George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

2oo GEORGE WHITEFIELD
October he took horse, and rode post from Edinburgh to
London in less than five days. The city he left was now very
dear to him : the writing its name would make him say, ' O
Edinburgh! Edinburgh! I think I shall never forget thee!'
He passed from a great contention with heart as peaceful as
ever rested in human bosom. He went chastened and
humbled to Scotland ; he returned in the power of quietness
and confidence, persuaded that his was not the task of doing
anything but preach the Lord Jesus, as he knew and loved
Him. He had tried the disputing way in the Arminian
struggle, and the quiet way in the Scotch contendings, and
found the latter far preferable to the former. No small
influence among men was justly in store for one who, feeling
that disputing embitters the spirit, ruffles the soul, and hinders
it from hearing the still, small voice of the Holy Ghost, could
say, as Whitefield did to Wesley, with whom he was now on
the best of terms, but quoting Wesley's own words to himself,
' Let the King live for ever, and controversy die.' ' I care not,'
he said to another friend, ' if the name of George Whitefield
be banished out of the world, so that Jesus be exalted in it.'
On his arrival in London he found the Tabernacle enlarged
and 'a new awakening begun.' In his winter quarters, as he
called them, he found himself as busy as he had been on the
common and in the market-place. He worked from morning
till midnight ; and was carried through the duties of each day
with cheerfulness and almost uninterrupted tranquillity. The
society was large and in good order, and daily improvements
were made.
It was at this time that the congregation began to be
sprinkled with visitors of distinction. Hitherto, Whitefield's
intercourse with the nobility had been confined to those of
Scotland, but now English peers and peeresses, led by the
Earl and Countess of Huntingdon, and by the Earl's sisters,