Of this sermon, as taken in shorthand and printed, Whitefield received a copy while at Deal, and was much dissatisfied with it. He says, "This morning I received a surreptitious copy of my Tabernacle farewell sermon, taken, as the shorthand writer professes, verbatim as I spoke it. But surely he is mistaken. The whole is so injudiciously paragraphed, and so wretchedly unconnected, that I owe no thanks to the misguided, though it may be well-meant zeal of the writer and publisher, be they who they will." Had Whitefield known that the lad of seventeen who had thus taken down his sermon, would hereafter become a devoted and useful minister of Christ, the secretary of the London Missionary Society, the originator of the London Religious Tract Society, and for many years the editor of the London Evangelical Magazine, and the author of "Village Sermons," which have circulated by hundreds of thousands of volumes in both hemispheres, how would his heart have warmed towards him. Let us copy from the journal of George Burder, as given in his life by his son, the Rev. Dr. H. F. Burder, a short passage: "August, 1769. About this time I heard Mr. Whitefield preach several sermons, particularly his two last in London; that at Tottenham Court chapel on Sabbath morning, and that at the Tabernacle on Wednesday morning at seven o'clock. I remember a thought which passed my mind, I think, as I was going to hear his last sermon--'Which would I rather be, Garrick or Whitefield?' I thought each, in point of oratory, admirable in his way. I doubt not conscience told me which was best. I wrote Mr. Whitefield's sermons in shorthand, though standing in a crowd. The latter I copied out, and by the request of a friend it was printed in about a week. I remember sitting up part of a night to write it out, and at the same time I observed the comet which then appeared. The sermon was very incorrect, and Mr. Whitefield being detained at Deal before he left England, saw it, and complained of it."