CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18TH CENTURY - [ CHAPTER 3 ] - { PT. 11 }

{ PT.  11 } - How brief--comparatively brief--has been my life compared to the vast labors that I see before me yet to be accomplished. But if I leave now, while so few care about heavenly things, the God of peace will surely visit you. After the sermon was over, Whitefield ate with a friend and then rode on to Newburyport, though greatly fatigued. Upon arriving there, he ate supper early and then went to bed. Tradition says that as he went upstairs with a lighted candle in his hand, he could not resist the inclination to turn around at the top of the stairs and speak to the friends who were assembled to meet him. As he spoke, the fire kindled within him, and before he could conclude, the candle that he held in has hand had actually burned down to the socket. He went to his bedroom, to come out no more alive. A violent fit of spasmodic asthma seized him soon after he got into bed, and before six o'clock the next morning, the great preacher was dead. If ever anyone was ready for his change, Whitefield was that man! When his time came, he had nothing to do except die. He was buried where he died, in a vault beneath the pulpit of the church where he had intended to preach. His sepulcher is shown to this very day, and nothing makes the little town where he died as famous as the fact that it contains the bones of George Whitefield. These are the leading facts in the life of the prince of English evangelists of a Hundred years ago. His personal character, the real extent of his usefulness, and some account of his style of preaching are subject that I must keep for the next chapter.                                          ________________________________________________________  2.  A servitor was someone who was an attendant, or servant, to his fellow students in return for his college expenses.                                3.  An updated edition, with modern examples, of William Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, is available from Aneko Press.                                                                                                    
4.  The Thirty-nine Articles are Thirty-nine doctrinal beliefs of the Church of England. They are sometimes referred to in this book simply as the Articles. The Prayer Book, or the Book of Common Prayer, is a liturgical book containing prayers and ceremonies for use in the Church of England.       
 

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