By REV. D. M. MACDONALD, Edinburgh.
(Continued from Vol. lvi., page 338.)
During Whitefield’s sojourn in America the cause of Christ was steadily advancing in England and Scotland. He returned to England in March, 1741, and soon realised that his Calvinism had made him unpopular in places where crowds used to listen to him. It seems that in his absence many of the people had been taken aside by the Arminianism of John Wesley, but the tide soon turned. Throughout this period of trial he had also difficulties in connection with his orphanage. He was a thousand pounds in debt for it and he had not more than twenty in his possession! Yet his courage and faith never faltered. He spent a night in prayer and the following morning a friend called upon him to ask advice on behalf of a lady about the investment of a sum of four hundred pounds. “Let her lend it to me,” he said, “and in a few months she, God willing, shall have it again.” She cheerfully gave a loan of the money when the circumstances were laid before her. His faith was still further tested. He found himself soon after this penniless and forsaken when a stranger approached him and thrust a guinea into his hand. The thought at once flashed upon his mind, “Cannot the God who sent this person to give me this guinea make it up to fifteen hundred?” And so he turned one financial corner after another. He bore with great meekness the indifference of the public, but this was soon surmounted when a few friends erected for him a wooden partition on a piece of ground at Moorfields, London. This he called his tabernacle and made use of it for twelve years. Crowds began again to throng his morning lectures, and so great was the fresh revival that he called a number of lay preachers to assist him.
In Scotland the labour of these faithful and eminent ministers of the Gospel—the brothers Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine—were being much blessed, and when Whitefield’s fame reached them they invited him to come to their help. He accepted their kind invitation and arrived in Scotland in July, 1741. At once he began to preach in Dunfermline, where Ralph Erskine lived, and from there went to Edinburgh, where thousands heard him in a place called Orphan House Park. There was quite a commotion in all classes of society about him, and he had the ear of the people from the poorest to the noblest. Children’s meetings sprung up all over the city. His itinerary took him through many towns, and everywhere people were shaken out of their spiritual slumber. He became the spiritual guide and adviser to many notable persons such as Lord Rae, the Marquis of Lothian, the Earl of Leven, Lady Mary Hamilton and several others!
Having occasion to return to England he resumed his work in London and began to preach at his open-air Moorfields centre in the spring. He gives an account of this in various letters written to friends, and they give a wonderful display of his courage and zeal for the salvation of souls. Here are his own words: “With a heart bleeding with compassion for so many thousands led captive by the Devil at his will on Easter Monday at six o’clock in the morning, attended by a large congregation of praying people, I ventured to lift up a standard amongst them in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Perhaps there were about ten thousand waiting not for me but for Satan’s instruments to amuse them . . . I mounted my first pulpit, and almost all flocked immediately around it. I preached on these words, ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,’ etc. They gazed, they listened, they wept. All was hushed and solemn and, I believe, many felt themselves stung with deep convictions of their past sins. Being thus encouraged, I ventured out again at noon; but what a scene! The fields, the whole fields, seemed in a bad sense of the words all white ready not for the Redeemer’s but for Beelzebub’s harvest. All his agents were in full motion—drummers, trumpeters, merry-andrews, masters of puppet shows, exhibitions of wild beasts, etc., etc., all busy in entertaining their respective audiences. I suppose there could not be less than twenty or thirty thousand. My pulpit was fixed on the opposite side, and immediately, to their great mortification, they found the number of their attendants sadly lessened. Judging that like St. Paul I should now be called as it were to fight with beasts at Ephesus, I preached from these words, ‘Great is Diana of the Ephesians.’ You may easily guess that there was some noise from the craftsmen and that I was honoured by having stones, dirt, rotten eggs, and pieces of dead cats thrown at me. Whilst engaged in calling them from their favourite but lying vanities. My soul was indeed among lions, but far the greatest part of my congregation seemed to be turned into lambs. This encouraged me to give notice that I would preach again at six o’clock in the evening. I came, I saw, but what! Thousands and thousands more than before still more deeply engaged in their unhappy diversions; but among them some thousands waiting as earnestly to hear the Gospel. This was what Satan could not brook. One of his choicest was exhibiting, trumpeting on a large stage, but as soon as the people saw me in my black robes and my pulpit I think all of them to a man left him and ran to me. For a while I was able to lift up my voice as a trumpet. God’s people kept praying, and the enemy’s agents made a kind of roaring at some distance from us . . . Soon afterwards they got a recruiting sergeant, with his drum, etc., to pass through the congregation. I gave the word of command and ordered that a way might be made for the King’s officer. The ranks opened while all marched quietly through and then closed again. Finding these efforts to fail, a large body on the opposite side of the field assembled together and, having got a large pole for their standard, advanced towards us with steady and formidable steps till they came very near the skirts of our congregation. I saw the warning and prayed to the Captain of our Salvation for support and deliverance. He heard and answered, for just as they approached us with looks full of resentment, they quarrelled among themselves, threw down their pole and went their way, leaving, however, many of their company behind. I think I continued in praying, preaching and singing about three hours. We then retired to the tabernacle! It seems that many souls were awakened out of their spiritual slumber as the result of this service.
