In June, 1766, we again find Whitefield in the neighborhood of Bristol, whence he writes, "As my feverish heat continues, and the weather is too wet to travel, I have complied with the advice of friends, and have commenced a Hot-wells water drinker twice a day. However, twice this week, at six o'clock in the morning, I have been enabled to call thirsty souls to come and 'drink of the water of life freely.' Tomorrow evening, God willing, the call is to be repeated, and again on Sunday." On his return to London, he writes, under date of September 25, "Many in this metropolis seem to be on the wing for God; the shout of a king is yet heard in the Methodist camp. Had I wings, I would gladly fly from pole to pole; but they are clipped by thirty years' feeble labors. Twice or thrice a week I am permitted to ascend my gospel throne. The love of Christ, I am persuaded, will constrain you to pray that the last glimmering of an expiring taper may be blessed to the guiding of many, wandering souls to the Lamb of God."
The good providence of God now gave Whitefield a colleague in the ministry at the Tabernacle and Tottenham Court-road chapel, the Rev. Torial Joss. This gentleman had spent many years as captain at sea; converted by divine grace, and filled with holy zeal, he devoted his popular talents to the welfare of his fellow-men, preaching both on sea and land. In a remarkable manner, Mr. Whitefield became acquainted with him, and, without his knowledge, published that he would preach in his houses of worship, which, though with extreme reluctance, Joss did. These services were often renewed, and Whitefield gave him no rest till he abandoned the sea, and devoted himself to the ministry. Everywhere he was popular, and everywhere useful. He continued minister of the two places in London—spending four or five months in each year travelling and preaching—for twenty-seven years after the death of his friend, and then departed from earth, in 1797, in holy triumph, in the 66th year of his age.
One of the most extraordinary men in modern times was the late Rev. Rowland Hill, who erected Surrey chapel, London, and continued to preach in it till his death, in his eighty-ninth year, in 1833. He was eminently dignified in person, possessed extraordinary zeal, and was honored by his great Master with probably more success in the direct work of saving souls than any other minister of his day. He was a man of considerable rank, his father being a gentleman of title, one of his brothers a member of Parliament for many years, representing his native county, and the late eminent statesman and soldier Lord Hill was his nephew. Mr. Hill himself in early life became a Christian, and was educated for the ministry in the established church, but violated its rules, and preached wherever he could; for many years he was greatly persecuted by his own family, some of whom, however, in the end sustained the yoke of Christ. When Rowland began his somewhat erratic career, the opposition from his father was so great, that he was reduced sometimes to extreme poverty; and he was exactly the man to be encouraged by such men as Whitefield and Berridge. We give a few extracts from letters addressed to him by Whitefield, which certainly show no small degree of ardor, though we cannot see in them what Hill's clerical biographer, Mr. Sidney, professed to find, "an aspiration after the honors, when he had no prospect of the sufferings of martyrdom." The fact was, that Mr. Sidney was offended with Whitefield, as he was with his venerable uncle, Mr. Hill, for having deviated from the rigid laws of the establishment. It is only needful to introduce the first letter by saying that it was dated, London, December 27, 1766, and was sent in answer to one in which Mr. Hill had asked his counsel.
"About thirty-four years ago, the master of Pembroke college, where I was educated, took me to task for visiting the sick and going to the prisons. In my haste I said, 'Sir, if it displeaseth you I will go no more.' My heart smote me immediately; I repented, and went again; he heard of it—threatened—but for fear he should be looked on as a persecutor, let me alone. The hearts of all are in the Redeemer's hands. I would not have you give way; no, not for a moment. The storm is too great to hold long. Visiting the sick and imprisoned, and instructing the ignorant, are the very vitals of true and undefiled religion. If threatened, denied degree, or expelled for this, it will be the best degree you can take—a glorious preparative for, and a blessed presage of future usefulness. I have seen the dreadful consequences of giving way and looking back. How many by this wretched cowardice, and fear of the cross, have been turned into pillars, not of useful, but of useless salt. Now is your time to prove the strength of Jesus yours. If opposition did not so much abound, your consolations would not so abound. Blind as he is, Satan sees some great good coming on. We never prospered so much at Oxford as when we were hissed at and reproached as we walked along the streets, as being counted the dung and offscouring of all things. That is a poor building which a little stinking breath of Satan's vassals can throw down. Your house, I trust, is better founded. Is it not built upon a rock? Is not that rock the blessed Jesus? The gates of hell, therefore, shall not be able to prevail against it. Go on, therefore, my dear man, go on. Old Berridge, I believe, would give you the same advice; you are honored in sharing his reproach and name. God be praised that you are enabled to bless when others blaspheme. God bless and direct and support you. He will, he will. Good Lady Huntingdon is in town; she will rejoice to hear that you are under the cross. You will not want her prayers, or the poor prayers of, my dear honest young friend, yours, in an all-conquering Jesus."
