remarkable letters that ever came from a mortal's pen. He
records at its close, "We then retired to the Tabernacle, with my
pockets full of notes from persons brought under concern, and read
them amidst the praises and spiritual acclamations of thousands, who
joined with the holy angels in rejoicing that so many sinners were
snatched, in such an unexpected, unlikely place and manner, out of
the very jaws of the devil. This was the beginning of the Tabernacle
society. Three hundred and fifty awakened souls were received in
one day; and I believe the number of notes exceeded a thousand. But
I must have done, believing you want to retire, to join in mutual
praise with me in thanksgiving to God and the Lamb."

Having thus introduced the name of the Tabernacle, it is important
that the reader should be acquainted with the origin of the
buildings which have borne that name. From the very first of what
may be called his irregular labors, Whitefield always declared that
he "would never be the founder of a sect." He kept his word; yet
two London churches remain as his memorial--the Tabernacle, and
Tottenham Court-road chapel, the one in the north, and the other
in the western part of the metropolis. The Tabernacle, which was
first erected, was his more especial and favorite field of labor,
and he dwelt in the house adjoining it, which is still the pastoral
residence.

Moorfields, just without the limits of the old north city wall of
London, was, a few years before Whitefield first knew it, a marsh,
and during the greater part of the year, was absolutely impassable.
Having been partially drained, a brick kiln was erected, and the
first bricks used in London are said to have been manufactured
there. Afterwards it was a field for the practice of archery,
when it was laid out in walks, and called the City Mall. Though
improved in name and appearance, it became the rallying ground for
the rabble of London; wrestlers, boxers, and mountebanks, the idle,
the dissolute, and the profane, held here their daily and nightly
revels. It appeared, in fact, to be one of the strong-holds of
Satan, and therefore became a most tempting and important point
of attack for the daring eloquence of Whitefield. All London rang
one day with the announcement that Whitefield would preach the day
following at Moorfields.

This was in January, 1739. Gillies says, "The thing being strange
and new, he found, on coming out of the coach, an incredible number
of people assembled. Many told him that he would never come out of
that place alive. He went in, however, between two friends, who by
the pressure of the crowd were soon parted from him entirely, and
obliged to leave him to the mercy of the rabble. But these, instead
of hurting him, formed a lane for him, and carried him along to the
middle of the fields, where a table had been placed. This, however,
having been broken by the crowd, he mounted a wall, and preached to
an exceeding great multitude in tones so melting, that his words
drew tears and groans from the most abandoned of his hearers.
Moorfields became henceforth one of the principal scenes of his
triumphs. Thirty thousand people sometimes gathered together to hear
him, and generous contributions here poured in for his orphan-house
at Bethesda. On one occasion twenty pounds--about one hundred
dollars--were received in half-pennies, more than one person was
able to carry away, and enough to put one out of conceit with a
specie currency."

It was not till his fifth visit to London, in March, 1741, that
Whitefield ventured to preach in Moorfields on _a week-day_; the day
selected for this bold action being Good-Friday. His chief, if not
his only friends on this occasion, he tells us, were a few "orthodox
dissenters." These people perceiving the inconvenience to which
he was subjected by the weather, during the morning and evening
services in Moorfields, procured the loan of a piece of ground, and
employed a carpenter to build a large temporary shed, to screen the
auditory from the cold and rain. This building Whitefield called
a "tabernacle," as it was only intended to be used a few months
during his stay in his native country, previous to his return to
America. Providence, however, had otherwise determined, and this
proved the commencement of a permanent establishment of the means of
grace. A great spiritual awakening took place; congregations became
very large, acquiring at the same time considerable cohesion, and
assuming a stationary character. This original fabric of wood was a
place of large dimensions; and notwithstanding its rude aspect and
temporary design, it sufficed for the accommodation of Whitefield
and his flock, during the twelve succeeding years--a period the most
brilliant and useful of his extraordinary career.

Some of Whitefield's friends, however, did not approve of the
original wooden structure; and anticipating or desiring the
formation of a Christian church, they called for the immediate
erection of a substantial brick building, a point which was debated
with a warmth approaching to violence, of which Whitefield makes
pathetic mention seven years afterwards. Here then several important
facts are established: that the original tabernacle sprang not from
Whitefield, but from a voluntary movement among his adherents,
composed chiefly, if not wholly, of Protestant dissenters; that the
expense was borne not by him, but by them; that much debate and
dissension attended the measure, proving the thoroughly free and
popular character of the original movement; and that, as the edifice
originated with the people alone, so did the institution of regular
worship. It is certain that fears existed in the mind of Whitefield
as to the success of such an organization; but the results most
happily disappointed his expectations.

The subject of the erection of a more spacious edifice in the place
of the tabernacle of wood, was first discussed at the mansion
of Lady Huntingdon, in Leicestershire, when Drs. Doddridge and
Stonehouse, and the Rev. Messrs. Hervey and Whitefield happened to
meet together, in the summer of 1751. During the following winter,
Whitefield began to make collections for the object, and on almost
its first presentation in London, nine hundred pounds, or four
thousand five hundred dollars, were subscribed. "But," he says, "on
the principle that burned children dread the fire, I do not mean
to begin until I get one thousand in hand, and then to contract at
a certain sum for the whole." The fact was, that Whitefield had
often been in great straits for the support of his orphan-house
in Georgia, "for I forgot," he says, "that Professor Francke built
in Glaucha, in a populous country, and that I was building at the
very tail of the world." In March, 1753, he wrote to Mr. Charles
Wesley, "On Tuesday morning the first brick of our new Tabernacle
was laid with awful solemnity. I preached from Exodus 20:24, 'In all
places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will
bless thee.' The wall is now about a yard high. The building is to
be eighty feet square. It is on the old spot. We have bought the
house, and if we finish what we have begun, shall be rent free for
forty-six years." In June the dedicatory services took place, when
the Tabernacle, though capable, with its capacious galleries, of
holding _four thousand_ people, was crowded almost to suffocation.
Often have we seen this vast building crowded with worshippers, with
delight have we occupied its pulpit, and with devout gratitude do we
record, that never for a moment has the frown of heaven rested upon
it. Thousands will ever bless God for its erection.

Not unfrequently has the question been discussed, to what
denomination of Christians does the Tabernacle really belong? In
answer to this question, we give a legal document which may also
show what is done in reference to houses of worship in England,
under the laws for the maintenance of religious toleration.

