George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

CHAPTER XI
1 753-i-770
CHAPEL-BUILDING—ATTACKS BY ENEMIES—INFIRMITIES—HIS
DEATH THE RESULTS OF HIS WORK
NO small portion of the year 1753 was spent by Whitefield
in what he called cross-ploughing the land ; and what
that work was is well enough known without our following him
from field to field. But while he thought that he was the
happiest man who, being fond neither of money, numbers, nor
power, went on day by day without any other scheme than ' a
general intention to promote the common salvation amongst
people of all denominations,' his attention was forcibly called
to the work of providing a permanent place of worship for his
followers in London. The churches were as inaccessible to
Methodists as ever ; but had they been open probably few
would have cared to enter them, for the freedom of the
Tabernacle was in their estimation preferable to the un-
alterable forms of the Church. The Tabernacle was still the
wooden building that was hastily erected at the time of the
division between the Calvinists and Arminians. The idea of
a permanent building seems to have been first suggested by
the Countess of Huntingdon ; but Whitefield was slow to
move. In the winter of 1752, she and Lady Frances Shirley
287