Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 March 1877 — Picture of Whitefield. [ARTICLE]

Picture of Whitefield.

A writer in the Sunday Magazine draws a pen-and-ink picture of Whitefield, the famous preacher of the last century, as he appeared when, surrounded by the beauty and the fashion and the lower classes of London, he preached one of his open-air sermons. In and out among the well-dressed many there moves a crowd of people who wear neither silk nor velvet. There is the artisan, with his wife and children, who have edme out here chiefly for the sike of the fresh, sweet country air; there are the city clerk and his sweetheart doing a little flirting to while away the time; there is the poor needle woman, whose pale face has such a wistful look, that we fancy her Jieart must be beginning dimly to guess that if she could grasp the meaning of the great preacher’s words, it might possibly bring into her life even more warmth and coloring than there is in the dresses she stitches for the grand ladies. Suddenly the murmur of voices which had been running through the vast assembly is hushed. The duchesses and countesses incline their heads a quarter of an inch forward; the fans of the actresses cease to flutter; the mass of the people make a little rush all in the same direction. Every eye is fixed on a man who is ascending slowly a green bank near at hand. At first sight there is nothing very remarkable in his appearance. His figure is tall and spare, his dress is homely; when he turns toward the audience We see that he squints, and he has no especial beauty of feature. But the moment he begins to speak his face is forgotten in his voice. How does it thrill with holy passion as he tells of his dear Lord; how does it ring with stern indignation against sin, and yet how does it melt with tenderness over the sinner! It is so clear that it is heard at the further end of the wide assembly; and yet so sweet that music is the only word that can give an idea of its tones. His face, too, and his figure have changed since we last looked at him. Meaning has come into every movement of his hand; each feature answers to the theme that is upon his lips, as does the lake to the lights and shadows in the sky above; his form seems to have grown majestic, and to be like that of the desert preacher, or of him who cried against Nineveh. When he speaks of Heaven, we almost believe that he has been there; when he tells of the Savior’s love and sufferings, it seems to us that he must have walked with Peter and John at His side; when he tells a story by way of illustration, as he often does, the description is so vivid that we listen breathlessly, as though we really saw the scene he paints with our bodily eyes. For two hours the tide of eloquence flows on unceasingly, and still the listening crowd remains enthralled. Different signs of emotion appear among them. The hard faces of the mechanics work with unwonted feeling; the brow of Hume grows smooth; even Chesterfield, who hitherto has stood like a statue of one of his own ancestors, so far forgets himself when the preacher, in a lively parable, is describing a blind beggar on the edge of a precipice, as to startforward and murmur, “ O save him, save him.” No wonder they are thus moved, for the. preacher himself seta the example.