[ CHAPTER 3 ] - ( CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY ) - { PT. 4 }


{ PT.  4 } - Almost immediately after his ordination, Whitefield went to Oxford and earned his bachelor degree. He then began his regular ministerial life by undertaking temporary duty at the Tower Chapel in London for two months. While there, he preached continually in many London churches of Islington, Bishopsgate, St Dunstan's, St Margaret's, Westminster, and Bow in Cheapside. From the very beginning, he obtained a degree of popularity such as no preacher, before or since, has probably ever reached. Whether on week-days or Sundays, the churches were crowded wherever he preached, and an immense impression was made. The plain truth is that a really eloquent, extemporaneous preacher, preaching the pure gospel with most uncommon gifts of voice and manner, was at that time entirely unique in London. The congregations were taken by surprise and carried by storm. From London, George Whitefield went for two months to the village of Dummer, a little rural parish in Hampshire, near Basingstoke. This was a totally new sphere of action, and he seemed like a man buried alive among poor illiterate people. He was soon reconciled to it, though, and thought afterward that he benefited much by conversing with the poor. From Dummer, he accepted an invitation that had been much urged upon him by the Wesleys to visit the colony of Georgia in North America and assist in the care of an orphan house that had been set up near Savannah for the children of colonists. 

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