Note 316 — SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA. (continued 2)

The commissary preached against Whitefield; and the Rev. Joseph Smith, Independent minister, on March 26, defended him in a sermon founded upon the text, "I said, I will answer also my part, I also will shew my opinion." First of all, Mr. Smith dwells on the doctrines which Whitefield everywhere preached; namely, original sin, justification by faith alone, and the new birth. He then proceeds to give his opinion of Whitefield himself. He says: "He is certainly a finished preacher, and a great master of pulpit oratory, while a noble negligence runs through his style. How is his tongue like the pen of a ready writer! With what a flow of words did he speak to us upon the great concerns of our souls! In what a flaming light did he set eternity before us! How did he move our passions with the constraining love of Christ! The awe, the silence, the attention which sat upon the face of so great an audience, was an argument how he could reign over all their powers. So charmed were the people with his manner of address, that they shut up their shops, forgot their secular business, and laid aside their schemes for the world; and the oftener he preached, the keener edge he seemed to put upon their desires of hearing him again. How bold and courageous did he look! He was no flatterer, would not suffer men to settle upon their lees, and did not prophesy smooth things. The politest, the most modish of our vices, the most fashionable of our entertainments, he struck at, regardless of every one's presence but His in whose name he spake. How rich has he been in all good works! What an eminent pattern of piety towards God! How holy and unblameable in all conversation and godliness! He affects no party, nor sets himself at the head of any. He is always careful to time his Sabbath discourses, so as not to interfere with the stated hours of worship in that Church of which he is a professed member and minister; because, as he told us, he would not tempt away hearers from their proper and respective pastors. He appears to me a man full of the Holy Ghost and of faith. Though his prayers in this pulpit were all extempore, yet how copious, how ardent, with what compass of thought! He prays in public with that spirit, variety, and fluency which could only be expected from a man who was no stranger to the sacred duty in private. For charity, as it consists in compassion and acts of beneficence, we have few men like-minded. Strolling and vagabond orphans, poor and helpless, without purse and without a friend, he seeks out, picks up, and adopts into his family. He is now building a house, and laying the best foundation for their support and religious instruction, without any visible fund; encouraged to go on in faith, from the shining example of the great professor in Germany, who began a like pious work with almost nothing, and raised it to such perfection as is the wonder of all who hear it."

Such was the public testimony of the Independent minister at Charleston, delivered at the time when the clergyman of the Church of England was doing his utmost to bring young Whitefield into disrepute. His chapel, in which Whitefield preached, and where he collected upwards of £70 sterling for the Orphanage, was then called the "White Meetinghouse," and occupied the site of the present circular church. ("Methodism in Charleston," p. 20.)