mirable skill and fervor. By his affecting eloquence and address, he impressed on the minds of many, especially of the more soft and delicate sex, such a strong sense of sin and guilt, as of ten plunged them into dejection and despair. As his custom was to frequent those large cities and towns which are commonly best supplied with the means of instruction, it would to some ap. pear, that the love of fame and popular applause was one of his leading passions; but he always discovered a warm zeal for the honor of God and the happiness of mankind. Whilst he was almost worshipped by the lower order, men of superior rank and erudition, found him the polite gentleman, and the facetious and jocular companion. Though he loved good cheer, and frequented the houses of the rich and hospitable, yet he was an enemy to all manner of excess and intemperance. While his disposition to travel led him from place to place, his natural discernment enabled him to form correct opinions of the characters and manners of men, where ever he went. Though he gave a preference to no particular established church, yet good policy winked at all his eccentricities, as he every where supported the character of a steady friend to civil government. He had a great talent for exciting the curiosity of the multitude, and his roving manner stamped a kind of novelty on his instructions. When exposed to the taunts of the irreligious scoffer, and the ridicule of the flagitious, he remained firm to his

purpose, and could retort those weapons with as tonishing ease and dexterity, and render vice abashed under the lash of his satire and wit. To habitual sinners his address was generally applicable and powerful, and with equal ease could alarm the secure and confirm the unsteady.Though in prayer he commonly addressed the second person of the trinity in a familiar style, and in his sermons was eccentric in his composition, and expatiated on the occurrences of his own life; yet these seemed only shades to set off to greater advantage the lustre of his good qualities. In short, though he was said to have had many oddities, yet few will undertake to deny that religion in America, was greatly indebted to the zeal, diligence, and oratory of this extraordinary man. After a long course of peregrination, his fortune increased as his fame extended among his followers, and he erected two very extensive buildings for public worship in England, under the name of tabernacles; one in Tottenham court road, and the other at Moorfields; where by the help of some assistants, he continued several years, attended by very crowded congregations. By being chaplain to the countess Dowager of Huntingdon, he was also connected with two other religious meetings, one at Bath and the other at Tunbridge, chiefly erected under that virtuous lady's patronage. By a lively, fertile and penetrating genius, by the most unwearied zeal, and by a forcible and persuasive deliv

ery, he never failed of the desired effect upon his crowded and admiring audiences. In America, which had engaged much of his attention, he was destined to close his eyes. He died at Newbury-Port, thirty miles from Boston, in 1770. When the report of his decease reached the legislature of Georgia, honorable mention was made of him, and a sum of money appropriated with a unanimous voice for bringing his remains to Georgia, to be interred at his orphan house; but the inhabitants at Newbury-Port being much attached to him when living, objected to the removal of his body, and the design was relinquish

ed.

In a letter from Dr. Franklin to Dr. Jones, mentioning Mr. Whitefield, he says "I cannot forbear expressing the pleasure it gives me, to see an account of the respect paid to his memory by your assembly: I knew him intimately upwards of thirty years; his integrity, disinterestedness and indefatigable zeal, in prosecuting every good work, I have never seen equalled, I shall never see excelled." In delineating the character of this amiable man, I have dwelt with enthusiastic delight, because the tenor of his whole life corresponded with the principles he professed.

The orphan house was built under the direction of Mr. James Habersham, who had the intire management of the funds, and appears to have taken a warm interest in the success of Mr.

When the

Whitefield's laudable institution. house was put in a condition for the reception of orphan children, Mr. Habersham was appointed president, and was furnished with the necessary teachers, servants, books, and other necessaries for the use of the school and the cultivation of the land. In a letter from this gentleman to Governor Belcher of Massachusetts, he says,

surely the Lord intends to bring forth much good out of this establishment: the lands produced a better crop this year, than we had a right to expect, and indeed God seems pleased to smile upon all our efforts by the appearance of their prosperity our family now consists of eighty-four persons, men, women and children, besides nineteen servants, and five in the infirmary: the latter have a doctor and a nurse to attend them. I have now fifty-eight children under my care, who are orphans and objects of charity; nineteen of them are from Carolina, and the remainder of this province: surely God has many blessings in store for our reverend friend Mr. Whitefield."

In Mr. Habersham's letters, he frequently complains of the exercise of arbitrary power, by the justices who presided over the civil affairs of the province. He says that in many instances, students who promised to be ornaments to society, were withdrawn from school in the midst of an unfinished branch of education, and bound out as servants; that on these occasions he was

never consulted, and that his remonstrances were treated with contempt: that he several times addressed general Oglethorpe upon the same subject, but he refused to restrain the powers exercised by the magistrates. In one of his letters to the general, he says, "you have laid me under great obligations to your excellency, by requesting an undisguised disclosure of my sentiments respecting the general regulations and arrangements of the province; I shall give it to you with that candour which becomes an honest

man.

"I wish your excellency's plans of industry could be put in practice, but I do not think them practicable by the people who now inhabit this colony; a skilful industrious tenant would easily clear his rent, and provide a comfortable subsistence for himself and family; but unfortunately, there is too much of the genteel spirit prevailing amongst the inhabitants of the province, to hope for a prospect so desirable." He acknowledges his ignorance of farming, and states generally, the difficulties which will prevail in the cultivation of rice without some negroes, and the assistance of machinery to prepare it for market. He gives a correct view of the poverty of the pine land, laid off for the poor people indiscriminately, and the tenures on which they are allowed to hold their land; he makes some observations on the weak heads and corrupt hearts of the magistrates, as well as the profligate, licen