CHAPTER XVIII.

George Whitfield. — A Meeting-house. — Orphan House in Georgia. - Franklin's Pockets Emptied. The Quaker's Reply. - Franklin's Intimacy with Whitfield. Whitfield's Voice. His Old and New Sermons.—Letter to Whitfield.- Franklin's Religious Views.-Prosperity in Business. Views of Partnership. Franklin's Store.-In Boston.- Dr. Spence.Electrical Experiments. - Electrical Kiss.Magical Picture. - The Conspirators. — Electrical Pic-nic. - Electricity and Lightning. His Reputation in England. - The Royal Society.

IN the year 1739, that remarkable preacher, Rev. George Whitfield, of England, arrived in Philadelphia. He had won great celebrity in his own country by his extraordinary eloquence and zeal. In Philadelphia some of the clergy received him coldly and refused him their pulpits, but multitudes of all denominations flocked to hear him, in the fields. It was soon proposed to erect a building in which he might preach, and money enough for the purpose was at once raised. A house one hundred feet long and seventy broad was in a short time finished, the

property being vested in trustees, expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia; "so that," says Franklin, "even if the Mufti of Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mahometanism to us, he would find a pulpit at his service."

Franklin doubtless had a hand in the erection of an edifice on so liberal a basis; and the interest which we may readily suppose him to have taken in this affair, in favor of free speech against the narrowness that would have silenced Whitfield, may have first led to that intimate friendship which existed between them through life, wholly unlike as they were in many respects, and especially in religious doctrines. Whitfield was all on fire with religious zeal, and held to some of the most rigid tenets of Calvinism, while Franklin was a calm philosopher, who thought little of dogma and everything of practical morality. It is to the credit of both that they could be sincere mutual friends, each discerning and respecting the good that was in the other.

Franklin mentions an incident which shows this preacher's "wonderful power over the hearts and purses of his hearers." Whitfield, during a visit to Georgia, formed the plan of an Orphan House to be established in that colony, and on his return to Philadelphia he solicited contributions in aid of the object. Franklin, while admiring the benevolence of the design, thought it

better that the institution be established in Philadelphia, and the poor children brought to it from Georgia, which plan, in his opinion, would be attended with far less expense. He therefore refused to contribute to Mr. Whitfield's plan. But the philosopher had to bow to the preacher.

"I happened soon after," he says, "to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably, that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all.

"At this sermon there was also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments respecting the building in Georgia, and suspecting a collection might be intended, had by precaution emptied his pockets before he came from home. Towards the conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a strong inclination to give, and applied to a neighbor, who stood near him, to lend him some money for the purpose. The request was fortunately made to perhaps the only man in the company, who had the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. His answer was, 'At any other time, friend Hopkins, I would lend to thee freely; but not now; for thee seems to be out of thy right senses.'"

Franklin had a very high regard for Whitfield. "He is a good man, and I love him," he wrote to his brother.

Franklin gives the following instance of the terms on which they stood.

"Upon one of his arrivals from England at Boston, he wrote to me that he should come soon to Philadelphia, hut knew not where he could lodge when there, as he understood his old friend and host, Mr. Benezet, was removed to Germantown. My answer was, 'You know my house; if you can make shift with its scanty accommodation, you will be most heartily welcome.' He replied, that if I made that kind offer for Christ's sake, I should not miss of a reward. And I returned, 'Don't let me be mistaken; it was not for Christ's sake, but for your sake.""

Which, doubtless, was the simple fact, Franklin, in making the invitation, thinking only of accommodating his friend.

"Whitfield had a loud clear voice, and articulated his words so perfectly," says Franklin, “that he might be heard and understood at a great distance. He preached one evening from the top of the Court-house steps, which are in the middle of Market Street, and on the west side of Second Street, which crosses it at right angles. Both streets were filled with his hearers to a considerable distance. Being among the hindmost in Market Street, I had the curiosity to learn how far he could be heard, by retiring backwards down the street towards the river; and I found his voice distinct till I came near Front street, when some noise in that street obscured it. Imagining then a semicircle, of which my distance should be the radius, and that it was filled with auditors, to each of whom I allowed two square feet, I computed that he might be well heard by more than thirty thousand. This reconciled me to the newspaper accounts of his having preached to twenty-five thousand people in the fields, and to the history of generals haranguing whole armies, of which I had sometimes doubted.

"By hearing him often I came to distinguish easily between sermons newly composed, and those which he had

often preached in the course of his travels. His delivery of the latter was so improved by frequent repetitions, that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well tuned and well placed, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse; a pleasure of much the same kind with that received from an excellent piece of music."

A correspondence seems to have been kept up between Franklin and Whitfield. In 1764, the former wrote the following:

"Your frequently repeated wishes for my eternal as well as my temporal happiness, are very obliging, and I can only thank you for them, and offer you mine in return. I have myself no doubt that I shall enjoy as much of both as is proper for me. That Being who gave me existence, and through almost threescore years has been continually showering his favors upon me, whose very chastisements have been blessings to me, can I doubt that he loves me? And, if he loves me, can I doubt that he will go on to take care of me, not only here but hereafter? This to some may seem presumption; to me it appears the best grounded hope; hope of the future built on experience of the past."

Franklin's business was now constantly improving. He printed many books, most of them, it appears, theological; his general printing increased, and his newspaper, having a wide circulation, being almost the only one in Pennsylvania and the neighboring provinces, had now become very profitable.

"I experienced," he says, "the truth of the observation, that after getting the first four hundred pounds, it is more easy to get the second, money itself being of a prolific

nature."