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Tormented as he must have been with all kinds of visitors and all kinds of requests, had he kept an open door, he wisely suffered but few to see him freely. "Who is it?' What is his business?' he would demand before his door was opened; and if the door was opened, he would say, 'Tell him to come to-morrow morning at six o'clock, perhaps five, or immediately after preaching ; if he is later, I cannot see him.'

Knowing that he sometimes preached an hour and a half or two hours, it prepares us for long prayers also; and perhaps had others prayed as well as he preached he might have borne with them. But he hated all unreality. In the middle of an immoderately long prayer by the master of the house where he was once staying, he rose from his knees, and sat down in the chair; and when the drawler concluded, he said to him with a frown: 'Sir, you prayed me into a good frame, and you prayed me out of it again.'

We have seen that he was like old Mr. Cole in his use of anecdotes, nor were they always without a touch of humour. He was no more afraid of his congregations smiling than weeping; to get the truth into their hearts and heads was his object. His observant habits gathered illustrations from all quarters; and the last book he had read was sure to colour his next sermon.

He always ascended the pulpit with a pale, serious face, and a slow, calm step, as if he had a great message for the expectant thousands. Much preaching made him, not more familiar with his awful themes, but more solemn; and towards the close of life, he sometimes entreated his friends to mention nothing to him which did not relate to eternity. On Sabbath morning his preaching was explanatory and doctrinal; in the afternoon it was more general and hortatory; and in the evening it was more general still. In the morning he was calm and conversational, occasionally making a

MANNER OF PREACHING.

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modest show of learning; in the evening he was oratorical, and attempted by every art of persuasion and every terror of denunciation to save his hearers from sin and its punishment. Then his perfect elocution and graceful gestures were in full play, his uttermost acting never appearing unnatural or improper. It is difficult to believe that any preacher could successfully put a fold of his gown over his eyes to express grief, yet Whitefield invariably did it when he was depicting in his own vivid way the downfall of Peter, and grieving over it.

He seemed to have no particular time for preparing for the pulpit, although before entering it he loved to have an hour or two alone; and on Sunday mornings he generally had Clarke's Bible, Matthew Henry's Commentary, and Cruden's Concordance within reach. It was remarked also that at this time his state of mind was more than usually devout; but ordinarily, indeed, the intervals of conversation were filled up with private ejaculations of praise and prayer, notwithstanding his love of pleasantry, which he did not care to suppress. His was an honest, real life from beginning to end; he was himself at all times and everywhere.

He did not love to be known and observed wherever he went. If he ever was fond of popularity, he was weary of it long before he became old, and often said that he almost envied the man who could take his choice of food at an eating-house, and pass unnoticed.'

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It is said that when he wrote his pamphlets, he shut himself up in his room, and would see no one until his work was done. Besides the productions of his pen already noticed, he wrote a 'Recommendatory Preface to the Works of John Bunyan,' which would have been more appropriately called a recommendation of Puritans and Puritan divinity; it contains not one discriminating remark upon the writings of the dreamer. Early in his ministry, he began some Observations on select passages

of Scripture, turned into catechetical questions,' which are much like the questions which an ordinary Sundayschool teacher would put to his class; but they were soon discontinued. A more elaborate work was Law Gospelised,' which means an attempt to render Mr. Law's "Serious Call" more useful to the children of God, by excluding whatever is not truly evangelical, and illustrating the subject more fully from the Holy Scriptures.' We never hear of Law in this evangelical garb now, though we do hear of him without it. He has been preferred ungospelised; and Whitefield might have saved his trouble, had he remembered that men do not put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish.' He contemplated editing a new edition of the Homilies, for which he wrote a preface, and added a prayer for each homily, and a hymn selected either from Watts's or Wesley's collection. It was intended chiefly for the poor, and as a safeguard against Popery. He thought that it would banish heterodoxy and mere heathen morality,' and show that the enthusiasts' were the best churchmen; but his plan was not carried out.

