Quiet Departure. increasing debility, that he must soon die, he took an affectionate leave of his wife, and children, and friends, and lay down, waiting his appointed time. He lingered a few days, and then died, so peaceful, so gently, that the friends around his bed knew not the moment of his departure. GEORGE WHITEFIELD. CHAPTER I. THE EARLY CAREER OF WHITEFIELD. G Early Boyhood. EORGE WHITEFIELD was born in Glou cester, in 1714. His father was an innkeeper. His mother, having suffered severe sickness, protracted for several months after his birth, was deeply impressed through all the course of his infancy and childhood, with a presentiment, accompanied by an ardent desire, that her son, for whom she had suffered so much, would become a great and good man. He did not, however, during his earlier years, manifest much promise of fulfilling her hopes. His father dying when he was two years old, he was left to be brought up in a tavern, without much parental discipline. Being naturally impulsive, and impressible by external influences, he became wild and wayward. He indulged in mischief, if not in crime. In the midst, however, of his froward conduct, and reckless Natural Orator. Birthplace. career, he was often affected by serious thought. Having been born in an inn, and the impressions of his mother concerning his future destiny being known to him, he fancied there might be some analogy between the early history of himself, and of Him who was born in a manger, and whose mother "pondered in her heart" the mysterious indications of Providence. He used, when a mere child, often to act the preacher-reading prayers, and declaiming to his playmates, or to the listening trees of the neighboring forest. At the age of twelve he was placed in a school in his native village. The peculiar talent, which rendered him, in mature life, distinguished, and which seems to have been in him an original gift of nature, began soon to develop itself. "Having a good elocution and memory," he was always appointed orator before the corporation at the examinations. Having read some plays, he contracted great fondness for them, and often spent whole days in preparing to act them. The master of the school, seeing how "his vein ran," unwisely encouraged him in his career, actually composing a play for him and his school-fellows, and dressing him up in female garments to act |