his character, preaching daily in the prisons, fields and open streets, wherever he thought there would be a likelihood of making religious impressions. Having at length made himself universally known in England, he applied to the trustees for establishing the colony of Georgia, for a grant of a tract of land near Savannah, with the benevolent intention of building an orphan house, which was designed as an asylum for poor children, who were to be clothed and fed by charitable contributions, and educated in the knowledge and practice of christianity. Actuated by the strongest motives for the propagation of religion, this itinerant several times crossed the atlantic ocean to convert the Americans, whom he addressed in such manner as if they had been all equally strangers to the privileges and benefits of religion, with the aborigines of the forest. However his zeal never lead him beyond the maritime parts of America, through which he travelled, spreading the evangelical tenets of his faith amongst the most populous towns and villages. One would have imagined that the heathens would have been the primary objects of his religious compassion; but this was not the case: wherever he went in America, as in Britain, he had multitudes of followers. When he first visited Charleston, Alexander Garden, a man of great erudition, who was an episcopal clergyman in that place; took occasion to point out to them the pernicious tendency of Whitefield's

wild doctrines and irregular manner of life. He represented him as a religious imposter or quack, who had an excellent knack of setting off, disguising and rendering palatable his poisonous tenets on the other hand, Mr. Whitefield, who had been accustomed to stand reproach and face opposition, recriminated with double acrimony and greater success: while Alexander Garden, to keep his flock from straying after this strange pastor, expatiated on these words of scripture; "those that have turned the world upside down

are come hither also." Mr. Whitefield with all the force of comic humor and wit, for which he was so much distinguished; by way of reply enlarged upon these words; "Alexander the

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copper-smith hath done me much evil, the "Lord reward him according to his works." The pulpit was perverted into the purposes of spite and malevolence, and their followers catching the infection, spoke of the clergymen as they were differently affected.

Mr. Whitefield commenced the building of his orphan house in Georgia, in 1740, on a sandy bluff, near the sea shore, on a tract of land granted to him for the purpose by the trustees; the house was built of wood seventy feet by forty. To this house poor children were sent, to be supported partly by charity, and partly by the products of the land cultivated by negroes.

Mr. Whitefield calculated on the healthiness of the place, from its similarity of situation to that

of Frederica having formed the project, he de termined to persevere, and prided himself in surmounting every obstacle and difficulty; he travelled through the British empire, making impressions of the excellence of his design, and obtained from charitable people, money, clothes, and books, to forward his undertaking and supply his poor orphans in Georgia. The house was finished and furnished with an excellent library, but the institution never flourished to the extent of his expectations and wishes, though a great sum of money was expended in bringing it to maturity, owing most probably to the unhealthiness of the situation. The number of children educated at it are not known, but the gencral opinion is, that it did not produce many ornaments for the pulpit. About thirty years after the house was finished, it was burned; some say it was occasioned by a foul chimney, and others by a flash of lightning; but whatever was the cause, it burned with such violence that little of either furniture or library, escaped the devouring flames. Happy was it for the zealous founder of this institution, that he did not survive the ruins of a fabric on which his heart was fixed, and to the completion of which, he had devoted so much time and labor.

The talents of Mr. Whitefield were extraordinary, and beyond any opinion which can be entertained of an itinerant preacher. His influence and weight at that day, certainly made him one

of the most useful men in America. He had many friends and admirers amongst the men of the first influence and respectability, and followers from all classes; he was so popular in preaching, that his churches or places of religious resort, were crowded some time before he appeared, and that to a degree unknown since the apostolic times, or the days of the anabaptists in Germany. It was observed by some of those who attended his service, that when he preached in a church, a line was extended outwards, there being no room to go in; and at the door, pious persons were soliciting for leave "only to see his blessed face," though they could hear him.Such was the respect, enthusiasm and regard he had inspired, to those devoted to religion, owing to his sincerity, faith, zeal, truly great and extraordinary talents. It is related of the accomplished and celebrated lord Chesterfield, that he observed, "Mr. Whitefield is the greatest orator "I have ever heard, and I cannot conceive of a greater. His writings are said to give no idea of his oratorical powers: his person, his delivery, his boldness, his zeal and sincere pursuit in the propagation of the gospel of his Lord and Master, made him a truly wonderful man in the pulpit, whilst his printed sermons give but a skeleton of the equal of many men who have served religion, since the days of the primitive christians. It is not an easy task to delineate his character, without an uncommon mixture, and a vast varie

ty of colours. He was in the British empire, not unlike one of those strange and erratic me. teors which appear now and then in the system of nature. He often lamented that in his youth he was gay and giddy; so fondly attached to the stage, that he frequently recited difficult pieces while he was at school, with such great applause, that Garrick observed, the stage had lost an ornament. Then he probably acquired those gestures, added to his powers of eloquence, which he practiced under his clerical robes with great success and advantage upon the feelings of his hearers.

After receiving his ordination in the church of England, he refused submission to the regulations either of that or any other particular church, but became a preacher in churches, meeting-houses, halls, fields, in all places and to all denominations, without exception. Though he was not distinguished for his learning, he possessed a lively imagination, much humor, and had acquired a great knowledge of human nature, and the manners of the world. He possessed a great share of humanity and benevolence, but frequently displayed an excessive warmth of temper when roused by opposition and contradiction. His reading was inconsiderable, but he had an extraordinary memory, and mankind being one of the great objects of his study, he could, when he pleased, raise the passions and call forth the tones of the human heart with ad