IN 1748, after an absence of four years, Whitefield returned to his native land; not exactly from choice, but because he was afraid to risk his restored health in America again, during the heat of July. He embarked at Bermudas in June, on board the Betsey, and lived, as he expresses it, "like people that came from the continent, not from an island-so bountiful were his friends." His appetite was, however, somewhat spoiled one day. The Betsey was chased by a large French vessel, and shot at thrice. "We gave up all for lost! We were almost defenceless. I was dressing myself to receive our visitors. In the mean time our captain cried, The danger is over.' The Frenchman turned about and left us. In the Channel we expect such alarms daily."

During the voyage he abridged, and endeavoured to gospelize, Law's "Serious Call;" and finished the revisal of his own journals: but he was not allowed to preach on board. This, he says, " may spare my lungs, but it grieves my heart." It seems he could not write with much composure. The reason he assigns for this is, "We have four gentlewomen on board; so you may guess how it is!"

His own private review of his sayings, doings, and writings, up to this time, I have recorded in "The Specimens of Whitefield," at the close of this volume. It is equally humble and honest; and it led to many improvements in his conduct and spirit towards the opponents of truth and godliness,

The prospect of home led him naturally to anticipate the pleasure of seeing his aged and beloved mother. He had been so long absent, and she was so poor, that he did not know, when he wrote, where she resided. He added to the prayer for her, "Oh that I may see you laden with holiness, and bearing fruit in old age," the request, "Let me know whether stand in need of any thing." There was a contemporary clergyman of notoriety, Sterne, who could weep

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over a dead ass, and a caged starling, who neither prayed nor felt for his aged mother, although she was in distress: but Sterne was a wit, not a methodist!

On his arrival in London, Whitefield was welcomed by thousands, with a joy which well nigh overcame them and himself too. One cause of this joy was, that a large church was open to him on his return. It was St. Bartholomew's, where he had a thousand communicants on the first Sabbath, besides "multitudes flocking to hear." How different from the first reception he met with on his former return from America. The fact is, both he and the Wesleys were now wiser men.

He was not, however, without his cares on this occasion. His outward affairs were " far behind hand." Antinomianism had "made sad havoc " in the religious societies, during his absence. "I came," he says, "at a critical juncture." One of the hyper party threatened to rival him in Moorfields, a sphere which these zealots have seldom coveted. Whitefield sent him word-" The fields are no doubt as free to you as to another. God send you a clear head and a clean heart. I intend preaching there on Sunday evening." He did, and found"Moorfields as white to harvest as ever." In other respects also he had soon the satisfaction of seeing “things take a good turn" in London.

At this time he renewed his intimacy with Hervey, who was now popular as a writer; and that not undeservedly. It has been fashionable, of late, to denounce his florid style; and so far as this prevents Hervey from becoming a model to young preachers or imaginative writers, it is a good fashion. It is however, bad, so far as it prevents the young from reading his works, or from yielding to their inspiration. They cannot be read without interest by the young. Both the "Meditations" and "Theron and Aspasio," have an irresistible charm to them. They lay hold upon the heart at once, and are never forgotten.

The secret of this fascination is their sympathy with visible nature, as young eyes see it, and young hearts enjoy it. Hervey reflects the heavens and the earth to them, in the broad and brilliant forms which haunt their own dreams. Who does not remember this? True; we cease to read Hervey, and learn to find fault with his style; but which of us would have relished or read, in early life, the chaster works on piety, which now charm us? Even our taste for the simple, is the reaction

of the gorgeous. I owe this passing tribute to Hervey. My love of nature was made religious by him. And had I never tried to imitate him, I should never have formed a puritanical style for myself.

The second reformation in this country owes much to Hervey. He was the Melancthon of it, by his writings. They suited, as Whitefield says of them, "the taste of the polite world." They refined the taste of the Methodists also. The former read them, because they were flowery ; the latter because they were savoury. The one looked at grace through their medium, with less prejudice; the other at nature, with more delight than formerly. Whitefield saw this twofold influence of Hervey's works, and wisely said nothing against their style, when they were submitted to his revision.

