Lady Huntingdon and Her Friends

Mrs Helen C. Knight

“The thing being strange and new” says Chilies, “he found, on coming out of the coach, an incredible number of people assembled. Many told him 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. Moorfields became henceforth one of the principal scenes of his triumphs. Thirty thousand people sometimes gathered to hear him, and generous contributions here flowed in for his orphan-house at Bethesda. On one occasion twenty pounds 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.”

Before Whitefield went to Georgia, in 1738, a temporary shed had been roughly thrown up to screen the people from the cold, and called a Tabernacle, in allusion to the movable sanctuary of the Israelites in the wilderness a more spacious edifice was now projected. The matter first came up for discussion in the summer of 1731, when Doddridge, Stonehouse, Hervey, and Whitefield happened to meet together at Lady Huntington’s in Ashby. During the following winter Whitefield began to make collections for the object, and on almost its first presentation at London nine hundred pounds 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, Whitefield had often been in great straits for the support of his orphan-house over the sea, “for I forgot,” he tells us, “to recollect that Professor Franke built in Glaucha, in a populous country, and that I was building at the very tail of the world.” In accordance with this prudent resolution, it was not until March, 1753, that he writes to Charles Wesley, “On Tuesday morning the first brick of our new Tabernacle was laid with awful solemnity I preached from Exodus: ‘In all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee and 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 it was ready for the opening services, and though capable of holding four thousand people, was crowded to suffocation. Whitefield was now solicited to hold public services at the west end of London, and Long-acre chapel, then under the charge of a dissenter, was offered for his use. An unruly rabble tried 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 a hierarchical interference which followed hard after, prohibiting his preaching in an incorporated chapel. “I hope you will not look upon 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.”

“My greatest distress,” he says to Lady Huntington in the course of these proceedings, “is so to act as to avoid rashness on the one hand and timidity on the other;” and this shows, what in truth his whole life showed, an entire absence of that malignant element of fanaticism which courts opposition and revels in it.

Determined 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 chapel, which went by the name of “Whitefield’s soul-trap.” “I pray the Friend of sinners to make it a soul-trap indeed to many wandering creatures,” said he. “My constant work is preaching fifteen times a week. Conviction and conversion go on here, for God hath met us in our new building.”

This chapel was opened in November, 1736, according to the forms of the church of England, and licensed under the Toleration Act, as other houses of prayer. Twelve almshouses and a chapel-house were added two years after. The lease granted by General George Fitzroy to Mr. Whitefield having expired in 1828, it was purchased by the trustees and reopened in 1830, when Rev. William Jay preached the reopening sermon. The chapel at present is a handsome building, the exterior coated with stucco and ornamented with pilasters; the interior is neat and tasteful. Its present pulpit is the same in which Whitefield preached. Among the monumental tablets, you read the names of Whitefield, Toplady, and Joss.

It was before the new Tabernacle was completed that we find Whitefield, in one of his summer tours, revisiting Scotland, and domiciled at the hospitable mansion of Mr. James Nimmo at Edinburgh, a gentleman of high birth and unaffected piety. This was his third visit to the north, the first of which took place in 1741; and greater multitudes than ever now flocked to hear him. While in Edinburgh, though much indisposed by chills and fever, he continued to preach twice a day, early in the morning and at six in the evening. “Your ladyship’s health,” he says in a letter to Lady Huntington, “is drank and inquired after every day. Mr. Nimmo and his family are in a the number of those who are left in Sardis, and have not defiled their garments.” A letter from Lady Jane, who is the friend and correspondent of Lady Huntington, reveals to us not only a lively picture of the religious movements at the Scotch capital, but the high consideration with which Lady Huntington is regarded by the people of God in that quarter.

“Accept my thanks for your very obliging message by Mr. Whitefield, and I hope to avail myself of a your very kind offer the first time I go to London with Mr. Nimmo. Your ladyship will rejoice to hear what crowds flock to hear Mr. Whitefield. The energy and power of the gospel word is truly remarkable. Dear Lady Frances Gardiner is very active in bringing people to hear him. There is a great awakening among all classes. Truth is great and will prevail, notwithstanding all manner of evil is spoken against it. The fields are more than white and ready unto the harvest in Scotland. Many prayers are offered up for your ladyship, and many bless God for your sending your chaplain into these parts. The infinitely condescending Redeemer vouchsafes to bless your labors for the good of souls in England, and your ladyship will shortly have my native country to add to the brilliancy of that diadem which will adorn your brow in the great day of the Lord.” I blush and am confounded when I think to what little purpose I have lived. I beg, dear madam, you will pray for me. I feel under manifold obligations to you, and hope to spend an eternity with you in praising that grace and love that has plucked us as brands from the burning. Mr. Nimmo begs his most cordial salutations to you, yours, and all who love our Lord Jesus Christ; and wishing you the best of a blessings, I subscribe myself, my dear madam, your ladyship’s, most affectionately in our common Lord,
“JANE NIMMO.”

