Note 47 — WHITEFIELD ORDAINED.

This was probably the Rev. Thomas Cole, born in Gloucester, in the year 1679, and educated for the ministry in the Independent Academy at Abergavenny. In 1718, he became the pastor of an Independent Church in his native city. When Whitefield was a pupil in St. Mary de Crypt School, he used frequently to attend Mr. Cole's ministry; and often diverted his schoolfellows by a ridiculous relation of some of the good man's pious anecdotes. On a schoolfellow admonishing him, and saying, "George, one day you may be a preacher yourself," the youngster replied, "If I am, I will not tell stories as old Cole does." A few years after this, Whitefield preached in Cole's pulpit, and used several anecdotes to illustrate the subject of his discourse. When the service was concluded, Mr. Cole, good-humouredly, laid his hand on Whitefield's shoulder, and said, "I find Whitefield can tell stories as well as old Cole." Stimulated by Whitefield's example, Mr. Cole became a sort of local itinerant, and, in the villages round about Gloucester, and frequently out of doors, preached three or four times every week. He was seized by death, whilst preaching at Nymphsfield, on August 4, 1742, and entered into the joy of his Lord in the sixty-fourth year of his age.—Theological Magazine, 1803, p. 461.