Note 198 — COMMENCEMENT OF OUTDOOR PREACHING. (continued 2)

The Universal Weekly History of May 5 contained the following: "On Saturday last, the Rev. Mr. Whitefield, being denied the use of a pulpit, preached to a prodigious concourse of people on a tombstone, in Islington churchyard. Last Sunday morning, he did the same from the wall near Bedlam; and, in the afternoon, near the gallows on Kennington Common, to a vast number of people." Read's Weekly Journal, of the same date, says: "The followers of Parson Whitefield have done a vast deal of damage to the tombs and gravestones in Islington churchyard." It also adds that the question of Whitefield's exclusion from the pulpit of Islington Church was decided by a committee of ten; five chosen by Mr. Stonehouse, the vicar, and five by the parish vestry. Their decision was unanimous.