"In a little time he brought up a considerable quantity of phlegm. I then began to have some small hopes. Mr. Parsons said he thought Mr. Whitefield breathed more freely than he did, and would recover. I said, 'No, sir, he is certainly dying.' I was continually employed in taking the phlegm out of his mouth with a handkerchief, and bathing his temples with drops, rubbing his wrists, etc., to give him relief, if possible, but all in vain; his hands and feet were as cold as clay. When the doctor came in, and saw him in the chair leaning upon my breast, he felt his pulse, and said, 'He is a dead man.' Mr. Parsons said, 'I do not believe it; you must do something, doctor.' He said, 'I cannot; he is now near his last breath.' And so indeed it was; for he fetched but one gasp, and stretched out his feet, and breathed no more. This was exactly at six o'clock. We continued rubbing his legs, hands, and feet, with warm cloths, and bathed him with spirits for some time, but all in vain. I then put him into a warm bed, the doctor standing by, and often raised him upright, continued rubbing him and putting spirits to his nose for an hour, till all hopes were gone. The people came in crowds to see him."
Whitefield seems to have had somewhat of a presentiment that his death would be unattended with any remarkable expression of spiritual enjoyment. In his last preceding visit to this country, he had spent a day or two under the roof of the Rev. Dr. Finley, then president of the college at Princeton, New Jersey. One day Dr. Finley said at the dinner-table, "Mr. Whitefield, I hope it will be very long before you will be called home; but when that event shall arrive, I shall be glad to hear the noble testimony you will bear for God." Whitefield replied, "You would be disappointed, doctor; I shall die silent. It has pleased God to enable me to bear so many testimonies for him during my life, that he will require none from me when I die. No, no. It is your dumb Christians, who have walked in fear and darkness, and thereby been unable to bear a testimony for God during their lives, that he compels to speak out for him on their death-beds."
We resume Mr. Smith's narrative: "The Rev. Mr. Parsons, at whose house my dear master died, sent for Captain Fetcomb, and Mr. Boadman, and others of his elders and deacons, and they took the whole of the burial upon themselves, prepared the vault, and sent and invited the bearers. Many ministers of all persuasions came to the house of the Rev. Mr. Parsons, where several of them gave a very particular account of their first awakenings under his ministry several years ago, and also of many in their congregations that, to their knowledge, under God, owed their conversion to his coming among them, often referring to the blessed seasons they had enjoyed under his preaching; and all said, that this last visit was attended with more power than any other, and that all opposition fell before him. Then one and another would pity and pray for his dear Tabernacle and Chapel congregations, and it was truly affecting to hear them bemoan America and England's loss. Thus they continued for two hours, conversing about his great usefulness, and praying that God would scatter his gifts, and drop his mantle among them."
Dr. Gillies says, "Early next morning, Mr. Sherburn of Portsmouth sent Mr. Clarkson and Dr. Haven with a message to Mr. Parsons, desiring that Mr. Whitefield's remains might be buried in his own new tomb, at his own expense; and in the evening several gentlemen from Boston came to Mr. Parsons, desiring the body might be carried there. But as Mr. Whitefield had repeatedly desired to be buried before Mr. Parsons' pulpit, if he died at Newburyport, Mr. Parsons thought himself obliged to deny both these requests."
Mr. Parsons, in a note to his funeral sermon, says, "At one o'clock all the bells in the town were tolled for half an hour, and all the vessels in the harbor gave their proper signals of mourning. At two o'clock the bells tolled a second time. At three the bells called to attend the funeral. The Rev. Dr. Haven of Portsmouth, and the Rev. Messrs. Rodgers of Exeter, Jewet and Chandler of Rowley, Moses Parsons of Newbury, and Bass of Newburyport, were pall-bearers. Mr. Parsons and his family, with many other respectable persons, followed the corpse in mourning."
"The procession," says Mr. Smith, "was only one mile, and then the corpse was carried into the Presbyterian church, and placed at the foot of the pulpit, close to the vault; the Rev. Daniel Rodgers made a very affecting prayer, and openly declared, that, under God, he owed his conversion to that dear man of God whose precious remains now lay before them. Then he cried out, 'O my father, my father!' then stopped and wept as though his heart would break; the people weeping all through the place. Then he recovered, and finished his prayer, and sat down and wept. Then one of the deacons gave out the hymn,
"'Why do we mourn departing friends?'
some of the people weeping, some singing, and so on alternately. The Rev. Mr. Jewet preached a funeral discourse; and made an affectionate address to his brethren, to lay to heart the death of that useful man of God, begging that he and they might be upon their watchtower, and endeavor to follow his blessed example. The corpse was then put into the vault, and all concluded with a short prayer, and dismission of the people, who went weeping through the streets to their respective places of abode."
The Rev. Mr. Rodgers, from whose "Almanack Journal" we have quoted, records that the vast assembly at the funeral consisted of "four, since thought five thousand people," and adds, Oct. 7, "I preached from those words in the first Philippians, 'Having a desire to depart and be with Christ,' etc. I spoke extempore, somewhat largely, of dear Mr. Whitefield's character."
The late venerable Mr. Bartlet of Newburyport, some years ago, erected a monument to the memory of Whitefield in the church beneath which his remains are interred. The cenotaph was executed by Mr. Struthers of Philadelphia, after a design of Strickland, and the inscription which follows was written by the late Rev. Dr. Ebenezer Porter, of the Theological seminary at Andover.