George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

260 GEORGE WHITEFIELD
answer for themselves ; let Seward and Tillotson lie undis-
turbed.' Whitefield adds, on the subject of desiring persecution :
' Whatever can be produced out of any of my writings to prove
that I have desired or prayed for ill-usage, persecution,
martyrdom, death, &c, I retract it with all my heart, as
proceeding from the overflowings of an irregular, though well-
meant zeal.' He also thanks Lavington for pointing out the
' very wrong expression ' about the ' hosannas of the multitude.'
'Your remark,' he says, 'runs thus: "Very profane, unless it
be a false print for huzzas." I could wish it had been so, but
the word was my own ;
and though not intended to convey a
profane idea, was very wrong and unguarded, and I desire
may be buried in oblivion, unless you, or some other kind
person, are pleased to remind me of it, in order to lay me low
before God and man.' The last admission of all, that he was
wrong in making public the lot Wesley cast in private, is worth
all the rest, and does honour to Whitefield's candour ; it is a
perfect atonement for his fault.
The whole of the summer, and the early part of the autumn,
of 1749, were spent in a tour through the west and through
Wales, thousands answering his call, and coming as of old,
even when the rain rendered an open-air service both uncom-
fortable and dangerous. For two days he sought retirement in
his wife's house at Abergavenny (she was now on her way
from Bethesda to join him), and found it ' so very sweet,' that
he would have been glad never to have been heard of again.
From thence he wrote to his brother at Bristol a letter which
exhibits so many sides of his life and character that it demands
a place in his biography :
' My very dear Brother,—Enclosed you have a letter from out
good Lady Huntingdon, whom, I suppose, you will have the honour of
receiving in a few days under your roof. Both before and ever since I left
Bristol, I have been frequently thinking of the unspeakable mercies that