About this time two gentlemen came from America to solicit contributions for Princeton college; These were Mr. Allen and Colonel Williams. They brought letters of introduction from General Belcher of New Jersey to Lady Huntington, who collected considerable sums for the object Mr. Allen died in two months after his arrival of a disease called the jail fever, first known in 1750, at the summer session of Old Bailey. Three years afterwards, Messrs. Tennent and Davies were sent ever to reawaken the interest and further the cause.

Among the publications of the day appeared “Theron and Aspasio,” by Hervey, in which the doctrines of the cross were illustrated and enforced in the form of dialogue. “Thank God for the masterly defence of them in these dialogues,” exclaimed Romaine.

The book was dedicated to Lady Fanny Shirley, who became the appreciating patron and warm friend of the invalid and retiring preacher. Though long gone by, these dialogues are still well worth reading, both for the truths they teach and the spirit which they breathe. Let us go and see Hervey on a Sunday.

“Last Sabbath-day, after preaching in the morning at Olney, with three others I rode to hear one Mr. Hervey, a minister of the church of England, who preached at Collingtree, and to my great surprise as well as satisfaction, having never seen such a thing before in prayer-time, instead of psalms they sung two of Dr. Watts’ hymns, the clerk giving them out line by line: after prayer, without going out of the desk, the minister put off his surplice and turned to the fifteenth chapter of St. Matthew, which was the second lesson of the day, and told, the people what pleasure had occurred in his mind while reading the parable of our Saviour’s feeding the four thousand men, besides women and children, with seven loaves and a few little fishes: he then spoke in a plain, simple manner about it, and afterwards spiritualized it by observing what great things the Lord sometimes does by small things and weak instruments and then, without going up into the pulpit, he turned to the fifth chapter of the Ephesians, and read the twenty-fifth, twenty-sixth, and twenty-seventh verses, and very sweetly and clearly he spoke from them; showing the meaning of those words in the creed, I believe in the holy catholic church, wherein he observed, They do not believe in the church, as in God Almighty and in his Son Jesus Christ our Lord; but the meaning, he observed, was, I believe God has a holy catholic church; and the word catholic signifies universal; that there always was, now is, and will be a church of Christ. He then from the holy word showed who were the members of this church; such as were cleansed, washed, or justified from their sins in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; and here he spoke very clearly to the people, and told them that all were not of or in this church, which he compared to Noah and his family in the ark being safe, when all the rest were drowned in the deluge in like manner he showed, notwithstanding their coming to that place or building, if they were not members of that church he had been describing, by being united to Jesus Christ by faith, they, as the people out of the ark, must perish at last and as he had been telling them who were members of this church, he spoke in a humble way of himself as being an unworthy member thereof. And now having shown what was meant by the church, and who were its members, he showed lastly, from the words that were read, what were the church’s privileges. Thus far I have been particular, for such a way of proceeding in the church of England seems wonderful to me. But what shall we say? God is no respecter of persons, neither of places. This Mr. Hervey expounds every Wednesday night, catechizes the children, and meets some people on Tuesdays and Thursdays in or near the parish where he lives.”

Surely here is in very deed a servant of the true spiritual church of the Redeemer, bought with his own precious blood.

Rev. Bryan Broughton, secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, was also one of the original Oxford band. Now living at London, college friendships are kept alive, and he is still the friend and associate of Whitefield and the Wesleys. There came to our house, he says, the newly appointed curate of St. Matthews, a young man, whose fresh and earnest spirit was prepared to regard the new religious movements of the time with candid and inquiring interest. “Are these things from God?” he asked reverently.

His name is HENRY VENN, whose “Complete Duty of Man” is now among the choice and sterling books of our religious libraries. Law’s “ Serious Call” had made a deep impression upon his mind, and he was endeavoring to meet its stern and uncompromising demands upon his moral nature. Like the Wesleys at Oxford, he prescribed to himself a rigid course of fasting and prayer. He determined resolutely to grapple with the evil of his nature, and compel his rebel affections to do homage to their Lord. But the course thus marked out could not meet his wants. No self-infliction’s could reach the necessities of the case. He now became acquainted with Whitefield, Lady Huntington, and others like-minded, who from their own fervent experience could point him to “the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.” A severe and long-continued illness, which broke in upon his public labors, gave him time for deep searching of heart and uninterrupted meditation upon divine truth. His views of doctrine grew clearer, and salvation by the blood of Christ as the grand central doctrine of the Scriptures, became distinct and precious to his soul.