"These are to certifie whom it may Concern, that a Certificate
bearing date the Eighteenth Day of June, in the year of Our Lord
One Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty-four, under the Hands of
Starkey Myddleton Minister, Robert Keen, Thomas Cox, Samuel Grace,
Robert Hodgson, James Smith, Thomas Robinson, Benjamin Coles,
Thomas Brooks, and Samuel Lockhart, for appropriating and setting
apart a Certain Building for that purpose erected, situate near the
Barking Dogs in the Parish of Saint Luke in the County of Middlesex,
and intended for the meeting place of a certain Congregation of
Protestant Dissenters from the Church of England, calling themselves
Independents, was Registered in the Registry of the Dean and Chapter
of the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul, London, This Twenty-first
Day of June in the year of Our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and
Sixty-four.

  "THOMAS COLLINS, Deputy Registrar."

While the new Tabernacle was in the course of erection, Whitefield
visited Norwich, where his ministry was largely attended, and
notwithstanding much opposition, was followed with considerable
success. Writing to his friend Keen, he says, "How does God delight
to exceed even the hopes, and to disappoint the fears of his weak,
though honest-hearted people. In spite of all opposition, he hath
caused us to triumph even in Norwich. Thousands attend twice every
day, and hear with the greatest eagerness. I hope it will appear
yet more and more that God hath much people here." Compelled by
alarming illness, the result of his too much preaching, he suddenly
returned to London, from whence he thus wrote to one of the converts
at Norwich: "I shall little regard the weakness and indisposition of
my body, if I can but have the pleasure of hearing, if not before,
yet at the great day, that good was done to one precious soul at
Norwich. Blessed be God for the seed sown there. I doubt not but
it will be watered with the dew of his heavenly blessing, and bring
forth a divine increase."

Truly the gospel did triumph, not only in the erection of the
Tabernacle in that city, but in preparing sinners to be pillars in
the temple of God, and to win others to his service.

Among other converts won at Norwich, was the afterwards popular and
useful minister of Christ, the Rev. Robert Robinson, of Cambridge,
England. When a young man, about eighteen, he resided in that city,
and was engaged in the business of a barber. When he was walking
one morning with several companions who had agreed that day to take
their pleasure, the first object which attracted their attention
was an old woman who pretended to tell fortunes. They immediately
employed her to tell theirs, and that they might qualify her for the
undertaking, first made her thoroughly intoxicated. Robinson was
informed, among other things, that he would live to a very old age,
and see his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren growing
up around him. Though he had assisted in intoxicating the old
woman, he had credulity enough to be struck with those parts of the
prediction which related to himself. "And so," said he when alone,
"I am to see children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. At
that age I must be a burden to the young people. What shall I do?
There is no way for an old man to render himself more agreeable to
youth, than by sitting and telling them pleasant and profitable
stories. I will then," thought he, "during my youth, endeavor
to store my mind with all kinds of knowledge. I will see and
hear, and note down every thing that is rare and wonderful, that
I may sit, when incapable of other employments, and entertain my
descendants. Thus shall my company be rendered pleasant, and I shall
be respected, rather than neglected, in old age. Let me see, what
can I acquire first? Oh, here is the famous Methodist preacher,
Whitefield; he is to preach here, they say, to-night; I will go and
hear him."

From these strange motives, as he told the celebrated Rev. Andrew
Fuller, he went to hear Whitefield preach. That evening his text
was, "But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come
to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who
hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?" Matt. 3:7. "Mr.
Whitefield," said Robinson, "described the Sadducees' character;
this did not touch me; I thought myself as good a Christian as any
man in England. From this he went to that of the Pharisees. He
described their exterior decency, but observed, that the poison of
the viper rankled in their hearts. This rather shook me. At length,
in the course of his sermon, he abruptly broke off; paused for a
few moments; then burst into a flood of tears, lifted up his hands
and eyes, and exclaimed, 'Oh, my hearers, _the wrath's to come! the
wrath's to come!_' These words sunk into my heart like lead in the
water; I wept, and when the sermon was ended retired alone. For days
and weeks I could think of little else. Those awful words would
follow me wherever I went: 'The wrath's to come! The wrath's to
come!'"

Scarcely had Whitefield completed the Tabernacle in London, before
he was earnestly solicited to hold public services at the west
end of the city, and Long-Acre chapel, then under the charge of a
dissenter, was offered for his use. An unruly rabble endeavored to
drive the preacher from his post; but a running fire of brickbats,
broken glass, bells, drums, and clappers, neither annoyed nor
frightened the intrepid evangelist; nor did an interference on the
part of the hierarchy, which followed soon after, prohibiting his
preaching in an incorporated chapel. "I hope you will not look on
it as contumacy," said Whitefield to the bishop, "if I persist in
prosecuting my design until I am more particularly apprized wherein
I have erred. I trust the irregularity I am charged with will appear
justifiable to every lover of English liberty, and what is all to
me, be approved at the awful and impartial tribunal of the great
Bishop and Shepherd of souls." Writing to Lady Huntingdon, he says,
"My greatest distress is so to act as to avoid rashness on the
one hand and timidity on the other;" and this shows, what indeed
was proved in his whole life, an entire absence of that malignant
element of fanaticism which courts opposition and revels in it.

"Determined," as Mrs. Knight says, in her beautiful volume, "_Lady
Huntingdon and her Friends_," "not to be beaten from his ground,
yet hoping to escape some of its annoyances, Whitefield resolved to
build a chapel of his own. Hence arose Tottenham Court-road chapel,
which went by the name of 'Whitefield's soul-trap.'" Admirably
does he say, "I pray the Friend of sinners to make it a soul-trap
indeed to many wandering creatures. My constant work is preaching
fifteen times a week. Conviction and conversion go on here, for God
hath met us in our new building." It was completed and dedicated in
November, 1756. Though not equal in its triumphs to the Tabernacle,
the congregation has always been large, and its preachers--always
the same as those at the Tabernacle--have not labored in vain. In
1829, '30, improvements were made in the building, which still,
however, contains Whitefield's pulpit. A vast area in the centre was
originally filled with plain seats, where the masses of the people
were accommodated free of all pew rent.

Let not infidels tell us, that the religion of these men and of
those times was mere enthusiasm, and that the temporal interests
of men were neglected in professions of high regard for those of
a spiritual character. Let such men know that within two years
of the opening of Tottenham Court-road chapel, not only did the
congregation build a parsonage-house for their minister, but twelve
almshouses for as many poor widows. The Tabernacle has always
acted with equal generosity. In proportion to their means, few
congregations in the world have exceeded these two in works of
benevolence.

