George Whitefield
This is a passage I read about 35 years ago, and I have never forgotten it. It is thrilling to imagine, and I pray we live to see such a scene once again (perhaps without the horses). At the very least, we should all pray that the Lord would move our own hearts with such enthusiasm, not so much for the preacher, but for the gospel. Perhaps we will all make hast to the church this week.
Sarah Edwards wrote to her brother in New Haven, the Rev. James Pierrepont, to tell him of George Whitefield’s visit and to encourage him to welcome the preacher:
It is wonderful to see what a spell he casts over an audience by proclaiming the simplest truths of the Bible. I have seen upwards of a thousand people hang on his words with breathless silence, broken only by an occasional half-suppressed sob. He impresses the ignorant, and not less the educated and refined. It is reported that while the miners of England listened to him, the tears made white furrows down their smutty cheeks. So here, our mechanics shut up their shops, and the day-laborers throw down their tools, to go and hear him preach, and few return unaffected…. He speaks from a heart all aglow with love and pours out a torrent of eloquence which is almost irresistible. Many, very many, persons in Northampton date the beginning of new thoughts, new desires, new purposes, and a new life, from the day on which they heard him preach of Christ and this salvation. Perhaps I ought to tell you that Mr. Edwards and some others think him in error on a few practical points; but his influence on the whole is so good we ought to bear with little mistakes. [Quoted from Hours at Home, August, 1867, p. 295, by J. B. Wakeley in Anecdotes of George Whitefield, 1879, p. 278.]
Sarah Edwards’ words were confirmed again many times even before her brother read the letter. Whitefield’s sermon at East Windsor on the Tuesday night had been the sixth since he left Northampton forty-eight hours before. On Wednesday he preached at Hartford and Wethersfield. On Thursday the record of a farmer, Nathan Cole, gives some idea both of the interest now kindled in spiritual things and of the way great congregations could be gathered at brief notice:
Now it pleased God to send Mr. Whitefield into this land and my hearing of his preaching at Philadelphia, like one of the old apostles, and many thousands flocking after him to hear the gospel and great numbers converted to Christ, I felt the Spirit of God drawing me by conviction…. Next I heard he was on Long Island and next at Boston and next at Northampton and then, one morning, all on a sudden, about 8 or 9 o’clock there came a messenger and said, “Mr. Whitefield preached at Hartford and Wethersfield yesterday and is to preach at Middletown this morning at 10 o’clock.” I was in my field, at work, I dropped my tool that I had in my hand and ran home and ran through my house and bade my wife get ready quick to go and hear Mr. Whitefield preach at Middletown and ran to my pasture for my horse with all my might, fearing I should be too late to hear him. I brought my horse home and soon mounted and took my wife up and went forward as fast as I thought the horse could bear, and when my horse began to be out of breath I would get down and put my wife in the saddle and bid her ride as fast as she could and not stop or slack for me except I bade her, and so I would run until I was almost out of breath and then mount my horse again, and so I did several times to favor my horse…for we had twelve miles to ride double in little more than an hour.
On high ground I saw before me a cloud or fog rising, I first thought off from the great river but as I came nearer the road I heard a noise, something like a low rumbling of horses feet coming down the road and this cloud was a cloud of dust made by the running of horses feet. It arose some rods (16.5 ft.) in the air, over the tops of hills and trees, and when I came within about twenty rods (320 ft.) of the road I could see men and horses slipping along in the cloud like shadows and when I came nearer it was like a steady stream of horses and their riders, scarcely a horse more than his length behind another, all of a lather and some with sweat….
We went down with the stream, I heard no man speak a word all the way, three miles, but everyone pressing forward in great haste, and when we got down to the old meetinghouse there was a great multitude—it was said to be 3 or 4000 people assembled together. We got off from our horses and shook off the dust, and the ministers were then coming to the meetinghouse. I turned and looked towards the great river and saw ferry boats running swift, forward and backward, bringing over loads of people, the oars rowed nimble and quick. Everything, men, horses and boats, all seemed to be struggling for life, the land and the banks over the river looked black with people and horses. All along the 12 miles I saw no man at work in his field but all seemed to be gone. [Ian H. Murray, Jonathan Edwards, A New Biography, (Banner of Truth Trust, Carlisle, PA, 1987), 163-164]