When he again went forth to his ministry, he went in the might of a crucified and risen Saviour, deeply imbued with that spirit of prayer and holy consecration which made his conversation, his preaching, and his writings so eminently useful in his day.

Soon after his recovery he accompanied Whitefield upon a preaching tour into Gloucestershire, where they proclaimed to immense crowds the glad tidings of the gospel. At Clifton they were welcomed and hospitably entertained by Lady Huntington, and here Venn met many kindred spirits, whose sympathy and knowledge in divine things quickened and rejoiced his spirit.

In 1769 he received the large and valuable living of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, one hundred and ninety miles north-west of London, and Mr. Venn became the apostle of the region. He was instant in season and out of season, exhorting, rebuking, reproving with all long-suffering and patience.

“Preach Christ crucified as the only foundation of the sinner’s hope,” wrote Lady Huntington to him, “and may your bow abide in strength. Be bold, be firm, be decisive. Let Christ be the alpha and omega of all your addresses to your fellow-men, and may the gracious benediction of your heavenly Master rest upon you.”

Pastoral fidelity was one of the chief excellences of this man of God. He made frequent visits to all the different hamlets of his extensive parish, collecting together those who could not attend divine worship on the Sabbath, and instructing them from house to house.

“I have delightful accounts from Huddersfield,” said his patron, “of the wonderful manner in which the ministry of their faithful and laborious vicar is blessed to that people; and what is gratifying, his health was never better.”
We cannot but look with surprise upon the prodigious labors of many in the ministry at this period, when work and health and long life seemed to go hand in hand. Hard roads, rough weather, pressing service, threats, and opposition never daunted nor discouraged, nor interrupted their labors. They shrunk from no toils. “Heart within and God for head,” they proved themselves patient and hardy laborers, simple in their habits, strong in faith, and solicitous chiefly about the furtherance of the kingdom of their Lord and Master.

Yorkshire, one of the largest counties of England, is washed by the German ocean, and is divided into east, west, and north ridings it contains many ranges of high land, and is watered by the Ouse, Don, Humber, and Aire. This was the native county and principal theatre of the labors of BENJAMIN INGHAM, one of Wesley’s college band. On leaving Oxford in 1734, he went to his mother’s house, where he used to collect little companies about the neighborhood and expound to them the word of God. With the Wesleys he went to Georgia, and labored at a small Indian mission a few miles from Savannah. He learned the language, made a grammar, and became deeply interested in the wild sons of the forest. On the return of the brothers to England, he accompanied them, and shortly revisited his native county. At Wakefield, Leeds, and Halifax he preached with marvellous power. This provoked ecclesiastical censure, and he was prohibited the use of the churches throughout the diocese of York. Not at all dismayed or discouraged, he betook himself to the fields, where crowds of hungry hearers hung upon his lips: everywhere the common people heard him gladly; others also were subdued by his searching and personal appeals. The Hastings of Ledstone-Hall lent an ear to his instructions, and embraced the truths thus heartily and zealously enforced in 1741, as has been related, he married Lady Margaret Hastings, Earl Huntington’s youngest sister, and made his home at Aberford.

Co-worker with Ingham was WILLIAM GRIMSHAW of Haworth. Haworth is a bleak and unpromising little parish, embracing four hamlets, which afford little to interest the fastidious; but they enclosed the joys and sorrows, the sins and the infirmities of humanity, and this made them worthy of the curate’s best endeavors. Besides his Sabbath service, Grimshaw established two circuits, which he went over every week alternately. On what he called his idle week, he preached twelve or fourteen times; his busy week from twenty-four to thirty, going also from house to house, visiting the sick, instructing the ignorant, comforting the sorrowful, and helping the aged towards heaven.

One of the most violent opposers of Grimshaw and Ingham was the vicar of Colne, a town on the borders of Yorkshire. On hearing of the arrival of any of the awakened preachers into his neighborhood, he used to call the people together by beating a drum in the market-place, and enlisting the mob for the defence of the church: one of his proclamations to this end is a curious specimen of ecclesiastical tactics.

