out the slightest sense of its impropriety or its irrelevance. The Chancellor then read to him those canons which forbade any minister from preaching in a private house. Whitefield answered, he apprehended they did not apply to professed ministers of the Church of England. When he was informed of his mistake, he said, "There is also a canon, Sir, forbidding all clergymen to frequent taverns and play at cards; why is not that put in execution ?" and he added, that notwithstanding those canons, he could not but speak the things which he knew, and that he was resolved to proceed as usual. The answer was written down, and the Chancellor then said, "I am resolved, Sir, if you preach or expound any where in this diocese till you have a license, I will first suspend, and then excommunicate you." With this declaration of war they parted: but the advantage was wholly on the side of Whitefield, for the day of ecclesiastical discipline was gone by: laws which have long slept may sometimes be awakened to an ill purpose, rarely to a good one; and where discipline is obsolete, and the laws are feeble, enthusiasm, likę Drawcansir in the Rehearsal, can do whatever it dares.

Whitefield had none of that ambition which formed so prominent a part of Wesley's character: but he had a great longing to be persecuted. Upon recording his interview with the Chancellor in his journal, he says, "This day my Master honoured me more than ever he did yet ;" and his letters are full of aspirations for martyrdom, and prophetic

hopes which, in a persecuting age, would infallibly have wrought their own accomplishment. "O

dear Mr. H.," he says to one of his correspondents,

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my heart is drawn towards London most strangely. Perhaps you may hear of your friend's imprisonment; I expect no other preferment. God grant may behave so, that when I suffer it may be not for my own imprudencies, but for righteousness sake, and then I am sure the spirit of Christ and of glory will rest upon my soul." Soon afterwards he says, "The hour of my imprisonment is not yet come; I am not fit as yet to be so highly honoured." Then again his hopes are exalted: "I am only beginning to begin to be a Christian. I must suffer also as well as do for my dear Master. Perhaps a storm is gathering. I believe God will permit it to fall on my head first. This comes then, honoured Sir, to desire your prayers that none of those things may move me; and that I may not count even my life dear unto me; so that

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may finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus. Though I die for him, yet I beseech you, honoured Sir, to pray that I may not in any way deny him." And again, "The hour of suffering is not yet come. God prepare us all for it! I expect to suffer for my blessed Master's name-sake. But wherefore do I fear? my Master will pray for me: if the gospel continues to run and have such free course, I must suffer as well as preach for my dear Lord Jesus. Oh lift up your hands, dear Sir, in the congregations of the faithful, that I may willingly, if need

be, resist unto blood; but not with carnal weapons. Taking the sword out of the hand of God's spirit, I fear, has more than once stopped the progress of the Gospel. The Quakers, though wrong in their principles, yet I think have left us an example of patient suffering, and did more by their bold, unanimous, and persevering testimonies, than if they had taken up all the arms in the kingdom.. In this respect I hope I shall follow them as they did Christ; and though I die for him, yet take up no carnal weapon in defence of him in any wise." -"If the work goes on, a trying time will come.

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pray God the same spirit may be found in all that profess the Lord Jesus, as was in the primitive saints, confessors, and martyrs. As for my own part I expect nothing but afflictions and bonds.. The spirit, as well as the doctrines of popery, prevails much in many protestants' hearts; they already breathe out threatenings; what wonder if, when in their power, they should breathe out slaughters also? This is my comfort, the doctrines I have taught are the doctrines of Scripture, the doctrines of our own and of other reformed churches. If I suffer for preaching them, so be it! Thou shalt answer for me, O Lord my God! I rejoice in the prospect of it, and beseech thee, my dear Redeemer, to strengthen me in a suffering hour." Such fears, or rather such hopes, were suited to the days of Queen Mary, Bishop Gardiner, and Bishop Bonner;-they are ridiculous or disgusting in the time of George the Second, Archbishop Potter, and Bishop Gibson. It might be

suspected that Whitefield had grown deranged by the perpetual reading of Fox's Martyrs, like Don Quixote over his books of chivalry, and Loyola over the Lives of the Saints. But it was neither by much reading, nor much learning, that Whitefield was affected. His heart was full of benevolence and piety,-his feelings were strong and ardent, his knowledge little, and his judgement weak, -and by gazing intensely and continuously upon one bright and blazing truth, he had blinded himself to all things else.

Having once taken the field, he was soon encouraged to persevere in so promising a course. All the churches being now shut, and, as he says, if open, not able to contain half that came to hear, he went again to Kingswood: his second audience consisted of some two thousand persons, his third from four to five thousand, and they went on increasing to ten, fourteen, twenty thousand. "The sun shone very bright," he says, " and the people standing in such an aweful manner round the mount, in the profoundest silence, filled me with a holy admiration. Blessed be God for such a plentiful harvest. Lord do thou send forth more labourers into thy harvest!" On another occasion he says, "The trees and hedges were full. All was hush when I began: the sun shone bright, and God enabled me to preach for an hour with great power, and so loud, that all, I was told, could hear me. Blessed be God Mr.- spoke right; the fire is kindled in the country!"-" To behold such crowds standing together in such an aweful

silence, and to hear the echo of their singing run from one end of them to the other, was very solemn and striking. How infinitely more solemn and striking will the general assembly of the spirits of just men made perfect be, when they join in singing the song of Moses and the Lamb in Heaven!" Yet he says, " As the scene was new, and I had just began to be an extempore preacher, it often occasioned many inward conflicts. Sometimes, when twenty thousand people were before me, I had not, in my own apprehension, a word to say either to God or them. But I never was totally deserted; and frequently (for to deny it would be lying against God) so assisted, that I knew by happy experience what our Lord meant by saying, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters." The deep silence of his rude auditors was the first proof that he had impressed them; and it may well be imagined how greatly the consciousness and confidence of his own powers must have been increased, when, as he says, he saw the white gutters made by the tears which plentifully fell down their black cheeks,―black as they came out of their coal-pits. "The open firmament above me," says he, "the prospect of the adjacent fields, with the sight of thousands and thousands, some in coaches, some on horseback, and some in the trees, and at times all affected and drenched in tears together; to which sometimes was added the solemnity of the approaching evening, was almost too much for, and quite overcame me."