There was an eager desire in Scotland that he should return again, and he arrived in Edinburgh in June, 1742. In his absence the good work that he had stimulated had progressed and the spirit of revival was manifesting itself. The centre of the awakening was Cambuslang, a small suburb of Glasgow. The Rev. William MacCulloch, its minister, finding reports of the wonderful work of George Whitefield in America in booklet form, began the habit of reading to his congregation the triumphs of the revival overseas. Then later he began to preach upon the New Birth, and after about twelve months of such preaching a great quickening took place among the people. It is computed that within three months three hundred people were converted. The revival spread to Kilsyth and the neighbouring parishes. After preaching in Edinburgh twice daily to great gatherings and regularly visiting the three hospitals Whitefield set out on a preaching term through Paisley, Irvine and other places, many being greatly moved by his evangelical sermons. Before his arrival in Cambuslang he wrote the Rev. Mr. MacCulloch in the following terms:—”Reverend and Very Dear Brother,—I rejoice heartily at the awakening at Cambuslang and elsewhere. I believe you will both see and hear far greater things than these. I trust that not one corner of poor Scotland will be left unwatered by the dew of God’s heavenly blessing. The cloud is now only rising as big as a man’s hand; in a little while we shall hear a sound of an abundance of gospel rain!”
He was now to pass through one of the most amazing periods of his remarkable life. “At noon,” he says, “I came to Cambuslang, the place which God had so much honoured. I preached at two o’clock to a vast body of people, again at six in the evening, afterwards at nine. Such a commotion was never surely heard of, especially about eleven o’clock at night. It far outdid anything I ever saw in America. For about an hour and a half there was such weeping, so many falling into deep distress, and manifesting it in various ways, that description is impossible. The people seemed to be smitten in scores. They were carried off and brought into the house like wounded soldiers taken from a battlefield. Their agonising cries were deeply affecting. Mr. MacCulloch preached after I had done till past one o’clock in the morning, and even then the people could scarcely be got to retire. Throughout the whole of the night the voice of prayer and praise might still be heard in the fields.”
On Saturday, July 9th, Whitefield preached to twenty people on what are still known as “The Preaching Braes.” On Sabbath over thirty thousand persons were present. Scarce ever was such a sight ever seen in Scotland! Seventeen hundred souls took the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, which was served in two great tents erected on the braes. A local historian says: “The great multitudes that had gone away homewards from our quiet valley carried with them a report of the proceedings to places where the name of Cambuslang was before unknown. The revival became the topic of conversation even in remote parts of the kingdom; and when there seemed to be a subsidence of the excitement people still looked to this village to begin the work again.”
On the 15th August a second communion was held, and such a multitude gathered as had never been seen before in Scotland. Twelve ministers officiated and the sacrament was again in tents, three this time, erected in the glen. Referring to the audience of that memorable day, Mr. MacCulloch writes: “That as far as I can hear none ever saw the like in Scotland from the Revolution down or anywhere else on a sacramental occasion!” Some have called it fifty thousand, some forty thousand, and the modest estimate with which Mr. Whitefield agrees makes them to have been upwards of thirty thousand. There thousands of these took communion. The Cambuslang revival shook the whole of Scotland and sent its fire all over the country. Moreover, there is not the slightest doubt from the foregoing that this “great awakening” in Scotland was roused by and enveloped in the personality and work of George Whitefield.
Meanwhile the revival continued to spread. At Kilsyth one of the most remarkable sacraments of the revival was observed. A dozen ministers officiated, and the solemnities began at eight-thirty in the morning and continued without intermission till the same hour at night. Twenty-two district services were held. In a sermon delivered in London in 1769 Whitefield declared: ‘Once when I was preaching in Scotland I saw ten thousand people affected in a moment, some with joy, some with crying, ‘I cannot believe,’ others ‘God has given me faith,’ and some fainting in the arms of friends. Seeing two hardened creatures on a tombstone I cried out, ‘You rebels, come down,’ and down they fell directly and exclaimed before they went away, ‘What shall I do to be saved?'”
It seems that he had gone to Scotland chastened and humbled. This discipline developed a noble self-mastery and confidence in his mission as an evangelist. His work was to preach the Lord Jesus to sinners. Writing to a friend, he says, “I care not if the name of George Whitefield be banished from the world so that Jesus may be exalted in it.”
Upon his returning to London Whitefield found that the awakening was still in progress, and he commenced anew his tabernacle services. His ministry attracted numbers of the highest personages in the land. The Countess of Huntingdon was active in leading her fellow peeresses to hear her favourite preacher. The following might be seen among his hearers. The Duchess of Buckingham, the Duchess of Marlborough, and the Ladies Hastings with Lord Hervey, Keeper of the Privy Seal; the Duke of Bolton, the Earl of Oxford, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cumberland.
The Welsh people had experienced the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit through the faithful preaching of the Gospel and Whitefield’s help and guidance were needed there. As elsewhere he preached to thousands of people in many towns with great power. His fellow-helper was a notably zealous and godly Welshman, Howell Harris. It was from his bold stand at a fair that Whitefield was led to make similar attacks on the pleasure grounds of the people. Being with Harris at such a place, a clown who was present caused by his antics Mr. Whitefield to cease speaking. He requested Harris to carry on the service. Taking for his text the words, “The great day of His wrath is come and who shall be able to stand?” he was answered by the buffoon, “I am able.” Whereupon Harris exclaimed in a tremendous voice, looking at him with piercing eyes, “What! such a poor contemptible worm as thou art!” The words were no sooner uttered than the wretched man fell to the ground helpless, overcome by a peculiar tremor, from which it is said he never recovered. Harris was a man of superb courage, yet in spite of bitter opposition his labours were greatly blessed.
(To be continued.)