Times of Refreshing

C. L.Thompson

The first general revival of religion in this country realized most perfectly the strict meaning of the word. It was a quickening again; it was the Spirit of God calling to newness of life those who once had lived. The beginning of it is usually put at 1740. In truth, it antedates that period by several years. A glance at the religious condition of the country will prepare us to understand its character and extent. A single phrase may outline it: Formalism as opposed to vital Godliness. Puritan severity had yielded to the gradual encroachment of an all-pervading worldliness. Between the Church and the world the line had grown so shadowy as to be almost invisible. Conversion was not necessary to church-membership—a work of grace in the heart not at all essential to an approach to the communion table, and not at all times to be insisted on as a qualification even for preaching the gospel. Writes Samuel Blair, the venerable President of Princeton College, “Religion lay, as it were, dying and ready to expire its last breath of life in this part of the visible Church.” Edwards says, “Many seemed to be awakened with the fear that God was about to withdraw from the land.” Joseph Tracy, in his admirable work on “The Great Awakening,” says, “Such had been the downward progress in New England. Revivals had become less frequent and powerful. There were many in the churches, and some even in the ministry, who were lingering among the supposed preliminaries to conversion. The difference between the church and the world was vanishing away. Church discipline was neglected, and a growing laxness of morals was invading the churches. And yet never, perhaps, had the expectation of reaching heaven at last been more general, or more confident. Occasional revivals had interrupted this downward progress, and the preaching of sound doctrine had retarded it in many places, especially at Northampton, but even there it had gone on, and the hold of truth on the conscience of men was sadly diminished. The young were abandoning themselves to frivolity, and to amusements of dangerous tendency, and party spirit was producing its natural fruit of evil among the old.”

There was one man who perceived the extent of time peril to which the church was exposed by this general lapse from experimental religion, and who also understood that only the truth in its majesty and severity could break the deadly lethargy, which had seized upon the conscience. Jonathan Edwards determined to meet the danger with the unsheathed sword of the Spirit. With keenest insight he saw that the worst of the spiritual trouble of the land was, in somewhat different form, what was the malady under which religion lay dying just before the Reformation. It was the denial of the necessity of regeneration and personal faith in Christ as the sinner’s only hope. Luther had unveiled the truth of justification by faith alone, and it flashed light over a continent of darkness. To him it was the article of a standing or falling church. To Edwards came a like opportunity, and God honored him to be the preacher of this doctrine at a time when it was well-nigh as sorely needed as in the sixteenth century, and when it also required the highest moral courage to proclaim it.

In 1734 Edwards preached that remarkable series of sermons on “Justification by Faith,” which shook the whole community with the truth that in his relations with God the sinner can rely on no outer support of morality, or church fellowship, but only on the atoning work of Christ. The effect of these and following sermons was to strip away false hopes, to enrage some, to humble and convict others, but generally to awaken the public mind to the sharpest questioning and the closest sifting of religious grounds and hopes.

The Holy Spirit owned the truth. In December of that year, Edwards says: “The Spirit of God began extraordinarily to set in and wonderfully to work among us.” Remarkable conversions followed one after the other; the report of the work at Northampton spread through the neighboring towns in which many were awakened and brought to repentance. In half a year Edwards hoped that more than three hundred were converted in Northampton. His account of the experience of the converts is important to our purpose. He notes among those who were awakened, first a conviction of the justice of God in their condemnation, a sense of their own exceeding sinfulness and the vileness of all their performances. This was followed by unexpected quietness and composure, and often a conclusion within themselves that they would lie at God’s feet and await His time. This was followed, sooner or later, by “some comfortable and sweet view of a merciful God, of a sufficient Redeemer, of some great and joyful things of the gospel.” “There is wrought in them a repose of soul in God through Christ, a secret disposition to love him and to hope for blessing in this way. And yet they have no imagination that they are now converted. They know not that the sweet complacence they feel in the mercy and complete salvation of God, as it includes pardon and sanctification, and is held forth to them only through Christ, is a true receiving of this mercy, or a plain evidence of their receiving it.’’

A few years before this there was a revival of considerable power in Freehold, N. J., under the ministry of the Tennents. In 1735 “Mr. Gilbert Tennent brought some overtures into synod with respect to trials of candidates both for the ministry and for the Lord’s Table.” He was moved to this by the custom into which the low state of religion had led the church, of not only receiving people to the Lord’s Table without any evidence of a change of heart. But even ordaining ministers without any strict examination as to their “experience of a work of sanctifying grace in their hearts.” The response of the synod was, however, explicit on the last of these points, and it was one of the signs of the general religious awakening for which God’s Spirit was preparing the way.

