writing,
preaching, or travelling." He preached under trees which he had planted
himself, at Kingswood. He outlived most of his first disciples and
preachers, and stood up, mighty in intellect and labors, among the second
and third generations of his people. In his later years persecution had
subsided; he was every where received as a patriarch, and sometimes
excited, by his arrival in towns and cities, an interest "such as the
presence of the king himself would produce." He attracted the largest
assemblies, perhaps, which were ever congregated for religious
instruction, being estimated sometimes at more than _thirty thousand_!
Great intellectually, morally, and physically, he at length died, in the
eighty-eighth year of his age and sixty-fifth of his ministry,
unquestionably one of the most extraordinary men of any age.

Nearly one hundred and forty thousand members, upward of five hundred
itinerant, and more than one thousand local preachers, were connected with
him when he died.

George Whitefield.

One of the founders of the sect of the Methodists, born at Gloucester,
where his mother kept the Bell inn, 1714. From the Crypt school of his
native town, he entered as servitor at Pembroke College, Oxford, and was
ordained at the proper age by Benson, bishop of Gloucester. Enthusiasm and
the love of singularity now influenced his conduct, and in his eagerness
to obtain popularity, he preached not only in prisons, but in the open
fields, and by a strong persuasive eloquence, multitudes regarded him as a
man of superior sanctity. In 1738, he went to America, to increase the
number of his converts; but, after laboring for some time as the friend
and the associate of the Wesleys, he at last was engaged with them in a
serious dispute, which produced a separation. While he zealously asserted
the doctrine of absolute election and final perseverance, agreeably to the
notions of Calvin, his opponents regarded his opinion as unsupported by
Scripture, and therefore inadmissible; and in consequence of this arose
the two sects of the Calvinistic and the Arminian Methodists. Secure in
the good opinion of a great number of adherents, and in the patronage of
Lady Huntingdon, to whom he was chaplain, he continued his labors, and
built two Tabernacles in the city and in Tottenham Court Road for the
commodious reception of his followers. He died at Newburyport,
Massachusetts, while on a visit to his churches in America, and had