Thus terminated Whitefield’s visit to the city of Lisbon, a city containing 36,000 houses, 350,000 inhabitants, a cathedral, forty parish churches, as many monasteries, and a royal palace; and yet a city which, a year and a half afterwards, by an earthquake, which shook almost the whole of Europe, was reduced to a heap of ruins, and in which, in six minutes, not fewer than 60,000 persons met with an untimely death. The terrific judgment was not unmerited. No act of the Supreme Ruler is capricious. Some of the sights which Whitefield witnessed were hateful, hideous caricatures of the greatest and most solemn truths and facts ever made known to human beings. They were theatrical idolatries, which no system, except Paganism and Popery, would dare to practise. Popery in Lisbon was unchecked, and, therefore, undisguised. In England and America, it chiefly existed in lurking-places. The thing, as it really is, Whitefield had never seen till he went to the Portuguese metropolis. Favourable circumstances are always needful for its full development. The system is essentially semper idem; and if the sights seen by Whitefield are not at present seen in England, the reason is, not because the Popish hierarchy deem them wrong, but, because such profanities are impracticable.
Whitefield was about a month in Lisbon, without preachinga single sermon. Why? To have attempted preaching would have ensured his immediate expulsion or imprisonment. His heart yearned over the deluded inhabitants, but he was powerless to afford them help. On hearing of the just judgment of 1755, he wrote, “O that all who were lately destroyed in Portugal had known the Divine Redeemer! Then the earthquake would have been only a rumbling chariot to carry them to God. Poor Lisbon! How soon are all thy riches and superstitious pageantry swallowed up!”
Whitefield, for once in his life, was gagged and silent; but his time was not unprofitably spent. He was learning lessons which could not be learned in England or America, and which, he hoped, would make him a better man and a better preacher, to the end of life. He became a stauncher Protestant, and felt more than ever how invaluable were the privileges enjoyed by the inhabitants of Great Britain. “Every day,” said he, “I have seen or heard something that has a tendency to make me thankful for the glorious Reformation. O that our people were equally reformed in their lives, as they are in their doctrines and manner of worship! But alas! alas! O for another Luther! O for that wished-for season, when everything that is antichristian shall be totally destroyed by the breath of the Redeemer’s mouth, and the brightness of His appearing!” “O with what a power from on high must those glorious reformers have been endued, who dared first openly to oppose and to stem such a torrent of superstition and spiritual tyranny! And what gratitude we owe to those who, under God, were instrumental in saving England from a return of such spiritual slavery, and such blind obedience to the papal power! To have had a papist for our king; a papist, if not born, yet, from his infancy, nursed up at Rome; a papist, one of whose sons is advanced to the ecclesiastical dignity of a cardinal, and both of whom are under the strongest obligations to support the interests of that Church, whose superstitions and political principles they have imbibed from their earliest days! Blessed be God, the snare is broken, and we are delivered. O for Protestant practices to be added to Protestant principles! O for an acknowledgment to the ever-blessedGod for our repeated deliverances!” “The present is a silent, but, I hope, an instructive period of my life. Surely England, and English privileges, civil and religious, will be dearer to me than ever. The preachers here have also taught me something; their action is graceful. Vividi oculi—vividae manus,—omnia vivida. Surely our English preachers would do well to be a little more fervent in their address. They have truth on their side. Why should superstition and falsehood run away with all that is pathetic and affecting?”
Whitefield set sail, for America, on Saturday, April 13th, and, after a pleasant passage of six weeks’ duration, landed, in South Carolina, on May 26th. With his “orphan-charge,” he, at once, proceeded to Bethesda, in Georgia. After a short stay at his Orphanage, he returned to Charleston, where, on July 12, he wrote, “The Bethesda family now consists of above a hundred. He, who fed the multitude in the wilderness, can and will feed the orphans in Georgia.” Eight days afterwards, when “on board the Deborah” bound for New York, he wrote:—
“I found and left my orphan family comfortably settled in Georgia. The colony, as well as Bethesda, is now in a thriving state. I have now a hundred and six black and white persons to provide for. The God whom I desire to serve will enable me to do it. I stayed about six weeks in Carolina and Georgia. My poor labours have met with the usual acceptance; and I have reason to hope a clergyman has been brought under very serious impressions. My health has been wonderfully preserved. My wonted vomitings have left me; and though I ride whole nights, and have been frequently exposed to great thunders, violent lightnings, and heavy rains, yet I am rather better than usual.”
On July 26th, Whitefield landed at New York, where he continued about a week. He wrote:—
“New York, July 28, 1754.
“Here our Lord brought me two days ago; and, last night, I had an opportunity of preaching on His dying, living, ascending, and interceding love, to a large and attentive auditory. Next week, I purpose going to Philadelphia, and then shall come here again, in my way to Boston. Whether I shall then return to Bethesda, or embark for England, is uncertain. I fear matters will not be settled at the Orphan House, unless I go once more. I have put some upon their trial, and shall want to see how they behave. I owe for three of the negroes, who were lately bought,but hope to be enabled to pay for them at my return from the north. My God can and will supply all wants. His presence keeps me company, I find it sweet to run about for Him. I find the door all along the continent as open as ever, and the way seems clearing up for the neighbouring islands. Had I a good private hand, I could send you the account of my family; but perhaps I may deliver it to you myself.”
Further brief extracts from his letters will enable the reader to track Whitefield in his wanderings.
“New York, July 30. To-morrow, God willing, I preach at Newark; on Wednesday, at New Brunswick; and hope to reach Trent Town that night. Could you not meet me there? You must bring a chair: I have no horse. O that the Lord Jesus may smile on my feeble labours! I trust He has given us a blessing here. Yesterday, I preached thrice: this morning I feel it. Welcome weariness for Jesus!”