Immediately after this, Whitefield published a 12mo. pamphlet of twenty-four pages, entitled “Russian Cruelty; being the substance of several Letters from sundry Clergymen, in the New Marche of Brandenburg.” The letters are full of horrible details respecting the cruelties practised by the Russian army in Germany; and, in his preface, Whitefield ardently asks for sympathy and help on behalf of the distressed Protestants in that country. The preface is dated “March 2, 1760.” Friday, March 14, was appointed to be observed by a general fast; and, on the Sunday previous, says Lloyd’s Evening Post, “the Rev. Mr. Whitefield preached at his Tabernacle, at Tottenham Court Road, to a very numerous audience. In his discourse, he took occasion to mention the cruelties exercised by the Russian Cossacks upon the Protestant subjects of the Duchy of Mecklenburg, and earnestly to recommend a collection for their relief on the day of the public fast. The money is to be paid into the hands of the minister of the Lutheran chapel in London, by him to be transmitted to Germany, and there to be distributed in a proper manner to the objects worthy of relief.” Remembering the worth of money a hundred years ago, Whitefield’s collections were enormous. The following is taken from Lloyd’s Evening Post, of March 17, 1760:—
“On the Fast-day, upwards of £400 were collected at Mr. Whitefield’s chapel in Tottenham Court Road, and at the Tabernacle, in Moorfields, for the relief of the distressed Protestants in and about Custrin, in the New Marche of Brandenburg; many of whom have been not only plundered and stripped of all they had, but have likewise been cruelly tortured and abused by the savage Cossacks and other irregular troops of the Russian army.”[467]
It is a strange and disgraceful coincidence, that, on the very Fast-day, when Whitefield was so nobly exerting himself to redress the Russian cruelties in Germany, one of Whitefield’s friends, within a dozen miles of London, was being treated with cruelty dishonourable to the character of old England. Hence the following taken from Lloyd’s Evening Post, of March 21, 1760:—
“Last Friday (the Fast-day) a terrible riot happened at Kingston, in Surrey, occasioned by a Methodist preacher, who came there, and assembled a great number of people together in a barn to hear him. Whilst he was preaching, an impudent fellow threw some dirt at him, which created a great disturbance; and the mob, at last, dragged the preacher into the street, and rolled him in a ditch; and, had it not been for the humanity and good-nature of a gentleman near the spot, who took him into his house, he, in all likelihood, would have been murdered. Some of the Inniskilling dragoons being there among the mob, with their swords, wounded and bruised several of the people, and put the whole town into an uproar; but, by the prudent behaviour of their commanding officer, all ill consequences were prevented. He ordered the drums to beat, assembled the dragoons in the yard of the Sun Inn, and kept them there for some time, and then ordered them to their quarters.”
One of the notable events of 1760 was the trial and the execution of the half mad and intensely wicked Earl Ferrers, for the brutal murder of Mr. Johnson, his steward. The notorious Earl being nearly related to the Countess of Huntingdon, she and all her Methodist friends felt a profoundly painful interest in the case. The trial, which lasted three days, commenced in Westminster Hall, on April 16. Charles Wesley writes:—
“April 17, 1760. Yesterday morning, my heart was overwhelmed with sorrow. Not in my own will did I enter the place of judgment. George Whitefield and his wife sat next me. The lords entered with the utmost state: first the barons, then the lords, bishops, earls, dukes, and Lord High Steward. Most of the royal family, the peeresses, and chief gentry of the kingdom, and the foreign ambassadors were present, and made it one of the most august assemblies in Europe; but the pomp was quite lost upon me.”[468]
After his condemnation, the Earl was often visited, in the Tower of London, by the Countess of Huntingdon, and twice by Whitefield, to whom he behaved with great politeness.At her ladyship’s request, Whitefield repeatedly offered up public prayer for the unhappy murderer. “That impertinent fellow,” said Horace Walpole, “told his enthusiasts that my lord’s heart was stone.” So it was. Earl Ferrers ended his ignoble life, on the scaffold, May 5, 1760. “With all his madness,” sneered the flippant writer just mentioned, “Lord Ferrers was not mad enough to be struck with Lady Huntingdon’s sermons. The Methodists have nothing to brag of his conversion, though Whitefield prayed for him, and preached about him.”[469]
At the period when Whitefield was visiting Earl Ferrers in the Tower, there was another convict, belonging to another class of society, who secured his pity and attentions. Robert Tilling, coachman to Mr. Lloyd, a merchant living in Devonshire Square, Bishopsgate Street, had presented himself at the bedside of his master, at four o’clock in the morning of February 19; pointed a pistol at his head; demanded the keys of his escritoir; and threatened to blow out his brains, unless the demand was granted. The keys were given up; the merchant was robbed of his money; the coachman was arrested; was tried at the Old Bailey; confessed his crime; was sentenced to be hanged; and, in company with three others, was executed, at Tyburn, on Monday, April 28. The body was conveyed to Whitefield’s Tabernacle in Moorfields, where, horresco referens! it was exposed to the public view. On April 30, it was carried to Tindall’s burying ground in Bunhill Fields. The rest of the story may be told by an extract from Lloyd’s Evening Post, of the 5th of May:—
“We are informed that there was a prodigious concourse of people to hear Mr. Whitefield speak in Bunhill Fields, at the grave of Robert Tilling; some think not less than twenty thousand. There was no burial office read; but, after the corpse had been laid in the ground some time, Mr. Whitefield came, and, in a declamatory way, shewed how the wages of sin was death,—gave some account of the malefactor’s penitence,—exhorted all in general to turn from their vices and come to Christ,—and pressed all servants in particular to take warning by the criminal’s execution, and shew all fidelity to their masters.”
Having “spent all the last winter in London,” Whitefieldset out, in the month of May, on another of his evangelistic tours. First of all, he went to Gloucestershire; in June he went to Wales; in July, to Bristol; and in August came back to London. In September and October, he had “a ramble of two months in Yorkshire;”[470] after which, as usual, he returned to his “winter quarters,” in the metropolis.[471] Hardly anything is known of these preaching journeys. The following are extracts from his letters:—