Assuredly what has sometimes been charged on evangelical
ministers--that they attend to the spiritual interests of mankind,
but neglect their temporal sufferings--would never apply to Mr.
Whitefield. No sooner had he completed these large edifices, where
vast congregations assembled, than he was heard frequently to plead
for those laboring under oppression or distress in foreign lands.
He preached in both these houses in behalf of the poor French
Protestants in Prussia, who had suffered much from the cruelty of
the Russians, when great numbers of the nobility, and some of the
highest officers of the crown went to hear him. The collections for
this object amounted to upwards of fifteen hundred pounds, or seven
thousand five hundred dollars; and for this disinterested act of
benevolence Whitefield received the thanks of his Prussian Majesty.

Again, on the day recommended by the government for a general fast,
Mr. Whitefield preached both at the Tabernacle and at Tottenham
Court-road chapel, after which he collected five hundred and sixty
pounds for the relief of the German Protestants, and the sufferers
by fire at Boston, for which he received the unanimous thanks of
the inhabitants of that town. Lady Huntingdon wrote to one of her
friends, "It would delight you to have seen what crowds of the
mighty and noble flocked to hear him. The collection was for the
relief of the poor German Protestants. I invited several to come
who probably would not attend his ministry on other occasions."
Few places at that time could boast of such a constellation of
transcendent genius and senatorial talent, such a brilliant
assemblage of wisdom, magnanimity, and oratorical powers, as were
then found within these houses of the living God.

One word may be allowed here on the plain architecture of these
buildings. "We are," says the excellent Mr. James, "in many things
improved, and I rejoice in the improvement; but the occasion of my
joy is at the same time the occasion of my fear and my jealousy
also. Our ecclesiastical architecture is just now a special
object of our attention. Whitefield, it may be confessed, paid
too little attention to this; we, perhaps, are paying too much.
His only solicitude was to save souls, careless altogether of the
tastefulness of the building within which that work, which has
no relation to styles of architecture, was carried on. His only
calculation in the construction of a building was, how many immortal
souls could be crowded within four square walls, and under a roof,
to hear 'the joyful sound.' Hence the somewhat uncouth buildings
which he erected. Ah, but when I consider that every stone in those
unsightly walls has echoed to the sound of salvation and the hymns
of redeemed spirits, and that almost every spot on the floor has
been moistened by the tears of penitence, then, in a feeling of
sanctity I seem to lose the sense of deformity, and there comes over
me an awe and solemnity which no modern gothic structure with its
lofty arches and painted windows can inspire. But still, as religion
is not only the most holy, but the most beautiful thing in God's
universe, there is no reason why taste and devotion should not be
united. It is the ministry of the word, however, upon which the
church must be chiefly intent."




CHAPTER IV.

WHITEFIELD'S SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA.

1739, 1740.


As in the preceding chapter, for the sake of connecting the history
of Whitefield's church edifices in London, we have anticipated the
order of events, we go back to the period shortly before his second
voyage to America.

About the time of which we are now writing, a circumstance occurred
of deep interest, which Whitefield relates at considerable length.
Joseph Periam, a young man in London, who had read his sermon on
"regeneration," became deeply impressed by it; he sold all that he
possessed, and prayed so loud and fasted so long, that his family
supposed him deranged, and sent him to the Bedlam madhouse, where he
was treated as "methodistically mad," and as "one of Whitefield's
gang." The keepers threw him down, and forced a key into his mouth,
while they drenched him with medicine. He was then placed in a cold
room without windows, and with a damp cellar under it. Periam,
however, found some means of conveying a letter to Whitefield,
requesting both advice and a visit. These were promptly given.
The preacher soon discovered that Periam was not mad; and taking
a Mr. Seward and some other friends with him, he went before the
committee of the hospital to explain the case. It must have been
somewhat of a ludicrous scene. Seward so astounded the committee by
quoting Scripture, that they pronounced him to be as mad as Periam.
The doctors frankly told the deputation, that in their opinion,
Whitefield and his followers were "really beside themselves." It was
however agreed, that if Whitefield would take Periam out to Georgia,
his release would be granted. Thus the conference ended, and the
young man went out as a schoolmaster at the Orphan-house. There he
was exemplary and useful, and when he died two of his sons were
received into the institution.

Mr. Whitefield so successfully pleaded the cause of his American
orphans, that during his journeys of twelve months he collected
upwards of one thousand pounds towards the erection of his intended
house for their accommodation. With this sum in his possession, he
set sail for America the second time, August 14, 1739, accompanied
by his friend Mr. Seward, eight men, one boy, and two children.

While all this was going on, the inhabitants of Georgia were making
every possible preparation for his reception. The records of the
trustees say, May 16, 1739, "Read a commission to the Rev. George
Whitefield to perform all religious and ecclesiastical offices at
Savannah, in Georgia." Again: "June 2, 1739. Sealed a grant of five
hundred acres of land to the Rev. George Whitefield, in trust for
the use of the house to be erected and maintained for the receiving
such children as now are, and shall hereafter be left orphans in
the colony of Georgia, in pursuance of the direction of the Common
Council held the 30th of last month."

Not only was Whitefield anxious to establish the orphan-house
for the benefit of the whole colony of Georgia, but having been
ordained priest, for the purpose of instructing the inhabitants of
the town of Savannah, he was desirous of making full proof of his
ministry among them. After a passage of nine weeks he landed at
Philadelphia, and was immediately invited to preach in the churches;
to which people of all denominations thronged as in England. He
was especially pleased to find that they preferred sermons when
"not delivered within the church walls." And it was well they did,
for his fame had arrived in the city before him, and crowds were
collected to hear him which no church could contain.

A letter written on this voyage to America has recently come to
light, which beautifully illustrates the spirit by which Whitefield
was now animated. It was addressed to the Rev. John Cumming of
Andover, Hampshire, England.

          "Wrote at Sea, dated at Philadelphia, Nov. 9, 1739.

     "REVEREND AND DEAR SIR--You see by my writing this how willing
     I am to cultivate a correspondence with you. I wish Christians
     in general, and ministers of Christ in particular, were better
     acquainted. The cause of Christ thereby must be necessarily
     promoted. But bigotry and sectarian zeal have been the bane of
     our holy religion. Though we have one Lord, one faith, and one
     baptism, yet if we do not all worship God in one particular
     way, we behave to each other like Jews and Samaritans. Dear
     sir, I hope that neither of us have so learned Christ. Blessed
     be God for his free grace in Christ. The partition wall has
     for some time been broken down out of my heart, and I can truly
     say, whosoever loves the Lord Jesus, 'the same is my brother,
     and sister, and mother.' For this reason, dear sir, I love you.
     For this reason, though I decrease, yet I heartily wish you may
     increase, even with all the increase of God. I am persuaded
     you are like-minded. I believe my friends have prayed for me.
     The Lord hath dealt most lovingly with me his servant. He has
     chastened and corrected, but hath not given me over into the
     hands of the enemy. A future journal will acquaint you with
     particulars. What I have sent over to be published will afford
     you abundant matter for thanksgiving in behalf of,

     "Dear sir, your affectionate friend,
     Brother, and servant,

     "G. WHITEFIELD."

