good reason to hope the Lord intended good for many. After I had finished, Mr. Gilbert Tennent gave a word of exhortation, to confirm what had been delivered. At the end of his discourse, we sung a psalm, and dismissed the people with a blessing; O that the people may say Amen to it. After our exercises were over, we went to old Mr. Tennent's, who entertained us like one of the ancient patriarchs. His wife, to me seemed like Elizabeth, and he like Zachary; both, ast far as I can learn, walk in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. Though God was. pleased to humble my soul, so that I was obliged to retire for a while, yet we had sweet communion with each other, and spent the evening in concerting what measures had best be taken for promoting our dear Lord's kingdom. It happened very providentially that Mr. Tennent and his brethren are appointed to be a presbytery by the synod, so that they intend bringing up gracious youths, and sending them out from time to time into the Lord's vineyard."

We may be permitted to add here, that among the ministers sent out by Mr. Tennent, from the Log college, to preach the gospel, were his four sons, Gilbert, William, John, and Charles, the Rev. Messrs. Samuel Blair, John Blair, Charles Beatty, and Rev. Dr. Samuel J. Finley, President of Princeton College; of some of these excellent men the reader will hear again in the course of this volume.

In reference to his first visit to Philadelphia, Whitefield thus writes: "I have scarcely preached among them, but I have seen a stirring among the

dry bones. Go where I will, I find people with great gladness receive me into their houses. Sometimes I think I am speaking to stocks and stones; but before I have done, the power of the Lord comes over them, and I find I have been ploughing up some fallow ground, in a place where there has been a great famine of the word of God. But as God's word increases, so will the rage and opposition of the devil. Scoffers seem to be at a stand what to say. They mutter in coffee-houses, give a curse, drink a barrel of punch, and then cry out against me for not preaching more morality. Poor men, if God judges them, as he certainly will do, by their morality, out of their own mouths will he condemn them. Their morality, falsely so called, will prove their damnation. God has enlarged my heart to pray. Tears trickle down my face, and I am in great agony; but the Lord is pleased to set his seal to what he enables me to deliver. Amid cries and groans in the congregation, God gives me much freedom of speech. Many people and many ministers weep. My own soul is much carried out. I preached to a vast assembly of sinners; nearly twelve thousand were collected; and I had not spoken long, before I perceived numbers melting; as I proceeded, the power increased, and thousands cried out; never before did I see so glorious a sight. Oh, what strong crying and tears were poured forth after the dear Lord Jesus! Some fainted; and when they had gotten a little strength, they would hear and faint again. Never was my soul filled with greater power. Oh, what thoughts and words did God put into my heart. As great, if not greater commotion was in

the hearts of the people. Look where I would, most were drowned in tears."

An aged man who was living in 1806, and who well remembered the scenes he witnessed, bore testimony that after this visit of the great evangelist, public worship was regularly celebrated in Philadelphia twice a day for a whole year; and that on the Lord's day it was celebrated three, and frequently four times in each church. He said there were not less than twenty-six societies regularly held for prayer and Christian conference.

Such was the influence of Whitefield, not only in Philadelphia, but throughout the colony of Pennsyl vania, that in the city attention to commerce was suspended, and in the country the cultivation of the land for the time being was abandoned, that people might hear him proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus.

!

Among other very striking conversions in Philadelphia at this period, was that of a young lady, who had for several years made a public profession of Christianity, but who now became fully convinced that "she was totally unacquainted with vital piety." When Mr. Whitefield began his labors in that city, she was greatly affected by his preaching, on which she constantly attended, and often afterwards told her friends, that after the first sermon she heard him preach, she was ready to say with the woman of Samaria, "Come see a man who told me all things that ever I did." The preacher, she said, so exactly described all the secret workings of her heart, her wishes, and her actions, that she really believed he

was either more than human, or else that he was supernaturally assisted to know her heart. She was not then aware that all depraved hearts are much alike, and that he who in lively colors can paint one, gives a description which will be recognized by many as their own. This young lady once walked twenty miles to hear a sermon from Whitefield; she became a most eminent Christian, and was one of the constituent members of the church organized by Mr. Tennent. She married Mr. Hugh Hodge, who was also one of the seals of Mr. Whitefield's ministry, and a deacon of the church, and for more than sixty years she eminently "adorned the gospel of God in all things."

During this first visit of Mr. Whitefield to Philadelphia, another interesting circumstance occurred. Whitefield preached one evening standing on the steps of the court-house, in Market-street, which became, as we have said, his favorite spot during that and subsequent visits. A youth some thirteen years of age stood near him, and held a lantern for his accommodation; but becoming deeply absorbed in the sermon, and strongly agitated, the lantern fell from his hands, and was dashed in pieces. Those near the boy, observing the cause of the accident, felt specially interested, and for a few moments the meeting was discomposed by the occurrence. Some fourteen years afterwards, Mr. Whitefield, on his fifth visit to this country, was visiting St. George's, in Delaware. He was one day riding out with the Rev. Dr. John Rodg ers, then settled as the minister at St. George's, in the closed carriage in which Whitefield generally

rode. Mr. Rodgers asked him whether he recollected the occurrence of the little boy who was so affected with his preaching as to let his lantern fall. Mr. Whitefield replied, "O yes, I remember it well; and have often thought I would give almost any thing in my power, to know who that little boy was, and what had become of him." Mr. Rodgers replied with a smile, "I am that little boy." Mr. Whitefield, with tears of joy, started from his seat, took him in his arms, and with strong emotion remarked, that he was the fourteenth person then in the ministry whom he had discovered in the course of that visit to America, in whose conversion he had, under God, been instrumental.

From Philadelphia, Whitefield was invited by Mr. Noble to New York; this gentleman being the only person with whom he then had an acquaintance in that city. Upon his arrival, he waited with his friend on the commissary, but he refused to Whitefield the use of the church. This commissary of the bishop, he says, "was full of anger and resentment, and denied me the use of his pulpit before I asked for it. He said they did not want my assistance. I replied, that if they preached the gospel, I wished them good luck: I will preach in the fields; for all places. are alike to me.' The undaunted evangelist therefore preached in the fields; and on the evening of the same day, to a very thronged and attentive audience, in the Rev. Mr. Pemberton's meeting-house, in Wallstreet; and continued to do so twice or three times a day, with apparent success.

Of this visit to New York, and of Whitefield's