Two things pleased him much at this time. He had got Fletcher of Madely into his pulpits at London, and had formed an acquaintance with Rowland Hill. Of the former he said, "Dear Mr. Fletcher is become a scandalous Tottenham Court preacher." "Were we more scandalous, more good would be done." Still," the shout of a King is yet heard in the Methodist camp." This was particularly the case in Bath, before Whitefield returned to winter quarters. The nobility crowded to hear him; and whatever effect his sermons had upon them, many of the poor were effectually called. Such was, however, the apparent impression on all ranks, that he left Bath, longing and praying that God would open his way again into all the towns in England.

This prayer was not granted: but God enabled Whitefield to quicken the zeal of stronger men. He heard of "four Methodist parsons" being the guests of one of his friends, and exclaimed, “ Four Methodist parsons!—it is enough to set a whole kingdom on fire, when Jesus says,-Loose them, and let them go!" This message was followed up by an appeal to them, which must have been felt :-" Indeed, and indeed, my dear and honoured friends, I am ashamed of myself. I blush and am confounded, so very little have I done or suffered for Jesus! What a poor figure shall I make amongst the saints, confessors, and martyrs around His throne, without some deeper signatures of his divine impress, without more scars of Christian honour! To-morrow I intend to take the sacrament upon it, that I will begin to begin to be a Christian." It was appeals of this kind which made the Romaines and Venns (nothing loth!) bestir themselves; and which brought around Whitefield the Shirleys and De Courcys of the time. Another way in which he helped on, at this time, the work he had begun, was by prefacing a new edition of Bunyan's Works; and thus reviving public attention to the old puritans, by grouping their names with those of the reformers: a process equally fair and wise! They libel the reformers, who think them at all lowered by identifying Owen, Baxter, or Bunyan with them. These men dwell in the same Let,

mansion in heaven, with Latimer, Jewel, and Usher. therefore, all who believe their identity maintain it! The conviction will soon enthrone itself in the public mind, in spite of all the efforts made to keep up a distinction. There is no real distinction. They were only distinct billows of the one sea of protestant reformation, Their differences were mere

foam, which the halcyon wings of time and truth will soon obliterate. Or, if there be a bench in heaven, Bunyan is an archbishop!

66

In the spring of 1767, Whitefield visited Cambridge and Norwich, and preached with something of his old power for some time. He left London, intending a large plan of operations;" but his "inward fever" returned upon him, and checked him. Lady Huntingdon then took him to Rodborough by easy stages, and he was soon in the fields again. This encouraged him to enter into Wales also; for he had great faith in the "thirty-year-old methodistical medicine,” of preaching in the open air; and the Welsh liked him best in that element. "Thousands on thousands," therefore, now met him around his “field throne," and light and life flew in all directions, as in the days of old. This was, however, Both the work and the remore than he could stand long.

ward were too much for his strength to sustain. He was soon as thankful to be again on "this side of the Welsh mountains," as he had been to get to "the other side" of them, although they rung with the cry, "Evermore give this bread of life."

In the summer he returned to London, weak but lively; and finding that some laymen had not been unacceptable nor unsuccessful in his pulpits, "the itch for itinerating " returned upon him, he says, to a degree not curable "out of heaven;" and therefore he prepared to go into Yorkshire again, upon "a blessed Methodist field-street preaching plan." He now preferred streets to fields; I do not know why. Perhaps he was afraid of sudden attacks of illness, and wished to be near medical help. However that may be, he had to exclaim at almost every stage, "Old methodism is the thing. Both Hallelujah! Good old work-good old seasons." were improved at this time by the company and help of Captain Scott, who often preached for him.

This Yorkshire tour improved his health, notwithstanding all the fatigue he went through; because he travelled much, and always on horseback. He was, therefore, afraid of London, where he had much labour, and no riding. It tempted him to nestle, he said; and his favourite maxim was, "No nestling, no nestling, on this side Jordan." On his arrival at home, he preached for the Religious Book Society at the Tabernacle, and afterwards dined with them at Drapers' Hall. On this occasion (and it was both the first and the last) al

most all the dissenting ministers of London heard him, and met him at dinner. He was pleased, and they seem to have been so too: for the collection amounted to £105, and eighty new subscribers were obtained. It is thus unity of heart is produced, by uniting hands in work which cannot be carried on without peace and good-will. But for this society, Whitefield and the London ministers, as a body, would hardly have known each other, except by name. This fact should not be forgotten by the dissenters. It was at this door Whitefield and they entered into the fellowship and unity of the Spirit. And what has been the effect? His memory is an enshrined star, and his name a watch-word, in all their orthodox churches.