The old court-house of Philadelphia, then standing on Second and
Market streets, had a balcony, which several years before the visit
of Whitefield had been often used instead of a pulpit. In 1736, we
find that Mr. Abel Noble had preached "from the court-house steps,"
on a Monday, to a large congregation standing in Market-street,
on the subject of keeping the Sabbath. In the same year, Michael
Welfare appeared there to give his "warning voice," and now, in
1739, it became one of the favorite preaching stands of the great
evangelist. Here he stood, surrounded by many thousands, even down
to the side of the Delaware river, not a few bathed in tears, and
inquiring after the way of salvation.

[Illustration: OLD COURT-HOUSE, PHILADELPHIA.]

[Illustration: TENNENT CHURCH, FREEHOLD, N. J. p. 117.]

Dr. Franklin says, "The multitudes of all sects and denominations
that attended his sermons were enormous; and it was a matter
of speculation with me to observe the influence of his oratory
on his hearers, and how much they admired and respected him,
notwithstanding his common abuse of them, by assuring them that
they were, naturally, half beasts and half devils. It was wonderful
to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants.
From being thoughtless and indifferent about religion, it seemed
as if all the world was growing religious; so that one could not
walk through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in
different families in every street."

A constant attendant on his ministry at this time says, "His
hearers were never weary; every eye was fixed on his expressive
countenance; every ear was charmed with his melodious voice; every
heart captivated with the beauty and propriety of his address. He
was no contracted bigot; all denominations partook of his religious
charity. Anxious in America for our civil privileges, he was alike
solicitous for the spiritual and temporal happiness of mankind. No
man since the apostolic age preached oftener or with better success.
He was, moreover, a polite gentleman, a faithful friend, an engaging
companion, and a sincere Christian. His sermons in the open air
lasted about one and a half hours."

Watson, in his "Annals of Philadelphia," speaking of Whitefield's
first visit to that city, tells us that he preached to a crowd of
fifteen thousand persons on Society hill, and adds, "About the same
time he so far succeeded to repress the usual public amusements,
that the dancing-school was discontinued, and the ball and concert
rooms were shut up, as inconsistent with the requisitions of the
gospel. No less than fourteen sermons were preached on Society hill
in the open air in one week, during the session of the Presbyterian
church; and the gazette of the day, in noticing the fact, says,
'The change to religion here is altogether surprising, through the
influence of Whitefield; no books sell but religious, and such is
the general conversation.'"

It is said, that though some gentlemen broke open the
assembly-rooms, no company could be induced to visit them. Such was
the popularity of Whitefield, that when he left the city, about
one hundred and fifty gentlemen accompanied him as far as Chester,
fifteen miles from Philadelphia, where he preached to about seven
thousand people. At White Clay creek, he preached to eight thousand
people, three thousand of whom, it is said, were on horseback. Many
complimentary effusions to him appeared in the newspapers, and James
Pemberton, a very distinguished _Friend_, said of him, "In his
conversation he is very agreeable, and has not much of the priest;
he frequents no set company."

An old gentleman assured Watson, the annalist, that on one occasion
the words, "And he taught them, saying," as pronounced by Whitefield
on Society hill, were heard at Gloucester point, a distance by water
of two miles.

Abundant reasons might be assigned for our introducing in this place
an account of the institution called "the Log college." It has
proved the parent of every collegiate and theological institution
connected with the large and wealthy body of Presbyterians in this
country; it was originated by a family which became especially
endeared to Mr. Whitefield; and from his journal, recording his
visit to it, we have, in some respects at least, the clearest
statement of facts concerning it which history has preserved.

As we have already shown, about one hundred and forty years ago,
the state of religion, both in Europe and America, was very low.
Nor was the condition of the Presbyterian body an exception. As
the late Dr. Alexander, in his interesting volume, called "The Log
College," says, "The ministers composing the Presbyterian church
in this country were sound in the faith, and strongly attached to
the Westminster confession of faith and catechisms, as were also
their people; and there were no diversities or contentions among
them respecting the doctrines of the gospel; but as to the vital
power of godliness, there is reason to believe that it was little
known or spoken of. Revivals of religion were nowhere heard of,
and an orthodox creed, and a decent external conduct were the only
points on which inquiry was made, when persons were admitted to
the communion of the church. Indeed, it was very much a matter of
course, for all who had been baptized in infancy, to be received
into communion at the proper age, without exhibiting or possessing
any satisfactory evidence of a change of heart by the supernatural
operations of the Holy Spirit. And the habit of their preachers was
to address their people as though they were all pious, and only
needed instruction and confirmation."

Such was the lamentable state of things when the Rev. William
Tennent, sen., an Irish clergyman past the middle stage of life
arrived in this country, about the year 1716. After laboring for
a season in the state of New York, till about 1721, he received
an invitation to settle at Bensalem, where he ministered to the
small Presbyterian congregation till 1726, when he was called to
Neshaminy, in the same county, where he labored for the rest of
his life, living till 1746, when he died, aged seventy-three. In
Neshaminy the good man felt that he was called not only to discharge
the duties of a preacher and pastor, but to look over the whole
country, and to devise means for the extension of the cause of
Christ. He had himself four sons, the subjects of divine grace, and
blessed with talents for usefulness in the kingdom of the Redeemer,
and he felt that when other young men rose up in the church, favored
with ministerial talents, they also would need mental cultivation.
Hence his determination to erect the humble building of which we now
write, which was the first Presbyterian literary and theological
institution in this country, the immediate parent of the college at
Princeton, and from which, indeed, all similar institutions emanated.

