"He is certainly a finished preacher. A noble negligence ran through his style. The passion and flame of his expressions will, I trust, be long felt by many. My pen cannot describe his action and gestures, in all their strength and decencies. He appeared to me, in all his discourses, to be very deeply affected and impressed in his own heart. How did that burn and boil within him, when he spake of the things which he had 'made touching the King.' How was his tongue like the pen of a ready writer, touched as with a coal from the altar. With what a flow of words, what a ready profusion of language, did he speak to us upon the great concerns of our souls. In what a flaming light did he set _our_ eternity before us. How earnestly he pressed Christ upon us. How did he move our passions with the constraining love of _such_ a Redeemer. The awe, the silence, the attention which sat upon the face of the great audience, was an argument how he could reign over all their powers. Many thought he spake as never man spake before him. So charmed were the people with his manner of address, that they shut up their shops, forgot their secular business, and laid aside their schemes for the world; and the oftener he preached, the keener edge he seemed to put upon their desires to hear him again. "How awfully, with what thunder and sound, did he discharge the artillery of heaven upon us. And yet, how could he soften and melt even a soldier of Ulysses with the mercy of God. How close, strong, and pungent were his applications to the conscience; mingling light and heat; pointing the arrows of the Almighty at the hearts of sinners, while he poured in the balm upon the wounds of the contrite, and made broken bones rejoice. Eternal themes, the tremendous solemnities of our religion, were all _alive_ upon his tongue. So, methinks--if you will forgive the figure--St. Paul would _look_ and speak in a pulpit. In some such manner, I am tempted to conceive of a seraph, were he sent down to preach among us, and to tell us what things he had seen and heard above. How bold and courageous did he look. He was no flatterer; he would not suffer men to settle on their lees; and did not prophesy smooth things, nor sew pillows under their arms. He taught the way of God in truth, and regarded not the persons of men. He struck at the politest and most modish of our vices, and at the most fashionable entertainments, regardless of every one's presence, but His in whose name he spoke with this authority. And I dare warrant, if none should go to these diversions until they have answered the solemn questions he put to their consciences, our theatre would soon sink and perish. I freely own he has taken my heart." CHAPTER V. CONTINUATION OF WHITEFIELD'S SECOND VISIT TO AMERICA. 1740.