white gutters down their
cheeks--black as they came from the colliery--and, what is still more to
the purpose, changed their whole manner of life and became sober,
God-fearing citizens in consequence of what they heard; sceptical
philosophers listened respectfully, if not to much purpose, to one who
hardly knew what philosophy meant; fine gentlemen came to hear one who,
in the conventional sense of the term, had very little of the gentleman
about him; shrewd statesmen, who had a very keen appreciation of the
value of money, were induced by the orator to give first copper, then
silver, then gold, and then to borrow from their friends when they had
emptied their own pockets.

What was the secret of his fascination? His printed sermons which have
come down to us are certainly disappointing.[748] They are meagre
compositions enough, feeble in thought and badly expressed; and what is
known of Whitefield's mental powers would hardly lead us to expect them
to be anything else. But it is scarcely necessary to remark that to
judge of the effects of any address delivered by the way in which it
reads is misleading; and it should also be remembered that what would
sound to us mere truisms were new truths to the majority of those to
whom Whitefield preached. A man of simple, earnest, loving spirit,
utterly devoid of self-consciousness and filled with only one
thought--how best to recommend the religion which he loves--may produce
a great effect without much theological learning. Such a spirit
Whitefield had, if any man ever had. Moreover, if the first
qualification of an orator be action, the second action, and the third
action, Whitefield was undoubtedly an orator. A fine presence,
attractive features, and a magnificent voice which could make itself
heard at an almost incredible distance, and which he seems to have known
perfectly well how to modulate, all tended to heighten the effect of his
sermons. As to the matter of them, there was at least one point in which
Whitefield was not deficient. He had the descriptive power in a very
remarkable degree.

If it were not that the expression conveyed an idea of unreality--the
very last idea that should be associated with Whitefield's
preaching--one might say that he had a good eye for dramatic effect. On
a grassy knoll at Kingswood; in the midst of 'Vanity Fair' at
Basingstoke or Moorfields, where the very contrast of all the
surroundings would add impressiveness to the preacher's word