The site of the Log college is about a mile from Neshaminy creek,
where the Presbyterian church has long stood. The ground near and
around it lies handsomely to the eye, and the more distant prospect
is very beautiful; for while there is a considerable extent of
fertile, well-cultivated land, nearly level, the view is bounded to
the north and west by a range of hills, which have a very pleasing
appearance. Mr. Whitefield has left in his "Journal," the only
description we have of the building. "The place," says he, "wherein
the young men study now, is in contempt called 'the college.' It
is a log-house about twenty feet long, and nearly as many broad;
and to me it seemed to resemble the school of the old prophets, for
their habitations were mean. That they sought not great things for
themselves is plain from these passages of Scripture, wherein we are
told that each of them took a beam to build them a house; and that
at the feast of the sons of the prophets, one of them put on the
pot, while the others went to fetch some herbs out of the field. All
that we can say of most of our universities is, they are glorious
without. From this despised place, seven or eight worthy ministers
of Jesus have lately been sent forth; more are almost ready to be
sent, and the foundation is now laying for the instruction of many
others."

Of the senior Tennent, the founder of the Log college, little more
is known than what we have already given. He was a member of the
synod of Philadelphia, who were satisfied with his reasons for
leaving the Established church of Ireland, and for several years
this body cordially coöperated with him in his zealous labors.
Their unity of feeling, however, seems to have declined. This we
learn from a passage in Whitefield's "Journal," which also gives
us a beautiful view of the good old man. "At my return home, was
much comforted by the coming of one Mr. Tennent, an old gray-headed
disciple and soldier of Jesus Christ. He keeps an academy about
twenty miles from Philadelphia, and has been blest with four
gracious sons, three of which have been, and still continue to be
eminently useful in the church of Christ. He brought three pious
souls along with him, and rejoiced me by letting me know how they
had been evil spoken of for their Master's sake. He is a great
friend of Mr. Erskine, of Scotland; and as far as I can learn, both
he and his sons are secretly despised by the generality of the
synod, as Mr. Erskine and his friends are hated by the judicatories
of Edinburgh, and as the Methodist preachers, as they are called,
are by their brethren in England."

Not long after this, the Log college was visited by Whitefield, who
wrote the account we have already given. He also says, under the
date of Nov. 29, 1739, "Set out for Neshaminy, twenty miles distant
from Trent Town, where old Mr. Tennent lives, and keeps an academy,
and where I was to preach to-day, according to appointment. About
twelve o'clock, we came thither, and found about three thousand
people gathered together in the meeting-house yard. Mr. William
Tennent, junior, an eminent servant of Jesus Christ, because we
stayed beyond the time appointed, was preaching to them. When
I came up, he soon stopped; sung a psalm, and then I began to
speak as the Lord gave me utterance. At first, the people seemed
unaffected, but in the midst of my discourse, the power of the Lord
Jesus came upon me, and I felt such a struggling within myself for
the people as I scarce ever felt before. The hearers began to be
melted down immediately, and to cry much; and we had good reason
to hope the Lord intended good for many. After I had finished, Mr.
Gilbert Tennent gave a word of exhortation, to confirm what had
been delivered. At the end of his discourse, we sung a psalm, and
dismissed the people with a blessing; O that the people may say Amen
to it. After our exercises were over, we went to old Mr. Tennent's,
who entertained us like one of the ancient patriarchs. His wife,
to me seemed like Elizabeth, and he like Zachary; both, as far as
I can learn, walk in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord
blameless. Though God was pleased to humble my soul, so that I was
obliged to retire for a while, yet we had sweet communion with each
other, and spent the evening in concerting what measures had best
be taken for promoting our dear Lord's kingdom. It happened very
providentially that Mr. Tennent and his brethren are appointed to be
a presbytery by the synod, so that they intend bringing up gracious
youths, and sending them out from time to time into the Lord's
vineyard."

We may be permitted to add here, that among the ministers sent out
by Mr. Tennent, from the Log college, to preach the gospel, were his
four sons, Gilbert, William, John, and Charles, the Rev. Messrs.
Samuel Blair, John Blair, Charles Beatty, and Rev. Dr. Samuel J.
Finley, President of Princeton College; of some of these excellent
men the reader will hear again in the course of this volume.

In reference to his first visit to Philadelphia, Whitefield thus
writes: "I have scarcely preached among them, but I have seen a
stirring among the dry bones. Go where I will, I find people with
great gladness receive me into their houses. Sometimes I think I am
speaking to stocks and stones; but before I have done, the power
of the Lord comes over them, and I find I have been ploughing up
some fallow ground, in a place where there has been a great famine
of the word of God. But as God's word increases, so will the rage
and opposition of the devil. Scoffers seem to be at a stand what to
say. They mutter in coffee-houses, give a curse, drink a barrel of
punch, and then cry out against me for not preaching more morality.
Poor men, if God judges them, as he certainly will do, by _their_
morality, out of their own mouths will he condemn them. Their
morality, falsely so called, will prove their damnation. God has
enlarged my heart to pray. Tears trickle down my face, and I am in
great agony; but the Lord is pleased to set his seal to what he
enables me to deliver. Amid cries and groans in the congregation,
God gives me much freedom of speech. Many people and many ministers
weep. My own soul is much carried out. I preached to a vast assembly
of sinners; nearly twelve thousand were collected; and I had not
spoken long, before I perceived numbers melting; as I proceeded, the
power increased, and thousands cried out; never before did I see so
glorious a sight. Oh, what strong crying and tears were poured forth
after the dear Lord Jesus! Some fainted; and when they had gotten a
little strength, they would hear and faint again. Never was my soul
filled with greater power. Oh, what thoughts and words did God put
into my heart. As great, if not greater commotion was in the hearts
of the people. Look where I would, most were drowned in tears."

An aged man who was living in 1806, and who well remembered the
scenes he witnessed, bore testimony that after this visit of the
great evangelist, public worship was regularly celebrated in
Philadelphia twice a day for a whole year; and that on the Lord's
day it was celebrated three, and frequently four times in each
church. He said there were not less than twenty-six societies
regularly held for prayer and Christian conference.

Such was the influence of Whitefield, not only in Philadelphia, but
throughout the colony of Pennsylvania, that in the city attention to
commerce was suspended, and in the country the cultivation of the
land for the time being was abandoned, that people might hear him
proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus.

Among other very striking conversions in Philadelphia at this
period, was that of a young lady, who had for several years made
a public profession of Christianity, but who now became fully
convinced that "she was totally unacquainted with vital piety."
When Mr. Whitefield began his labors in that city, she was greatly
affected by his preaching, on which she constantly attended, and
often afterwards told her friends, that after the first sermon she
heard him preach, she was ready to say with the woman of Samaria,
"Come see a man who told me all things that ever I did." The
preacher, she said, so exactly described all the secret workings of
her heart, her wishes, and her actions, that she really believed
he was either more than human, or else that he was supernaturally
assisted to know her heart. She was not then aware that all depraved
hearts are much alike, and that he who in lively colors can paint
one, gives a description which will be recognized by many as their
own. This young lady once walked twenty miles to hear a sermon
from Whitefield; she became a most eminent Christian, and was one
of the constituent members of the church organized by Mr. Tennent.
She married Mr. Hugh Hodge, who was also one of the seals of Mr.
Whitefield's ministry, and a deacon of the church, and for more than
sixty years she eminently "adorned the gospel of God in all things."

