George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

236 GEORGE WHITEFIELD
One day he is to be seen at a settlement of Delaware Indians,
the converts of the devout Brainerd, preaching to them
through an interpreter, and watching with that kindly interest
which the orphans at Bethesda knew so well, a class of fifty
Indian children learning the Assembly's Shorter Catechism.
Soon afterwards we find him at Philadelphia, welcomed by
twenty ministers of the city and neighbourhood, who own
him as their spiritual father ; surrounded
with enthusiastic,
solemn congregations ; and offered by the gentlemen who had
the management of the free temple there, eight hundred
pounds a year and liberty to travel six months in the year if
he would become a minister in the city, an offer which he
treated as he had done that of the Boston people. We see
him availing himself of his short stay in the city to write to
his mother, and tell her that, though for two years she had
not written to him—doubtless his incessant and distant
wanderings had helped to hinder her—his attachment to
her was as great as ever; and then some snatches of news
about the 'golden bait' which 'Jesus had kept him from
catching at ;
' about his door of usefulness which opens wider
and wider ; about his wife being very weak through a mis-
carriage, or she would have enclosed a few lines in his letter;
and about the many mercies he receives from God. He
rejoiced in roaming the woods, hunting for sinners, as he
called his work ; and next we find him among a little band of
Christians in the backwoods of Virginia. These men were
first gathered together in a remarkable way. Relations and
friends in the dear old country, Scotland, had got a volume
of those Glasgow sermons which had helped to kindle the
revival in the valley of the Clyde, and sent them across the
waters. When the precious book was received under the
shadow of the great forest, its owner, Samuel Morris, called
his friends and neighbours to rejoice with him, and share his