though some smiled and scoffed, and would have no part nor lot in the great salvation; how hardly shall they that are rich enter the kingdom! not many wise, not many noble are called ;-yet he always produced effect, and was instrumental in bringing some to the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. So attractive was his preaching to many in high life, that at Bath, in Lady Huntingdon's new chapel, there was a seat with curtains specially provided for bishops. It was often occupied too. With peculiar significance this seat with vails was styled the Nicodemite corner.

David Hume pronounced Whitefield the most ingenious preacher he ever heard; and said, it was worth going twenty miles to hear him. An ignorant man, being asked what he thought of the preaching of Whitefield, replied, that he preached like a lion; "no unapt notion," says Dr. Southey, "of the force, and vehemence, and passion of that oratory which awed the hear ers, and made them tremble like Felix before the Apostle." No one can read the life or the imperfect sermons that remain of Whitefield, without according to him a large measure of that practical sagacity and nice discrimination, which enabled the preacher so to adapt himself to the ever varying condition and wants of his hearers, as always to produce effect. He felt that the Gospel contains something fitted to meet all classes of men, all states of mind, and all shades of character; and hence, he studied to be pertinent, to put right things in right places, to say what he ought to say and when he ought to say it. He would not cause the nail to start back by giving it a single blow after it was driven home, any more than he would leave it where it would do no execution.

The accuracy of this representation is shown by the following testimony of Cornelius Winter. "The

difference of the times in which Whitefield made his public appearance, materially determined the matter of his sermons, and in some measure, the manner of his address. Whatever the world might think of him, he had his charms for the learned as well as for the unlearned; and as he held himself to be a debtor both to the wise and the unwise, each received his due at such times. The peer and the peasant alike went away satisfied."

Our course of thought leads us to inquire in the next place, what use Whitefield made of the imagination, in producing such remarkable effects upon the minds of his fellow men. It was stated near the beginning of this article, that George Whitefield was endowed by his Creator with intellectual faculties of a high order. Perhaps for no power of mind was he so much distinguished as the one now brought into particular notice. It was this element in his mental constitution, which induced him to contract in early life so great a fondness for dramatic writers. It was this which enabled him to present such vivid pictures before the mental eye of his auditors, that all seemed for the hour to be amid scenes of enchantment. was this which gave him wings to soar into eternity, and dwell now amid the radiant verities of an eternal weight of glory, and now in the soul's great charnel-house, amid the dread realities of the second death. It was this which infused so abundantly into all his sermons the elements of the dramatic. Hear him descanting upon Peter's request to Christ on the mount of transfiguration. "Peter, when he had drank a little of Christ's new wine, speaks like a person intoxicated; he was overpowered by the brightness of the manifestations. 'Let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.' It is well added, 'not knowing what

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he said.' That he should cry out, 'Master it is good for us to be here,' in such good company, and in so glorious a condition, is no wonder; which of us all would not have been apt to do the same? But to talk of building tabernacles, and one for Christ, and one for Moses, and one for Elias, was surely something for which Peter himself must stand reproved. Surely, Peter, thou wast not quite awake! Thou talkest like one in a dream. If thy Lord had taken thee at thy word, what a poor tabernacle thou wouldst have had, in comparison with that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, in which thou hast long since dwelt, now the earthly house of the tabernacle of thy body is dissolved. What! build tabernacles below, and have the crown before thou hast borne the cross? O Peter, Peter! Master, spare thyself,' sticks too, too closely to thee. And why so selfish, Peter? Carest thou not for thy fellow disciples that are below, who came not up with thee to the mount? Carest thou not for the precious souls that are as sheep having no shepherd, and must perish forever unless thy master descends from the mount, to teach and to die for them? Wouldst thou thus eat thy spiritual morsels alone? Besides, if thou art for building tabernacles, why must there be three of them; one for Christ, one for Moses, and one for Elias? Are Christ and the prophets divided? Do they not sweetly harmonize and agree in one? Did they not prophesy concerning the sufferings of thy Lord, as well as of the glory that should follow? Alas! how unlike is their conversation to thine. Moses and Elias came down to talk of suffering; and thou art dreaming of building I know not what tabernacles. Surely, Peter, thou art so high upon the mount, that thy head seems giddy."

He would bring the Savior in the attitude of prayer vividly before the

minds of his hearers. How does he attempt it? By expatiating upon his condescension in permitting his disciples to contemplate him in this touching posture? By calling upon all, with great parade of words and assumed pathos, to draw near that they may behold the greatest wonder that the universe ever saw? Nothing like it. "Hark, hark! do you

not hear him?” "I have known him," says Winter, "avail himself of the formality of the judge putting on his black cap, to pronounce sentence. With his eyes full of tears, and his heart almost too big to admit of speech, he would say, after a momentary pause, 'I am now going to put on my condemning cap. Sinner, I MUST do it! I must pronounce sentence !' Then in a strain of tremendous eloquence, he would repeat our Lord's words, Depart ye cursed!' and not without a very powerful description of the nature of that curse.'

