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and suitably provided for in the Orphan House. Many of them were converted, and made excellent men and women. The first orphan converted in the house became a talented minister, the successor of Josiah Smith of Charleston, the intimate friend of Whitefield.

Whitefield in his will, as we have stated in a previous article, left this property in trust to the Countess of Huntingdon, whom he calls "That elect lady, that mother in Israel, that mirror of true and undefiled religion." She endeavored to carry out the plan of Whitefield, but the Revolutionary war came on, and a few years after the main building of the Orphan House was consumed by fire, so that the great work to which Whitefield had devoted his life was all destroyed in a few

moments.

Bishop Asbury in February, 1793, turned toward Savannah, to “ see the former walks of dear Wesley and Whitefield," whom he hoped " to meet in the New Jerusalem." The first day of March he went twelve miles to view the ruins of Whitefield's Orphan House. With awe he beheld the blackened walls. The wings, though much injured, were still standing, as was also the school-house, but the latter had sustained the greater injury. The whole was a mass of common ruins. "I reflected," said he, "upon the present ruins of the Orphan House, and taking in view the moneys expended, the persons employed, the preachers sent over, I was led to inquire, 'Where are they, and how has it sped?"" They were all "swallowed

ap;" the whole country looked wretched to him; but he adds, "Here are souls, precious souls, worth worlds."

Whitefield and the Little Boy.

Dr. Smalley, when a little boy, heard Mr. Whitefield preach, and thus describes the impression then made upon him: "I was altogether absorbed in the services of this bold preacher, his stern look, his great voice, his earnest words; and as I thought of my soul, and of Christ and salvation, I was so carried away by my feelings as not to know where I was. I could not keep my eyes off him. I saw him in his prayer, his eyes wide open, looking up on high, and I certainly thought that he saw the Great Being up there, with whom he was pleading and talking so earnestly, and I looked up to the same place that I might see him too." What an impression Whitefield made upon the mind of that little lad! How artless and beautiful the description!

Whitefield and the Dancer.

The mother of a young lady at Newburyport having told Whitefield that her daughter was fond of dancing, he gave her a reproving look which she never afterward forgot, and his reply pierced her conscience. Whitefield, with a pecul iar tone, said, "My dear young friend, do you not

know that every step you dance is on the brink of hell?" That young lady became Mrs. Pearson, who died in 1852, the oldest person in the parish, having arrived at the advanced age of ninety-eight. She was the last survivor in that place of those who had had the great privilege of listening to the magic eloquence of Whitefield.*

Foster, Howard, Whitefield.

Foster, in his inimitable essay on "Decision of Character," has very properly placed Whitefield in juxtaposition with Howard, whom he had just represented as visiting Rome with such intense severity of conviction that he had one thing to do as to refuse himself time to survey the magnificence of its ruins. "Unless," says the essayist, "the eternal happiness of mankind be an insignificant concern, and the passion to promote it an inglorious distinction, I may cite George Whitefield as a noble instance of this attribute of the decisive character—this intense necessity of action. The great cause, which was so languid a thing in the hands of many of its advocates, assumed in his administrations an unmitigable urgency."

James, Howard, and Whitefield.

John Angell James says: "I would not detract from the fame of Howard, that noble-hearted phi* Rev. A. G. Vermilye: Historical Discourse, 1856.

lanthropist, nor extinguish a single ray of the glory that encircles his brow. He who familiarized himself with misery to alleviate it, and exposed himself to pestilence, and died at last a martyr to philanthropy, is worthy of all the honors which an admiring nation and posterity bestowed upon him; but Whitefield was a man of even sublimer philanthropy than Howard. Howard's was mercy to the body; Whitefield's, to the soul. Howard moved through his course amid the admiration of society; Whitefield, amid its scorn and contempt. Statues were erected to Howard; the pillory would have been erected for Whitefield if his enemies could have had their wish. Both now have their reward; but can we doubt whose crown is the weightiest and shines the brightest ?"

Specimens of Whitefield's Style.

To have properly estimated the peculiar power of Whitefield as a pulpit orator we

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With mighty speech. His words seemed oracles,
That pierced their bosoms; and each man would turn,

And gaze in wonder on his neighbor's face,

That with dumb wonder answered him:

Then some would weep, some shout; some, deeper touch'd,
Keep down the cry with motion of their hands,

In fear to have lost a syllable."

Yet we venture to give a few more specimens of his eloquence in order to convey some faint idea

of his tremendous power. But all efforts to portray in writing the beauty of his style and the magic of his inimitable oratory fail to do him justice, for

"There's a charm in deliv'ry, a magical art,

That thrills, like a kiss, from the lip to the heart.
'Tis the glance, the expression, the well-chosen word,
By whose magic the depths of the spirit are stirr'd;
The smile, the mute gesture, the soul-stirring pause,
The eye's sweet expression, that melts while it awes;
The lip's soft persuasion, its musical tone:

O such were the charms of that eloquent one!"

THE STORM AND THE RAINBOW.

The following description of Whitefield's preaching is extracted from a work published in Boston entitled "The Rebels:"

"There is nothing in the appearance of this extraordinary man which would lead you to suppose that a Felix would tremble before him. To have seen him when he first commenced one would have thought him any thing but enthusiastic and glowing; but as he proceeded his heart warmed with his subject, and his manner became impetuous and animated, till, forgetful of every thing around him, he seemed to kneel at the throne of Jehovah, and to beseech in agony for his fellowbeings.

"After he had finished his prayer he knelt a long time in profound silence, and so powerfully had it affected the most heartless of his audience

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