“You are very dear to me,――all of you are very dear to me. I thank you ten thousand times for all expressions of your tender love, and your steadiness in the truths and cause of Christ. Sometimes I hope your prayers will draw me to England more speedily than I imagine. But what shall I say? Here are thousands and thousands, in these parts of America, who, as to spiritual things, know not their right hand from their left; and yet are ready to hear the gospel from my mouth. Within these four weeks, I have been a circuit of four hundred miles, and everywhere found the fields white already unto harvest. No one goes out scarcely but myself. “I trust the power of religion will be kept up in England and Wales. Though my coming may be delayed, I hope, when I am sent, it will be with a greater blessing. I am daily finishing my outward affairs, and shall think my call to England clearer, when I have provided for the support of the Orphan House. “My dear man, I could write all night, but I am so giddy by hard riding, and preaching daily in the heat, that I must defer being more particular till another opportunity. I hope my dear wife will supply my deficiencies. Remember me in the tenderest manner to all. Bid them pray me to England. Have you seen my last volume of five sermons? I hope the gates of hell will never prevail against the Tabernacle. Amen and amen!”[171] The next is an extract from Mrs. Whitefield’s letter, also addressed to Harris, and written at the same date:―― “PHILADELPHIA, _May 30, 1747_. “MY VERY DEAR FATHER AND FRIEND,――What shall I say to him I so much love and honour? My dear friends, in England, at the Tabernacle, and in Wales, can never be forgotten by me. “The Lord has done great things for and by my dear master. Since last October, great numbers of precious souls have been brought from darkness to light, in the six provinces. Last night, my dear came here from a four hundred miles journey, during which he preached about thirty times. We left Charleston on March 21st, and came to Bohemia, in Maryland, on April 27th. He preached all the way, which has very much fatigued him, and now he has a great fever upon him. “Yours in the best of bonds, “ELIZABETH WHITEFIELD. “P.S.――Since writing the above, the Lord has enabled my very dear master to preach, in the _new building_,[172] a most moving discourse upon growing in grace. I thought it would have been impossible for his strength to have held out.”[173] A few days afterwards, Whitefield wrote as follows:―― “PHILADELPHIA, _June 4, 1747_.