George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

DR. WATTS 255
were clamouring to have restrictions removed. The mercenary
spirit was blind and deaf to the griefs and wrongs of the poor
African ; and it is deplorable that Whitefield, one of the most
generous and self-denying of men, should have been affected
with the popular tone of thought and feeling. It was often
said, when slavery was the ' domestic institution ' of America,
that contact with it too frequently dulled conscience, and
turned anti-slavery men into pro-slavery men ; and from that
letter which, under the first burst of indignation at the sight of
shameful cruelties, Whitefield wrote to the inhabitants of South
Carolina, it would seem that he was no exception to the rule.
Whitefield is seen, at the end of 1748, in kindly and close
communion with the two foremost Nonconformists of his day.
On November 25th, he called at Lady Abney's to see Dr.
Watts, who described himself as ' a waiting servant of Christ.' V
He helped to raise the venerable man to take some medicine
and within half an hour of his departure from the house,
the ' servant ' had ceased his waiting, and entered into the joy
of his Lord.
Whitefield's letter to Doddridge, on December 21st, is full
of brotherly sympathy with the doctor in his trouble through
the Moravians, who had disturbed his congregation. White-
field had felt all the annoyance of having his work damaged and
broken by meddling men, and could thoroughly enter into
Doddridge's feelings. He speaks as a chastened, humbled,
submissive, charitably-minded man, not blaming his troublers
more than he condemns himself, and gratefully acknowledging
the personal benefit that their conduct, under the Divine
blessing, had been to him. It is with touching humility that
he refe.s to those dark days when he came from America and
found his converts turned against him. He says
' The Moravians first divided my family, then my parish at Georgia, and
after that the societies which, under God, I was an instrument of gathering.
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