island by a peculiar Providence. My dear friend, Mr. Smith of Charles Town, has been made especially instrumental thereto. Thanks be to the Lord for sending me hither. I have been received in a manner which I dared not expect, and have met with little, very little, opposition indeed. The inhabitants seem to be plain and open-hearted. They have also been open-handed. For they have loaded me with provisions for my sea store; and in the several parishes, by a large voluntary contribution, have raised me upwards of a hundred pounds sterling. This will pay a little of Bethesda's debt, and enable me to make such a remittance to my dear yoke-fellow, as may keep her from being embarrassed,' or too much beholden in my absence. Blessed be God for bringing me out of my embarrassments by degrees! May the Lord reward all my benefactors a thousandfold! I hear that what was given was given exceeding heartily, and people only lamented they could do no

more.'

6

The voyage home was not to be without alarms, though it proved, on the whole, both rapid and pleasant. Those dreadful men-of-war were hanging about like hungry sharks; on the first day of the voyage one of them gave chase; and when the Betsy' approached the English Channel, where they swarmed, a large French vessel shot twice at, and bore down upon us. We gave up all for gone.' But some pang of compassion or panic of fear seized the Frenchman, and he turned about, and left his trembling prey unhurt.

Whitefield might not preach during this voyage, because his health was so impaired. He says, "This may spare my lungs, but it grieves my heart. I long to be ashore, if it was for no other reason. Besides, I can do but little in respect to my writing. You may guess how it is when we have four gentlewomen in the cabin!' However, he did write, and finished his abridgement of Law's Serious Call,' which he endeavoured to gospelise.' His journals, too, were revised; and in reference to that work, he makes some remarks which will illustrate his

ingenuousness of temper. The revision had brought under his notice many things that his maturer judgment, and calmer, though not less earnest, spirit could not but disapprove of. Alas! alas!' he says, in how many things have I judged and acted wrong. I have been too rash and hasty in giving characters, both of places and persons. Being fond of Scripture language, I have often used a style too Apostolical, and at the same time I have been too bitter in my zeal. Wild fire has been mixed with it; and I find that I frequently wrote and spoke in my own spirit, when I thought I was writing and speaking by the assistance of the Spirit of God. I have likewise too much made inward impressions my rule of acting, and too soon and too explicitly published what had been better kept in longer, or told after my death. By these things I have given some wrong touches to God's ark, and hurt the blessed cause I would defend, and also stirred up endless opposition. This has humbled me much since I have been on board, and made me think of a saying of Mr. Henry's, "Joseph had more honesty than he had policy, or he never would have told his dreams." At the same time, I cannot but bless and praise and magnify that good and gracious God, who filled me with so much of His holy fire, and carried me, a poor weak youth, through such a torrent both of popularity and contempt, and set so many seals to my unworthy ministrations. I bless Him for ripening my judgment a little more, for giving me to see and confess, and I hope in some degree to correct and amend, some of my mistakes. I thank God for giving me grace to embark in such a blessed cause, and pray Him to give me strength to hold on and increase in zeal and love to the end.'

He had been made to prove the truth of one of his wise remarks, God always makes use of strong passions for a great work.' Strong passions have great dangers;

but he was now beginning to understand how to rule them with a stern hand. Less robust in health than when he last returned from America, and less disposed to contend with those who differed from him, but not a whit less zealous or self-sacrificing, only showing the first tints of mellow ripeness in all goodness, he stepped again upon English soil on July 6, 1748.

CHAPTER XI.

July, 1748-1752.

APPOINTED CHAPLAIN TO THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON-A SLAVE

OWNER.

THE English newspapers, Whitefield learned on his arrival in England, had interred him as early as April in that year. From the people he found a welcome the very reverse of that which had pained him seven years before. Thousands received him with a joy that almost overcame both him and them. Their love and devotion to him humbled him to the dust. The damaged fortunes of the Tabernacle instantly revived, when he resumed the pulpit and the management of affairs. One church also, St. Bartholomew's, was open to him; and there he preached to immense congregations, and assisted in administering the sacrament to a thousand communicants. Moorfields was as white as ever to the harvest.

Many tender memories were awakened by the return home; and his affectionate heart yearned towards his family and his friends. Though his mother had remained silent during all his long absence, and he had vainly entreated a letter from her, one of his first acts was to remember her, and announce by a letter his arrival. A kindly A kindly greeting was sent to Wesley. Hervey, one of Whitefield's converts, the author of Meditations among the Tombs,' was complimented on his appearance as an author, and encouraged to persevere, because his writings were so adapted to the taste of the polite world. Times have greatly changed since then, and taste too. Thus he tried to keep his place in hearts that had once received him.

An unexpected call was made upon him on the occasion of this return. Howel Harris had instructions to take him, as soon as he landed, to the house of the Countess of Huntingdon, at Chelsea. That remarkable woman was already well acquainted with the power of his oratory over popular assemblies, for she had often seen and felt it; now she wanted to see what it could avail in her drawing-room upon the hearts of high-born ladies and gentlemen. I cannot say what kind of an audience he had when he preached in her house the first two times, but after the second service, the Countess wrote to inform him that several of the nobility wished to hear him, if he would come again. In a few days a brilliant circle was gathered around him; and he spoke to them with all his usual unaffected earnestness and natural gracefulness, while they listened with attention and some degree of emotion. The Earl of Chesterfield thanked him and paid him one of his studied, highmannered compliments at the close: Sir,' he said, 'I will not tell you what I shall tell others, how I approve of you.' Bolingbroke was afterwards prevailed upon to come; he sat like an archbishop;' and at the conclusion condescended to assure Whitefield that he had done great justice to the Divine attributes in his discourse. Hume, also, became an admirer of this eloquence, which had a charm for colliers and peers; in his opinion Whitefield was the most ingenious preacher he had ever heard ; it was worth going twenty miles to hear him. He gives a remarkable instance of the effect with which Whitefield once employed apostrophe, not, of course, in the drawingroom at Chelsea. Once, after a solemn pause, he thus addressed his audience:-"The attendant angel is just about to leave the threshold of this sanctuary, and ascend to heaven. And shall he ascend, and not bear with him the news of one sinner, among all this multitude, reclaimed from the error of his way?" To give the greater