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Copyright 1914 

by 

The Glad Tiding Publishing Co. 


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© Cl. A 3 8 8 3 G 7 

NOV -3 1914 



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PREFACE 


There is little or no need of a preface to 
such a brief sketch as this, but perhaps it may 
be well to say that no one who has studied the 
life and work of George Whitefield can pos¬ 
sibly feel capable of writing, in few or many 
pages, an account of his remarkable ministry 
and work. 

There are few better biographies in the his¬ 
tory of Christian books than his biography 
written by Doctor Joseph Belcher and pub¬ 
lished by the American Tract Society in 1857. 
The little volume entitled “The Prince of Pul¬ 
pit Orators,’’ by Reverend J. B. Wakeley, is 
also inspiring and suggestive, especially in its 
anecdotes and incidents. To these volumes 
and others I am indebted. 

But the life and work of this great preacher 
have been felt in the living acts and testi¬ 
monies of scores of leaders in the Church of 
Christ, and in countless forces which have 
gone out from him into Christain activity. 


We may well commemorate, at this two hun¬ 
dredth anniversary of his birth, something of 
the gifts, the graces and the power of this 
great soul; and it is our hope that this brief 
review of his life and work may be of inspira¬ 
tion and assistance to those who have not had 
access to larger and more complete volumes. 

We send out this message with faith and 
prayer that this year may be one of genuine 
awakening and revival throughout our land 
and the world. “Revive Thy work, O God!” 

Faithfully, 

John Timothy Stone. 

Fourth Presbyterian Church, 
Chicago, Ill., 
October 13, 1914. 


Beneath the pulpit of the Old South 
Presbyterian Church, Newburyport, Mass¬ 
achusetts, George Whitefield is buried. 

To the right there is a plain, appropri¬ 
ate monument, surmounted by a symbol of 
immortality, a flame burning from an un¬ 
covered urn. It bears this inscription, 
written by President Ebenezer Porter, of 
Andover Theological Seminary: 

THIS CENOTAPH 

is erected, with affectionate veneration, 
to the menory of the 

REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD 

born at Gloucester, England, December 16, 1714: 

Educated at Oxford University: Ordained 1736. 

In a ministry of thirty-four years he crossed the Atlantic thirteen times, 
and preached more than eighteen thousand sermons. As a soldier of 
the cross, humble, devout, ardent: he put on the whole armor of 
God, preferring the honors of Christ to his own interest, re¬ 
pose, reputation, or life. As a Christian orator, his deep 
piety, disinterested zeal, and vivid imagination, gave 
unexampled energy to his look, action, and utter¬ 
ance. Bold, fervent, pungent, and popular in 
his eloquence, no other uninspired man 
ever preached to so large assemblies, 
or enforced the simple truths of 
the Gospel by motives so per¬ 
suasive and awful, and 
with an influence so 
powerful on the 
hearts of his 
hearers. 

He died of asthma. Sept. 30, 1770; 

suddenly exchanging his life of unparalled labors for his eternal rest. 




LINES FROM COWPER 


OW truth, perform thine office, waft 
aside 

The curtain drawn by prejudice 
and pride. 

“He loved the world that hated him; the 
tear 

That dropped upon his Bible was|sincere; 
Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife, 
His only answer was—a blameless life; 

And he that forged, and he that threw the dart, 
Had each a brother’s interest in his heart. 
Paul’s love of Christ, and steadiness unbribed, 
Were copied close in him, and well transcribed. 
He followed Paul—his zeal a kindred flame, 
His apostolic charity the same. 

Like him, crossed cheerfully tempestuous seas, 
Forsaking country, kindred, friends, and ease. 
Like him he labored, and like him, content 
To bear it, suffered shame where’er he went. 
Blush, calumny! and write upon his tomb, 

If honest eulogy can spare the room, 

Thy deep repentence of thy thousand lies, 
Which, aimed at him, have pierced the of¬ 
fended skies; 

And say, Blot out my sin, confessed, deplored, 
Against thine image, in thy saint, O Lord.” 






