Note 353 — SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA. (continued 3)

It cannot be denied that, throughout his marvellous career, Whitefield was, practically, a Dissenter. Thomas Olivers, who knew him well, observes: "That Mr. Whitefield was strongly prejudiced in favour of the Dissenters, as Dissenters, is notorious. I myself have, perhaps on forty occasions, both at my own house and elsewhere, heard him speak, with great partiality, of our English Dissenters in general—particularly of the Puritans of old, and also of our modern Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists. The whole world knows how uncommonly fond he was of the Scotch Presbyterians, and of the American Independents; while the Episcopalians, in both these countries, were almost entirely overlooked by him." (Olivers' "Rod for a Reviler," 1777, p. 22.)