Prominent among those early revivals, the one among the Scotch Irish Presbyterians of New Londonderry, Pa., deserves special mention, less for the extent of it than for the insight it gives us into the spiritual tendencies of the times. Samuel Blair gives an interesting account of the state of religion at that time. He speaks of the presence everywhere of the external forms of religion, but also a lamentable ignorance of the main essentials of true, practical religion. “The necessity of being first in Christ by a vital union and in a justified state before our religious services can be well-pleasing and acceptable to God, was very little understood or thought of. But the common notion seemed to be that if people were aiming to be in the way of duty as well as they could, as they imagined, there was no reason to be much afraid.”

In the spring of 1740 the Spirit was poured out on his congregation in Londonderry in an eminent manner. He had prepared the way for it during the previous winter, by most searching preaching of the nature of sin, the breadth of divine law and the necessity of conversion. Many were brought into great distress of soul; “some burst out with an audible noise into bitter crying.” During the whole summer every sermon produced wonderful impressions on the hearers. The effect of these impressions he thus describes: “Several would be overcome and fainting, others sobbing, hardly able to contain, others crying in a most dolorous manner, many others more silently weeping, and a solemn concern appearing in the countenances of many others. And sometimes the soul exercises of some (though comparatively but very few) would so far affect their bodies as to occasion some strange, unusual bodily motions.” The joy and peace that followed after were usually as deep as the distress that had gone before. Afterwards, he relates that those who were under slight impressions lost them again, and fell into their former carelessness and stupidity. But many gave increasing evidence of a firm and saving change.

In 1739 and ‘40 there were also marked signs of revival in New Brunswick and Newark, N. J., Harvard, Mass., and other places. The long, dark night was drawing to a close. The day was near at hand. Among ministers there was longing for better experience in their own hearts, better fruit in their work. Among the people there was a deepening sense of the unworthy character of their Christian life, the often-unscriptural nature of their hope and experience. God was dealing with his church and through it with the formative period of our national history. There were great perils before our land; times of trial both national and religious. A struggle was coming that would try men’s souls. Infidelity was getting ready to make brilliant bids for the controlling thought of the country. The Lord was about to lift up a standard against it.

George Whitefield was born in the Bell Inn, Gloucester, England, on the 16th day of Dec. 1714 (old style). His father was a wine merchant in Bristol, and afterward an innkeeper, and died when George was only two years of age. During the lad’s early years he had fair opportunities for an education—at fifteen being proficient in Latin—and astonishing his associates by his speeches and dramatic performances at the public examinations. He seems to have been born a preacher, for in early years he used to “play minister,” composing sermons and spending much time in the study of the Bible.

At the age of seventeen he went to Oxford. His progress here was rapid. His decision, prompt action and hard working ambition, displayed pluck not unworthy of the man who in later years braved brutal mobs with heroic boldness, and who, when the present comforts of ocean traveling were things un-thought of, again and again crossed the turbulent Atlantic; and, constrained by the love of Christ his Savior, tramped American woods and swamps, seeking sinners and trying to save them. The moral tone of Oxford at this time was at its worst, “a learned den of infidelity and dissipation.” He resisted, however, from the first the temptation to carousals with which he was surrounded. Studying his Bible and other good books, he had determined to strive for a better life than that he saw around him. But how to attain it he knew not. The three following years were years of religious darkness and struggle. There were two others in the University destined to like conspicuous places in the church who were in a similar state of mind, John and Chas. Wesley. These three, beating around in the dark, put themselves upon severe ascetic regimen to find the way of life. They knew not Christ and were trying to save themselves. In this path Whitefield hesitated at no sacrifice. The worst of food, the meanest apparel, prolonged fasting, midnight vigils and other forms of crucifixion of the flesh so wrought upon his brain and nerves that he was haunted with a constant fear of seeing the devil. His condition, physical and mental, had become alarming. His friends, the Wesley’s, knew not what to do for him; they had not found the light themselves. Happily his bodily constitution broke down, and by prostrating him upon a bed of sickness for six or seven weeks, gave him aim-enforced rest from his bodily crucifixion and the torturing thought with which his mind was afflicted. His mind became clearer as it became calmer.