GEORGE WHITEFIELD 

THE TIMES 

SF WE are to study aright the lives 
of those who have been used by God 
to influence and bless their own 
times and strengthen those who 
have come after them, we must con¬ 
sider the day in which they have 
lived, and the surroundings and en¬ 
vironments which were theirs. 

George Whitefield was born in 
Gloucester, England, December 16, 
1714. He was the sixth son of Thomas and 
Elizabeth Whitefield. His father died when 
George was two years of age. The small inn 
which afforded them a home gave small oppor¬ 
tunity for development, and his early life was 
controlled by strictest economy and hard work. 

Speaking of his early years, he says: “I 
began to assist my mother in various ways, 
till at length I put on my blue apron and 
washed mops, cleaned rooms and, in a word, 
became professed and common drawer for 
nearly a year and a half.” This youth, who ac¬ 
quired such marvelous control of men, began 
his employment serving customers in a bar- 


PAGE NINE 


room; in fact, the influences round about him 
before he was sixteen were far from uplifting. 
He tells us that in early youth he used to “hate 
instruction and shun all opportunities of re¬ 
ceiving it,” but he adds that he was “happily 
detected” in most of his “roguish tricks” 
which grew out of his careless life. 

He himself says of those early days: “I 
got acquainted with such a set of debauched, 
abandoned, atheistical youths, that if God, by 
his free, unmerited and special grace, had not 
delivered me out of their hands I should have 
sat in the scorner’s chair, and made a mock at 
sin. By keeping company with them, my 
thoughts of religion grew more and more like 
theirs.” He adds: “I was in a fair way of 
being as infamous as the worst of them.” 

As he grew a little older, his mother’s busi¬ 
ness was declining, and it was then that he 
assisted her in the inn. 

Notwithstanding this, young Whitefield had 
always the desire to be a minister, and fre¬ 
quently used to imitate a minister reading 
prayers. Even when working in the inn, he 
composed two or three sermons, one of which 
he dedicated to an elder brother. But he was 
unwilling to look into his own heart. There 
was a longing there which had not been sat¬ 
isfied. 

An Oxford student, of Pembroke College, 


PAGE TEN 


visited his mother’s home, and in his conversa¬ 
tion told her he had been able to meet his col¬ 
lege expenses, by thrift and economy, with but 
a penny to spare. She immediately exclaimed, 
“This will do for my son!” and turning to him, 
said: “Will you go to Oxford, George?” The 
reply came at once, “With all my heart.” 
Soon after this he was enrolled. 

But these days were days which tried men’s 
souls, in the general attitude of men to re¬ 
ligion. Bishop Butler wrote, concerning the 
time: “It is come, I know not how, to be 
taken for granted by many persons that Chris¬ 
tianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry; 
but that it is now at length discovered to be 
fictitious. And accordingly they treat it as if 
in the present age this were an agreed point 
among all people of discernment; and nothing 
remained but to set it up as a principal subject 
of mirth and ridicule, as it were, by way of 
reprisals for its having so long interrupted 
the pleasures of the world.” 

Bishop Warburton, who slightly preceded 
Whitefield, wrote: “I have lived to see that 
fatal crisis, when religion hath lost its hold on 
the minds of the people.” 

The spiritual force and life in religion 
seemed to be almost dead, and covered with the 
form of various ceremonials. Preaching still 
existed in formality, but it was void of its 


PAGE ELEVEN 


message. The Atonement, the doctrine of the 
Holy Spirit, the work and office of Christ, 
were unknown themes. Ministers read essays, 
with no message associated with them. The 
soul seemed to be left out of the discourse. One 
of Wesley’s biographers, Southay, writes: “A 
laxity of opinions, as well as morals, obtained; 
and infidelity, a plague which had lately found 
its way into the country, was becoming so 
prevalent that the vice-chancellor of the Uni¬ 
versity at Oxford, in a programm, exhorted 
the tutors to discharge their duties by double 
diligence and had forbidden the undergrad¬ 
uates to read such books as might tend to the 
weakening of their faith. ’ ’ 

Men who preached the great doctrines of 
God’s Word were considered fanatical and 
brainless. Still, noble souls lived, and guided 
those who were spiritually inclined. But how 
difficult for spirituality to grow when irre- 
ligion and profligacy are said to have been 
orderly and acceptable. 

