heresiarch by publishing a sermon full of laudation of his gifts and graces,—a work of Josiah Smith, of South Carolina,1 which the ministers of the Brattle Street Church prefaced by a eulogistic memoir of their own. Whitefield was now twenty-six years old. A year before he had been ordained a priest of the Church of England. He was at this time on his second visit to America, where his principal business had been the establishing of a hospital for orphans in General Oglethorpe's recently constituted Colony of Georgia.2

George

in New England. Sept. 14.

The marvellous preacher was received in New England with flattering honors. From Charleston, in South Whitefield Carolina, he came by water to Newport, arriving at that place with the advantage of a favorable change of wind, which, as well as the offer of a lodging presently made to him by a hospitable stranger, he understood to be due to his prayers." In three days he preached six times at Newport to large assemblies.* Four miles from Boston he was met on his way by "the Governor's son and several other gentle

Sept. 18.

1 The Character, Preaching, &c., of the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield, &c.

2 Whitefield, born in 1714, was admitted to deacon's orders in the Church of England in 1736, "being then twenty-one years and seven months old." (Whitefield, Brief and General Account of the First Part of the Life of the Reverend Mr. George Whitefield, p. 49.) In 1738 he went, at the invitation of the Wesleys, as a missionary to Georgia. He returned thence at the end of the same year, and was ordained in England as a priest. In the following year he came to Philadelphia, at which place, as well as at New York, and several towns in New Jersey, he preached with brilliant success. Thence he turned his steps

to Savannah, and next to Charleston, whence Dr. Colman summoned him to New England.

Dr. Trumbull is careful to record that Whitefield did but fan and spread in New England a flame which was already blazing before he appeared. “In 1740, there began a very great and general concern among the people.

The sinners in Zion were afraid, and fearfulness surprised the hypocrites. The children of God received the fresh anointings of His Spirit, and the spices of their gardens flowed out. The bride, in happy union with the Spirit, said, 'Come.'" (History of Connecticut, II. 143; comp. 151.)

3 Whitefield, Seventh Journal, 17, 18.

men," who had come out to conduct him to that place. On the following day he "was visited by several gentlemen and ministers, and went to the Governor's with Esquire Willard, Secretary of the Province, a man fearing God;" after which he "preached to about four thousand people in Dr. Colman's meeting-house, and, as he afterwards was told by several, with great success." The next day he "preached in the morning with much freedom and power to about six thousand hearers, in the Reverend Dr. Sewall's meeting-house," and afterward on the Common to about eight thousand, and again at night to a company which crowded his lodgings. Then came a Sunday, when he had an audience of "about fifteen thousand," not far from three quarters as many as the whole population of the town.'

" 2

Oct. 6.

He remained ten days in Boston, exerting his prodigious' powers of oratory with the same success as had attended them elsewhere. Crowds, listening to him, were Effects of dissolved in tears, and "cried out under the word his preachlike persons that were really hungering and thirst- ing. ing after righteousness.' Then he made a journey of a week to the eastward as far as York, preaching Sept. 29to great congregations in all the principal towns on the way. "Though," he writes, "I had rode a hundred and seventy-eight miles, and preached sixteen times, I trust, to the great benefit of thousands, yet I was not in the least wearied or fatigued." At Hampton he addressed "some thousands in the open air," but "not with so much freedom as usual. The wind was almost too high for him. Some, though not many, were affected." At Portsmouth he had "preached to a polite auditory, and so very unconcerned that he began to question whether he had been

'Whitefield, Seventh Journal, 23-26; comp. Prince, Christian History, II. 379-381. Drake (History and Antiquities of Boston, 615) com

putes the population of Boston at 18,000 in 1742.

2 Whitefield, Seventh Journal, 27-30.

preaching to rational or brute creatures." But in a second trial, on his way back, he subdued them, and reOct. 3. covered his self-satisfaction. "Instead of preaching to dead stocks, I had now reason to believe I was preaching to living men. People began to melt soon after I began to pray, and the power increased more and more during the whole sermon. The word seemed to pierce through and through." This success put him in condition, and he "hastened after dinner to Hampton, and preached to some thousands of people with a good deal of life and power. The last day of a week passed at Boston, where he had spoken two or three times every day, he "went with the Governor [Belcher] in his coach to the Common, where he preached his farewell sermon to near thirty thousand people." "I have observed," he records, "that I have had greater power than ordinary whenever the Governor has been at public worship; a sign this, I hope, that the Most High intends to set him at his right hand." 2

His estima

tion of Boston.

