The religious sentiments and the glowing eloquence of the most remarkable evangelist of modern times soon attracted the attention of the Countess of Huntingdon, and, in 1748, she made George Whitefield one of her chaplains. She then, and for many years afterwards, thought that, as a peeress of the realm, she had a right to employ the clergymen of the Church whom she had appointed as her chaplains in openly proclaiming the everlasting gospel. Whitefield often preached in the drawing-rooms of the Countess to large numbers of the most highly distinguished nobility. Gifted by nature in an unusual degree as a public speaker, her chaplain, despite the vilest aspersions, spoke as one who had received a commission from on high to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ; and this mission he fulfilled with unabated ardour and success for nearly forty years. In the New World as well as the Old, Whitefield had his trophies, and was listened to with great delight by the princes of intellect and the beggars in understanding. If souls would hear the gospel only under a ceiled roof, he preached it there. If only in a church or a field, he proclaimed it there. In temples made with hands, the parliament of letters, of fashion, of theology, of statesmanship,—such men as Hume, Walpole, Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, Warburton, and Chesterfield, acknowledged the power of the preacher. On Moorfields, Kennington Common, and Blackheath, vast crowds were powerfully impressed, and cried out for salvation. He preached at Kingswood, and the miners came out of their coal-pits in swarms—thousands on thousands flocked from Bristol, till about twenty or thirty thousand persons were present. The singing could be heard for two miles off, and the clear, rich, and powerful voice of Whitefield could be distinctly heard for about a mile. This is his own world; he loves, he says, to “mount his field throne.” These colliers are as ignorant of religion as the inhabitants of negro-land—as hardened as the islanders of Madagascar—without feeling or education, profligate, abandoned, ferocious. He addresses them, and what is the result? Tears flow from eyes which perhaps never shed them before. Those white streaks which contrast so strongly with the dark ground on which they are interlined, tell of the emotion that is going on within. This celebrated preacher, in his letters speaks of Lady Huntingdon in very flattering terms. He says, “She shines brighter and brighter every day, and will yet I trust be spared for a nursing mother to our Israel.”
A few years afterwards, the Countess took under her protection William Romaine, by appointing him one of her chaplains. He had for a long time occupied an important position in London, where he published several popular treatises, and a great number of separate discourses. But the preaching of the gospel was his enthusiastic work, and the Calvinistic aspects of truth were put and kept in uniform prominence by him. He was a man of fervent piety,—and to shelter him from persecution, Lady Huntingdon secured his services to preach to the nobility in her drawing-rooms, the poor in her kitchen, and to all classes in her various places of worship.
About 1764, she added to the number of her chaplains the Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley, rector of Loughrea, in Ireland. His connexion with her ladyship raised a violent storm of persecution against him in his own county. But his heart was too deeply impressed with the truth to allow his tongue to be silent. He became a warm and devoted labourer in the various churches erected by the Countess. Thomas Haweis, LL.B., was also chaplain to the Countess. Mr. Haweis took a prominent part in the formation of the London Missionary Society, published many sermons, a commentary on the Bible, and other works. He was a man of great zeal and piety, and highly respected.
THE FOUNDRESS OF A RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY.
At the time when the two leaders of Methodism, Wesley and Whitefield, took adverse positions on points of theology—the former, zealous for what was termed the Arminian; the latter, for the Calvinistic, mode of holding and proclaiming the one Christian truth, which gives all glory to God, and leaves human responsibility unimpugned; Lady Huntingdon warmly professed her approval of Calvinistic doctrine, and gave the whole of her influence to that side of Methodism. Whitefield conscious of his want of ability to govern a community, wisely abstained from the attempt to found a denomination, and gave his powerful aid to his noble patroness in her wide-spread endeavours to maintain and spread Calvinistic Methodism. It was in this way that her ladyship became the head of what was termed “the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion.” This costly movement included the erection of many spacious churches, the support of ministers, and the founding and endowing of a college at Trevecca, in Wales, for the education of young men, who were left at liberty, when their studies were completed, to serve in the ministry of the gospel either in the Countess’s Connexion, in the Established Church, or in any other of the Churches of Christ. In 1792, the college was removed from Trevecca to Cheshunt, where it still exists in a state of efficiency and usefulness. Her pecuniary resources were not large, yet she devoted upwards of £100,000 towards the spread of evangelical religion. Although the term “Connexion” is still applied to the body, they do not exist in the form of a federal ecclesiastical union. The congregational form of Church government is practically in operation among them, and several of the congregations have joined that communion.
CHARACTER OF THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON.
She was not what is usually termed beautiful, yet there was a grace and sweetness about her features which fully compensated for more perishable charms. Her figure was noble and commanding; her eyes were large and lustrous; her nose slightly acquiline; her lips well-formed and expressive; her forehead bold and intellectual. Her head-dress was plain and quite unfashionable; her bonnet unpretending; and her gown invariably black silk.
Lady Huntingdon possessed great natural talents. This is vouched for, not so much by her letters as by her actual administrative performances, by what she did in governing so long a large association, and in directing and controlling the minds of many educated clergy and uneducated lay-preachers. The leading and most noted public men, such as Chesterfield, Bolingbroke, and several of the bishops, listened with enthusiasm to her conversation. The celebrated ladies who ruled the court, and drew the flower of the nobility to their feet, were powerfully influenced by her Ladyship. Her conversational powers were remarkable. There was scarcely a subject on which she could not talk with freedom.
The Countess sympathised with human misery in all its forms, and to the utmost of her ability relieved it. Her nature was exceedingly generous. One of her ministers once called on her Ladyship with a wealthy person from the country. When they left, he exclaimed, “What a lesson! Can a person of her noble birth, nursed in the lap of grandeur, live in such a house, so meanly furnished; and shall I, a tradesman, be surrounded with luxury and elegance! From this moment, I shall hate my house, my furniture, and myself, for spending so little for God and so much in folly.” Religion with her was not a creed, nor an ecclesiastical position, but a living power. She admired consistency, and exemplified it in her life. It must not be supposed that she was perfect. She had her frailties, which she was aware of, and mourned over. But her private virtues and her public acts have ranked her among the most illustrious reformers of the Christian Church.