The opposition Mr. Hill met with from his parents increased, and the threat of his degree being withheld, was, on the part of the university authorities, more determined; still, however, he persevered in his preaching and his visits, in violation of the laws of discipline. In June, 1767, Mr. Whitefield wrote him: "I wish you joy of the late high dignity conferred upon you—higher than if you were made the greatest professor in the university of Cambridge. The honorable degrees you intend giving to your promising candidates, [allowing some of his fellow-students to preach in the various places which he had visited,] I trust will excite a holy ambition, and a holy emulation; let me know who is first honored. As I have been admitted to the degree of doctor for near these thirty years, I assure you I like my field preferment, my airy pluralities, exceedingly well. For these three weeks last past I have been beating up for fresh recruits in Gloucestershire and South Wales. Thousands and thousands attended, and good Lady Huntingdon was present at one of our reviews. Her ladyship's aid-de-camp preached in Brecknock-street, and Captain Scott, that glorious field-officer, lately fixed up his standard upon dear Mr. Fletcher's horseblock at Madeley. Being invited thither, I have a great inclination to lift up the Redeemer's ensign next week in the same place; with what success, you and your dearly beloved candidates for good old methodistical contempt shall know hereafter. God willing, I intend fighting my way up to town. Soon after my arrival there, I hope thousands and thousands of volleys of prayers, energetic, effectual, fervent, heaven-besieging, heaven-opening, heaven-taking prayers, shall be poured forth for you all. Oh, my dearly beloved and longed-for in the Lord, my bowels yearn towards you. Fear not to go without the camp; keep open the correspondence between the two universities. Remember the praying legions—they were never known to yield. God bless those that are gone to their respective cures—I say not livings, a term of too modern date. Christ is our life; Christ is the Levite's inheritance, and Christ will be the true disinterested Levite's lot and portion and all. Greet your dear young companions whom I saw; they are welcome to write when they please. God be your physician under your bodily malady. A thorn, a thorn! but Christ's grace will be sufficient for you. To his tender, never-failing mercy I commit you."
A few weeks after this, Mr. Hill was much depressed in spirits, partly from bodily illness, partly because he was about to leave Cambridge and its surrounding villages, where he had latterly so frequently preached, but chiefly from the fact that he was going home, where he would again meet the frowns of his honored parents, for what they deemed his overrighteousness. In the midst of all this, however, he knew that he would meet at Hawkstone, his father's residence, the cordial welcome of his sister and elder brother, Richard Hill, afterwards a baronet. This gentleman had lately become a village preacher and a visitor of prisons, like his brother. Under these circumstances he was addressed by Whitefield, in his own peculiar and energetic style: "What said our Lord to Martha? 'Did I not say unto thee, If thou wouldest believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?' Blessed, for ever blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for what he hath done for your dear brother. A preaching, prison-preaching, field-preaching esquire, strikes more than all the black gowns and lawn sleeves in the world. And if I am not mistaken, the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls will let the world, and his own children too, know that he will not be prescribed to in respect to men, or garbs, or places; much less will he be confined to any order or set of men under heaven. I wish you both much, very much prosperity. You will have it—you will have it. This is the way, walk ye in it. Both Tabernacle and [Tottenham Court-road] chapel pulpits shall be open to a captain or an esquire sent of God. The good news from Oxford is encouraging. Say what they will, preaching should be one part of the education of a student in divinity. I pray for you night and day."
On the arrival of Mr. Hill at his father's beautiful seat, it was his happiness to find that his brother Brian, afterwards useful as a clergyman, was added to the number of believers in Christ; he learned also, that one of his college friends had been threatened to have an exhibition, or yearly gift towards his university expenses, withdrawn, unless he renounced his evangelical doctrines and practices. The reader will now understand Mr. Whitefield's letter: "I have been sadly hindered from answering your last letter, delivered to me by your brother. I gave it him to read, and we had, I trust, a profitable conference. God be praised if another of your brothers is gained. What grace is this! Four or five out of one family—it is scarcely to be paralleled. Who knows but the root, as well as the branches, may be taken by and by? Abba, Father, all things are possible with thee! Steadiness and perseverance in the children will be one of the best means, under God, of convincing the parents. This present opposition I think cannot last very long; if it does, to obey God rather than man, when forbidden to do what is undoubted duty, is the invariable rule. Our dear Penty [afterwards the Rev. Thomas Pentycross] is under the cross at Cambridge. But
"'Satan thwarts, and men object,
Yet the thing they thwart effect.'
I should be glad if any one's exhibition was taken from him for visiting the sick, etc. It would vastly tend to the furtherance of the gospel; but Satan sees too far, I imagine, to play such a game now. Let him do his work; he is only a mastiff chained. Continue to inform me how he barks, and how far he is permitted to go in your parts; and God's people shall be more stirred up to pray for you all."
The close of Mr. Hill's life was truly interesting and instructive. As has been intimated, he preached with scarcely diminished power until within a few weeks of his death. During the last two or three years of his life he very frequently repeated the following lines of an old poet: