Lady Huntingdon and Her Friends

Mrs Helen C. Knight

Before he came to Oxford, he had heard of the young men there “who lived by rule and method,” and were therefore called Methodists. They were now much talked of, and generally despised. He, however, was drawn towards them by kindred feelings, defended them strenuously when he heard them reviled, and when he saw them go through a jeering crowd to receive the Lord’s supper at St. Mary’s, was strongly inclined to follow their example. For more then a year he yearned to be acquainted with them, but it seems that a sense of his inferior condition kept him back at length the great object of his desires was effected a pauper had attempted suicide, and he sent a poor woman to inform Charles Wesley, that he might visit the person and administer spiritual medicine; the messenger was charged not to say who sent her; contrary to these orders she told his name, and Charles Wesley, who had seen him frequently walking by himself, and heard something of his character, invited him to breakfast the next morning. An introduction to this little fellowship 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 of it might be lost.’

This young man was George Whitefield, and thus has the graphic pen of Wesley’s biographer described his first introduction to that little society, whose members afterwards stamped their influence so broadly on that and subsequent time.

After leaving Oxford and taking deacon’s orders, he began to preach at Bristol, and exhibit that impassioned eloquence which moved and melted both the old world and the new. He preached about five times a week to such congregations that it was with great difficulty that he could make his way along the crowded aisles to the reading-desk. “Some hung upon the rails of the organ-loft others climbed upon the leads of the church, and all together made the church so hot with their breath, that the steam would fall from the pillars like drops of rain.” When he preached his farewell-sermon, and said to the people that perhaps they might see his face no more, high and low, old and young, burst into tears. Multitudes, after the sermon, followed him home weeping; the next day he was employed from seven in the morning until midnight in talking and giving spiritual advice to awakened hearers; and he left Bristol secretly in the middle of the night, to avoid the ceremony of being escorted by horsemen and coaches out of the town.

While at London it was necessary to place constables at the doors, both within and without, such multitudes assembled; and on Sunday mornings in the latter months of the year, long before day, you might have seen the streets filled with people going to hear him, with lanterns in their hands.

“The man who produced such extraordinary effect,” says Southey, “had many natural advantages. He was something above the middle stature, well proportioned, though at this time slender, and remarkable for a native gracefulness of manner. His complexion was very fair, 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 remarkable, 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 that grace of action which he possessed in an eminent degree, and which has been said to be the chief requisite of an orator.” Garrick said he could make men weep or tremble at his varied utterance of the word Mesopotamia.

To these natural gifts and graces was added a deep conviction of the greatness and the grandeur of his calling, as a messenger of God. His maxim was to preach as Apelles painted, for eternity. When a young man, Dr. Delany once remarked in his hearing, “I wish, whenever I go into the pulpit, to look upon it as the last time that I may ever preach, or the last time the people may hear.” This, Whitefield never forgot. He often said, “Would ministers preach for eternity, they would act the part of true Christian orators, for then they would endeavor to move the affections and warm the heart, and not constrain their hearers to suspect that they dealt in the false commerce of unfelt truth.”

Whitefield broke away from the popularity thus strongly flowing in upon him, to follow his beloved college companions the Wesleys to the new world; but not, as he expected, to labor with them in Georgia, for the ship which carried him sailed from the Downs only a few hours before that which brought Wesley home anchored on the English coast.

He remained a year in Georgia, where he seems not to have experienced any of those peculiar trials which hindered the usefulness of Wesley. He returned to England in 1739, in order to receive deacon’s orders and to raise contributions for the establishment of an orphan-house at Bethesda, twelve miles from Savannah, after the famous model of Professor Franke’s in Halle; the history and success of which seems to have created a profound interest among the Christians of that day, when charitable institutions of any magnitude scarcely existed, and long before the great religious associations of our time had been conceived.

Among the news of this period, the celebrated Countess of Hereford thus writes to a friend on the continent: “I do not know whether you have heard of a new sect, who call themselves Methodists. There is one Whitefield at the head of them, a young man of five and twenty, who has for some months gone about preaching in the fields and market-places in the country, and in London at May-fair and Moorfields, to ten or twelve thousand people at a time. He went to Georgia with General Oglethorpe, and returned to take priest’s orders, which he did; and I believe since that time hardly a day has passed that he has not preached once, and generally twice at first, he and some of his brethren seemed only to aim at restoring the practice of the primitive Christians as to daily sacraments, stated fasts, frequent prayers, relieving prisoners, visiting the sick, and giving alms to the poor; but upon sound men refusing these men their pulpits, they have betaken themselves to preaching in the fields, and they have such crowds of followers, that they have set in a flame all the clergy in the kingdom, who represent them as hypocrites and enthusiasts as to the latter epithet, some passages in Mr. Whitefield’s latest journals seem to countenance the accusation; but I think their manner of living has not afforded any grounds to suspect them of hypocrisy. The Bishop of London, however, has thought it necessary to write a pastoral letter to warn the people of his diocese against being led away by them; and Dr. Trapp has published a sermon upon ‘the great folly and danger of being righteous overmuch,’ a doctrine which does not seem absolutely necessary to be preached to the people of the present age.”

It was not until his second visit to America and return to England, that difference of theological views began to cloud the friendship which had subsisted between the two distinguished preachers, Whitefield and John Wesley. We should approach the rupture with sadness, only as such things “must needs be” in our present state of imperfect knowledge and feeble grace.

While the storm was brewing, “My honored friend and brother,” wrote Whitefield to Wesley, “for once hearken to a child, who is willing to wash your feet I beseech you, by the mercies of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, if you would have my love confirmed towards you, write no more to me about the misrepresentations wherein we differ. Why should we dispute, when there is no possibility of convincing? Will it not in the end destroy brotherly love, and insensibly take from us that cordial union and sweetness of soul, which I pray God may always subsist between us? How glad would the enemies of the Lord be to see us divided. How would the cause of our common Master every way suffer by our raising disputes about particular points of doctrine. Honored sir, let us offer salvation freely to all by the blood of Jesus, and whatever light God has communicated to us, let us freely communicate to others.”

Happy were it for the Christian world, if the admirable temper of this letter could govern its divided friends and clashing sects; but admirable as it was and however it might have conciliated the resolute and uncompromising spirit of Wesley, the breach widened, for on both sides there were friends and followers who fanned the flame, and Whitefield afterwards wrote in an altered and recriminating tone.
With such questions at issue, involving points of doctrine which no human intellect has ever mastered, a rupture became inevitable. When Whitefield returned to the scene of his early triumphs, “he came to his own, and his own received him not.” His Kingswood school was in the hands of Wesley; and at London a temporary shed, called the Tabernacle, served to shelter his spiritual children since their exodus from the foundry at this period Whitefield says sadly, “The world is angry with me, and numbers of my own spiritual children. Some say, that God will destroy me in a fortnight, and that my fall will be as great as Peter’s. Scarce one comes to see me from morning till night, and on Kensington common I have not above a hundred to hear me I am much embarrassed in my circumstances a thousand pounds I owe for the orphan-house I am threatened to be arrested for two hundred pounds more. My travelling expenses also are to be defrayed a family of one hundred to be daily maintained, four thousand miles off, in the dearest place of the king’s dominion — all my work is to begin again.”

Their counsels divided and their ranks broken, there seemed to be a weak betrayal of their Master’s cause. Were the Apolloses and Cephases thus to come in and assert their shallow claims, and plunder the church of her men and means? It was not so to be.

In spite of the dissents and jarrings which must needs come, the leaders of that day more truly comprehended their mission; their spiritual gains were not to be scattered, nor their spiritual strength wasted in a bitter household squabble: there was a worthier work for them. Whitefield and Wesley loved each other, and the soul of each glowed with the warm charities of the gospel; they loved a common Master, whose cause lay nearest their hearts, and while each proclaimed its great normal principle, salvation by a crucified Redeemer, with a loving earnestness, each linked with it his own peculiar system of doctrines.

When we see the chafing and champing of worldly and sometimes even religious men at the ebbing of their popularity, it is encouraging to turn to one who not only knew the solidity of his own principles, but could steadily anchor on them and calmly take the surges and the spray.

“What is a little scourge of the tongue?” says Whitefield. “What is a thrusting out of the synagogue? The time of temptation will be when we are thrust into an inner prison and feel the iron entering into our souls. God’s people may be permitted to forsake us for a while, but the Lord Jesus can stand by us and if thou, O dearest Redeemer, wilt strengthen me in my inward man, let enemies plunge me into a fiery furnace, or throw me into a den of lions. Let us suffer for Jesus with a cheerful heart. His love will sweeten every cup, though never so bitter. May all disputing SOON cease, and each of us talk of nothing but Him crucified: this is my resolution.”

