George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

RESULTS OF HIS WORK 343
tongue. First, what became of the orphan-house ? Secondly,
where are the results of his preaching ? These shall now be
answered.
I. The orphan-house, with everything connected with it,
was left to the Countess of Huntingdon, Mr. Habersham to
act in her absence from America. Arrangements had been
made in Whitefield's lifetime for carrying on an academy along
with the orphanage. It became also a home, whence mission-
aries, sent from England by Lady Huntingdon, started on
mission work among the Indians and the settlers. It was
accidentally burnt down about two years after the death of
Whitefield, and rebuilt, but not upon the original site. Other
changes of fortune happened to it, one of which was the
appointment of Franklin, its early opponent, as a trustee,
because he was ' an honest man.' Its original charter appointed
its continuance as long as there were three members to cele-
brate the anniversary, which falls on St. George's Day. This
provision might once have sealed its fate. Three members,
'a Protestant, a Catholic, and an Israelite,' who apparently
constituted the whole board at that time, were all prisoners of
war on board a British man-of-war when St. George's Day came
round. Remembering the charter, they begged permission
of the captain to go ashore and celebrate the anniversary
under an oak tree in Tunbury, Georgia. He consented, and the
ceremony was duly performed. Mr. Joseph S. Fay succeeded,
during the time he was president of the institution, in repur-
chasing the old site, and placing the orphanage upon it again.
In 1870 a new building was begun, making the fourth since
Whitefield laid the first brick of Bethesda with his own hand.
Whittier falls into a strange mistake when, in his fine poem,
1 The Preacher,' he says
'Alas for the preacher's cherished schemes !
Mission and church are now but dreams ;