He spent much of the time in reading the Greek Testament and in prayer. Gradually the hopelessness of his own efforts at salvation dawned upon his mind, and for the first time in his life he knew he was lost. The decisive point in his experience we give in his own words: “One day, perceiving an uncommon drought and a disagreeable clamminess in my mouth, and using things to allay my thirst, but in vain, it was suggested to me that when Jesus Christ cried out, ‘I thirst,’ his sufferings were nearly at an end. Upon which I cast myself down on the bed crying out ‘ I thirst, I thirst. ’Soon after this I found and felt in myself that I was delivered from the burden, which had so heavily oppressed me, the spirit of mourning was taken from me and I knew what it was to rejoice in God my Savior, and for some time could not avoid singing psalms wherever I was. But my joy gradually became more settled and, blessed be God, has abode and increased in my soul, saving a few casual intermissions ever since. Thus were the days of my mourning ended. After a long night of desertion and temptation, the stand, which I had seen at a distance before began to appear again, and the daystar arose in my heart. Now did the Spirit of God take possession of my soul, and, as I humbly hope, seal me unto the day of redemption.”

Sixteen years afterward, reviewing this experience, he writes more fully of his feelings at the time: “My crying ‘I thirst, I thirst,’ was not to put myself on a level with Jesus Christ. But when I said those words, my soul was in an agony. I thirsted for God’s salvation and a sense of divine love; I thirsted for a clear discovery of my pardon through Jesus Christ, and the seal of the Spirit. I was at the same time enabled to look up to, and act faith upon the glorious Lord Jesus as dying for sinners, and felt the blessed effects of it.”

From this time his spiritual life rapidly deepened. Henceforth his hungering and thirsting after righteousness were boundless. The Bible became almost his one book. He found his theology not in the University course or library, but in prayerful study of God’s Word. Some time after his conversion, writing from Gloucester, he says: “I began to read the Holy Scriptures upon my knees, laying aside all other books and praying, if possible, over 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 got more true knowledge from reading the book of God in one month, than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men.”

This outline of his early religious exercises gives an insight into his future life and work. Whitefield, the servitor at Oxford, brought at last to the utter end of human endeavor, and made to surrender wholly to the sovereign grace of God in Christ, interprets Whitefleld, the preacher, casting himself never on his own resources, or on human plans, but singly and always upon the power of God. He never retraced the steps of the lesson of those early days of spiritual gloom and struggle. He accepted as the pole star of all future aims the truth of Scripture. “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord.”

The reader can hardly fail to notice the points of similarity between Whitefield’s religious experience and that of the father of the Reformation. Luther’s struggles in the chains of his youthful sins were matched by the groans that came from Pembroke College in such complaints as this: “If I trace myself from my cradle to my manhood, I can see nothing in it but a fitness to be damned.” The self-righteous attempts at salvation by the great German Reformer, even to climbing the stairs at St. Peter’s on his knees, find a parallel in the self-lacerations of the English student, who pressed on his way of mortifying the flesh till the bones well nigh burst through the skin, and the mind staggered away from the ordeal. And the perfect peace, the sweet surrender at the feet of Christ, the completeness of righteousness, and the un-shaded acceptance with God through Christ, are the same at Erfurth and Oxford. The parallel might be carried further. In each case it was the keynote of life. As they had received Christ in the fullness of his atoning sacrifice, so they walked in Him. In each case the instrument was nothing, and God was all in all.

Whitefield’s experience also interprets his theology. Those nights alone with the Bible taught him in rare measure the secrets of men’s hearts and the hidings of his power in dealing with them. If we would understand his method for winning men, we must recall how the Lord won him. To that lesson he was always loyal. The spirit had burned human helplessness, and ruin, and divine grace too deeply into his own experience to allow him ever to forget it in his preaching.

These truths had been in his own heart too consuming a fire ever to allow him to wander beyond them. The impressions of his life were struck from that early type with singular fidelity. He became a preacher of the way in which God had revealed His Son in him. Hence he preached profoundly rather than broadly. Hence he did nothing but preach. He had less culture than his noble friend, Chas. Wesley, less breadth of plan, less executive power, less worldly wisdom, in measures for extending the gospel, than John Wesley. But no preacher since Paul more grandly lived under the light of the Apostle’s single purpose: “This one thing I do.” Our sketch, therefore, of the revivals under Whitefield in this country will be a sketch of the effect of the gospel of Christ, preached by a man whose soul burned with Apostolic consecration. It is a history, not of measures, plans, or systems, but simply, purely an account of the wisdom of God making foolish the wisdom of man, the strength of God, conspicuous most in the weakness of man.

Whitefleld’s first published sermon was on the nature and necessity of a new birth. The doctrine, so common now, was at that time new and startling. In his own words: “It was so seldom considered and so little experimentally understood by the generality of professors that, when told they must be born again, they were ready to cry out: ‘How can these things be?’ “ The effect of this sermon was electric. Multitudes were pricked to the heart and led to Christ, but some mocked and scoffed. As the preacher went on ringing the fundamental truths of spiritual religion in the ears of the people, the opposition to him grew apace. Bishops and priests united in assailing him. He was forbidden many of the pulpits of his own church. Then he went to the streets and commons, and preached to the thousands who gladly flocked to his words.

