# Littell's Living Age/Volume 131/Issue 1691/George Whitefield, the Famous Preacher

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From The Sunday Magazine.
GEORGE WHITEFIELD, THE FAMOUS PREACHER.
This man, who now saunters up to join the assembly, is of a very different type from the gentlemen of the court. His brow is knit; at intervals he murmurs some word to himself as if he wished not to forget it; something very like a proof-sheet is peeping out of his pocket. People stare at him, half with curiosity, half with wonder, as though they were surprised to see him here. David Hume has, in truth, not much time to spare from his history, but he cannot deny himself such an intellectual treat as listening to Whitefield. In and out among the well-dressed many there moves a crowd of people who wear neither silk nor velvet. There is the artisan, with his wife and children, who have come out here chiefly for the sake of the fresh, sweet country air; there are the city clerk and his sweetheart doing a little flirting to while away the time; there is the poor needle-woman, whose pale face has such a wistful look, that we fancy her heart must be beginning dimly to guess that if she could grasp the meaning of the great preacher's words, it might possibly bring into her life even more warmth and coloring than there is in the dresses she stitches for the grand ladies. Suddenly the murmur of voices which has been running through the vast assembly is hushed. The duchesses and countesses incline their heads a quarter of an inch forward; the fans of the actresses cease to flutter; the mass of the people make a little rush all in the same direction. Every eye is fixed on a man who is ascending slowly a green bank near at hand. At first sight there is nothing very remarkable in his appearance. His figure is tall and spare, his dress is homely; when he turns towards the audience we ​see that he squints, and he has no especial beauty of feature. But the moment he begins to speak his face is forgotten in his voice. How does it thrill with holy passion as he tells of his dear Lord; how does it ring with stern indignation against sin, and yet how does it melt with tenderness over the sinner! It is so clear that it is heard at the further end of the wide assembly; and yet so sweet that music is the only word that can give an idea of its tones. His face, too, and his figure have changed since we last looked at him. Meaning has come into every movement of his hand; each feature answers to the theme that is upon his lips, as does the lake to the lights and shadows in the sky above; his form seems to have grown majestic, and to be like that of the desert preacher, or of him who cried against Nineveh. When he speaks of heaven, we almost believe that he has been there; when he tells of the Saviour's love and sufferings, it seems to us that he must have walked with Peter and John at his side; when he tells a story by way of illustration, as he often does, the description is so vivid that we listen breathlessly, as though we really saw the scene he paints with our bodily eyes. For two hours the tide of eloquence flows on unceasingly, and still the listening crowd remains enthralled. Different signs of emotion appear among them. The daughters of the people stand with clasped hands, looking up at the preacher as though he were an angel bringing them the good tidings which are the especial birthright of the toil-worn and weary; the actresses sob and faint; the great ladies actually sit upright to listen. The sterner sex, too, are affected in their own way. The hard faces of the mechanics work with unwonted feeling; the brow of Hume grows smooth; even Chesterfield, who hitherto has stood like a statue of one of his own ancestors, so far forgets himself when the preacher, in a lively parable, is describing a blind beggar on the edge of a precipice, as to start forward and murmur, "O save him, save him." No wonder they are thus moved, for the preacher himself sets them the example. Sometimes his voice trembles so much in his intense earnestness, that he can hardly go on; sometimes he even weeps. At length the sermon ends in a grand wave of heaven-aspiring prayer; then the crowd disperses, some to spend the night at a masquerade or at the gaming-table, some to criticise, some to forget, some to keep the good seed silently in their hearts.