And his life corresponded to it, in adversity as well as in prosperity. Herein was the singleness of Whitefield’s piety: one aim governed and sustained him through a long and laborious career — and it was preaching Christ.

At what time Lady Huntington first became acquainted with Whitefield does not appear. On her return from Wales, he was expected in England from his third visit to America. When he landed at Deal, she immediately sent Howel Harris to bring him to her own house in Chelsea, where he preached to large circles of the gay world, who thronged this fashionable watering-place. For the benefit of this class of hearers, she soon after removed to London, appointed Whitefield her chaplain, and during the winter of 1748 and ‘49 opened her splendid mansion in Park-street for the ministrations of the gospel.

“Good Lady Huntington,” writes he, “has come to town, and I am to preach twice a week at her house to the great and noble. O that some of them might be effectually called to taste the riches of redeeming love.” On the day appointed, Chesterfield, Bolingbroke, and a circle of the nobility attended; and having heard him once, they desired to come again. “Lord Chesterfield thanked me,” he says. “Lord Bolingbroke was moved, and asked me to come and see him the next morning. My hands have been full of work, and I have been among great company all accepted my sermons. Thus the world turns round: ‘In all time of my wealth, good Lord, deliver me’”

Although Whitefield used the current compliments of address common to that period, more fulsome then, than now in England, and at either time sounding oddly enough to us on this side of the Atlantic, he never betrayed his office as the minister of God, but warned, rebuked, and exhorted men with all fidelity, as well as with all affection.

“As for praying in your family, I entreat you not to neglect it,” he said to the old Scotch Marquis of Lothian, who would fain have been like Nicodemus, a Christian in the dark. “You are bound to do it apply to Christ to overcome your present fears; they are the effects of pride or infidelity, or both.”

The death-bed of Lord St. John, who was one of the hearers of this parlor preaching, exhibited scenes unusual in the circle where he moved: the Bible was read to him, and his cry was, “God be merciful to me a sinner!” “My Lord Bolingbroke,” wrote Lady Huntington to Whitefield, “was much struck with his brother’s language in his last moments. O that his eyes might be opened by the illuminating influence of divine truth. He is a singularly awful character; and I am fearfully alarmed, lest the gospel which he so heartily despises, yet affects to reverence, should prove the savor of death unto death to him. Some, I trust, are savingly awakened, while many are inquiring; thus the great Lord of the harvest hath put honor on your ministry, and hath given my heart an encouraging token of the utility of our feeble efforts.”

Under her auspices, a prayer-meeting was established for those females who, from the circles of rank and fashion, became the followers of the Lord among these were Lady Frances Gardiner, Lady Mary Hamilton, daughter of the Marquis of Lothian, who had attended the ministry of Whitefield in Scotland, Lady Gertrude Hotham and Countess Delitz, sisters of Lady Chesterfield, Lady Chesterfield herself, and Lady Fanny Shirley, of whom Horace Walpole wrote in his scoffing way to a friend on the continent, “If you ever think of returning to England, you must prepare yourself with Methodism: this sect increases as fast as ever almost any other religious nonsense did. Lady Fanny Shirley has chosen this way of bestowing the dregs of her beauty, and Mr. Lyttleton is very near making the same sacrifice of the dregs of all those various characters that he has worn. The Methodists love your big sinners, and indeed they have a plentiful harvest.”

“There needed,” said one, “strong consolation in order to resist the strong temptations presented by a frivolous court, a witty peerage, and a learned bench in favor of a formal religion. Nothing but the ‘joy of the Lord’ could have sustained them in such a sphere. Happiness in religion was the best security for their holiness. They could not be laughed out of a good hope through grace. with or banter may make persisting a weakness or a fancy, but they cannot make hope, peace, and joy appear absurd. Neither the severe denunciations of Warburton, or the polished sarcasm of Chesterfield, could touch the consciousness of peace in believing, or of enjoyment in secret prayer, in the hearts of those peeresses who had found at the cross and the mercy-seat the happiness they had sought in vain from the world.”

