George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

34
GEORGE WHITEFIELD
unequal to a sea-voyage. He strove to throw off the new
thoughts and feelings, prayed that the Lord would not suffer
him to be deluded, and asked counsel of his friends. His
friends were not less sensible in advising than he had been in
asking for advice. They, too, laid emphasis on the absence of
a definite call from abroad ;
they urged the need of labourers
at home, and begged their friend to avoid rashness and wait
further for an intimation of the will of God. Their counsel
was received with all respect, and Whitefield, agreeing that it
was best to do so, banished Georgia from his mind for the
present, and went on heartily with his preaching and visiting
until the return of his friend from the country.
Then he went back to his delightful life at Oxford for a few
weeks more, and for the last time his quiet duties were re-
sumed. His state of mind seemed to presage the wonders of
his ministry ; his heart burned with even more than its former
fervour ; and other students having received a similar impulse
to their spiritual life, Whitefield's room was daily the scene of
such religious services as distinguished the Church imme-
diately after the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost,
when little bands of devout disciples met to pray and to
encourage each other in the profession of the name of Jesus
Christ.
Kindness waited on him during these few weeks, as it did
during the rest of his life. His power to win the hearts of
rich and poor, which, as Dr. Johnson would have said, always
kept his friendships in repair, had constrained the heart of a
gentleman in London who, without the least solicitation, sent
him money for the poor, and also as much for himself as
sufficed to discharge a small debt contracted for books before
he took his degree. Lady Betty Hastings, sister of the Earl
of Huntingdon, also assisted both him and some of his
Methodist friends, thus beginning an intimacy between him