" 1

His journal records the impressions which he carried away from the chief town of America. "Boston is a large, populous place, very wealthy. Has the form kept up, but has lost much of the power of religion. Ministers and people are obliged to confess that the love of many is waxed cold. Both, for the generality, seem to be too much conformed to the world. There's much of the pride of life to be seen in their assemblies. Jewels, patches, and gay apparel are commonly worn by the female sex, and even the common people I observe dressed up in the pride of life. And the little infants that were brought to baptism were wrapped up in such fine things, and so much pains taken to dress them, that one would think they were brought thither to be initiated into, rather than renounce, the pomps and

1 Whitefield, Seventh Journal, 32-35.

2 Ibid., 41, 44.

vanities of this wicked world." But other things looked more favorably. "One thing Boston is very remarkable for, the external observation of the Sabbath. Men in civil offices have a regard for religion. The Governor encourages them, and the ministers and magistrates are more united than in any other place where I have been. I never saw so little scoffing; never had so little opposition. Boston people are dear to my soul. They were greatly affected by the word, followed night and day, and were very liberal to my dear orphans."1

Oct. 13.

His visit to

Edwards.

Leaving Boston, Whitefield, still preaching as he went, proceeded through Worcester and Brookfield towards the river towns. He was especially desirous to see Edwards, and the scene of the revival which had made so much noise five years before. No Jonathan minds could be more unlike than those of Edwards and Whitefield. The marvellous subtilty of the metaphysical divine and the histrionic power of the irresistible speaker had nothing of themselves in common. But the widely dissimilar attributes belonged respectively to two men who were thoroughly in earnest in the pursuit of the same transcendent object, and they met with the most affectionate recognition of each other. Whitefield thought of Edwards that he had not "seen his fellow in all New England." Edwards paid his tribute to Whitefield's when he "wept during the whole time of exercise." "Lately the people of God," writes the visitor, "have complained of deadness and losing their first love; however, as soon as I mentioned what God had done for their souls formerly, it was like putting fire to tinder." 2 From Northampton, after a week's stay in that neighborhood, Whitefield took his journey southward, and, after preaching more than a week in the chief towns of Connecticut on the river and along the south

1 Whitefield, Seventh Journal, 42, 43.

powers

Oct. 20.

Ibid., 45, 47.

western coast, proceeded through the middle Provinces to his temporary home in Georgia. "I think it proper," he wrote, "to set up my Ebenezer, before I enter into the Province of New York, to give God thanks for sending me to New England. It certainly, on many ac

His estima

.

counts, exceeds all other Provinces in America, tion of New and for the establishment of religion perhaps all England. other parts of the world. .

In short, I like

New England exceeding well; and when a spirit of reformation revives, it certainly will prevail more than in any other place, because they are simple in their worship, less corrupt in their principles, and consequently easier to be brought over to the form of sound words, into which so many of their pious ancestors were delivered." 1

"Upon Mr. Whitefield's leaving us," writes Dr. Prince, one of the chroniclers of these transactions, "great numbers in the town were so happily concerned about their souls, as we had never seen any thing like it before, except at the time of the general earthquake. Our assemblies, both on lectures and Sabbaths, were surprisingly increased, and now the people wanted to hear us oftener, in consideration of which a public lecture was proposed to be set up at Dr. Colman's church, near the midst of the town, on every Tuesday evening. When the evening came, the house seemed to be crowded as much as if Mr. Whitefield was there. It was the first stated evening lecture in these parts of the world." The sermon preached on that occasion by Dr. Colman, entitled "Souls flying to Jesus Christ pleasant and admirable to behold," is in print.

Oct. 21.

.

2

The blow which had been struck by Whitefield was followed up by Gilbert Tennent, a Presbyterian minister of New Brunswick, in New Jersey. The year before White

1 Whitefield, Seventh Journal, 54, 55.

Prince, Christian History, &c., II. 381, 382.