Doctor Belcher, Whitefield’s biographer, 
writes: “Judging from the description we 
have of men and manners in those days, a gen¬ 
tleman might have been defined as a creature 
who got drunk, gambled, swore, fought duels, 
and violated the seventh commandment, and 
for all this very few thought the worse of 
him.” 


PAGE TWELVE 


When Wliitefield became a student at Ox¬ 
ford he was attracted by the personalities of 
the Wesleys, John and Charles, who had begun 
to be recognized as men of peculiar and un¬ 
popular religious views and habits. The very 
word “Methodist’’ which clung to them grew 
out of their value of time, and the care with 
which they gave themselves in regular habits 
to the study of God’s Word and the preaching 
of His truth. They “ lived by rule and 
method.” The great purpose of their lives 
was to save the souls of men, and they prac¬ 
ticed all kinds of self-denial and discipline. 
Whitefield became one of them, and submitted 
himself to a rigor of discipline—physical, 
mental and spiritual—as he sought to work out 
his own righteousness. 

Later, he learned the meaning of divine par¬ 
don and love, and understood the influence of 
the grace of Christ in his life, in its pardoning 
power, rather than his dependence upon his 
own good works. He then began to read the 
Holy Scriptures constantly, turning aside 
from other books, and reading with that de¬ 
votional spirit and purpose which was not only 
studious but prayerful. He gave himself un¬ 
tiringly and constantly to preparation for his 
great life-work. Whether he was visiting the 
prisoners, calling upon the sick, or going into 
the homes of the poor, he was always thought- 


PAGE THIRTEEN 


ful of the life-work before him. He lived in 
daily and hourly communion. He writes: “I 
always observed that as my inward strength 
increased, so my outward sphere of action in¬ 
creased proportionably. ” 

The times in which he lived could not hold 
back such a soul from the power which the 
Spirit of God developed. The times did not 
change Whitefield, but Whitefield was des¬ 
tined to change the times. 

HIS GIFTS 

We should now turn to the gifts of this re¬ 
markable man, for he stands pre-eminent, not 
only among the preachers of his own day but 
the preachers of the ages. Well has one writ¬ 
ten that “ since the days of Apollos no man 
spoke to more people nor with more power 
than this princely orator of the Lord. ’ ’ When 
but twenty-two years of age the announcement 
that he would preach drew immense congre¬ 
gations, and this young man, almost unknown 
before, saw thousands and tens of thousands 
hanging upon his words. His clear, pene¬ 
trating, sympathetic, rich, winsome, control¬ 
ling voice reached to the farthest listener, and 
not only controlled his attention but touched 
his heart. Men stopped in curiosity, then lis¬ 
tened with desire, then bowed in reverence, 
and broke into tears of repentance. Stout 

PAGE FOURTEEN 


hearts and weaklings, old men and children, 
the intelligent and the ignorant, all hung upon 
him; for “the common people everywhere 
heard him gladly.” But not only the common 
people; all kinds and conditions made up his 
audience. From the very first sermon he 
preached in his native city of Gloucester, in 
the Church of St. Mary de Crypt, he fascinated 
his hearers. At first some ridiculed, but soon 
caught the spirit of the speaker. The bishop 
was told afterward that “he drove fifteen peo¬ 
ple mad, his first sermon,” whereupon the 
prelate replied that he wished the madness 
“might not be forgotten before the next 
Sunday. ’ ’ 

Lord and Lady Huntingdon followed him 
wherever he preached. Lady Anne Franldand 
was among the first of his converts. London 
turned out to hear him, as to no other man, 
and although some called him at first “the boy 
parson,” they soon forgot the title as he held 
them enraptured by his message. People of 
all classes and ranks followed him. 

