The Sunday spent at Bradford and Birstal was a day never to be forgotten; and the singing cavalcade, at the end of it, has hardly ever been equalled. Among the thousands then assembled, was a boy, sixteen years of age, upon whom Whitefield’s sermons had a powerful and permanent effect. They led to his conversion; and the youth, then an apprentice, became the well-known Rev. John Fawcett, D.D., for fifty-four years, one of the most faithful preachers among the West Yorkshire mountains. After hearing Whitefield at Bradford, early in the morning, young Fawcett trudged ten or a dozen miles to Birstal, where Whitefield stood on a platform, at the foot of a hill near the town, and, on the slopes of the hill, had twenty thousand people grouped before him, “thousands of whom, during the delivery of his two sermons, vented their emotions by tears and groans. Fools who came to mock, began to pray.”[408]
One of the places “about Leeds,” at which Whitefield preached, was Haworth, where a scaffold was erected in the churchyard, and he took for his text, “Turn you to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope” (Zech. ix. 12). Here, again, there was a young Yorkshireman who never forgot that memorable season. Samuel Whitaker wrote: “I got among the crowd nearly under the scaffold, and it was the most affecting time I ever experienced. Mr. Whitefield spoke as if he had been privy to all my thoughts, words, and actions, from the tenth year of my age. The day following, I heard him at Leeds; and the day after that, at Bradford.” Twelve months subsequent to this, Samuel Whitaker became a member of Wesley’s Society; for many years was a class-leader and local-preacher at Keighley; and, exactly sixty years after first hearing Whitefield at Haworth, tranquilly expired, in the eighty-second year of his age.[409]
Whitefield has left no account of his labours in Scotland; but the following particulars, taken from the Scots’ Magazine for 1756, will partly fill up the gap.
He arrived at Edinburgh, on Friday, August 20, where he remained for the next three weeks, and “preached every day, morning and evening, in the Orphan Hospital Park, to very numerous audiences” (p. 414).
On Friday, September 10, he went to Glasgow, where he preached the same evening, twice on Saturday, and four times on Sunday, September 12, to large congregations.
Six days afterwards, he returned to Edinburgh; and, as the new governor of Georgia desired to converse with him, before embarking for the colony, Whitefield started for England, on Wednesday, September 22.[410]
The Scots’ Magazine proceeds to say: “Before Mr. Whitefield set out for Glasgow, the managers of the Orphan Hospital made him a present of fifty guineas to defray his travelling charges; but he returned ten guineas, saying that forty guineas were sufficient to defray the charges, and likewise to pay upwards of £14, which he had laid out here for coarse linen to be sent to his Orphan House in Georgia. For accommodating the audience, when he preached, the managers had erected seats in the park; and, though only a halfpenny each was asked from the hearers for their seats, the money thence arising, and the collections at the park gates, amounted to upwards of £188 sterling; so that the hospital has about £120 clear gain, over and above the expense of the seats, and the present made to Mr. Whitefield.”
The magazine relates further, that “scarcity at home” had induced a greater number of Highlanders than usual to come to Edinburgh for “harvest work.” The harvest, however, was not ready. They had nothing to live upon. “Contributions were set on foot, to give them two meals a day at the poorhouse; and, on the evening of September 21, after a sermon suitable to the occasion by Mr. Whitefield, a collection was made for them, in the Orphan Hospital Park, which amounted to £60 11s. 4d. sterling, of which half a guinea was given by Mr. Whitefield himself” (p. 465).
To these items of intelligence may be added the following from the Edinburgh Courant: “During his stay, Mr. Whitefield preached, morning and evening, in the Orphan HospitalPark, not excepting the evening of the day on which he arrived, or the morning of that on which he departed. As he was frequently very explicit in opening the miseries of popish tyranny and arbitrary power, and very warm in exhorting his hearers to loyalty and courage at home, and in stirring them up to pray for the success of his Majesty’s forces, we have reason to believe that his visit, at this juncture, has been particularly useful.”
In 1756, a considerable number of Wesley’s preachers and Societies were strongly inclined to declare themselves Dissenters. Charles Wesley was excessively annoyed; and, as soon as his brother’s annual conference was ended, he set out to entreat the Methodists “to continue steadfast in the communion of the Church of England.” Throughout life, Whitefield was a peace-maker, and, on his return from Scotland, he rendered service for which Charles Wesley was profoundly thankful. Under the date of Friday, October 8, Charles wrote:—