A witness of another kind may be introduced. Samuel Johnson was nearly of the same age as Whitefield. Both had been students in Pembroke College, Oxford. Johnson was fallible, faulty, and full of personal prejudices; but he was a man of great ability, and of unblemished truthfulness. He knew Whitefield, and was not unqualified to pronounce an opinion concerning him. That opinion must be judged by its own merits; but being expressed by a distinguished contemporary, it deserves attention. Boswell, Johnson's biographer, writes:-- "Of his fellow-collegian, the celebrated Mr. George Whitefield, he said: 'Whitefield's popularity is chiefly owing to the peculiarity of his manner. He would be followed by crowds, were he to wear a night-cap in the pulpit, or were he to preach from a tree."[215] "He never drew as much attention as a mountebank does; he did not draw attention by doing better than others, but by doing what was strange. Were Astley to preach a sermon standing upon his head on a horse's back, he would collect a multitude to hear him; but no wise man would say he made a better sermon for that. I never treated Whitefield's ministry with contempt: I believe he did good. He devoted himself to the lower classes of mankind, and among them he was of use. But when familiarity and noise claim the praise due to knowledge, art, and elegance, we must beat down such pretensions.'"[216] [215] Boswell's "Life of Johnson," chap. xvii. [216] Ibid., chap. xliii.