“His mighty deeds in the pulpit were blazoned in the newspapers he preached nine times a week, and the people listened as for eternity.

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And now a few of the clergy began to turn against him. Some called him a “spiritual pick-pocket,” others thought he used a charm to get the people’s money. Some were offended because he was on good terms with the dissenters, and some forbade him the use of their pulpits, unless he would retract a wish expressed in the preface of the sermon on regeneration, that his brethren would preach more frequently on the new birth.”

At this time he made up his mind to go to America. The Wesley’s had invited him to Georgia. Having collected a thousand pounds for an orphan school, and about three hundred for the poor in Georgia, the already famous preacher embarked (Dec. 28, 1737,) to cross the Atlantic.

The morning after reaching Savannah, he began his ministry on this continent by preaching to an audience of “seventeen adults and twenty-five children.” After a residence in Savannah of about three months, he returned to England, first in order to be ordained as a priest; and secondly, to collect funds for the orphan house, which had now become very dear to him.

After spending a year in England, he set sail again for his far-away home in the New World. What a year it had been! He had set all England on fire. Thousands had been converted. Timid mouths had been opened. A new era was about to dawn on the churches of Great Britain. But Whitefield felt called to a humbler field. He was consumed with zeal to preach the gospel in the wilderness.

He landed near Philadelphia, October 30th. Here he began his wonderful evangelistic career. His word, which in England had kindled like a torch, now lit up the new settlements of Pennsylvania and New York, and later, of Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas. First among the men he met in the New World, and to whom his soul became knit in the bonds of warmest friendship, were the Tennents, William and Gilbert. A sketch of their lives and ministry will be in place here.

Wm. Tennent, Sr., was an ordained minister of the Established Church in Ireland. Unable to conform to some of the terms imposed on the clergy, he was deprived of his living, and migrated to Pennsylvania in 1718. He was received as a member of the Presbyterian Synod of Philadelphia, and settled at Neshaminy, twenty miles north of Philadelphia. There in 1720, he opened the famous school, known in history as the “Log College,” in which some of the most distinguished ministers of that time received their education. He had four sons. One of them, Charles, was minister of the Presbyterian Church at Whiteclay Creek. Another, John, was, for two short years, the greatly beloved and remarkably successful pastor in the old church in Freehold, N.J. In 1732 death called him from labors, which God had greatly honored in the conversion of many souls. The next year his brother William succeeded him, and the religious interest begun under the labors of John Tennent, continued for many years under the ministry of William. His pastorate continued for forty-four years.

Gilbert Tennent began his work in New Brunswick. At first there were no signs of life, but after a course of close and severe preaching of the claims of divine law, the Holy Spirit was poured out in a wonderful manner. He became prominent as a revivalist, and was often associated with Whitefield. Indeed, the love of these men for one another was like the friendship between David and Jonathan. Extracts from a few letters will give touching illustrations of this friendship. Mr. Tennent writes to Whitefield, from New Brunswick, thus: “I think I never found such a strong and passionate affection to any stranger as to you. When I saw your courage and labor for God at New York, I found willingness in my heart to die with you, or to die for you.” Of Tennent, Whitefield writes thus: “Then I went to the meeting-house to hear Mr. Gilbert Tennent preach, and never before heard such a searching sermon. 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 own hearts. Being deeply convicted of sin, by God’s Holy Spirit, at his first conversion, Mr. Tennent has learned experimentally to dissect the heart of the natural man. Hypocrites must either soon be converted, or enraged at his preaching. He is a son of thunder, and does not fear the faces of men.”

This estimate of the power of Gilbert Tennent is amply confirmed by all we know about him, and he was the instrument in God’s hand not only for quickening the church and rescuing sinners wherever his influence reached, but by his courage and fidelity he reformed abuses that had crept into the church, and with a few others of like spirit changed the whole character of the Presbyterian ministry of that day.

To return to Whitefield. His ministry in New York and Philadelphia (in both which places he had the powerful and sweet company of Mr. Tennent was greatly blessed. Not allowed in New York to preach in his own church, “his preaching in the Presbyterian meeting house received the sanction of his Divine Master.” In Philadelphia so great was the change produced at this time through the preaching of Whitefield and Tennent, that Benjamin Franklin, quite at a loss, from his skeptical standpoint, to explain the results, writes thus: “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 were growing religious, so that one could not walk through Philadelphia in the evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street.”

