This turbid wrathfulness was far from pleasant; but it failed in its purpose to put an end to Whitefield's preaching in the open air, and equally failed in diminishing the number of Whitefield's hearers. No doubt his action was irregular; perhaps, also, in his impetuous zeal, he sometimes indulged in censorious remarks respecting the clergy of the Established Church. As yet he was not a Dissenter; but his open connection with the Moravian brotherhood in Fetter Lane, and his repeated interviews with Quakers, fairly exposed him to the reasonable suspicion of his enemies, that he had Dissenting proclivities. He himself seems to have seen and felt this, and hence the somewhat ostentatious sacramental attendance at St. Paul's on May 20th. All this must be conceded; and it must likewise be allowed, that one of Whitefield's besetting sins, or rather one of his infirmities, was an unconsciously indulged inflatedness of mind, which led him (innocently enough on his own part) to the employment of bombastic expressions, and to the utterance of sentiments often silly, sometimes fanatical, and generally such as a more prudent and worldly wise man would not have used. It would be idle, it would be dishonest, to deny that his published Journals abound in such-like faults, though they have not in the present work been quoted. But what then? Was it right, was it fair, to treat him with so much contempt and ridicule? His moral character was without a speck. His intellect and literary attainments, though not equal to those of his friend Wesley, made him immensely superior to scores and hundreds who were enjoying rich livings in the Established Church. He had no wish to share their ecclesiastical emoluments, but was quite content with his mongrel parish among the swamps of far-distant Georgia. It is true, he desired to have the use of some of their churches, to which he was not at all entitled; but he desired even this not for his own benefit, but rather that he might have the opportunity of proclaiming, trumpet-tongued, some of the forgotten truths of the word of God, and that he might collect a little money for the orphans in Georgia. The clergy had a perfect right to deny him the use of their churches. Perhaps, being so young a man, it was hardly modest for him to expect the privilege of using them; but, having no other place in which to preach, why should he not be allowed to preach in Kingswood, at Rose Green, on Hannam Mount, in Moorfields, on Kennington Common, and Hampstead Heath? His zeal in the cause of Christ, and his love for the souls of men, were not fictitious. They were divinely implanted principles, the results of a genuine conversion, and which ought not to be repressed. Wherever Whitefield met a man, he met a sinner redeemed by the sacrificial death of his Divine Redeemer. As yet he had not become a Calvinist. On Kennington Common, he felt no restraint in "offering Jesus Christ to all" the thousands there assembled. Christ had died for them.