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One other example must suffice. It is thus related by an eye-witness. "Once, after a solemn pause, he thus addressed his audience: The attendant angel is just about to leave the threshold of this sanctuary, and ascend to heaven. And shall he ascend, and not bear with him the news of one sinner, among all this multitude, reclaimed from the error of his ways?' To give the greater effect to this exclamation, Whitefield stamped with his foot, lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven, and cried aloud, 'Stop, Gabriel, stop, ere you enter the sacred portals, and yet carry with you the news of one sinner converted to God.' This address was accompanied with such animated yet natural action, that it surpassed any thing I ever saw or heard in any other preacher."

These examples may show us that one of the commanding and prominent elements of Whitefield's power as a preacher, was a vivid, almost creative, yet on the whole chastened and sanctified imagina

tion. This would not allow him to speak coldly, to deal in dry abstractions, to dress up a body without a soul for a sermon. Every thing he touched was imbued with life; his pictures were bold in outline, graphic in the filling up, colored to the life, and placed before the mind's eye, not as mere paintings, but living, acting beings. He made his hearers feel that God and Christ, and heaven and hell, are all solemn realities; and while he aimed first of all and more than all, to commend himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God, he did not deem it hostile to his object, to transform the abstract into the concrete, to have his skeletons rounded out in all their parts into the beauty of fair proportions, and to breathe into them the breath of life. The dramatic element was so strong in him, that he presented to the beholder only those scenes in which he had lived and moved himself; and thus presenting them, he made all who beheld, feel, not merely that important scenes were passing before them, but that they themselves were passing with them, nay, were actually a part of them. His theory harmonized with that so beautifully expressed by one of the most accomplished of our modern writers. Logic forms an excellent body for a discourse; we assent to it, we approve it, it is good, all good, but it awakens no admiration. It is not till rhetoric sends its warm life-blood to mantle on the cold cheek of logic, and clothes its angular form in the garments of taste, that we begin to admire the discourse." This the ory he reduced to practice whenever he prepared a discourse for the pulpit. By a vivid imagination, he was able to clothe with life the great themes on which he treated; and thus he awakened attention, elicited admiration, roused the conscience, and by the attendant energies of the Spirit, subdued the will and transformed the man. He did not often

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descend so low in dramatizing his themes as Bunyan, for instance, in the following passage. "They that will have heaven must run for it, because the devil, the law, sin, death and hell follow them. There is never a poor soul that is going to heaven, but the devil, the law, sin, death and hell make after that soul. And I will assure you the devil is nimble, he can run apace, he is light of foot; he hath overtaken many; he hath turned up their heels, and hath given them an everlasting fall. Also the law; that can shoot a great way; have a care that thou keep out of the reach of those great guns, the ten commandments. Hell also hath a wide mouth, and can stretch itself farther than you are aware of. If this were well considered, then thou, as well as I, wouldst say, they that will have heaven, must run for it." He was careful to avoid what might beget lightness in such presentations; and his scenes were always touching and powerful, because there was so much of solemnity, such deep pathos in his whole aspect. In this respect, he nearly resembled our own Bellamy, an admirable divine, at once deeply metaphysical and distinguished for the dramatic element. he wish to bring God's law home to the conscience of the sinner-it was not by presenting a series of frigid abstractions that he accomplished his aim. He took his audience with him to Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim; brought them into the midst of the twelve tribes of Israel; made them hear the Levites read the curses pronounced against the law-breaker, and all the thousands of Jacob utter their loud Amen. "Cursed is he that confirmeth not all the words of the law to do them; and all the people shall say, Amen." Having shown how heinous is the transgression of the holy law, and what a tremendous doom awaits the sinner, he brought the objector upon the stage to state his exceptions to what

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had been advanced. "Then," says Trumbull, "Gabriel was brought down to show the futility of these objections, and the impious presumption of making them against the divine law and government. They were clearly answered, and the opponent was triumphantly swept from the stage. The argument gained strength and beauty through the whole progress." "It seemed as if so many new witnesses were summoned for the truth. The stern doctrines of the Gospel assumed a lifesomeness and a plausibility, which they could not possess on the coldness of abstract detail, and to each sinner there seemed to come a voice pronouncing upon him the fearful doom and demanding his approving Amen.”

We should be glad to quote in this connection a beautiful passage from one of Prof. Tholuck's sermons. It is intended to represent to the sinner the danger of delay in religion; and is perhaps as fine a specimen as any language affords of the higher dramatic power. "Too late," are the words which indicate the passage, but our limits forbid the quotation.