The story of the effect of Whitefield’s preaching on Franklin has often been told. It will bear another repetition. Franklin had opposed Whitefield’s project for an orphanage in Georgia, and had refused to contribute. Soon after, he was present at a preaching service from the drift of which he soon perceived that the great preacher was going to finish up with a collection. He, therefore, braced himself in the purpose that Whitefield should get nothing from him. As the sermon proceeded, the great philosopher softened down a little, and thought he would give the coppers that were in his pocket. Another stroke of Whitefield’s oratory determined him to give the silver, and the conclusion was so overwhelming that Franklin emptied his pockets into the collector’s plate—copper, silver, gold—all.

He also tells the following anecdote: “At this sermon there was also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments respecting the building in Georgia, and suspecting a collection might be intended, emptied his pocket before he came from home. Towards the conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a strong inclination to give and applied to a neighbor who stood near him to lend him money for that purpose. The request was fortunately made to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not be affected by the preacher. His answer was: “At any other time, friend Hopkinson, I would lend thee freely, but not now, for thee seems to me to be out of thy right senses.”

Another writer, speaking of the surprising effect of Whitefield’s preaching in. and about Philadelphia, says: “So great was the enthusiasm to hear Mr. Whitfield preach that many from Philadelphia followed him on foot to Chester, to Abington, to Neshaminy, and some even to New Brunswick in New Jersey, the distance of sixty miles.” Of the services at the latter place during this time, Whitefield writes: ”I preached morning and evening to near seven or eight thousand people, and God’s power was so much amongst us in the afternoon sermon that the cries and groans of the people would have drowned my voice.”

After a visit to Savannah to further the interests of the Orphan School, and sundry trials as well as great successes, in which, however, we have not space to follow him, he went to do evangelistic work in New England, landing at Newport, R. I., on September 14th, 1740. The land was ready for him. We have spoken of the preaching of Edwards and the local revivals. A general desire for a better religious life seemed to be spreading through the length and breadth of the land. Tarrying only a few days in Rhode Island, Whitefield hastened on to Boston. In the afternoon of the day following his arrival he preached to about four thousand people in Dr. Coleman's meeting house.” During time next few weeks his labors in and around Boston were herculean. His correspondence at this time shows that he preached two or three times daily to audiences numbering from three to eight thousand, and often spent a large part of the night with inquirers, who came to him in great distress.

The work thus begun in Boston continued for a year and a half after Whitefield’s departure. Gilbert Tennent remained nearly four months after the great evangelist had gone, and was wonderfully instrumental in deepening and extending the work. The general activity of the city following this revival may be seen from the following summary: “Thirty religious societies were instituted in the city. Ministers, besides attending to their usual work, preached in private houses almost every night. Chapels were always crowded. The very face of the town seemed to be strangely altered. Even the Negroes and the boys in the streets left their usual rudeness, and taverns were found empty of all but lodgers.”

From Boston Whitefield went to Northampton to visit Jonathan Edwards, and, of course, to preach the gospel. Here, where there had been precious revivals in the preceding years, his ministry of a few days was greatly blessed. “The town seemed to be in a great and continual commotion day and night.” Mr. Whitefield now left New England for a preaching tour Southward, lingering a few days in New York, New Brunswick, Baskinridge, Philadelphia and many other towns, his ministry everywhere being with power over the consciences of the people.

In New England the gracious wave of blessing spread from Boston north and south and west. There were great awakenings in Plymouth, Taunton, Middleborough, Portsmouth, Gloucester, Enfold and many other places. It was in the last named place that Edwards preached his great sermon on “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.” The revival had not reached that town. The people were almost defiantly careless and unconcerned. Their appearance at church, before the preacher began his sermon, was thoughtless and vain. Turmoil, who learned the particulars from an eyewitness, thus describes the effect of the sermon: “Before the sermon was ended the assembly appeared deeply impressed, and bowed down with an awful conviction of their sin and danger. There was such a breathing of distress and weeping that the preacher was obliged to speak to the people and desire silence, that he might be heard. This was the beginning of the same great and prevailing concern in that place, with which the colony in general was visited.”

What shall be said concerning the physical effects, which this sermon and the preaching of the Tennents and other revivalists of this period often produced? The philosophy of them, to those who have at all considered the subtle action of sensitive nerves on the body and mind alike, will not be very obscure. The falling and fainting fits tire convulsions and trances and other physical manifestations were the result of high nervous action among a people, all whose training had been toward intense mental action and intense feeling. The reciprocal influence of mind and nerves was not so well understood then as now, and hence many things were referred to supernatural agency that would now be more readily and simply explained. But it were folly to discount the reality of those works of grace, because so often the body yielded to the severe stress of religious excitement. The character of the preaching at this time is also an element in the explanation of this strange physical and nervous action.