“Religion was never so much the subject of conversation as now,” writes Lady Huntington to Doddridge. “Some of the great ones hear with me the gospel patiently, and thus much seed is sown by Mr. Whitefield’s preaching. O that it may fall on good ground, and bring forth abundantly.

“I had the pleasure, yesterday, of Mr. Gibbon’s and Mr. Crittenden’s company to dine with me. Lord Lothian and Lady Frances Gardiner gave them the meeting, and we had truly a most primitive and heavenly day; our hearts and voices praised the Lord, prayed to him, and talked of him I had another lady present, whose face, since I saw you last, is turned Zion-ward. Of the ‘honorable women,’ I trust there are not a few; patience shall have its proper work: and if we love our Lord, we must be tender over his lambs I trust He will assist us to keep fanning the flame in every heart; this, my friend, is our joyful task for the best Master we can serve, either in time or eternity. Do not let our hands hang down; we must wrestle for ourselves and for all dead in their sins, till the day break and the shadows of time flee away.”

While thus solicitous for the spiritual welfare of those of her on rank, no less interested is she in her humbler neighbors; to them her house was constantly opened, that they also might be enriched by “that faith which comes by hearing.” On week-days her kitchen was filled by the poor of the flock, whom she supplied with all the means of religious profit which lay in her power.

Meanwhile good and evil tidings come from Wales. The winter campaign of Howel Harris is attended with stormy weather. The gentry frown, the magistrates bristle, while the poor people, who hunger for his “Good words,” are sorely oppressed, nay, grievously tormented. On one excursion he did not take off his clothes for seven days and nights, being obliged to meet his little congregation in solitary places at midnight, or by daylight in ravine or cleft, in order to avoid the persecuting vigilance of their enemies. “One man,” says Harris, “was obliged to pay Sir Watkins Wynn twenty shillings, several of my poor hearers five shillings, and one who paid the same sum before, was fined seven shillings more; and this is the third time my poor sheep of this fold have been thus served.”

When the matter came to Lady Huntington’s knowledge, indignant at the injustice and bigotry of Sir Watkins Wynn, with characteristic energy she instantly made a representation to the government of his infringement of the Act of Toleration; the magistrates were rebuked by the higher law, and Sir Watkins was ordered to return the fines to the pockets of the sufferers.

Honorable exceptions, however, were there among the Welsh magistrates. Harris having made an appointment to meet the peasantry near Garth, in Breconshire, the residence of Sir Marmaduke Gwynne, that gentleman, frightened by the reports concerning him, resolved on the occasion to do his duty as a magistrate, and stop proceedings of so disorderly and mobbish a character. Regarding the missionary as neither more nor less than a firebrand to church and state, Mr. Magistrate Gwynne prepared for a resolute attack, but wisely enough said to his family on going out, “I’m first hear the man myself before I commit him.” Accordingly he mingled with the congregation, lying in wait to pounce upon the preacher at every next word. “Why, he’s neither more nor less than an apostle,” cried Gwynne inwardly, his stout heart melting under the manner and earnest language of the man of God. The riot act lay asleep in his pocket, and at the end of the discourse he marched up to the rude platform, shook the preacher warmly by the hand, confessed his intention, asked his pardon, bade him preach while he lived, and took him back to Garth to supper. Henceforth the countenance of the Gwynne family smiled on the new movements. Regardless of public or private censure, Sir Marmaduke stood stoutly up for the evangelists, and used all his influence for promoting the spread of the gospel in the regions round about. One of his daughters afterwards married Charles Wesley.

In February, 1749, Whitefield left London a short time to recruit amid scenes less exciting, for rest he never knew. Lady Huntington goes to Clifton. Her oldest son has become of age, and as Earl Huntington, takes possession of Bennington park, Ledstone hall, with other patrimony belonging to his title. He then set out upon the fashionable continental tour at Paris he is warmly greeted by the most distinguished English residents, particularly introduced as he is by Lord Chesterfield, who pronounces him “one of the first peers of England, with merit and talents equal to his birth.”

Lady Elizabeth Hastings, the countess’ eldest daughter, much admired for her grace, vivacity, and abilities, in March of this year was appointed “lady of the bed chamber” to the princesses Amelia and Caroline, sisters of George III. She remained in office but a few months in relation to it Horace Walpole said, “ the queen of the Methodists got her daughter named for lady of the bedchamber to the princesses; but it is all off again, as she will not let her play cards on Sunday.”