At this time, he had much labour and more care pressing upon him. The question of his college at Bethesda was coming to a crisis, and he had a "little college of outcasts" (as he calls some false and fickle brethren) to reclaim from error and apostacy. In regard to the former, he began by memorializing the king; informing his majesty, that there was no seminary for academical studies southward of Virginia, and thus no stimulus to improvement in Georgia; that he had expended twelve thousand pounds upon Bethesda, and thus laid a foundation for a college, if a charter like that of New Jersey were granted. He then sent, through Lord Dartmouth, a draught of the charter to the archbishop of Canterbury. His grace sent it to the premier; and the premier sent it back, requiring that the head of the college should be an episcopalian, and its prayers established forms :-not very modest requisitions in a case where the money came chiefly out of the pockets of American and British dissenters! Whitefield explained and pleaded this fact, until his patience was worn out: he then, very properly, begged leave to inform his grace, that he would "trouble him no more, but turn the charity into a more generous and useful channel." "Accordingly, he resolved," says Gillies, " in the mean time, to add a public academy to the orphan-house, and wait for a more favourable opportunity for making a fresh application for a charter upon a broad bottom." That opportunity he never found. His failure to obtain a charter, however pitiable or paltry in its causes, cannot surprise those who know the history of the charter of the London university. Nearly a century was required to make the state wiser than it was in the days of Whitefield; and even that long period has not im

proved the liberality of the church much. Oxford still frowns, and Cambridge does not smile, upon the call for open doors. There are, however, men in both universities, who would be glad to see them open; and men out of both, who will not stop their "SESAME," because a charter has been won for the London university. In the mean time, (and I record it with pleasure and gratitude,) a dissenter may find more than courtesy at the libraries, when he has occasion to visit them for literary purposes. I have found Oxford "more noble than " Red-cross street.

Whitefield having failed to obtain a charter for a college abroad, opened an unchartered one at home,-Trevecca in Wales. This was a timely measure; for Oxford had just expelled six praying students, and thus proved to Lady Huntingdon that it would be no nursery for the kind of ministers she wanted. Another college was, also, a practical comment upon Vice-Chancellor Durell's edict; which was more intelligible to the heads of houses, than either Whitefield's solemn remonstrances or the SHAVER's sarcastic rebukes. They could comprehend a Methodist seminary better than methodistical defences of extempore prayer. Whilst, therefore, the spirit-stirring pamphlets of Whitefield and M'Gowan placed the heads of houses before the public, as the persecutors of godly students, Trevecca placed before them a specimen of reaction which they had not foreseen.

I am not willing to enter at present upon the history of the Countess's college. There is now an opportunity of restoring it to its original purpose and spirit. It ought not to be the least amongst the schools of the prophets, nor the last in aggressive evangelization. It ought to have been to Whitefield and its founder, what Elisha was to Elijah, the heir of both their mantle and spirit; but it has long had neither. As the college of the existing "Connexion," it is, perhaps, all that could be fairly expected; but as the Whitefield seminary it is nothing. I could say much on this subject; -and I will say much, should I be spared to publish The History of Methodism as a reformation,-if nothing is done to give efficiency to Cheshunt. In the mean time, I not only forbear, but fondly hope that I may have no occasion to remonstrate. There remains enough of Whitefield leaven in the lump, to ferment the whole, if well managed; and there are some managers Whitefieldian in their spirit. I charge them, "before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect

angels, and many witnesses," to make Cheshunt what the Countess and Whitefield intended and anticipated! They expected to hear more of it in heaven-than they have heard. They ought to have heard more. They shall hear more. Let their joy be fulfilled soon! It has been too long postponed. Besides, Cheshunt needs only a commanding man in its theological chair, in order to renovate it and if any minutiæ of its old rules stand in the way of such a man, or in the way of students, what is a departure from such forms, compared with a departure from its original spirit and design?

I have a right to be thus explicit on this subject. I am as responsible for the facts, concerning the original design of this college, as the trustees are for its funds; and I will deal as honestly with them. I know that the endowments of Trevecca died with the Countess. I refer only, therefore, to Cheshunt's inheritance of what can never die,-the names of Lady Huntingdon and George Whitefield. These are more precious than the gold of Ophir, and their possession involves higher and holier responsibilities than "much fine gold could bring with it. This is my sole reason for speaking at all; and therefore I have spoken out

Whilst engaged in maturing the college at Trevecca, and opening chapels for the Countess, Whitefield lost his wife. On this subject, I have nothing to add to a former chapter; except that his own health and spirits declined afterwards. Still he preached, although often bringing up blood when he came down from the pulpit.

It will be gratifying to the reader to learn, that Trevecca, so long holy ground, and so intimately associated with the name and labours of Howel Harris, is about to become a theological seminary for the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists. Let them realize the designs of Whitefield !-and do justice to the memory of Harris! Some will watch vigilantly, and I for one, how his memory is treated, when Trevecca is again made a college. He belongs too much to the ecclesiastical history of his country, to be forgotten or misrepresented. This hint will be understood by my friend John Elias, and not lost, I hope, on some of his friends in the principality.