Mr. Tennent’s preaching is thus described:
“It was frequently both terrible and searching. It was often for matter, justly terrible, as he, according to the inspired oracles, exhibited the dreadful holiness, justice, law, threatening, truth, power, majesty of God.

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It was not merely, nor so much his laying open the terrors of the law and
wrath of God, or damnation of hell; as his laying open their many vain and secret shifts; and refuges, counterfeit resemblance's of grace, delusive arid damning hopes, their utter impotence and impending danger of destruction, whereby they found all their hopes and refuges of lies to fail them and themselves exposed to eternal rain, unable to help themselves and in a lost condition.” The same words would well describe the preaching of Edwards, Whitefield and others. Those were times of awful disclosures of human hearts and unveilings of divine truth. They came after times of trial upon people who had undergone the perils of wildernesses amid savages. There had been two centuries of tremendous nervous excitement. The settlers of New England were by inheritance people of tense and sensitive nerves. Upon such people the preaching of that generation could not come like the dew on the flowers. It was a rushing torrent, plunging into a condition of intense thought and feeling. There were present all the elements, both subjective and objective, necessary, not only to determine the mind, but to agitate and shake the whole nature.

While the excesses connected with these early revivals do not disprove their genuine character, they are abnormal, the results of peculiar temperaments and circumstances, and not to be desired. They increase the dangers of false conversions, blind the minds of the ignorant, so that nervous excitement is taken for religion and in many ways operate unfavorably toward that religion which is most manifest not in earthquake or whirlwind, but in the silent influence of the truth and the “still, small voice” of the Spirit.

In 1741, Mr. Whitefield returned to the old country. His preaching in England and in Scotland, the opposition to him, the stormy scenes through which he passed, holding aloft steadily and gloriously the banner of the cross, the immense crowds that in streets and commons flocked to his ministry, the multitudes of conversions, the extent of the work, not only through Great Britain, but even on the continent, these would fill a volume. Except as they illustrate the power of Whitefield they are aside from our purpose.

On Mr. Whitefield’s return to Boston, he encountered more decided opposition in this country than he had ever met before. Many Congregational and Presbyterian ministers disapproved his plans and methods, and thought his ministry tended to unsettle pastors and disaffect churches, and that his doctrine was oftentimes unscriptural either in form or substance. The “Testimony” adopted by the faculty of Harvard College gives the general animus of this opposition. In it Whitefield is charged, first, with being “an enthusiast,” the charge being sustained by numerous quotations from his journal and sermons; second, with being an “uncharitable, censorious and slanderous man;” and third, with having been “a deluder of the people,” in the affair of the contributions to his orphan house, collecting money under the impression that he was to have personal charge of the school, whereas he was all over the country preaching the gospel. In point of fact there was nothing to the charges. As to the last one, Mr. Whitefield often expressly declared his purpose to preach as long as he had breath and wherever he could find an audience. He never for a moment thought of settling down to be a pedagogue at Savannah. As to the charge of a slanderous and censorious disposition, while he spoke often in severity, and was sometimes censorious he always loved the people well enough to be at once faithful and tender. As to the charge of “enthusiasm “ he would doubtless admit it to the full.

His itinerancy was a frequent ground of complaint against him. Dr. Chauncey said: “Itinerant preaching had its rise at least in these parts from Mr. Whitefield; though I could never see, I own, upon what warrant, either from scripture or reason, he went about preaching from one province and parish to another, when the gospel was already preached and by persons as well qualified for the work as he can pretend to be.” To this the great preacher truly replied, “But did I come unasked? Nay; did not some of those very persons who were as well qualified for the work as I could pretend to be, send me letters of invitation? Yes, assuredly they did; or otherwise, in all probability, I had never seen New England.” In his reply to the faculty of Harvard College he defends itinerancy as scriptural and right. He quotes the divine command, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature,” and argues that it authorizes the ministers of Christ to the end of the world, to preach the gospel in every town and country, though not of their own head, yet whenever and wherever Providence shall open a door, even though it should be in a place where officers are already settled and the gospel is fully and faithfully preached.” This, he claimed, was every gospel ministers, indisputable privilege. During this opposition Whitefield was never for a moment swerved from his work. He was utterly tireless in his zeal and devotion. In Boston, Ipswich, through Maine, in New York, Philadelphia, through the South, with the heart and the tongue of an apostle, he preached salvation through Christ.

But our sketch of him must close. He crossed the Atlantic thirteen times, and was the evangelist of two continents. His quenchless zeal, His matchless eloquence, his dauntless courage were now the praise of all Christian lands. The opposition gradually died away under the majesty of that glorious life, so single for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. The time was coming for his reward.

