George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

344
GEORGE WHITEFIELD
Nor prayer nor fasting availed the plan
To honour God through the wrong of man.
Of all his labours no trace remains
Save the bondman lifting his hands in chains.'
Hallowed traces of his labours remain in every place he
visited ; the reproachful bondman only is gone ; and had the
liberal-minded Quaker known and realised all the facts, he
would have penned a glowing tribute to Christ's abounding
love, which forgives our sins and mistakes, and fulfils for us
in nobler forms our purposes and prayers.
II. The results of Whitefield's work may be classed as
indirect and direct. Little can be affirmed positively of the
bearing of his work upon political and social life, but it must
have corresponded to the religious effect. Men like Pulteney,
Chatham, and Fox were not uninfluenced in their political
action by the words they heard at Lady Huntingdon's ; while
among the people Whitefield saved to the nation thousands
of its finest men and women. In America he saw, during
his last visit, the beginnings of the War of Independence, and
sympathised with the feelings of the colonists. Whether he
would ultimately have sided with them no one can say ; he was
spared the pain of the strife; but there can be no doubt which
side his converts were on and which part they played. One
of the men whom he greatly influenced was the Rev. Alex-
ander Craighead, and he again is said to have aroused the
Presbyterian patriots who framed the Mecklenburg Declaration,
which was copied only one year later by the Philadelphia
Declaration of Independence. Thus Calvinism became once
more the stone of stumbling on which tyranny has so often
been broken.
i. Among indirect results must be placed the impetus which
he undoubtedly gave to philanthropic work. His preaching to
prisoners and his constant pleadings for orphans, for perse-