Doctor Gillies describes him as a man 
“something above the middle stature, well- 
proportioned, though early in life slender, and 
remarkable for native gracefulness of manner. 
His complexion was very fair, his features 
regular, his eyes small and lively, of a dark 
blue color; in recovering from the measles he 


PAGE FIFTEEN 


had contracted a squint with one of them, but 
this peculiarity rather rendered the expression 
of his countenance more rememberable than 
in any degree lessened the effect of its uncom¬ 
mon sweetness. His voice excelled both in 
melody and compass, and its fine modulations 
were happily accompanied by the grace of 
action which he possessed in an eminent de¬ 
gree, and which is said to be the chief requisite 
of an orator. An ignorant man described his 
eloquence oddly by saying that he preached 
like a lion. So strange a comparison conveyed 
no unapt idea of the force, and vehemence, and 
passion—of the authority which awed the 

hearers.Yet in all his discourses 

there was a fervor and melting charity, an 
earnestness of persuasion, an outpouring of 
redundant love, partaking of the virtue of the 
faith from which it flowed, insomuch that it 
seemed to enter the heart which it pierced, 
and to heal it as with a balm.” 

One has well called this man the “ imperial 
pulpit orator.” In describing his voice, Ben¬ 
jamin Franklin, who was one of his closest 
friends in America, says: “Mr. Whitefield had 
a loud and clear voice, and articulated his 
words so perfectly that he might be heard and 
understood to a great distance, especially as 
his auditors observed the most profound 
silence. He preached one evening from the top 


PAGE SIXTEEN 



of the courthouse steps, which are in the middle 
of Market Street and on the west side of Sec¬ 
ond Street, which crosses it at right angles. 
Both streets were filled with his hearers, to a 
considerable distance. Being among the hind¬ 
most in Market Street I had the curiosity to 
learn how far he might be heard, by retiring 
backward down the street toward the river, 
and I found his voice distinct till I came near 
Front Street, when some noise in the street 
drowned it. Imagine then a semi-circle, of 
which my distance should be the radius, and 
that it was filled with auditors, to each of 
whom I allowed two square feet. I computed 
that he might well be heard by more than 
thirty thousand. This reconciled me to the 
newspaper accounts of his having preached 
to twenty-five thousand in the field.” 

He attracted men of differing types. Lord 
Chesterfield wrote to Lady Huntingdon: “Mr. 
Whitefield’s eloquence is unrivaled; his zeal 
inexhaustible. ’ ’ His power as a speaker is evi¬ 
denced by the striking experience Lord 
Chesterfield had in listening to him in one of 
his sermons in the home of Lady Huntingdon. 
Several of high and royal family, and many 
remarkable personages were present, among 
them Chesterfield. Whitefield was represent¬ 
ing 4 ‘the votary of sin” under the figure of a 
blind beggar led by a dog. The dog had broken 


PAGE SEVENTEEN 


away. The poor cripple, with his staff, was 
groping his way unconsciously on, until he 
reached the brink of a precipice. As he felt 
with his staff, it dropped down the descent, too 
deep to even send back the echo. He sought it 
on the ground, and bending forward, took a 
step to recover it. But his foot trod on va¬ 
cancy; he poised for a moment and fell head¬ 
long. Chesterfield, who had listened with 
thrilling interest to this tragic description 
until he thought the scene real, jumped from 
his seat, exclaiming, ‘‘Good God! he is gone.” 

David Garrick, the most celebrated of Eng¬ 
lish actors, was one of Whitefield’s greatest 
admirers, and frequently listened to his ser¬ 
mons. It was Garrick who said: “Whitefield 
could make his audience weep or tremble 
merely by varying his pronunciation of the 
word ‘Mesopotamia.’ ” Garrick once said: 
“I would give a hundred guineas if I could 
only say ‘Oh’ like Mr. Whitefield.” And it 
was Horace Walpole who ascribed to White- 
field “the fascinations of a Garrick.” Jon¬ 
athan Edwards, in whose church at North¬ 
ampton Mr. Whitefield preached, said: “His 
sermons were suitable to the conveniences and 
the circumstances of the town,” and speaks 
at length of the great blessing which came and 
the revival which attended his labor. 