During this first visit of Mr. Whitefield to Philadelphia, another
interesting circumstance occurred. Whitefield preached one evening
standing on the steps of the court-house, in Market-street,
which became, as we have said, his favorite spot during that and
subsequent visits. A youth some thirteen years of age stood near
him, and held a lantern for his accommodation; but becoming deeply
absorbed in the sermon, and strongly agitated, the lantern fell from
his hands, and was dashed in pieces. Those near the boy, observing
the cause of the accident, felt specially interested, and for a
few moments the meeting was discomposed by the occurrence. Some
fourteen years afterwards, Mr. Whitefield, on his fifth visit to
this country, was visiting St. George's, in Delaware. He was one
day riding out with the Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, then settled as the
minister at St. George's, in the closed carriage in which Whitefield
generally rode. Mr. Rodgers asked him whether he recollected the
occurrence of the little boy who was so affected with his preaching
as to let his lantern fall. Mr. Whitefield replied, "O yes, I
remember it well; and have often thought I would give almost any
thing in my power, to know who that little boy was, and what had
become of him." Mr. Rodgers replied with a smile, "I am that little
boy." Mr. Whitefield, with tears of joy, started from his seat, took
him in his arms, and with strong emotion remarked, that he was the
_fourteenth_ person then in the ministry whom he had discovered in
the course of that visit to America, in whose conversion he had,
under God, been instrumental.

From Philadelphia, Whitefield was invited by Mr. Noble to New
York; this gentleman being the only person with whom he then had
an acquaintance in that city. Upon his arrival, he waited with his
friend on the commissary, but he refused to Whitefield the use of
the church. This commissary of the bishop, he says, "was full of
anger and resentment, and denied me the use of his pulpit before I
asked for it. He said they did not want my assistance. I replied,
that if they preached the gospel, I wished them good luck: I will
preach in the fields; for all places are alike to me." The undaunted
evangelist therefore preached in the fields; and on the evening of
the same day, to a very thronged and attentive audience, in the Rev.
Mr. Pemberton's meeting-house, in Wall-street; and continued to do
so twice or three times a day, with apparent success.

Of this visit to New York, and of Whitefield's labors there,
we have a graphic account, furnished by one of his hearers, for
"Prince's Christian History." Of the first sermon in the fields,
the writer says, "I fear curiosity was the motive that led me
and many others into that assembly. I had read two or three of
Mr. Whitefield's sermons and part of his Journal, and from them
had obtained a settled opinion, that he was a good man. Thus far
was I prejudiced in his favor. But then having heard of so much
opposition, and many clamors against him, I thought it possible he
might have carried matters too far; that some enthusiasm might have
mixed itself with his piety, and that his zeal might have exceeded
his knowledge. With these prepossessions I went into the fields.
When I came there, I saw a great number of people, consisting of
Christians of all denominations, some Jews, and a few, I believe,
of no religion at all. When Mr. Whitefield came to the place
designated, which was a little eminence on the side of a hill, he
stood still and beckoned with his hand, and disposed the multitude
upon the descent, before, and on each side of him. He then prayed
most excellently, in the same manner, I suppose, that the first
ministers of the Christian church prayed. The assembly soon appeared
to be divided into two companies, the one of which I considered
as God's church, and the other the devil's chapel. The first were
collected round the minister, and were very serious and attentive;
the last had placed themselves in the skirts of the assembly,
and spent most of their time in giggling, scoffing, talking, and
laughing. I believe the minister saw them, for in his sermon,
remarking on the cowardice and shamefacedness in Christ's cause, he
pointed towards _this_ assembly, and reproached the former, those
who seemed to be Christians, with the boldness and zeal with which
the devil's vassals serve him. Towards the last prayer the whole
assembly appeared more united, and all became hushed and still; a
solemn awe and reverence appeared in the faces of most, a mighty
energy attending the word. I heard and felt something astonishing
and surprising, but I confess I was not at that time fully rid of my
scruples. But as I thought I saw a visible presence of God with Mr.
Whitefield, I kept my doubts to myself.

"Under this frame of mind, I went to hear him in the evening at
the Presbyterian church, where he expounded to above two thousand
people within and without doors. I never in my life saw so attentive
an audience. All he said was demonstration, life, and power. The
people's eyes and ears hung on his lips. They greedily devoured
every word. I came home astonished. Every scruple vanished; I never
saw nor heard the like; and I said within myself, 'Surely God is
with this man, of a truth.' He preached and expounded in this manner
twice every day for four days, and his evening assemblies were
continually increasing.

"On Sunday morning at eight o'clock, his congregation consisted of
about fifteen hundred people; but at night several thousands came
together to hear him; and the place being too strait for them, many
were forced to go away, and some, it is said, with tears lamented
their disappointment. After sermon he left New York at ten at night,
to fulfil a promise that he had made to preach at Elizabethtown, at
eleven A. M. the next day."

We give a few paragraphs from the same vigorous pen, relating to
the personal manners and the doctrines of our evangelist. "He is a
man of a middle stature, of a slender body, of a fair complexion,
and of a comely appearance. He is of a sprightly, cheerful temper,
and acts and moves with great agility and life. The endowments of
his mind are very uncommon; his wit is quick and piercing; his
imagination lively and florid; and as far as I can discern, both are
under the direction of an exact and solid judgment. He has a most
ready memory, and I think speaks entirely without notes. He has a
clear and musical voice, and a wonderful command of it. He uses much
gesture, but with great propriety. Every accent of his voice, every
motion of his body _speaks_, and both are natural and unaffected. If
his delivery is the product of art, it is certainly the perfection
of it, for it is entirely concealed. He has a great mastery of
words, but studies much plainness of speech.

