The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield, Volume 1 (of 2)Tyerman, L. (Luke)
History
The Life of the Rev. George Whitefield, Volume 1 (of 2)
Tyerman, L. (Luke)
Whitefield, George, 1714-1770
[187] The Rev. Griffith Jones was a memorable man. Born in
the parish of Kilredin, and educated in the Grammar-school
at Camarthen, he was ordained a deacon in 1708, and a priest
in 1709, by the learned Bishop Bull. He was preferred to the
Rectory of Llandowror by Sir John Philips of Picton Castle. At
the request of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
in Foreign Parts, he consented to go as a missionary among the
Indians; but, for some unknown reason, this arrangement was set
aside. Divinity was the grand study of Mr. Jones's life. He was
well versed in the writings of the most eminent English and
foreign divines. His sermons were solid, lively, striking, and
judicious. His voice was musical, his delivery agreeable, his
action proper. As a preacher, he soon became famous, and great
multitudes flocked to hear him wherever he went. Invitations to
preach in other churches besides his own were frequent; and,
in many instances, the crowds were such that he was obliged
to preach in the churchyards. On some of these occasions,
his sermons occupied three hours in delivery. He instituted,
and for twenty-four years maintained by subscriptions, the
circulating Welsh Free Schools, the object of which was to
teach the poor to read their native language, and to instruct
them in the principles of the Christian religion. At the time
of his decease, the number of his schools was more than 3,000,
and of their scholars 158,000, some of them sixty years old.
Principally by his efforts, the Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge was induced to print two editions of the Welsh Bible,
of 15,000 copies each, which were sold as cheap as possible, for
the benefit of the poor in Wales. He was also himself the author
of at least a dozen different publications. He died on the 8th
of April, 1761, in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and
was interred at his own parish church of Llandowror.--_Gospel
Magazine_, 1777.
"Saturday, March 11. Got safe to Bristol, with my dear
fellow-travellers, about eleven at night."
These extracts from Whitefield's Journal are important, as
shewing the work which had been begun, and which was prospering
in Wales before Whitefield and the Wesleys commenced their great
itinerant mission. The reader also has here the beginning of the
warm-hearted friendship between Whitefield and Howell Harris, and
of their evangelical co-operation, which issued in the founding of
the Societies of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists, and in other
results which cannot now be noticed. What the "measures" were which
Whitefield and Harris agreed upon for further promoting the work of
God in Wales, it is impossible to determine; but henceforth the two
were fellow-workers, and lived in the happiest amity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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