George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

ADMONISHED BY BISHOP BENSON 103
others. Even Bishop Benson sent him an affectionate ad-
monition to exercise the authority he had received in the
manner it was given him, by preaching the gospel only to the
congregation to which he was lawfully appointed. Whitefield
replied within four days, and denied that he was acting con-
trary to his commission of preaching wherever he could, or
that he inveighed against the clergy. 'As for declining the
work in which I am engaged,' he said, ' my blood runs chill at
the very thought of it. I am as much convinced it is my duty
to act as I do, as that the sun shines at noonday. I can
foresee the consequences very well. They have already, in
one sense, thrust us out of the synagogues. By and by they
will think it is doing God service to kill us. But, my lord, if
you and the rest of the bishops cast us out, our great and
common Master will take us up.'
So much excitement and strong feeling had been raised,
that it was not always commercially wise for inn-keepers to
admit Whitefield to their houses ; and at Abingdon he was
' genteelly told ' by
one of them, that there was no room for
him and his party. Matters were worse at Basingstoke the
next evening. Whitefield had just thrown himself, languid
and weary, upon the bed, when—to use his own odd expres-
sion—he was ' refreshed with the news that the landlord would
not let them stay under his roof.' Probably resentment was
the occasion of the expulsion ; for one of the landlord's
children had been touched by Whitefield's preaching the last
time he visited Basingstoke. He and his friends went out,
amid the mockery and gibing of the crowd, to seek for
another inn ;
and when they got one, the crowd amused itself
by throwing fire rockets around the door. It was too late to
preach, and Whitefield sought his own room ; he had been
there about an hour when the constable handed him a letter
from the mayor, warning him against making a breach of the