On his last tour from South to North, stopping one day with his old friend, William Tennent, to refresh his soul with a company of cherished ministers, he happened to express his joy at the thought that he was approaching time Kingdom. All assented but Tennent. Whitefield said to him: “Brother Tennent, you are the oldest man among us. Do you not rejoice that your being called home is so near at hand?” “I have no wish about it,” bluntly answered Tennent. Whitefield pressed his question, and Tennent again replied: “No sir, it is no pleasure to me at all, and if you know your duty it would be none to you. I have nothing to do with death. My business is to live as long as I can, and as well as I can.” Whitefield still pressed him, to know if he would not gladly die if death were within his choice. “Sir,” answered Tennent, “I have no choice about it. I am God’s servant. And now, brother Whitefield let me ask you a question. What do you think I would say if I were to send my man Tom into the field to plough, and if at noon I should find him lounging under a tree, and exclaiming: Master, the sun is hot and the ploughing is hard, and I am weary of my work; do let me go home and rest.’ What would I say? Why, that he was a lazy fellow, and that it was his business to do the work I had appointed him, until I should think fit to call him home.”

But Whitefield truly ploughed till he was called home. He was now on his last evangelistic tour. An anecdote of his pulpit power at this time is worth inserting. “An eminent ship-builder being invited to hear Whitefield, at first made several objections, but at last was persuaded to go. ‘What do you think of Mr. Whitefield?’ asked his friend. ‘Think,’ said he, ‘I never heard such a man in my life. I tell you sir, every Sunday when I go to church I can build a ship from stem to stern under the sermon. But were it to save my soul, under Mr. Whitefield I could not lay a single plank.’”

On his journey toward Boston he preached almost constantly, although part of the time seriously ill. Thus a biographer, giving an account of the labors of his last two weeks on earth, says: “From September 17th to 19th he preached in Boston, and on the 20th at Newtown. The next two days he was ill, but managed to travel from Boston to Portsmouth, where he preached on the 23d to the 25th. The 26th he employed at Kittery; the 27th at Old York; the 28th at Portsmouth, and the 29th at Exeter. At six o’clock in the morning of the 30th, he died.”

His last sermon was preached at Exeter. The people prevailed on him to stop there and preach to them. An immense audience assembled to hear him. His pulpit was a hogshead. His text was: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith.” One of his biographers thus relates the scene: “Mr. Whitefield arose and stood erect, and his appearance alone was a powerful sermon. He remained several minutes, unable to speak, and then said: ‘I will wait for the gracious assistance of God; for he will, I am certain, assist me once more to speak in his name.’ He then delivered, perhaps, one of his best sermons, ‘I go,’ he cried, ‘I go to rest prepared. My sun has arisen, and by aid from heaven has given light to many. It is now about to set for—no, it is about to rise to the zenith of immortal glory. I have outlived many on earth, but they cannot outlive me in heaven. Oh, thought divine! I shall soon be in a world where time, age, pain and sorrow are unknown. My body fails; my spirit expands. How willingly would I live forever to preach Christ, but I die to be with him.”
That night, when about to retire to rest, the people pressed around the parsonage, and into the hall, importunate for a few more words from the man they so dearly loved. He paused on the staircase and began to speak to them. The people thronged the hall, “gazing up at him with tearful eyes as Elisha at the ascending prophet. His voice flowed on until the candle, which he held in his hand, burned away, and went out in its socket. The next morning he was not, for God had taken him.”

Thus died one of the greatest of all pulpit orators. What were the secrets of his wonderful power over men? First of all, he was an orator of most consummate skill and astonishing resources. The manner of his address revealed, or, rather, concealed, the most perfect art. Garrick said he could say “Mesopotamia” in such accents as to draw tears from the hearers. At another time he said: “I would give a hundred guineas if I could only say: ‘Oh!’ like Mr. Whitefield.” Mr. Tyermnan, Mr. Whitefield’s last and certainly not too partial biographer, says: “Whitefield was the greatest gospel orator of the age. He never stretched after profundity of thought. A fine, highly ornamental style he seems to have eschewed as much as Wesley did. He preached simple truth with all his might, and witnessed success such as is rarely given a minister to see.”

