his sin. Often he wandered in the fields till near midnight, “roaring for very disquietude of soul." If he might, he would have chosen "strangling rather than life."

At length deliverance came. The heavens seemed visibly to open before him, and Jesus stood stretching forth His bleeding palms in the benediction of full salvation. Tears gushed from the eyes of the impassioned suppliant, and, in ecstasy he exclaimed, Lord, it is enough."

Thus was he anointed to preach good tidings to the prisoners, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to them that were bound. Like the Lord he loved, he went about doing good, till, with the weight of well-nigh seventy years upon him, “he cheerfully resigned his soul into the hands of his Heavenly Father."

VII.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD, THE GREAT EVANGELIST.

THE peculiar glory of Methodism is that through its influence men of lowliest origin and often of sinful lives have been transformed into saints and apostles. But this is only a repetition of the miracle of grace which made Newton, the slave-trader, the eloquent preacher; and John Bunyan, the swearing tinker, the most widely read of all English writers.

The story of George Whitefield, one of the mightiest preachers the world has ever seen, is a striking illustration of the transforming grace of God. He was born at Gloucester, England, in 1714, the son of an inn-keeper. Two years later his father died, and the poor neglected boy grew up in the evil atmosphere of the tap-room, amid the coarse surroundings and bad example of its lounging and drinking patrons.

When he was fifteen years old, he tells us, he put on his blue apron, washed mops, cleaned rooms, and became the common drawer in the inn which his mother kept in the great port of Bristol. He describes his youth as exceedingly vicious. "If the Almighty had not prevented me by His grace," he says, “I had now been sitting in darkness under the shadow of death." It is probable, however, that his sensitive

conscience prompted these self accusings, in the sense in which Paul and John Wesley each declared himself to be the "chief of sinners."

The work of the Latin monk, Thomas à Kempis, "The Imitation of Christ," fell into his hands, and awakened in his soul the conviction of sin. The boy had exhibited some natural eloquence, and won some reputation by his school declamations. He earnestly desired to become a scholar. It was possible in those days for a poor student to enter Oxford as a “servitor," providing for his expenses chiefly by performing menial duties for his fellow-collegians. This young Whitefield resolved to do. Thomas à Kempis had made a deep impression upon his mind, but he had not yet apprehended the doctrine of Justification by Faith. He endeavoured to earn the pardon of his sins by prayer and penance. He has left on record that when sixteen years of age he began to fast twice a week for thirty-six hours together. He prayed many times a day, and received the Sacrament every ten days. He fasted himself almost to death during the forty days of Lent, and practised private devotions seven times a day. "But," he adds, "I knew no more that I was to be born a new creature in Jesus Christ than if I was never born at all.”

About this time he heard of the Methodists, and procured at last an introduction to the Oxford "Holy Club." "They built me up daily," he says, "in the knowledge and fear of God, and taught me to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” He now began to "live by rule," from which practice

the Methodists acquired their name.

He found this practice at first difficult, but at last delightful. He engaged in the practice of visiting the poor and neglected, the sick and the prisoners.

The state of morality at Oxford was very low. A subtle infidelity prevailed, and even the observance of religion was cold and formal. "This zealous young soul passed through," says Dr. Stevens, "an ordeal of agonizing self-conflicts. He selected the poorest food and the meanest apparel, and by dirty shoes, patched raiment, and coarse gloves, endeavoured to mortify his burdened spirit." The students threw dirt at him in the street, and when he knelt down to pray he felt such pressure of soul and body that the sweat dripped from his face.

God only knows," he writes, "how many nights I have lain upon my bed groaning under what I felt. Whole days and nights have I spent lying prostrate on the ground in silent or vocal prayer." During Lent, for the most part, he ate nothing but coarse bread and sage tea. He prayed under the trees at night, trembling with the cold, till the college bell called him to his room, where he often spent in tears and supplications the hours which should have brought him sleep. His health sank under these rigours. But at last he was able to lay hold of the Cross by a living faith, and the burden of his guilt rolled forever away.

Shortly after this he was ordained by the Bishop of Gloucester. "I can call heaven and earth to witness," he wrote, "that when the Bishop laid his