would have been fortunate for his reputation if he had left no written works, his talents would then have been estimated by the effect which they are known to have produced; for, on this point, there is the evidence of witnesses whose credibility cannot be disputed. Whitefield's writings, of every kind, are certainly below mediocrity. They afford the measure of his knowledge and of his intellect, but not of his genius as a preacher. His printed sermons, instead of being, as is usual, the most elaborate and finished discourses of their author, have indeed the disadvantage of being precisely those upon which the least care had been bestowed. This may be easily explained.

"By hearing him often," says Franklin, "I came to distinguish easily between sermons newly com. posed, and those which he had often preached in the course of his travels. His delivery of the latter was so improved by frequent repetition, that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turned, and well placed, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse: a pleasure of much the same kind with that received from an excellent piece of music. This is an advantage itinerant preachers have over those who are stationary, as the latter cannot well improve their delivery of a sermon by so many rehearsals." It was a great advantage, but it was not the only one, nor the greatest which he derived from repeating his discourses, and reciting instead of reading them. Had they been delivered from a written copy, one delivery would have been like the last; the paper would have operated like a spell, from which he could not depart-invention sleeping, while the utterance followed the eye. But when he had nothing before him except the audience whom he was addressing, the judgment and the imagination, as well as the memory, were called forth. Those parts were omitted which had been felt to come feebly from the tongue, and fall heavily upon the ear, and their place was supplied by matter newly laid-in in the course of his studies, or fresh

from the feeling of the moment. They who lived with him could trace him in his sermons to the book which he had last been reading, or the subject which had recently taken his attention. But the salient points of his oratory were not prepared passages,— they were bursts of passion, like jets from a Geyser, when the spring is in full play.

The theatrical talent which he displayed in boyhood, manifested itself strongly in his oratory. When he was about to preach, whether it was from a pulpit, or a table in the streets, or a rising ground, he appeared with a solemnity of manner, and an anxious expression of countenance, that seemed to show how deeply he was possessed with a sense of the importance of what he was about to say. His elocution was perfect. They who heard him most frequently could not remember that he ever stumbled at a word, or hesitated for want of one. He never faultered, unless when the feeling to which he had wrought himself overcame him, and then his speech was interrupted by a flow of tears. Sometimes he would appear to lose all self-command, and weep exceedingly, and stamp loudly and passionately; and sometimes the emotion of his mind exhausted him, and the beholders felt a momentary apprehension even for his life. And, indeed, it is said, that the effect of this vehemence upon his bodily frame was tremendous; that he usually vomited after he had preached, and sometimes discharged, in this manner, a considerable quantity of blood. But this was when the effort was over, and nature was left at leisure to relieve herself. While he was on duty, he controlled all sense of infirmity or pain, and made his advantage of the passion to which he had given way. "You blame me for weeping," he would say, "but how can I help it, when you will not weep for yourselves, though your immortal souls are upon the verge of destruction, and, for aught I know, you are hearing your last sermon, and may never more have an opportunity to have Christ offered to you!"

Sometimes he would set before his congregation the agony of our Saviour, as though the scene was

actually before them. "Look yonder!" he would say, stretching out his hand, and pointing while he spake, "what is it that I see? It is my agonizing Lord! Hark, hark! do you not hear?-O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me! nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done!" This he introduced frequently in his sermons; and one who lived with him says, the effect was not destroyed by repetition; even to those who knew what was coming, it came as forcibly as if they had never heard it before. In this respect it was like fine stage acting: and indeed Whitefield indulged in an histrionic manner of preaching, which would have been offensive if it had not been rendered admirable by his natural gracefulness and inimitable power. Sometimes, at the close of a sermon, he would personate a judge about to perform the last awful part of his office.With his eyes full of tears, and an emotion that made his speech faulter, after a pause which kept the whole audience in breathless expectation of what was to come, he would say, "I am now going to put on my condemning cap. Sinner, I must do it: I must pronounce sentence upon you!" and then, in a tremendous strain of eloquence, describing the eternal punishment of the wicked, he recited the words of Christ, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." When he spoke of St. Peter, how, after the cock crew, he went out and wept bitterly, he had a fold of his gown ready, in which he hid his face.

