"Hark, the Eternal rends the sky!
A mighty voice before him goes—
A voice of music to his friends,
But threatening thunder to his foes:
'Come, children, to your Father's arms;
Hide in the chambers of my grace,
Till the fierce storm be overblown,
And my revenging fury cease—'
"Let us devoutly sing to the praise and glory of God this hymn, Old Hundred."
The whole congregation instantly rose, and poured forth the sacred song, in which they were accompanied by the organ, in a style of simple grandeur and heartfelt devotion that was probably never surpassed. By the time the hymn was finished the storm was hushed. The remainder of the services were well adapted to sustain the elevated feeling which had been produced; and the benediction with which the good man dismissed the flock was universally received with streaming eyes, and hearts overflowing with tenderness and gratitude.
Another writer has thus described his appearance in the pulpit. There was nothing in the appearance of this extraordinary man which would lead you to suppose that a Felix would tremble before him. He was something above the middle stature, well proportioned, and remarkable for a native gracefulness of manner. His complexion was very fair, his features regular, and his dark blue eyes small and lively. In recovering from the measles he had contracted a squint with one of them; but this peculiarity rather rendered the expression of his countenance more remarkable, than in any degree lessened the effect of its uncommon sweetness. His voice excelled both in melody and compass; and its fine modulations were happily accompanied by that grace of action which he possessed in an eminent degree, and which has been said to be the chief requisite in an orator. To see him when he first commenced, one would have thought him any thing but enthusiastic and glowing; but as he proceeded, his heart warmed with his subject, and his manner became impetuous and animated; till, forgetful of every thing around him, he seemed to kneel at the throne of Jehovah, and to beseech in agony for his fellow-beings.
After he had finished his prayer, he knelt for a long time in profound silence, and so powerful was the effect on the most heartless of his audience, that a stillness like that of the tomb pervaded the whole house.
Mr. Tracy, in his narrative of "the Great Awakening" about 1740, has admirably remarked, "It is often said that Whitefield cannot have been a very great man, because his printed sermons contain only plain, common thoughts, such as men of ordinary minds habitually use. But what made those thoughts so common? They were not common when he began to utter them. In England especially, and to a considerable extent here also, they astonished his hearers by their strangeness. What is more common than a voyage across the Atlantic? But was Columbus, therefore, only an ordinary man? The case of Copernicus is more nearly parallel. He reasserted a truth which had been uttered, repudiated, and forgotten. That truth is now common, even among school-boys. But was he, therefore, only a child in intellect?"
There are yet extant about eighty of the sermons by which Whitefield agitated nations, and the more remote influence of which is still distinctly to be traced, in the popular divinity and national character of Great Britain and of the United States. Of these compositions, Sir James Stephen, an evangelical Episcopalian of London, wrote at some length in the "Edinburgh Review," 1838, and we shall make no apology for borrowing a portion of his remarks, combining them with some of our own.
It is true, that these sermons have fallen into very general neglect; for to win permanent acceptance for a book, into which the principles of life were not infused by its author, is a miracle which not even the zeal of religious proselytes can accomplish. Yet, inferior as were his inventive to his mimetic powers, Whitefield is entitled, among theological writers, to a place which, if it cannot challenge admiration, may at least excite and reward curiosity. Many, and those by far the worst of his discourses, bear the marks of careful preparation. Take at hazard a sermon of one of the preachers usually distinguished as evangelical, add a little to its length, and subtract a great deal from its point and polish, and you have one of his more elaborate common topics discussed in a commonplace way; a respectable mediocrity of thought and style; endless variations on one or two cardinal truths—in short, the task of a clerical Saturday evening, executed with piety, good sense, and exceeding sedateness. But open one of that series of Whitefield's sermons which bears the stamp of having been conceived and uttered at the same moment, and imagine it recited to myriads of eager listeners with every charm of voice and gesture, and the secret of his unrivalled fascination is at least partially disclosed. He places himself on terms of intimacy and unreserved confidence with you, and makes it almost as difficult to decline the invitation to his familiar talk as if Montaigne himself had issued it. The egotism is amusing, affectionate, and warm-hearted, with just that slight infusion of self-importance without which it would pass for affectation. In his art of rhetoric, personification holds the first place; and the prosopopœia is so managed as to quicken abstractions into life, and to give them individuality and distinctness without the exhibition of any of those spasmodic and distorted images which obey the incantations of vulgar exorcists. Every trace of study and contrivance is obliterated by the hearty earnestness which pervades each successive period, and by the vernacular and homely idioms in which his meaning is conveyed.
It is in the grandeur and singleness of purpose that the charm of Whitefield's preaching seems to have consisted. You feel that you have to do with a man who lived and spoke, and who would gladly have died, to deter his hearers from the path of destruction, and to guide them to holiness and peace. His gossipping stories, and dramatic forms of speech, are never employed to hide the awful realities on which he is intent. Conscience is not permitted to find an intoxicating draught in even spiritual excitement, or an anodyne in glowing imagery. Guilt and its punishment, pardon and spotless purity, death and an eternal existence, stand out in bold relief on every page. From these the eye of the teacher is never withdrawn, and to these the attention of the hearer is riveted. All that is poetic, grotesque, or rapturous is employed to deepen these impressions, and is dismissed as soon as that purpose is answered. Deficient in learning, meagre in thought, and redundant in language as are these discourses, they yet fulfil the one great condition of genuine eloquence. They propagate their own kindly warmth, and leave their stings behind them.
The enumeration of the sources of Whitefield's power is still essentially defective. Neither energy, nor eloquence, nor histrionic talents, nor any artifices of style, nor the most genuine sincerity and self-devotedness, nor all these united, would have enabled him to mould the religious character of millions in his own and future generations. The secret lies deeper. It consisted in the theology he taught—in its perfect simplicity and universal application. "Would ministers," says he, "preach for eternity, they would then act the part of true Christian orators; and not only calmly and coolly inform the understanding, but by pathetic and persuasive address, endeavor to move the affections and to warm the heart. To act otherwise, betrays a sad ignorance of human nature, and such an inexcusable ignorance and indifference in a preacher, as must constrain the hearers to suspect, whether they will or not, that the preacher, let him be whom he will, only deals in the false commerce of unfelt truth." His eighteen thousand sermons were but so many variations on two key-notes: man is guilty, but may obtain forgiveness; he is immortal, and must ripen here for endless weal or woe hereafter. Expanded into innumerable forms, and diversified by infinite varieties of illustration, these two cardinal principles were ever in his heart and on his tongue. Let who would invoke poetry to embellish the Christian system, or philosophy to explore its esoteric depths, from his lips it was delivered as an awful and urgent summons to repent, to believe, and to obey. To set to music the orders issued to seamen in a storm, or to address them in the language of Aristotle or Descartes, would have seemed to him not a whit more preposterous than to divert his hearers from their danger and their refuge, their duties and their hopes, to any topics more trivial or more abstruse. In fine, he was thoroughly and continually in earnest, and therefore possessed that tension of the soul which admitted neither of lassitude nor relaxation, few and familiar as were the topics to which he was confined. His was, therefore, precisely that state of mind in which alone eloquence, properly so called, can be engendered, and a moral and intellectual sovereignty won.