Trentham (a title borne by the Duke of Sutherland); the Earl of March (one of the titles of the Duke of Richmond); the Earl of Haddington; Edward Hussey, who married a daughter of the Duke of Montagu, and was created Earl of Beaulieu; Hume Campbell, afterwards created Baron Hume; the Earl of Sandwich, subsequently ambassador to the court of Spain, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Secretary of State for the Home Department; and Lord Bolingbroke, the friend of the Pretender, a man of great ability,――a statesman, a philosopher, and an infidel. Gillies adds to this long list the name of David Hume, who had recently returned from Italy in great chagrin, because the people of England “entirely overlooked and neglected” his “Inquiry concerning Human Understanding.” It is said that Hume considered Whitefield the most ingenious preacher he ever listened to, and that twenty miles were not too far to go to hear him. “Once,” said the great infidel, “Whitefield addressed his audience thus: ‘The attendant angel is about to leave us, and ascend to heaven. Shall he ascend and not bear with him the news of one sinner reclaimed from the error of his way?’ And, then, stamping with his foot, and lifting up his hands and eyes to heaven, he cried aloud, ‘Stop, Gabriel, stop, ere you enter the sacred portals, and yet carry with you the tidings of one sinner being saved.’ This address surpassed anything I ever saw or heard in any other preacher.” The Earl of Chesterfield and the Earl of Bath have been previously noticed as being among Whitefield’s hearers. One more name must be mentioned. Lady Townshend was one of Whitefield’s earliest admirers. Her wit and eccentricities were notorious. Of course she was a member of the Church of England; but Horace Walpole tells a story of George Selwyn detecting her crossing herself and praying before the altar of a popish chapel. Alternately, she liked and disliked Whitefield. “She certainly means,” said Walpole, “to go armed with every viaticum――the Church of England in one hand, Methodism in the other, and the Host in her mouth.”[221] Whitefield had the moral courage to tackle even this eccentric lady; and, towards the close of 1748, wrote to her as follows:―― “Yesterday, good Lady Huntingdon informed me that your ladyship was ill. Had I judged it proper, I would have waited upon your ladyship this morning; but I was cautious of intrusion. My heart’s desire and prayer to God is, that this sickness be not unto death, but to His glory, and the present and eternal good of your precious and immortal soul. O that from a spiritual abiding sense of the vanity of all created good, you may cry out,―― ‘Begone, vain world, my heart resign, For I must be no longer thine: A nobler, a diviner guest Now claims possession of my breast.’