Gilbert Tennent, who was pressed into the field by Whitefield, was born in Ireland, and brought to this country by his father, and was educated for the ministry. As a preacher he was, in his vigorous days, equalled by few. His reasoning powers were strong, his language was forcible and often sublime, and his manner of address warm and earnest. His eloquence was, however, rather bold and awful than soft and persuasive, he was most pungent in his address to the conscience. When he wished to alarm the sinner, he could represent in the most awful manner the terrors of the Lord. With admirable dexterity he exposed the false hope of the hypocrite, and searched the corrupt heart to the bottom. Such were some of the qualifications of the man whom Whitefield chose to continue his work in America. He entered on his new labours with almost rustic simplicity, wearing his hair undressed and a large great-coat girt with a leathern girdle. He was of lofty stature and dignified and grave aspect. His career as a preacher in New Jersey had been remarkable, and now in New England his ministry was hardly less successful than that of Whitefield. He actually shook the country as with an earthquake. Wherever he came hypocrisy and Pharisaism either fell before him or gnashed their teeth against him. Cold orthodoxy also started from her downy cushion to imitate or to denounce him. So testifies the author of the “_Life and Times of Whitefield_.” Whitefield’s first reception in New York was not particularly flattering. He was refused the use of both the church and the court-house. “The commissary of the Bishop,” he says, “was full of anger and resentment, and denied me the use of his pulpit before I asked him for it.” He replied, “I will preach in the fields, for all places are alike to me.” At a subsequent visit he preached there seven weeks with great acceptableness and success. Even his first labours were not wholly in vain. Dr. Pemberton wrote to him that many were deeply affected, and some who had been loose and profligate were ashamed and set upon thorough reformation. The printers also at New York, as at Philadelphia, applied to him for sermons to publish, assuring him “that hundreds had called for them, and that thousands would purchase them.” Of his later visit he says, “Such flocking of all ranks I never saw before.” At New York many of the most respectable gentlemen and merchants went home with him after his sermons to hear something more of the kingdom of Christ.