CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18th CENTURY - ( CHAPTER 4 ) - { PT. 12 }


 ( CHAPTER  4 )  -  { PT.  12 }                                          The beggar was deserted by his dog near the edge of a cliff, and he had nothing to aid him in groping his way except his staff. Whitefield so warmed with his subject and enforced it with such descriptive power that the whole audience was kept in breathless silence, as if they saw the poor old man. After a while, when the beggar was about to take the fatal step that would have hurled him down the precipice to certain destruction, Lord Chesterfield actually made a rush forward to save him, exclaiming aloud, He is gone! he is gone! The noble Lord Chesterfield had been so completely carried away by the preacher that he forgot that it was only a depiction of the events.                                ANOTHER LEADING CHARACTERISTIC OF WHITEFIELD'S PREACHING WAS HIS TREMENDOUS EARNESTNESS. One poor uneducated man said of him that He preached like a lion! George Whitefield succeeded in showing people that he at least believed all that he was saying and that his heart, soul, mind, and strength were intent on making them believe it too. His sermons were not like the morning and evening gun at Portsmouth, a kind of formal discharge fired off as a routine matter that disturbs no one. Whitefield's sermons were all life and fire. There was no getting away from them. Sleep was next to impossible. You must listen whether you liked it or not. There was a holy violence about him that firmly grabbed your attention by storm.                              

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