George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

JONATHAN EDWARDS 155
more rejoiced to see him for their late fear that they had lost
him. Everything fanned the flame of zeal, hoth in the people
and in the preacher, and the end of the visit was more
remarkable than the beginning. The touching words of a
little boy, who died the day after he heard Whitefield preach,
furnished the ground of one of Whitefield's strongest appeals
to old and young ; immediately before he died the child said :
' I shall go to Mr. Whitefield's God.' Old people bowed their
heads in grief, not in anger, when the preacher, with a tender-
ness that desired the salvation of all, said :
' Little children, if
your parents will not come to Christ, do you come, and go to
heaven without them.' The last congregation, which con-
sisted of about twenty thousand, assembled on the common,
and the myriad faces, thoughtful, eager, attentive, the great
weeping, and the darkening shades of evening which, towards
the close of the service, was coming on fast, recalled Black-
heath scenes of a year before. His labours over, Governor
Belcher, whose attentions had been most kind and uninter-
rupted, drove him, on the Monday morning, in his coach to
Charleston Ferry, handed him into the boat, kissed him, and
with tears bade him farewell. Whitefield returned with five
hundred pounds for his orphans.
Whitefield's intention on leaving Boston was to proceed to
Northampton to see Jonathan Edwards, whom he describes
as 'a solid excellent Christian, but at present weak in body.'
A great revival had taken place in Northampton some five or
six years before, and Whitefield's ministrations quickened
afresh all the feelings of that memorable season. In point of
fact he was, through all his travels in New England, largely
entering into other men's labours, and he frankly and gladly
said so. Yet the two great men did not come very close
together. Whitefield did not make a confidential friend of
Edwards, and Edwards gave Whitefield very necessary