FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67  
68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   >>   >|  
rs on Long Island, Barber and Davenport, had received divine assurance of a return of power, and held themselves in anxious waiting. At last, brilliant flashes began to play athwart the sky, and instead of the meteoric glare which some feared, it indicated the purer sunbeam, in whose genial power the church was to rejoice for more than a third of a century. Whitefield's advent sent a thrill through all New England. He sailed from Charleston to Newport, where venerable parson Clapp, tottering with age, welcomed him as though he had been an angel of God. Whitefield's power was comparable to the supernatural, and it was in this view John Foster, at a later day, found the only solution of his success. In the pulpit his appearance and manners exceeded the dreams of apostolic grace--a youth of elegant form, with voice of enchanting melody, clear blue eyes, an endurance which knew no exhaustion--a fancy which ranged both worlds--were all fused by a burning zeal for the salvation of souls. Such was Whitefield at twenty-five, and as such he was worthy of that ovation which he received at Boston, when governor and council went out in form to welcome him. The evangelist bore his honors meekly, and hospitality did not weaken the vials of wrath which he poured upon the unfaithful. He found, as he said, in New England 'a darkness which might be felt.' At Cambridge, he thundered at the deadness of Harvard and its faculty, and electrified the land by striking at its glory. The hearers alternately wept and shivered, and the professors, headed by old Dr. Holyoke (who afterwards lived to celebrate his hundredth birthday), levelled a defensive and aggressive pamphlet at their castigator; but Governor Belcher kissed the dauntless preacher, and bade him 'cry aloud and spare not, but show the people their sins.' The second century, like the first, opened with fierce ecclesiastical tumult. Whitefield's itineracy, like the blazing cross in the Lady of the Lake, was the signal for an uprising. Fired by his passionate oratory, the masses revolted from the chill formalism of a dead ministry. The effect of the excitement which pervaded New England, when considered merely as an appetizer of the intellect, can not be over-estimated, and the vigor which the colonial mind thus acquired astonished in an after day the dullards of the British Parliament. The chief throb was felt in Connecticut, where strolling preachers of a new order held forth in barns
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67  
68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Whitefield

 

England

 
century
 
received
 
dauntless
 

kissed

 

preacher

 

hundredth

 

pamphlet

 

castigator


Governor

 

Belcher

 

aggressive

 

levelled

 

defensive

 
birthday
 

professors

 
Cambridge
 

thundered

 
deadness

faculty

 

Harvard

 
darkness
 

weaken

 

poured

 

unfaithful

 

electrified

 

Holyoke

 

headed

 

shivered


striking

 
hearers
 

alternately

 

celebrate

 

ecclesiastical

 

estimated

 

colonial

 

acquired

 

considered

 

pervaded


appetizer

 

intellect

 

astonished

 

preachers

 

strolling

 

Connecticut

 
British
 
dullards
 
Parliament
 

excitement