To the prominence of this ele ment of the dramatic in his mental constitution, Whitefield was indebted for a large share of his popularity with the multitudes, and of his wonderful power as a preacher of the Gospel. It would be really worth while for all our clergymen to inquire whether enough is made of this in our present style of preaching, and what are the causes why so few excel in it. The examples of Bunyan, of Whitefield, of Jeremy Taylor, of Bellamy, of Payson, of Tholuck, seem to rebuke its neglect, and summon all to its cultivation and its discreet use.

In proceeding with our estimate of Whitefield's powers, we must not overlook the diligent and unwearied attention which he gave to

manner. We refer to his manner both of preparing and delivering his sermons. Philip says, "There was much art in Whitefield's preaching; Iinean, the art of studying to be perfectly natural in all things pertain ing to real life and godliness. He left nothing to accident that he could regulate by care in his delivery. Hence practiced speakers and shrewd observers could tell at once whenever he delivered a sermon for the first time." It was thought by Foote and Garrick that his oratory was not perfected, until he had delivered a sermon for the fortieth time. Then every glance of his eye, every movement of his muscles, every attitude of his body, and every intonation of his voice, contributed to the deep and marvellous impression which he produced. Franklin says, "By hearing him often, I came to distinguish easily between sermons newly composed and those he had preached often in the course of his travels. His delivery of the latter was so improved by frequent repetition, that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly turned and well placed, that without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse."

His manner was greatly varied, in accordance with the ever changing circumstances in which he was placed, but always appropriate and effective. He felt it to be his duty to obey the commands given to some of the prophets, to smite with the hand, stamp with the foot, and lift up the voice like a trumpet, as well as to beseech sinners with tears. When uttering one of his impassioned paragraphs, it might have been said of him, as it was of one of the German reformers-" Vividus vultus, vividi oculi, vividæ manus, denique omnia vivida."

It is worthy of note, however, that whether he stamped or wept, whether he put on the boldness of the

lion, or assumed the gentleness of the lamb, whether he roared in the tornado, or whispered in the gentle zephyr, he was always solemn. "There was no levity in his lively sallies, and no dullness in his reasonings, and no departure from the spirit of his mission, even when he used market language.' In his preaching all modes of address were made to contribute solemn impressions. In his modulations of voice, his gestures, his features, the gleamings of his eye, there was such a combination of vivacity and solemnity, "that the most dissipated and thoughtless found their attention involuntarily fixed."

"Nothing awkward," says Winter, "nothing careless, appeared about him in the pulpit, nor do I ever recollect his stumbling on a word. Whether he frowned or smiled, whether he looked grave or placid, it was nature acting in him." There was something in Whitefield's manner which fascinated the illiterate as well as the learned, the poor as well as the rich. One of his converts, nearly a hundred years old, was visited a few years since, and asked whether he remembered Whitefield's person. The old man brightened at the question, and said, "Ay, sure: he was a jolly, brave man; and what a look he had, when he put out his right hand, thus, to rebuke a disturber, as tried to stop him under the pear-tree. The man had been very threatening and noisy; but he could not stand the look. Off he rode, and Whitefield saidThere he goes; empty barrels make the most din.' He was a jolly, brave man, and sich a look with him."

Why did he produce such effects on minds so different in original endowment and in cultivation ? Because, amongst other reasons, he gave attention,-laborious, careful, unwearied attention, to both the composition and delivery of his discourses. The parts of a sermon

which came "feebly from the tongue and fell heavily on the ear," were laid aside, and their places supplied by fresh material, more skillfully arranged, and better adapted to produce effect. This thorough preparation beforehand gave him complete mastery of himself and his subject; and hence, when new thoughts presented themselves in the course of delivery and the inspiration of favored moments, he was ready to seize upon them with eagerness and appropriate them to his noble aims. This may account for the following statement of Southey: "They who lived with him could trace him, in his sermons, to the book which he had last been reading, or the subject which had recently taken his attention. But the salient points of his oratory were not prepared passages, they were bursts of passion, like jets from a GEYSER, when the spring is in full play." Yes; but what unwearied pains, what earnest and varied study beforehand is requisite, in order that the spring may be in full play!

Was Whitefield right in giving such heed to preparation in advance of delivery, and in bestowing so much attention upon tones, gestures, looks, as well as words? "Then how many like myself," inquires his biographer, "are far wrong? Let the rising ministry take warning. Awkwardness in the pulpit is a sin, monotony a sin, dullness a sin, and all of them sins against the welfare of immortal souls. You would not dare to violate grammar; dare not to be vulgar or vapid in manner. Your spirituality of mind is too low, and your communion with God too slight, and your love of the truth too cold, if they can be endangered by cultivating an eloquence worthy of the pulpit.' Was the subject of our remarks ever injured in spirit, was he less devotional, did he feel his dependence on God less on account of his unwearied pains-taking