"His doctrine is right _sterling_. I mean, perfectly agreeable
to the Articles of the church of England, to which he frequently
appeals for the truth of it. He loudly proclaims all men by nature
to be under sin, and obnoxious to the wrath and curse of God. He
maintains the absolute necessity of supernatural grace to bring
men out of this state. He asserts the righteousness of Christ to
be the only cause of the justification of the sinner; that this is
received by faith; that this faith is the gift of God; that where
faith is wrought, it brings the sinner under the deepest sense of
his guilt and unworthiness to the footstool of sovereign grace, to
accept of mercy as the free gift of God, only for Christ's sake. He
denies that good works have any share in our justification: that
indeed they do justify our faith, and necessarily flow from it,
as streams from the fountain; but Christ's external righteousness
imputed to us, and his inherent righteousness wrought in us, is the
only cause of man's salvation. He asserts the absolute necessity of
the new birth, where a principle of new life is ingenerated in the
heart of man, and an entire change is produced in the temper and
disposition of the soul; and that this new production is the work
only of God's blessed Spirit. That wherever this change is wrought,
it is permanent and abiding, and that the gates of hell shall never
prevail against it. He asserts that the special influence and
indwelling of the Spirit, was not peculiar to the first Christians,
but that it is the common privilege of believers in all ages of the
church; that the Holy Spirit is the author of the sanctification and
comfort of all God's people; and that, even in these days, if any
man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his. He said, that
to many of his hearers, he feared he spoke in an unknown tongue;
that he preached great mysteries; that true Christians knew what he
meant, and that all his hearers, if they are saved, must be brought
to understand them. These are some of the doctrines which have been
attended with such mighty power in this city. This is the doctrine
of the martyrs. This they sealed with their blood; notwithstanding
that so many in our days have departed from it.

"Mr. Whitefield speaks much of the language of the New Testament;
and has an admirable faculty in explaining the Scriptures. He
strikes out of them such lights, and unveils those excellencies
which surprise his hearers, when he expounds them. He expresses the
highest love and concern for the souls of men; and speaks of Christ
with the most affectionate appropriation--'_My Master! My Lord!_' He
is no enemy to the innocent freedoms and liberties of the gospel;
nor does he affect singularity in indifferent things. He spends
not his zeal in trifles, but says, 'The kingdom of God consists
not in meats and drinks; but in righteousness, and peace, and joy
in the Holy Ghost.' He breathes a most catholic spirit, and prays
most earnestly that God would destroy all that bigotry and party
zeal which has divided Christians. He supposes some of Christ's
flock are to be found under every denomination, and upbraids the
uncharitableness of those who confine the church to their own
communion. He professes a most sincere love to all those who love
our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and declares that he has no
design to make a party in religion. He professes that his whole
design in preaching the gospel is to bring men to Christ, to deliver
them from their false confidences, to raise them from their dead
formalities, and to revive primitive Christianity among them; and
if he can obtain this end, he will leave them to their liberty, and
they may go to what church, and worship God in what form they like
best."

While going from Philadelphia to New York, or on his return,
Whitefield appears to have preached at Maidenhead, Abington,
Neshaminy, Freehold, Burlington, Elizabethtown, and New Brunswick,
to many thousands, gathered from various parts, among whom there
had been a considerable awakening under the ministry of Mr.
Frelinghuysen, a Reformed Dutch minister, and the Rev. Messrs.
Tennent, Blair, and Rowland. It was no less pleasing to him than
strange to see such congregations in a foreign land; ministers
and people shedding tears, sinners struck with awe, and religious
persons who had been much persecuted, filled with joy. The old
_Tennent church_ at Freehold, where preached Whitefield, Brainerd,
Davies, and other "famous men" of that day, still echoes with the
same gospel. In size the building is forty feet by sixty, with three
entrances on the larger side. The pulpit is on the north side of the
house, immediately opposite the central door, so that the minister
faces the width of the church instead of its length. The pulpit is
very narrow, and is surmounted with a sounding-board, according
to the custom of our fathers. In the middle aisle lie buried the
remains of the sainted William Tennent, whose death took place about
seven years after that of Whitefield, at the age of seventy-two
years. A handsome monumental tablet records the leading dates of his
pilgrimage.

Some of our readers may inquire as to the localities honored by
Whitefield's preaching in and about the city of New York. We
find many records of his discoursing in the open fields of the
surrounding country; the old City Exchange, which stood at the
foot of Broad-street, near Water-street, and which was built on
large arches, was a favorite spot for itinerant preachers, and for
Whitefield among the rest. During his various visits to New York,
from 1745 to 1760, he generally preached in the Presbyterian church
in Wall-street, which was then the only church of that denomination
in the city, and of which the Rev. Dr. Pemberton, from Boston, was
the minister. Afterwards, a few years before his death, he was
accustomed to preach in the Brick church in Beekman-street; which
was then familiarly called the "Brick meeting," and in common
parlance, said to be "in the fields;" so little was the city
extended at that period. So prosperous was his ministry in New York,
that it was found necessary immediately to enlarge the Presbyterian
church in Wall-street, by the erection of galleries; and a year or
two afterwards it was again enlarged about one-third, in order to
accommodate the stated worshippers.

When Whitefield was preaching before a very large number of the
seamen of New York, he introduced the following bold apostrophe into
his sermon: "Well, my boys, we have a cloudless sky, and are making
fine headway over a smooth sea, before a light breeze, and we shall
soon lose sight of land. But what means this sudden lowering of
the heavens, and that dark cloud arising from beneath the western
horizon? Hark! don't you hear the distant thunder? Don't you see
those flashes of lightning? There is a storm gathering. Every man
to his duty. How the waves rush and dash against the ship! The
air is dark. The tempest rages. Our masts are gone! What next?"
The unsuspecting tars, reminded of former perils on the deep, as
if struck by the power of magic, arose, and with united voices
exclaimed, "Take to the longboat, sir!" The reader may well imagine
how this very natural answer would be used by the preacher.

While at New York, Whitefield wrote, "God willing, in about
seven months I hope to see New England on my return to Europe.
An effectual door is there opened, and no wonder there are many
adversaries. Shortly I expect to suffer for my dear Master." And
after his return to Philadelphia, he showed his piety and meekness
by writing to the Rev. Dr. Pemberton, of New York, "I have been much
concerned since I saw you, lest I behaved not with that humility
towards you which is due from a babe to a father in Christ; but
you know, reverend sir, how difficult it is to meet with success,
and not be puffed up with it; and therefore, if any such thing was
discernible in my conduct, O pity me, and pray to the Lord to heal
my pride. All I can say is, that I desire to learn of Jesus Christ
to be meek and lowly in heart; but my corruptions are so strong, and
my employ so dangerous, that I am sometimes afraid."

