Wonders of the New World.

Orphans,

of the old world with wonder and amazement. It was a balmy morning of bland and lovely May. The green sod of the meadows was sprinkled with wild flowers, whose delicate beauty surpassed all he had ever seen in the cottage gardens of England. The old forests, more beautiful and grand than the royal parks of England, abounded in magnificent trees, whose circumference and hight exceeded all his notions of vegetable growth, and whose appearance was strange, and names unknown to him.

From the physical his attention was soon diverted to the moral features of the country. Delamotte, whom Wesley had left behind, and the few who had preserved their garments unspotted amidst the iniquitous circumstances of the colony, received him gladly. On looking over the condition of the colony, Whitefield was surprised at the number, and affected at the destitute condition, of the orphans. Charles Wesley had noticed the same thing, and had concerted with Governor Oglethorpe, before Whitefield thought of going to America, a scheme for an orphan asylum. Whitefield had heard how much good had been accomplished through an orphan asylum by Professor Franke,

Orphan School in Georgia.

Leaves for England.

in Germany. He found, also, an orphan school among the Germans, in Georgia. He visited it. The master called all the children before him, catechised them, prayed with them, caused them to pray after him, and then all joined in singing a hymn. After this all the children came up to Whitefield, one by one, placed their little hands in his, and bade him good-by. Whitefield had known himself the sorrows of orphanage, and from this moment his purpose was fixed to found an asylum at Savannah. To accomplish this enterprise, he determined to return to England to lay the plan before the trustees of the colony, and to solicit, of the benevolent, funds for the object. He called the people together. With a heart full of sympathy and benevolence, and a voice of sweetness and melody, he preached to them his farewell discourse, promising solemnly, before God, to return again as soon as possible.

He left Charleston on the first of September, and, after a long, dreary, and perilous voyage, during which he suffered every thing but death, he arrived in London some time in December.

Arrives in London.

New-Year's-Love-Feast.

CHAPTER III.

WHITEFIELD IN MOORFIELDS.

N arriving in London, Whitefield imme

ON

diately waited on the trustees of the colony' of Georgia, and made known to them the purpose for which he had returned to England. They highly approved of his projected enterprise, and of his plan for carrying it into effect. It was not doubted but the establishing of an orphan asylum in Georgia would commend itself to the charity and benevolence of British Christians.

Whitefield desired, before proceeding on his collecting tour, to visit Oxford, that he might be ordained priest, to which office he had become eligible, under the hands of his magnanimous friend-the good Bishop Benson. Returning from Oxford to London, he met the Wesleys at a love-feast, in Fetter Lane, on NewYear's eve, 1739. The meeting continued all night, and was distinguished for manifestations of the great power of God. The prejudices on account of his preaching regeneration, existing

Large Congregations.

Kingswood

against him before he went to America, immediately revived on his return. He could gain from the clergy access to very few pulpits. When he could find a clergyman sufficiently liberal to admit him, he found it still impossible to accommodate, in churches of ordinary size, one-half the people who came to hear him. On one occasion, seeing multitudes of people unable to get into the church, he felt inclined to leave the pulpit, and go into the church-yard, and preach from one of the tombstones. He mentioned the matter to his friends; but they considered it a "mad prank," uncanonical, and subversive of all religious order.

From London he went to Bristol, a wealthy and populous city-the second in England. While there, his attention was directed to the morally-destitute condition of the people of Kingswood. Kingswood was a tract of country near Bristol, containing about four thousand acres, and underlaid with coal mines. The inhabitants were colliers. They were numerous, and utterly uncultivated-heathens in the midst of a Christian country-savages in the neighborhood of a populous city-brutal and uncivilized, surrounded by a refined communitypoor and degraded, in plain sight of abounding

First Auditory.

The Colliers Described.

wealth and civic luxury. Kingswood was the terror of the city and the country. Few ventured, even in broad daylight, to walk in the neighborhood. None dare provoke or interrupt the colliers of Kingswood. When aroused, these uncouth savages could defy the police of all England. Whitefield determined to go into Kingswood and preach. His friends entreated him not to venture there. But the man who could preach "like a lion," was not afraid of men. He went one Saturday afternoon into Kingswood, and stood upon a little knoll, and in the name of his divine Master, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who, when among men, "had a mountain for his pulpit, and the heavens for his sounding-board," preached repentance, remission of sins, and eternal life, to such as curiosity called around him. His first audience consisted of about two hundred. He went again, and preached to two thousand. Again he went, and met five thousand, who stood before him, with tears streaming down their coal-blacked faces, as he discoursed of Jesus, and of the cross, and of repentance, and of faith, and of hope, and of heaven. He went the fourth time, and he found twenty thou sand of these poor children of neglect and of