George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

288 GEORGE WHITEFIELD
again urged the work upon him, and this time he was brought
to their side, and began to collect money. His people re-
sponded with their usual liberality, and contributed a hundred
and seventy-six pounds on one Sunday. With eleven hundred
pounds in hand, he, on March i, 1753, laid the first brick of
the new Tabernacle, which was to be eighty feet square, and
built round the old place. The ceremony was performed with
great solemnity, and Whitefield preached a sermon from the
text, ' In all places where I record My name, I will come unto
thee and bless thee.' Three months later the Tabernacle
was ready to receive its congregation ; and he opened it by
preaching in it morning and evening, to four thousand people
or more.
In the spring of this year Whitefield came into serious
collision with the Moravians. The reports of their proceedings
and of their financial position which he published in ' An Ex-
postulatory Letter' to Count Zinzendorf, were brought to his
ears by one whom Peter Bohler stigmatises as an apostate
but there can be no doubt that Whitefield had his information
from more sources than one ; and as Bohler was assailed in
the letter, his phrase must be somewhat discounted. A man
might be an apostate from Moravianism, and yet a true witness.
Whitefield opened his letter with a protestation that a real
regard for his king and country, and a disinterested love for
his Saviour and his Saviour's Church, would not let him keep
silence longer with respect to the shocking things of which he
had heard, and the offences which had swelled to such an
enormous bulk. According to the statements which he had
received, there had been much foolishness and some wicked-
ness practised by the Brethren, and they were seriously in debt.
But these are things that need not be further named here.
Whitefield evidently acted with candour and kindness, and his
remonstrances did the Brethren good.