Indeed, he was a preacher, in many points, wholly different from Wesley. The ministry of the founder of Methodism was most effective among the common people, and was not confined to preaching to them. He was a great captain and organizer. Whitefield, on the contrary, did almost nothing but preach. His preaching, however so united simplicity and fervor with the perfection of diction, attitude, accent, all, indeed, that goes to make the skillful orator that every class hung delighted upon his utterance. In England, the clergy, lords and ladies, and literary men crowded into his audiences, and vied with each other in their praises of his eloquence. In this country his fame was as great. Franklin was enthusiastic in his expressions, and we have already narrated how, to his cost, he learned how great was the orator’s power. Dr. Gillies, of Glasgow, gives a most careful analysis of his oratorical power. He says: “ His eloquence was great, and of the true and noblest kind. He seemed to be quite unconscious of the talents he possessed. * * *The grand sources of his eloquence were an exceedingly lively imagination and an action still more livelily. Every accent of his voice spoke to the ear, and every motion of his hands spoke to the eye.”

This as to the manner of his speech. The matter of it was the gospel of Christ in its simplicity and power. His preaching was at once severe with the unsparing energy of truth, and gentle under the moving of a great love for souls. He spoke to the conscience, awaking the sense of sin and guilt against a holy God. He spoke to the heart, holding up in ever-new light the changeless love of God. He preached the old doctrines of grace. It was emphatically “the old, old story.” And finally, he was an unselfish, consecrated, holy man. He lived for God with a purpose absolutely undivided.

A few words upon the general results of the revivals running from 1740 to 1770 will close this chapter. The Congregational churches added about one hundred and fifty new churches to their roll in New England. The number of Presbyterian churches was more than doubled. Baptist churches also greatly increased in number. The converts have been numbered at about fifty thousand. On this basis the effects of the revival in the conversion of sinners, was as great in proportion to the population as if there should now be a series of revivals gathering four hundred thousand people in to the churches.

Yet, indeed, that is but a superficial estimate, which counts only the converts. There are other fruits broader, deeper, and themselves continually productive. Prominent among these is the higher tone of spiritual life in the church. The preaching of Edwards, Whitefield and Tennent opened the mind of the church of their day to the startling truth that in greater or less measure an unconverted ministry had entered the pulpits and unconverted communicants gathered at the Lord’s Table. Granted that all three of them were severe and often uncharitable in their judgments of their brethren, it is clear there was only too much ground for severity. The revival strengthened the various denominations to exact of candidates for the ministry clearer evidence of personal piety, and destroyed the idea that mere knowledge of the catechism, without evidence or profession of regeneration, was sufficient qualification for church-membership.

Not only so, but the exaltation of the cardinal doctrines of grace in the preaching and teaching of that time had a most wholesome effect in nourishing the new life of the church and making vigorous Christians and vigorous preachers. Not in vain did Whitefield preach “the new birth” over and over, from Savannah to Boston.

Among the educational fruits of the revival may be mentioned Princeton and Dartmouth Colleges. The latter college was founded in 1770, and in connection with its founding there was a series of revivals extending through several years, and over a large district round about. These revivals were evidently a continuation of those of 1740 and possessed many of their leading characteristics.

The influence of the revivals on the nation, which was just entering its most critical period, was doubtless greater than can well be defined. The men of the Revolution were in the formative period of youth when Whitefield’s eloquence and zeal lit up the whole land. They can hardly have failed to learn lessons of high virtue and courage from men who, for Christ’s sake, braved every peril and shrank from no sacrifice. Not only so, but the land was to be brought into close relations and alliance with France, where infidelity was rife and was soon to be in the ascendant. Forcibly on this point does Tracy say: “The religious principles of the country needed to be strengthened in advance against all these dangers, and with all the accessions of strength that religion received from the revival, it did but just stand the shock, and for a long time many of the pious feared that everything holy would be swept away. Strengthened by so many tens of thousands of converts, and by the deep sense of the importance of religion produced in other tens of thousands, both in and out of the churches, religion survived in time, rallied and advanced, and is marching on to victory.”

There is another result of this revival, the fruits of which, in full measure, we are just beginning to reap. We have said Whitefield was our first itinerant evangelist. He stoutly defended the right of every minister to find his audience wherever he could. This evangelism has limitations. We shall have occasion in a subsequent chapter to define its boundaries. But in Whitefield’s splendid ministry that fact is unrolled to the world, which ecclesiasticism had for a long time obscured, that “the field is the world “—that the gospel needs to be everywhere proclaimed, and that some of the grandest periods of church history have been periods of itinerant evangelism. Especially when the church has gone to sleep among altars on which the sacred fire is dying, does God call men to rise above churches and to refuse to bound their influence by any particular place, and to “go everywhere preaching time gospel.” Such there were in apostolic times, such there were in the Reformation in Germany, such were Knox and his co-laborers in Scotland such was Whitefield. Before the fullness of the Gentiles shall be gathered in there will be many more—the flying artillery of the army of the Lord