No wonder a gathering of two hundred col- 


PAGE EIGHTEEN 


liers at Kingswood, near Bristol, grew day by 
day until twenty thousand hearers listened to 
him. When thrust out of the churches, one 
has well said, “a mountain, a ship, were his 
pulpits, and the heavens were his sounding- 
board.” His sincerity was transparent, his 
love for souls controlling. He preached for a 
verdict, and he always preached as a man who 
might never preach again. Hume, the his¬ 
torian, said that his bursts of oratory were 
accompanied with such animated yet natural 
action that they surpassed anything he ever 
saw or heard in any other preacher. 

So dramatic was he that his words were 
living moving-pictures. Once in picturing a 
tempest at sea, and a ship overtaken, he 
reached the climax by saying, ‘‘ Our masts are 
gone! The ship is on her beam ends! What 
next?” “The longboat! Take the longboat!” 
shouted his audience of sailors, as. one voice. 

HIS MESSAGE 

But the gifts of this man were even sur¬ 
passed by his message. His words were the 
vital words of living power, and were largely 
the words of Scripture. In reading his ser¬ 
mons at the present time, we wonder at his 
matchless force and power; but we are imme¬ 
diately struck by the constant use and ready 
adaptation of all portions and truths of Scrip- 


PACE NINETEEN 


ture; by his quick reference to the stories of 
the Old Testament; by his ready allusions and 
apt suggestions taken from the entire Word. 
His insight into Scripture character, his won¬ 
derful memory of the Word of God, and his 
familiarity with it, are shown all through his 
utterances. He also faced the great, mighty 
truths of Scripture, and was a great preacher 
of pre-eminent themes. Some have said that 
a great preacher could take a little subject and 
make it great—not so with Whitefield. He 
chose the great subjects, and brought out their 
greatness by every power and expression of 
his genius. His message was the message of 
the Lion and the Lamb. His truth had the 
strength of Peter, the love of John, the reason¬ 
ing of Paul, and the authority of Christ. He 
spoke as one who knew his message, and pro¬ 
claimed its vital truth. 

Gilbert Tennant said of him: 4 4 He convinced 
me more and more that we can preach the 
Gospel of Christ no further than we have ex¬ 
perienced the power of it in our own hearts. 
I found what a babe and novice I was in the 
things of God.” 

Although mighty in the Scripture, and clear 
in his doctrine, he was extremely apt in illus¬ 
tration. On his first voyage to Georgia, the 
crew and voyagers had been greatly attracted 
by five small pilot-fish w T hich attended and 


PAGE TWENTY 


clung to a shark following the ship. They were 
told that, even when the shark was caught 
these little fish would sometimes cleave close 
to his fins and be taken with him. In preach¬ 
ing, Whitefield applied his truth by saying: 
“Go to the pilot-fish, thou that forsakest a 
friend in adversity. Consider his ways and be 
ashamed.” 

Not only was he apt and clear in illustration, 
but he was fearless in denunciation. Once 
when preaching in the Old South Church in 
Boston, a large company of ministers being 
present, he changed his text and preached 
from our Lord’s conference with Nicodemus. 
When he came to the words, “Art thou master 
in Israel and knowest not these things?” he 
said: “The Lord enables me to open my mouth 
boldly against unconverted ministers, to cau¬ 
tion tutors to take care of their pupils, and 
also to advise ministers particularly to ex¬ 
amine into the experiences of candidates for 
ordination. For I am verily persuaded the 
generality of preachers talk of an unknown 
and unfelt Christ; and the reason why .con¬ 
gregations have been so dead is because they 
have had dead men preaching to them. O that 
the Lord may quicken and revive us, for His 
own name’s sake. For how can dead men 
beget living children ? It is true, indeed, God 
may convert men by the devil, if he pleases, 


PAGE TWENTY-ONE 


and so lie may by unconverted ministers; but 
I believe He seldom makes use of either of 
them for this purpose. No; the Lord will 
choose vessels made meet by the operations of 
the blessed Spirit for his sacred use.” 

