This was on Saturday; and, as shewing that much of Whitefield's pulpit eloquence was impromptu, it may be added, that, next morning, he preached "upon Herod's sending the wise men to find out Christ, under a pretence that he intended to come and worship Him, when in reality he intended to kill Him." From this, Whitefield "endeavoured to shew how dreadful it was to persecute under a pretence of religion."
In the afternoon, the young preacher's text was more pointed still: "They proclaimed a fast; and set Naboth on high among the people, and there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him; and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king. Then they carried him forth out of the city, and stoned him with stones, that he died" (1 Kings xxi. 12, 13). "My hearers," writes Whitefield, "as well as myself, made the application. It was pretty close. I especially directed my discourse to men of authority, and shewed them the heinous sin of abusing the power which God hath put into their hands."
Whitefield was as much beloved by the populace of Charleston as he was hated by its "authorities and powers." He writes:—
"January 16, Friday. Preached twice every day this week, and expounded in the evening as usual. Congregations much increased since Saturday night last; and I never received such generous tokens of love from any people as from some in Charleston. They so loaded me with sea-stores, that I sent many of them to Savannah. Having now all things finished according to my mind, I preached my farewell sermon last night, and spoke at the burial of a Quaker woman, at the desire of her surviving friends. I this day went on board the Minerva, Captain Meredith, in which I took passage for myself and some others to England."
Whitefield arrived in England on the 11th of March following; but, before attending him in his voyage, some other matters must be noticed.
Nearly a year and a half had elapsed since his embarkation for America. His time had been occupied to the utmost; and marvellous had been the results of his evangelistic labours. The same may be said of his friends, John and Charles Wesley. Charles had been in Whitefield's native county, preaching, in the fields, to assembled thousands. In Bristol and Kingswood, enormous crowds had attended his ministry, and great numbers had been converted. Often did he meet with persons who had been convinced of sin by Whitefield's preaching; and sincerely he rejoiced on account of his friend's success. He had visited the native place of William Seward, and had been treated by some of the Seward family with the greatest incivility. In London he had preached, not only in the Foundery, but, on Kennington Common, and in other places where Whitefield had been wont to lift up his trumpet voice. He had had to fight the Moravians, or rather their errors; and had been honestly assisted by Benjamin Ingham and Howell Harris; but of "Rabbi Hutton," as he calls Whitefield's publisher, he says: "Poor James was all tergiversation. O how unlike himself! The honest, plain, undesigning Jacob is now turned a subtle, close, ambiguous Loyola."
John Wesley had converted the old Foundery, in London, into a Methodist meeting-house. He and Philip Henry Molther had had a passage at arms. Many of the Moravians considered him an apostate; but others followed him from Fetter Lane to the now ecclesiastical Foundery, where, on July 23, 1740, he formed them into the first Methodist Society in London. In Bristol and Kingswood, he had witnessed strange things, amply narrated in his "Journals," and in his "Life and Times." The interval which had elapsed since Whitefield embarked for America, had been a time of warfare and of trial; but it had also been a time of triumph. Wesley had laid the foundation of the great Methodist communities now existing; but what of Whitefield?
"It is a remarkable fact, that, considering the sparseness of the American population, the crowds attending Whitefield's preaching were, perhaps, unparalleled in the history of the Church of Christ. There is also another important fact which it would be obstinacy to call in question, namely, that among the Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists of America, Whitefield's ministry had been immensely useful; and, further, that, from the outside multitudes, he had gathered not a few into the fold of Christ. But, notwithstanding his marvellous popularity and success, Whitefield formed no societies of his own in America. He was not there, as the founder of a sect. God seems to have sent him, not to plant new churches; but, by preaching the gospel, to revive old ones. For the former, he had no tact; for the latter, his qualifications were extraordinary. He formed no churches of his own; and yet his Herculean labours were far from being lost. The labours of no one man, save those of Wesley alone, (and even those only indirectly,) have exerted so mighty an influence upon the religious interests and destiny of America, as those of George Whitefield."
Dr. Abel Stevens, whose knowledge of American Church history is, perhaps, unequalled, observes:—