"'Do you remember any thing of his sermons?' I inquired.
"'Oh, I was too young to notice aught, sir, but the preacher hisself and the crowds of people, but I know he had a very sweet voice; and as I said, when he spread his arms out, with a little Bible in his hand, he looked like a flying angel. There never were so many people, afore nor since, in Old Ipswich. I suppose, sir, you'll be going to see his bones? He was buried at Newburyport, and you can see 'em if you like.'
"I made up my mind that I would see them, if possible. On the following day, I went over to Newburyport by railroad, and proceeded first to the house in which Whitefield died. It was at the time the residence of the Rev. Jonathan Parsons, the first regular pastor of the Presbyterian Society in the town. It is a plain unpretending structure, possessing no other claims to attention than its being the spot where the last scene of Whitefield's career was enacted. I knocked, and asked of a lady who answered my summons, if I might be allowed to see the room in which Mr. Whitefield died. She very courteously showed me up a flight of stairs into a chamber, which, she said, Mr. Whitefield used to sleep in. 'Here is the place he died in,' said the lady, as she showed me a little entry just outside the door of the chamber, directly over the entrance to the house. 'He lay the night before he died,' said the lady, 'in that bed-chamber; and when he was struck with death, he ran out to this entry window for breath, and died while sitting in a chair opposite to it.'
"The Federal-street church, where Whitefield was buried, was but a short distance from the house in which he died, and on my way to it I called on the sexton.... He preceded me through the aisle of the church, and opening a little narrow door by the side of the pulpit, we passed into a dim gloomy room behind it, and from thence descending four or five steps, found ourselves in a brick vault which lay directly under the pulpit. It was two or three minutes before my eyes got accustomed to the gloom; but soon objects became discernible, and I saw three old coffins, two of them serving as supporters to the third, which lay across them.... The sexton trimmed his lamp, then lifted the lid of an old coffin, and holding the flame close to it, said, 'Here, look in, ... THAT'S THE MAN.'
"Yes, there lay the man, or at least, all that remains of the once mighty preacher. A strange awe came over me at his words, 'That's the man.' I took the skull in my hands, and examined it carefully. The forehead was rather narrow than broad, and by no means high. I soon put it back again to the coffin."
Among the more prominent traits in the character of Whitefield, we may designate his indifference to his own honor and ease, of which his narrative contains almost innumerable illustrations. In the preparation of the deed of trust for his intended college, he entirely omitted his own name, that the proposed trustees might accept the office without suffering contempt for being connected with him. It was not pretence which led him often to say, "Let the name of George Whitefield perish, if God be glorified." On the same principle of almost self-annihilation he acted in reference to the accumulation of money. He secured nothing for himself. It does not seem that what he left to his friends by his will was or could be paid; what had been left him as legacies had been nearly all expended, and would have been entirely, had he lived to return to his beloved Bethesda. By his will he placed the institution in the hands of Lady Huntingdon, who sent out ministers and other persons to conduct it. But soon after this, the buildings were burnt down. After the fire, came the Revolutionary war, which tended to unsettle the tenure of property, and at the time of its close, the whole plans, alike of the orphan-house and the college, were nearly unknown. The authorities of Savannah, in accordance with the high regard which they still entertained for Whitefield's memory, secured whatever they could of the wreck, the proceeds of which they invested in a school for the young, which yet flourishes.
Perhaps no man was ever more thoroughly fond of labor. From a memorandum in which Mr. Whitefield recorded the times and places of his ministerial labors, it appears that from the period of his ordination to that of his death, which was thirty-four years, he preached upwards of eighteen thousand sermons. It would be difficult to imagine how many thousand miles he travelled. When he ascertained that his physical powers began to fail, putting himself on what he called "short allowance," he preached only once on every week-day, and three times on the Sabbath. In view of his various journeyings in the slow and inconvenient modes of travelling then in use, his thirteen voyages across the Atlantic, and all that he accomplished, it appears that few men ever performed so much labor within the same period.
Nearly every one who has attempted a description of Whitefield has said much of his extraordinary voice. It is known that Garrick was heard to say that he would give a hundred guineas if he could say "Oh!" as Whitefield did. The late Rev. Dr. Haweis, speaking of his "wonderful voice," and of its sweetness and variety of tone, said he believed on a serene evening it might be distinctly heard for nearly a mile. Others have given similar evidence.
The late Sir George Beaumont, no mean authority on such a subject, thus familiarly speaks: "Oh yes; I heard that young gentleman this morning allude to 'roaring Whitefield,' and was amused at his mistake. It is a common one. Whitefield did not roar. I have been his auditor more than once, and was delighted with him. Whitefield's voice could be heard at an immense distance; but that was owing to its fulness, roundness, and clearness. It was a perfectly sound voice. It is an odd description, but I can hit upon no better; there was neither crack nor flaw. To describe him as a bellowing, roaring field preacher, is to describe a mountebank, not Whitefield. He had powers of pathos of the highest order. The tender, soft, persuasive tones of his voice were melodious in the extreme. And when he desired to win, or persuade, or plead, or soothe, the gush of feeling which his voice conveyed at once surprised and overpowered you."