John Wesley preached his funeral sermon 
at Tottenham Court-road Chapel, and said: 
“In his public labors, he has for many years 
astonished the world with his eloquence and 
devotion. With what divine pathos did he per¬ 
suade the impenitent sinner to embrace the 
practice of early piety and virtue. Filled with 
the spirit of grace, he spoke from the heart 
with a fervency of zeal perhaps unequaled 
since the days of the apostles, and adorned the 
truths he delivered with the most graceful 
charms of rhetoric and oratory. ’ ’ 

Wesley also referred to his heart, “suscep¬ 
tible of the most generous and most tender 
friendship.” He said that this, to him, was 
the distinguishing part of his character. He 
said it “shone in his very countenance, and 
continually breathed in all his words, whether 
public or private. It was as quick and pene¬ 
trating as lightning, dew from heart to heart, 
and gave that life to his sermons, his con¬ 
versation and his letters.” 

The London Evangelical Magazine in 1853 
suggested the following characteristics of his 
preaching: 


PAGE TWENTY-TWO 


“First, the prominence given to the leading 
truths of salvation, and the constant exaltation 
of Christ in them,. 

“Second, the glow of feeling, the melting- 
compassion which pervaded his own soul. 

“Third, the direct address of his ministry, 
his appeal to the hearts and consciences of his 
hearers. 

“Fourth, his uabitual dependence on the 
Spirit of God, and his earnest aspirations for 
the manifestation of His power.” 

While in South Carolina, Mr. Whitefield 
formed a close friendship with an independent 
minister named Josiah Smith, who afterward 
published a remarkable sermon upon the 
“Character and Preaching of Whitefield.” 
This is part of the account: 

“Whitefield certainly was a finished preach¬ 
er. A noble negligence ran through his style. 
The passion and flame of his expressions will, 
I trust, be long felt by many. My pen cannot 
describe his action and gestures in all their 
strength and decencies. He appeared to me, 
in all his discourses, very deeply affected and 
impressed in his own heart. How did that 
burn and boil within him when he spake of the 
things he had made ‘touching the King’! How 
was his tongue like the pen of a ready writer, 
touched as with a coal from the altar! With 
what a flow of words, what a ready profusion 


PAGE TWENTY-THREE 


of language, did lie speak to us upon the great 
concerns of our souls! In what a flaming light 
did he set our eternity before us! How ear¬ 
nestly he pressed Christ upon us! How did 
he move our passions with the constraining 
love of such a Redeemer! The awe, the silence, 
the attention which sat upon the face of the 
great audience, was an argument how he could 
reign over all their powers. Many thought he 
spake as never man spake before. So charmed 
were the people with his manner of address 
that they shut up their shops, forgot their 
secular business, and laid aside their schemes 
for the world; and the oftener he preached the 
keener edge he seemed to put upon their de¬ 
sires to hear him again. How awfully, with 
what thunder and sound did he discharge the 
artillery of heaven upon us! And yet, how 
could he soften and melt even a soldier of 
Ulysses with the mercy of God! How close, 
strong and pungent were his applications to 
the conscience — mingling light and heat; 
pointing the arrows of the Almighty at the 
hearts of sinners, while he poured in the balm 
upon the wounds of the contrite, and made 
broken bones rejoice. Eternal themes, the tre¬ 
mendous solemnities of our religion, were all 
alive upon his tongue.’’ 


PAGE TWENTY-FOUR 


HIS FIELD 


Perhaps no other preacher of the gospel cov¬ 
ered so broad an area and touched so many in 
so many different countries with his marvelous 
message. Not only England’s great cities, but 
Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and the northern 
and southern states of the United States, felt 
the great impress of his character and touch. 
In his thirty-four years of ministry he crossed 
the Atlantic thirteen times, preaching between 
eighteen and twenty thousand sermons. For 
years he preached over forty hours a week, 
and sometimes sixty, and usually to thousands. 
And as one has said: “After his labors, in¬ 
stead of taking any rest, he was engaged in 
offering up prayers and intercessions, with 
hymns and spiritual songs, as his manner was, 
in every house to which he was invited.” He 
gave himself everywhere to the preaching of 
the gospel of Christ, adopting as his motto the 
language of Paul, “This one thing I do.” 