“Notice is hereby given, that if any man be mindful to enlist in his majesty’s service, under the command of Rev. George White, commander-in - chief, and John Banister, lieut.-general of his majesty’s forces for the defence of the church of England, and the support of the manufactory in and about Colne, of both of which are now in danger, let him repair to the drum-head at the cross, where each man shall receive a pint of ale in advance, and all other proper encouragement.”

The reckless fury of a force thus enlisted may be well imagined: the preachers often ran a gauntlet for their lives; they and their congregations were pelted with stones and dirt, trampled into the mud, and beaten without mercy; the constables often rivaling the vicar in his violence and hatred against them.

Newton was much in Yorkshire previous to his own settlement, loving and laboring both with Ingham and Grimshaw. “I forgot to tell you,” he writes to a friend, “that I had the honor to appear as a Methodist preacher. I was at Haworth; Mr. Grimshaw was present and preached. I love the people called Methodists, and vindicate them from unjust aspersions, and suffer the reproach of the world for being one myself, yet it seems not practicable for me to join them farther than I do; for the present I must try to be useful in private life.”

Lady Huntington and her chaplains often journeyed during the summer, making their presence a means of religious revival wherever they went. We find her now, in company with Romaine, travelling in Yorkshire, and tarrying at Aberford, guests of the Inghams. Romaine and lngham, though together at college, knew and cared little for each other then; they now met warm and intrepid champions of the cross. Lady Margaret felt a cordial sympathy for Romaine in his London trials and reverses, and generously eked out his small income from her own purse; while her husband accompanied him on preaching tours throughout the north of England — Romaine preaching wherever he could obtain a pulpit, and lngham exhorting in chapels and private houses.

At Haworth, a large crowd having assembled, Mr. Grimshaw gave out word that “his brother Romaine would preach the glorious gospel from brother Whitefield’s pulpit in the graveyard;” and though the announcement did not quite suit the preacher’s taste or principles, he felt it was no time for a minister of Christ to stick at forms; Romaine therefore took his stand in that temple not made with hands, and proclaimed the unsearchable riches of Christ. There is something grand and beautiful in the laborious and unselfish ministrations of the band of preachers who thus went out into the highways and hedges of England, publishing the gospel message as if fresh from Christ and Calvary. We feel there was vitality and power in their utterances, and we almost wish that we too might have been there to see and hear. We look around in our own time, and even with all the multiplied apparatus of church extension in our day, all the bustling activity of our societies and anniversaries, the current of our spiritual life seems tame and sluggish compared with the warm and quickened flow of theirs. We cannot help the inquiry “What was the main element of their preaching, which we have not? Where were the hidings of that wondrous power which electrified both England and her colonies? For America also had her Edwards and her Tennents.”

It was not learning or logic merely, though some of them were learned and giant men, it was not artistic eloquence, eloquent as they were; nor was it the burning of a sectarian or selfish zeal: it was a profound and vivid sense of sin and redemption, of heaven and hell — in a word, of the stupendous and solemn issues of man’s moral history; they felt the reality and the grandeur of eternity.

Nurtured and brought up with the Bible, the catechism, or the prayer-book, many men have only a conventional sort of piety: they believe because nobody questions; they preach because it is a profession, and a noble one; they maintain a respectable standing among their fellows; and though in their more spiritual moments they may conceive of that latent heat and hidden power, the divinity which underlies redemptive truths, they yet see only through a glass darkly, and make little progress. Buffetings, aggression, conquest in their Master’s service, however they may have been elements in the labors of apostles and reformers, form no part of their inner or outer life — they sail on no such stormy seas Now let this inherited and passive belief in the truths of Christianity, setting easily upon us like a fashionable garment, become instinct with life — let the curtain of the present and visible world be suddenly rent away, and ourselves and our fellows be seen hastening to eternal joy or remediless woe, and from that hour onward we are altered beings.

It was this quickened apprehension of revealed truth, this deeper intuition into man’s lost estate, which made Paul and Peter, Luther and Calvin, Whitefield and Wesley, Edwards and Tennent what they were; and this it is which must inspire every true reformer of the church or the world. He must discover in divine truth “The substance of thing” hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And this is faith, the gospel faith, in its own integrity, simple yet powerful — simple, for the child can grasp it, and mighty enough to lay hold on God himself.

Is it not this which the disciples of the Lord in our own time need, in order to be “true and faithful witnesses” of God, and to carry on that great aggressive movement into the kingdom of darkness, which Jehovah declares is the mission of the church? “For this purpose have I raised thee up, to be my salvation to the ends of the earth. Behold, I send thee far hence to the Gentiles.”