CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE 18th CENTURY - ( CHAPTER 4 ) - { PT. 14 }


 ( CHAPTER  4 )  -  { PT.  14 } - I am not come here to preach to stocks and stones! I have come to you in the name of the Lord God Almighty, and I must, and will, have an audience! The hearers were stripped of their apathy at once. Every word of the sermon after this was heard with deep attention, and the American gentleman never forgot it.                                                                        ONE MORE FEATURE IN WHITEFIELD'S PREACHING DESERVES SPECIAL NOTICE, AND THAT IS THE IMMENSE AMOUNT OF EMOTION AND FEELING THAT IT ALWAYS CONTAINED. It was not uncommon for him to weep profusely in the pulpit. Cornelius Winter, who often accompanied him in his latter journeys, went so far as to say that he hardly ever knew him to get through a sermon without some tears. There seems to have been nothing of pretense in this. He felt intensely for the souls before him, and his feelings found an outlet in tears. Of all the ingredients of his success in preaching, I suspect that none were as powerful as this. It awakened affections and touched secret springs in people that no amount of reasoning and expression could have done. It smoothed down the preconceptions that many had devised against him. They could not hate the man who wept so much over their souls! I came to hear you, one man said to him, with my pocket full of stones, intending to break your head; but your sermon got the better of me, and it broke my heart! Once you become convinced that someone cares about you, you will gladly listen to anything he has to say.

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