“No preacher whose history is on record has 
trod so wide a field as did Whitefield, or has 
retrod it so often, or has repeated himself so 
much, or has carried so far the experiment of 
exhausting himself, and of spending his pop¬ 
ularity, if it could have been spent, but it never 
was spent. Within the compass of a few weeks 
he might have been heard addressing the 
negroes of the Bermuda Islands, adapting him- 


'PAGE TWENTY-FIVE 


self to their infantile understandings and to 
their debauched hearts; and then at Chelsea, 
with the aristocracy of rank and wit before 
him, approving himself to listeners such as 
Lords Bolingbroke and Chesterfield. White- 
field might as easily have produced a Hamlet 
or a Paradise Lost as have excogitated a ser¬ 
mon which, as a composition, a product of 
thought, would have tempted men like these to 
hear him a second time. ’ ’ 

Doctor Hamilton, of London, wrote: “Many 
have surpassed him as sermon-makers, but 
none have approached him as a pulpit orator. 
Many have outshone him in the clearness of 
their logic, the grandeur of their conceptions, 
and the sparkling beauty of single sentences; 
but in the power of darting the gospel direct 
into the conscience, he eclipsed them all.” 

But the glory of Whitefield’s preaching 
was his heart-kindling and heart-melting 
gospel. And this influenced every field upon 
which he trod, and touched every heart to 
whom he spoke. His broad field of work was 
summed up in these words of Wesley: 

“Have we read or heard of any person since 
the Apostles who testified the Gospel of the 
Grace of God through so wide a space, through 
so large a part of the habitable world? Have 
we read or heard of any person who called so 
many thousands, so many myriads of sinners 


PAGE TWENTY SIX 


to repentance? Above all, have we read or 
heard of any person who has been a blessed 
instrument in the hand of God of bringing so 
many sinners ‘ from darkness to light and from 
the power of Satan unto God’?” 

HIS SUCCESS 

But what of his success? This very two 
hundredth anniversary answers in the superla¬ 
tive. These words of testimony and living 
utterance speak volumes. Let this testimony 
of Benjamin Franklin answer as well. “It 
was wonderful to see the change soon made in 
the manners of our inhabitants. From being 
thoughtless and indifferent about religion, it 
seemed as if all the world was growing re¬ 
ligious ; so that one could not walk through 
the town in an evening without hearing psalms 
sung in different families in every street.” 
This from the “City of Brotherly Love,” and 
from the philosophical and sceptical Franklin. 

One cannot measure the success of a great 
soul in figures, or tabulate his successes with 
statistics. The orphan homes which he built 
and supported in America might in themselves 
give their testimony, through generations past, 
of his loving heart and generous nature. The 
great, the gifted and the good; the poor, the 
sad and the forgotten, all would bear testimony 
to the success of his message. But above them 

PAGE TWENTY-SEVEN 


all, we value the unspoken testimony of the 
ages, that this man of gifts and grace and 
power was a man of humble dependence upon 
God and soul-confidence in the Divine Spirit. 
God’s Word has not returned to Him void; 
and the success of this great preacher is felt 
throughout the Christian world today, two 
hundred years after the day of his birth. 

HIS SECRET 

But what was his secrete “As a man 
thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Let us quote 
again from Doctor Franklin: “I knew him 
intimately upward of thirty years. His in¬ 
tegrity, disinterestedness and indefatigable 
zeal in prosecuting every good work I have 
never seen equaled; I shall never see excelled.” 