Perfect as it was, histrionism like this would have produced no lasting effect upon the mind, had it not been for the unaffected earnestness and the indubi table sincerity of the preacher, which equally characterized his manner, whether he rose to the height of passion in his discourse, or won the attention of the motley crowd by the introduction of familiar stories, and illustrations adapted to the meanest * ca

*Wesley says of him, in his Journal, "how wise is God in giving different talents to different preachers! Even the little improprieties both of his language and manner, were a means of profiting many who would not have been touched by a more correct discourse, or a more

pacity. To such digressions his disposition led him, which was naturally inclined to a comic playfulness. Minds of a certain power will sometimes express their strongest feelings with a levity at which formalists are shocked, and which dull men are wholly unable to understand. But language which, when coldly repeated, might seem to border upon irreverence and burlesque, has its effect in popular preaching, when the intention of the speaker is perfectly understood it is suited to the great mass of the people, it is felt by them when better things would have produced no impression, and it is borne away when wiser arguments would have been forgotten. There was another and more uncommon way in which Whitefield's peculiar talent sometimes was indulged: he could direct his discourse toward an individual so skilfully, that the congregation had no suspicion of any particular purport in that part of the sermon; while the person at whom it was aimed felt it, as it was directed, in its full force. There was sometimes a degree of sportiveness almost akin to mischief in his humour.

Remarkable instances are related of the manner in which he impressed his hearers. A man at Exeter stood with stones in his pocket, and one in his hand, ready to throw at him; but he dropped it before the

calm and regular manner of speaking.” St. Augustine somewhere says, that is the best key which opens the door: quid enim prodest clavis aurea si aperire quod volumus non potest? aut quod obest lignea, si hoc potest, quando nihil quærimus nisi patere quod clausum est?

*Mr. Winter relates a curious anecdote of his preaching at a maidservant who had displeased him by some negligence in the morning.— "In the evening," says the writer, "before the family retired to rest, I found her under great dejection, the reason of which I did not apprehend; for it did not strike me that, in exemplifying a conduct inconsistent with the Christian's professed fidelity to his Redeemer, he was drawing it from remissness of duty in a living character; but she felt it so sensibly, as to be greatly distressed by it, until he relieved her mind by his usually amiable deportment. The next day, being about to leave town, he called out to her 'farewell:' she did not make her appearance, which he remarked to a female friend at dinner, who replied, Sir, you have exceedingly wounded poor Betty.' This excited in him a hearty laugh: and when I shut the coach-door upon him, he said 'Be sure to remember me to Betty; tell her the account is settled, and that I have nothing more against her.'"

sermon was far advanced, and going up to him after the preaching was over, he said, "Sir, I came to hear you with an intention to break your head; but God, through your ministry, has given me a broken heart." A ship-builder was once asked what he thought of him. "Think!" he replied, "I tell you, Sir, every Sunday that I go to my parish church, I can build a ship from stem to stern under the sermon; but, were it to save my soul, under Mr. Whitefield, I could not lay a single plank." Hume* pronounced him the most ingenious preacher he had ever heard; and said, it was worth while to go twenty miles to hear him. But, perhaps, the greatest proof of his persuasive powers was, when he drew from Franklin's pocket the money which that clear cool reasoner had determined not to give it was for the orphan-house at Savannah. "I did not," says the American philosopher, "disapprove of the design; but as Georgia was then destitute of materials and workmen, and it was proposed to send them from Philadelphia at a great expense, I thought it would have been better to have built the house at Philadelphia, and brought the children to it. This I advised; but he was resolute in his first project, rejected my counsel, and I therefore refused to contribute. I happened, soon after, to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper; another

* One of his flights of oratory, not in the best taste, is related on Hume's authority. "After a solemn pause, Mr. Whitefield thus addressed his audience:-The attendant angel is just about to leave the threshold, and ascend to Heaven; and shall he ascend and not bear with him the news of one sinner, among all the multitude, reclaimed from the error of his ways! To give the greater effect to this exclamation, he stamped with his foot, lifted up his hands and eyes to Heaven, and cried aloud, Stop, Gabriel! stop, Gabriel! stop, ere you enter the sacred portals, and yet carry with you the news of one sinner converted to God!" Hume said this address was accompanied with such animated. yet natural action, that it surpassed any thing he ever saw or heard in any other preacher.