He published several prayers, some of which are most appropriate in petition and language. Their titles are a leaf of Church history, and the petitions contained in some are as plain an index to passing conditions of life as are the peculiarities of the psalms. They were composed for persons desiring and seeking after the new birth, for those newly awakened to a sense of the divine life, for those under spiritual desertion, for those under the displeasure of relations for being religious; then come the cases of servants, Negroes, labourers, rich men, travellers, sailors, the sick, and persons in a storm at sea.

The prayer for a person before he goes a journey may be quoted:

'God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, who

leddest the people through a wilderness by a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night; and didst guide the wise men on their journey to Jerusalem, by a star in the east; give Thy angels charge concerning me, Thy unworthy servant, that I may not so much as hurt my foot against a stone. Keep me, O God, keep me on my journey, and suffer me not to fall among robbers. Jesus, thou Good Samaritan, take care of, support, defend, and provide for me. Behold, I go out by the direction of Thy providence; Lord, therefore let Thy presence go along with me, and Thy Spirit speak to my soul, when I am journeying alone by the wayside. O, let me know that I am not alone, because my heavenly Father is with me. Keep me from evil company; or, if it be Thy will I should meet with any, give me courage and freedom, O Lord, to discourse of the things concerning the kingdom of God. And O that Thou wouldest let me meet with some of Thy own dear children! O, that Thou would'st be with us, as with the disciples at Emmaus, and cause our hearts mutually to burn with love towards Thee and one another! Provide for me proper refreshment; and, wherever I lodge, be Thou constrained, O God, for Thy own name's sake, to lodge with me. Teach me, whether at home or abroad, to behave as a stranger and pilgrim upon earth. Preserve my household and friends in my absence, and grant that I may return to them again in peace. Enable me patiently to take up every cross that may be put in my way. Let me not be weary and faint in my mind. Make, O Lord, right paths for my feet; enable me to hold out to the end of the race set before me, and, after the journey of this life, translate me to that blessed place where the wicked one will cease from troubling, and my weary soul enjoy an everlasting rest with Thee, O Father, Son, and blessed Spirit; to whom, as three Persons but one God, be ascribed all possible power, might, majesty, and dominion, now and for evermore. Amen.'

There is no hymn bearing Whitefield's name. The Methodist revival gave the English Church in all its branches the greater number of its best hymns. Watts, Charles Wesley, John Wesley, Zinzendorf, Doddridge, Cennick, Madan, Berridge, Haweis, Toplady, all of them either taking an active part in the movement or coming

within the range of its influence, have expressed for us the humblest grief of our repentance, the fullest trust of our faith, and the brightest expectation of our hope; but Whitefield has given us not a verse. Emotional, like Charles Wesley, he yet had none of that fervid poet's music. He was nothing but a preacher; but as a preacher he was the greatest of all his brethren, the most competent of his contemporaries being judges.

The only direct association of Whitefield's name with the names of the brilliant and gifted men of his time has already appeared in the narrative of his preaching triumphs. It was principally statesmen-Pitt and Fox among the number, never Burke-who went to hear him. Not one of the celebrated Literary Club, Garrick excepted, was ever seen in the 'soul-trap.' Oglethorpe makes a kind of link between the Club and the Tabernacle. A friend of Whitefield, he was also a friend of Goldsmith; and sometimes he and Topham Beauclerc would turn in of an evening, to drink a glass of wine with 'Goldy,' at his chambers in Brick Court, Middle Temple-the chambers which he bought with the proceeds of the play that Shuter lifted into popularity. But the easy ways of many of these sons of genius, their wine-sipping, when they could get it, their comfortable suppers at the Turk's Head,' their gaiety and their sins, sufficiently explain how it was that in all Whitefield's career not one of them crossed his path. They talked about him, as they talked about everybody and everything; they theorised about his popularity; Johnson was sure that it was 'chiefly owing to the peculiarity of his manner. He would be followed by crowds were he to wear a nightcap in the pulpit, or were he to preach from a tree.' No doubt of it and no doubt the nightcap would have made grasping men give of their beloved money to the orphan-house, and hardened sinners go home as gentle as lambs, and worldly wretches, who had been living only for the body