In a sermon delivered over fifty years ago 
in the Bristol Tabernacle, Reverend John 
Angell James touched the secret of power in 
his thought as he says: “All his biographers 
labor, as do the historians of Greece in de¬ 
scribing the power of Demosthenes, to make us 
understand his wondrous oratory. Perhaps, 
after all, that which gives us the most vivid 
idea of it is, not the crowds it attracted, moved 
and melted, but that it warmed the cold and 
calculating Franklin, and fascinated the philo¬ 
sophical and sceptical Hume. Heaven rarely 
gave, or gives to man the faculty of speech in 

PAGE TWENTY-EIGHT 


I 


such perfection. But what is particularly 
worthy of notice is, that he trusted not to its 
native power, hut increased that power by 
assiduous cultivation. His matchless elocution 
was not only an endowment, but an acquire¬ 
ment. If he preached a sermon twenty times, 
he went on to the last improving his method 
of delivering it, both as to tones and action; 
not for theatrical display—no man was ever 
more free from this—but to carry out his ‘one 

thing ’—the salvation of souls .He 

studied to be the orator that he might thus 
pluck souls as brands from the burning.” 

Mr. James also calls attention to the follow¬ 
ing characteristics of the man as a source of 
his power: His solemnity; his eminence in 
prayer; his communion with God; the stamp 
and impress of eternity upon his preaching; 
his tenderness; his earnestness; and his daunt¬ 
less courage. 

To these we would add that he lived in the 
presence of the Most High. His one aim and 
purpose was to manifest to men the character 
and spirit of Jesus Christ. Before he entered 
the pulpit, he was alone with his God, and 
spent long seasons in meditation and personal 
preparation. He saw in men their need, and 
the power of God to meet that need. He gave 
himself to the fervor of great truths, and gave 
himself over to the power of God’s Spirit in 
presenting them. 

PAGE TWENTY-NINE 



He lived above the petty criticisms of men. 
He cared not for opposition, abuse or inter¬ 
ruption. He lived above the limitations of 
sect, although always loyal to his convictions 
and to the Word of God. When refused ad¬ 
mission to the churches, and when the clergy 
held aloof from him, he went into the open air 
and made God’s fields his auditorium and a 
table his pulpit. He spoke with the conviction 
of a man whose message came from God, and 
like his Master, spoke “as one having author¬ 
ity.” Anywhere and everywhere he gave to 
men the impression of the prophet, and sent 
forth the message that touched the heart and 
thrilled the life to action. Whether interrupt¬ 
ing the merriment of a great country fair, and 
using the occasion to preach the gospel, facing 
ridicule and missiles, until he won all hearers 
to himself, or speaking to a cultured audience 
in the palatial home of Lady Huntingdon, his 
was the message of God from a heart inflamed 
by His love and a soul controlled by His Spirit. 

His secret was the secret of Jonah preach¬ 
ing in Nineveh; of Jeremiah pleading with the 
indifferent and sinful; of John the Baptist 
arousing to repentance; of St. John moving 
the heart; or of St. Paul opening the Word 
and revealing the truths which relate to the 
inner life and to practical action. Pew men 
have spoken as this man spake, for few have 


PAGE THIRTY 


been nearer to their Lord and given their lives 
so completely to the ruling of His Spirit, and 
gained the graces of His indwelling. 


“O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold, 
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old, 
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold. 
O blest communion, fellowship divine, 

We feebly struggle, they in glory shine; 

Yet all are one in Thee, for all are Thine. 
And when the strife is fierce, the warfare 
long, 

Steals on the ear the distant triumph-song, 
And hearts are brave again, and arms are 
strong. 

Alleluia” 


PAGE THIR'i Y-ONE 



Books 


About Whitefield. 


“George Whitefield.” 

By Rev. John Timothy Stone, D. D., LL. D. 

This splendid life of Whitefield has just 
been written for the Commission on Evangel¬ 
ism of the Federated Churches. It is burning, 
sparkling and glowing with the genius of its 
talented author, who is one of the most brilliant 
writers. Price 25c. 

“The Life Story of George Whitefield.” 

By J. J. Ellis. 

(In “Memoirs of Mighty Men” series.) 

Price 20c. 

“George Whitefield, 

Prince of Pulpit Orators.” 

By J. B. Wakeley. 

Price 75c. 

“Selected Sermons of 
George Whitefield” 

Edited by A. R. Buckland. 

Leather bound, price $1.00. 

“Wesley and Whitefield in Scotland.” 

By D. Butler. 

Price $1.00. 

Glad Tidings Publishing Co. 

Lakeside Building, Chicago, Illinois 









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