“New York, July 2, 1773. Arrived the sorrowful news of the destruction of Mr. Whitefield’s Orphan House. As there was no fire in the house, it was supposed to have been set on fire by lightning. The fire broke out about seven or eight o’clock at night, and consumed the whole building, except the two wings.”[651]
Lady Huntingdon lamented the loss, but wrote: “I could never wish it for one moment to be otherwise, believing the Lord removed it out of our way, and that it was not somehow on that right foundation of simplicity and faith our work must stand upon.”[652] Honest Berridge, of Everton, entertained the same opinion. “It excites in me no surprise,” said he, “that the Orphan House is burnt. It was originally intended for orphans, and as such was a laudable design; but it ceased to be an Orphan House, in order to become a lumber-house for human learning; and God has cast a brand of His displeasure upon it. But how gracious the Lord has been to Mr. Whitefield, in preserving it during his lifetime.”[653]
This is not the place to recite the annoyances and troubles which Whitefield’s bequest entailed on the Countess of Huntingdon. Suffice it to say, that, in 1782, during the war with England, the Americans confiscated the Orphan House estates;[654] and that, in 1800, when the place was visited by a Methodist preacher, the two unburnt wings were fast decaying. In one of them, lived a small family of whites; in part of the other, a family of negro slaves, the remainder being converted into a stable. The brick walls which formerly enclosed the whole of the Orphan House premises were levelled with the ground, and, in many places, the foundations were ploughed up. There was no school of any kind; and the whole was rented for thirty dollars per annum.[655]
“The ruins,” writes Dr. Stevens, “the only memorial of a great and benevolent scheme, were also the memento of the great Methodist evangelist. If the ostensible design of the institution had failed, it had accomplished a greater result which was destined never to fail; for it had been the centre of American attraction to its founder, had prompted his thirteen passages across the Atlantic, and had thus led to those extraordinary travels and labours, from Georgia to Maine, which quickened with spiritual life the Protestantism of the continent, and opened the career of Methodism in the western hemisphere.”[656]
We return to Whitefield’s history. After the auditing of his Orphan House accounts, he went to Charleston, where he remained about a month. He was now in better health than he had been for many years, and was “enabled to preach almost every day.” The establishment of his College, however, was still a great anxiety. In a letter to Mr. Keen, dated “Charleston, February 10, 1770,” he wrote:—
“I have, more than once, conversed with the Governor of Georgia, in the most explicit manner, concerning an Act of the Assembly for the establishment of the intended Orphan House College. He most readily consents. I have shewn him a draught, which he much approves of; and all will be finished on my return from the northward. Meanwhile, the buildingswill be carried on. Since my being in Charleston, I have shewn the draught to some persons of great eminence and influence. They highly approve of it, and willingly consent to be some of the wardens: near twenty are to be of Georgia, about six of this place, one of Philadelphia, one of New York, one of Boston, three of Edinburgh, two of Glasgow, and six of London. Those of Georgia and South Carolina are to be qualified; the others to be only honorary corresponding wardens.”
In the same month, Wesley wrote to Whitefield; and, because the letter happened to be the last he addressed to his old friend, and because it expressed Wesley’s opinions respecting the intended College, it shall be given at full length.
“Lewisham, February 21, 1770.
“My dear Brother,—Mr. Keen informed me some time since of your safe arrival in Carolina; of which, indeed, I could not doubt for a moment, notwithstanding the idle report of your being cast away, which was so current in London. I trust our Lord has more work for you to do in Europe, as well as in America. And who knows, but, before your return to England, I may pay another visit to the New World? I have been strongly solicited by several of our friends in New York and Philadelphia. They urge many reasons, some of which appear to be of considerable weight; and my age is no objection at all; for, I bless God, my health is not barely as good, but abundantly better in several respects, than when I was five-and-twenty. But there are so many reasons on the other side, that as yet I can determine nothing: so I must wait for further light. Here I am: let the Lord do with me as seemeth Him good. For the present, I must beg of you to supply my lack of service, by encouraging our preachers as you judge best, who are as yet comparatively young and inexperienced;[657] by giving them such advices as you think proper; and, above all, by exhorting them, not only to love one another, but, if it be possible, as much as lies in them, to live peaceably with all men.
“Some time ago, since you went hence, I heard a circumstance which gave me a good deal of concern; namely, that the College or Academy in Georgia had swallowed up the Orphan House. Shall I give my judgment without being asked? Methinks, friendship requires I should. Are there not, then, two points which come in view—a point of mercy, and a point of justice? With regard to the former, may it not be inquired, Can anything on earth be a greater charity, than to bring up orphans? What is a college or an academy compared to this? unless you could have such a college as perhaps is not upon earth. I know the value of learning, and am more in danger of prizing it too much, than too little. But, still, I cannot place the giving it to five hundred students, on a level with saving the bodies, if not the souls too, of five hundred orphans. But let us pass from the point of mercy to that of justice. You had land given, and collectedmoney, for an Orphan House. Are you at liberty to apply this to any other purpose,—at least, while there are any orphans in Georgia left? I just touch upon this, though it is an important point, and leave it to your own consideration, whether part of it, at least, might not properly be applied to carry on the original design.