One of the most important incidents of this journey to New York,
was the meeting of Whitefield with Gilbert Tennent. Two powerful
preachers could hardly resemble each other less; and the great
strength of each lay in characteristics in which the other was
deficient. In one point, especially, Whitefield felt and recorded
his new friend's superiority. He heard Tennent preach. "Never before
heard I such a searching sermon. He went to the bottom indeed, and
did not 'daub with untempered mortar.' He convinced me, more and
more, that we can preach the gospel of Christ no further than we
have experienced the power of it in our hearts. I found what a babe
and novice I was in the things of God." These men, as Tracy says,
having once met, could not but be friends and allies for life; and
the effects of their alliance could not fail to be felt by thousands.

Both at Philadelphia and New York, printers applied to Whitefield
for copies of his sermons for publication, and two were so issued,
in the influence of which their author had cause to rejoice. In an
after-period, the celebrated Benjamin Franklin printed Whitefield's
"Journal in New England," still extant; a copy of which was sold at
auction in Philadelphia in 1855, for about thirty times its original
price. His journals, indeed, and his sermons became considerable
articles in commerce, and did not a little, amid the comparatively
sparse population of the country, to extend both his fame and his
usefulness.

But the time was now come when it became important that Whitefield
should pursue his course towards Savannah. He could not, however,
regret his stay so long on the road. "It is unknown," he says, "what
deep impressions have been made on the hearts of hundreds. Many poor
sinners have, I trust, been called home, and great numbers are under
strong convictions. An opposer told me I had unhinged many _good
sort of people_. I believe it."

Nor was this the only good he had done. No small sympathy had been
excited among Christian people in favor of his orphan family, and a
spirit of liberality and of prayer was extensively cherished. "They
sent me," says the grateful evangelist, "butter, sugar, chocolate,
pickles, cheese, and flour, for my orphans; and indeed, I could
almost say, they would pluck out their own eyes and give me. O that
what God says of the church of Philadelphia may now be fulfilled in
the city called after her name--'I know thy works.'"

The ready liberality which everywhere met Whitefield, determined
him to pursue his journey by land. He therefore procured a vessel,
in which he sent on his family and their supplies to Savannah. Of
this sloop, Captain Gladman was master; and a young man who had
recently been converted by the preaching of the great evangelist,
willingly offered himself as mate. We have already seen that he was
accompanied southward as far as Chester by a very large company of
gentlemen of Philadelphia; and on his arrival at that place, a court
was about to open, but the judges sent him word that they would
not commence their business until the sermon, which they expected
from him, was over. Nearly a thousand people had travelled from
Philadelphia to hear it, and it was thought that those collected
from places many miles around, composed an assembly of not less than
seven thousand persons. A platform was erected, and it was believed
that many of his hearers obtained something infinitely better than
the mere gratification of their curiosity.

Among other places at which he preached on this journey, was White
Clay creek, endeared to him not only as the place where he first met
with his beloved friend William Tennent, but as the residence of
a Welsh family who had heard him preach at Cardiff and Kingswood
before they emigrated, and who bore, what was to him a fact of
endearing interest, the name of _Howell_. But during this tour
Whitefield had to endure considerable privations and peril in riding
through the woods. On one occasion, he heard the wolves "howling
like a kennel of hounds" near to the road; on another, he had a
narrow escape in trying to cross the Potomac in a storm. Here also
he had once to swim his horse, owing to the floods; for it was now
the depth of winter. One night, Seward and he lost their way in the
woods of South Carolina, and were much alarmed at seeing groups
of negroes dancing around large fires. Notwithstanding all the
hardships, however, of the journey, no real injury was sustained
from it.

Our evangelist at length arrived at Charleston in good health and
spirits. But he could not obtain admittance to St. Philip's church;
Garden, the commissary, who had once promised to "defend him with
life and fortune," was absent, and the curate would not open the
doors without his leave. The people, however, had not forgotten him,
and the Rev. Josiah Smith, the congregational minister, and the
pastor of the French church, at once threw open their houses and
pulpits, and rich indeed were the blessings they enjoyed.

The congregations during his present visit to Charleston were large
and polite; but he says they presented "an affected finery and
gayety of dress and deportment, which I question if the court-end
of London could exceed." Before he left, however, there was what
he called "a glorious alteration in the audience." Many of them
wept; and the hitherto light and airy had visibly strong feelings,
as shown in their countenances. Such was their extreme anxiety to
hear more from him, that after he had gone to the shore to sail for
Georgia, they prevailed on him to preach again.

On the next morning, Whitefield and his companions left Charleston
in a canoe for Savannah; and on their way lay on the ground in the
woods, surrounded by large fires to keep off the wild beasts. On
this fact he makes the reflection, "An emblem, I thought, of the
divine love and presence keeping off evils and corruptions from the
soul." On his arrival at Savannah, January 11, 1740, he was very
happy to meet his family, who had arrived there three weeks before
him; and to find, by letters from England, New York, etc., that the
work of the Lord prospered. One thing, however, greatly distressed
him. The colony of Georgia was reduced even to a much lower state
than when he left it, and was deserted by nearly all who could get
away. He thought that to employ those who were left, would render
them an important service, and that the money thus expended might be
the means of keeping them in the colony.

During the absence of Mr. Whitefield from Georgia, Mr. Habersham
had fixed on a plot of ground of five hundred acres, about ten
miles from Savannah, on which the orphan-house should stand, and
had already commenced to clear and stock it. The orphans, in the
mean time, were accommodated in a hired house. Whitefield afterwards
regretted the course pursued. He found the condition of the orphans
so pitiable, and the inhabitants so poor, that he immediately
opened an infirmary, hired a large house at a great rent, and took
in, at different times, twenty-four orphans.

In the March following, Whitefield was again at Charleston, where he
went to meet his brother, the captain of a ship, from England. Here
he was requested by many of the inhabitants to give some account of
his poor orphans, which he did in the house of worship occupied by
his friend the Rev. Josiah Smith, the first native of South Carolina
who received a literary degree. Such was the spirit excited, that
the collection amounted to seventy pounds sterling. This was no
small encouragement, especially as he had reason to believe that
most of it came from those who had received spiritual benefit from
his ministry.

But if Whitefield now had his joys in Charleston, so he had also
his sorrows. We have seen that in a previous visit to this city,
he had considered himself "set for the defence of the gospel." He
had remarked, in reference to the twelfth article of the church of
England, "Observe, my dear brethren, the words of the article, 'Good
works are the fruit of faith, and follow after justification.' How
can they then precede, or be in any way the cause of it? No, our
persons must be justified, before our performances can be accepted."

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