“I would observe to you, that the child was even born in a room which the master of the house had prepared as a prison for his wife, on account of her coming to hear me. With joy would she often look upon the bars and staples and chains, which were fixed in order to keep her in. About a week after his birth, I publicly baptized him in the Tabernacle, and, in the company of thousands, solemnly gave him up to that God, who gave him to me. A hymn, too fondly composed by an aged widow, as suitable to the occasion, was sung, and all went away big with hopes of the child’s being hereafter to be employed in the work of God; but how soon have all their fond, and, as the event has proved, their ill-grounded expectations been blasted, as well as mine!
“House-keeping being expensive in London, I thought it best to send both parent and child to Abergavenny, where my wife had a little house, the furniture of which, as I thought of soon embarking for Georgia, I had partly sold, and partly given away. In their journey thither, they stopped at Gloucester, at the Bell Inn, which my brother now keeps, and in which I was born. There, my beloved was cut off with a stroke. Upon my coming here, without knowing what had happened, I enquired concerning the welfare of parent and child; and, by the answer, found that the flower was cut down.
“I immediately called all to join in prayer, in which I blessed the Father of mercies for giving me a son, continuing it to me so long, and taking it from me so soon. All joined in desiring that I would decline preaching till the child was buried; but I remembered a saying of good Mr. Henry, ‘that weeping must not hinder sowing;’ and, therefore, I preached twice the next day, and also the day following; on the evening of which, just as I was closing my sermon, the bell struck out for the funeral. At first, I must acknowledge, it gave nature a little shake; but, looking up, I recovered strength, and then concluded with saying, that this text, on which I had been preaching, namely, ‘All things work together for good to them that love God,’ made me as willing to go out to my son’s funeral, as to hear of his birth. Our parting from him was solemn. We kneeled down, prayed, and shed many tears, but, I hope, tears of resignation; and then, as he died in the house wherein I was born, he was taken and laid in the church where I was baptized, first communicated, and first preached.
“All this, you may easily guess, threw me into very solemn and deep reflection, and, I hope, deep humiliation; but I was comforted from that passage in the book of Kings, where is recorded the death of the Shunammite’s child, which the prophet said, ‘the Lord had hid from him,’ and the woman’s answer to the prophet when he asked, ‘Is it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband? Is it well with thy child?’ And she answered, ‘It is well.’ This gave me no small satisfaction. I preached upon the text, the day following, at Gloucester; and then hastened up to London, and preached upon the same there.
“Though disappointed of a living preacher, by the death of my son, yet, I hope, what happened before his birth, and since at his death, has taught me such lessons, as, if duly improved, may render his mistaken parent more cautious, more sober-minded, more experienced in Satan’s devices, and, consequently, more useful in his future labours to the Church of God. Thus, ‘out of the eater comes forth meat, and out of the strong comes forth sweetness.’ Not doubting but our future life will be one continued explanation of this blessed riddle, I commend myself and you to the unerring guidance of God’s word and Spirit, and am,
“Yours, etc.,
“George Whitefield.”
Whilst Whitefield was burying his child at Gloucester, his friend, Charles Wesley, was preaching, at the peril of his life, in Staffordshire. At Wednesbury, the mob “assaulted, one after another, all the houses of those who were called Methodists.” All the windows were broken, and furniture of every kind was dashed in pieces. At Aldridge and several other villages, many of the houses were plundered, and the rioters “loaded themselves with clothes and goods ofall sorts, as much as they could carry.”[93] Whitefield heard of this execrable rioting, and wrote:—
“There has been dreadful work near Birmingham; but Satan will be overthrown. We had a glorious fast on Monday (February 20th), and collected above £60 for our poor suffering brethren.”
A week after this, Whitefield set out on a visit to his wife at Abergavenny, and took her “a second-hand suit of curtains,” which he had bought for her humble dwelling.