The wonderful quickening which the Great Revival gave to benevolent and charitable enterprises deserves at least a passing allusion. Besides sending forth into mission work such men as David Brainerd, and even Jonathan Edwards himself, it also laid the foundation more securely of many of our Christian colleges, and of not a few of our orphan asylums. Whitefield founded his Bethesda upon a tract of land covering about 500 acres, ten miles from Savannah, and laid out the plan of the building, employed workmen, hired a large house, took in 24 orphans, incurred at once the heavy responsibilities of a large family and a larger institution, encouraged, as he says, by the example of Professor Francke. Yet on looking back to this first undertaking he said: “I forgot that Professor Francke built in a populous country and that I was building at the very tail end of the world, which rendered it by far the most expensive part of all his Majesty’s dominions; but had I received more and ventured less, I should have suffered less and others more.” He undertook to provide for his 40 orphans and 60 servants and workmen with no fears nor misgivings of heart. “Near a hundred mouths,” he writes, “are daily to be supplied with food. The expense is great, but our great and good God, I am persuaded, will enable me to defray it.” He spent a winter at Bethesda in 1764, and of the success of his orphanage he says, “Peace and plenty reign at Bethesda; all things go on successfully. God has given me great favour in the sight of the governor, council, and assembly. A memorial was presented for an additional grant of land consisting of about 2,000 acres, and was immediately complied with. Every heart seems to leap for joy at the prospect of its future utility to this and the neighbouring colonies.” This great religious movement did not progress without stirring up much bitterness. It was even asserted by President Clap, of New Haven, that he came into New England to turn out the generality of their ministers, and to replace them with ministers from England, Ireland, and Scotland. “Such a thought,” replies Whitefield, “never entered my heart, neither has, as I know of, my preaching any such tendency.” It is said of one minister that he went merely to pick a hole in Whitefield’s coat, but confessed that God picked a hole in his heart, and afterward healed it by the blood of Christ. After one of his visits not less than twenty ministers in the neighbourhood of Boston did not hesitate to call Whitefield their spiritual father, tracing their conversion to his preaching. These men immediately entered upon a similar work, spreading the great awakening throughout that colony.