Amongst all Whitefield's converts, no one has been more useful than Hervey as a writer. That he was one of them is certain, although seldom remembered. In a letter to Whitefield, he says, "Your journals and sermons, and especially that sweet sermon on What think ye of Christ?' were a mean of bringing me to the knowledge of the truth." Brown's Memoirs of Hervey. This will account for the deference he paid to his spiritual father, and for the eulogium he pronounced on him at Doddridge's: "I never beheld," he said, “ so fair a copy of our Lord; such a living image of the Saviour; such exalted delight in God; such unbounded benevolence to man; such steady faith in the divine promises; such fervent zeal for the divine glory; and all this without the least moroseness of humour, or extravagances of behaviour; but sweetened with the most engaging cheerfulness of temper, and regulated by all the sobriety of reason and wisdom of Scripture: insomuch, that I cannot forbear applying the wise man's encomium on an illustrious woman, to this eminent minister of the everlasting gospel Many sons have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.""

It was not in return for this compliment, but before it, that Whitefield introduced Hervey's works into America, and rejoiced in their popularity. "The author," he said, "is my old friend; a most heavenly-minded creature; one of the first Methodists, who is contented with a small cure, and gives all he has to the poor. We correspond with, though we cannot see, each other." Gillies says, that Whitefield left a blank in his manuscripts thus,-" Here a character of Hervey ;" and

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adds, "What a pity he did not write it down!" Doddridge also was not ashamed to preface a work of Hervey's, although Warburton calls it a weak rhapsody, and said it would degrade the Doctor.

At this time his acquaintance with the Countess of Huntingdon commenced. She had engaged Howel Harris to bring him to Chelsea, "as soon as he came ashore." He went and preached twice in her drawing-room, in a manner that determined her to invite some of the nobility to hear him.

As she had, from this time, much influence upon his future movements, the following masterly sketch of her history and character will tell best here. It is by a descendant of Doddridge, who hates Calvinism.

"The Right Honourable Selina Countess Dowager of Huntingdon, second daughter, and one of the co-heiresses of Washington, second Earl of Ferrars, who was born August 13th, 1707, and married in the year 1728, to Theophilus Earl of Huntingdon, by whom she had issue four sons and three daughters: of these, only one, the Countess of Moira, survived their mother, whose death occurred in 1791, at the age of eighty-four, and after a widowhood of forty-five years.

"Upon the decease of her mother, the Countess of Moira received an accession to her income of fifteen hundred pounds per annum, and her son, Lord Rawden, a bequest of two thousand two hundred pounds. Lady Huntingdon also left an annuity of a hundred a year to her friend Lady Ann Erskine, and the sum of four thousand pounds to be disposed of in charitable gifts, at the direction of the Earl of Dartmouth, Sir Richard Hill, and her chaplain, Mr. Haws. The residue of her fortune was bequeathed for the support of sixty-four chapels, which she had contributed to establish throughout the kingdom.

"Few characters have been more erroneously estimated by the world than that of Lady Huntingdon. She was, in fact, neither the gloomy fanatic, the weak visionary, nor the abstracted devotee, which different parties have delighted to paint her.

"The circumstance of her having forbade the publication of her papers, and her retired mode of life, for even her charities were principally distributed through the medium of her chaplains, were the causes which baffled the curiosity of those who felt desirous of discovering the motives which

could tempt a woman to resign the allurements of station, and to devote, in addition to what is mentioned in her will, at least a hundred thousand pounds, given during her life, for the extension of peculiar religious opinions, without any view towards that personal distinction which has been too often a leading inducement with the founders of new sects.

"In the absence of circumstantial detail, all that remains is to collect the few personal traits which are here and there accidentally mentioned, and to unite them with facts of public notoriety. Having thus combined these scattered rays, their condensed light at once reveals the actual character of this remarkable woman; and we perceive her peculiarities to have arisen from the blight of domestic sorrow, acting upon a mind swayed, to a great extent, by the ima gination, and therefore, highly susceptible of religious impressions.

"In the spring day of her life, there was little to distinguish Lady Huntingdon from the many charming and intelligent young women who ever grace the courtly circle in which she moved. She was naturally gay, and the quickness of her disposition rendered her sprightly and amusing; but it does not appear that her gaiety tended towards dissipation, or that her conversational talents amounted to wit. How far her religious education had been attended to is not indicated, but there is no reason to surmise that it was defective; and had not her maternal and conjugal affections suffered from the shock of family bereavements, her character would probably have remained not less worthy, but far less remarkable, than it is at present.

"The loss of children, and the death of her lord, which occurred before the charms of existence had with her been subdued by the lapse of time, gave a blow to the elasticity of her mind from which it never recovered. When the first paroxysm of grief had subsided, her exhausted feelings naturally sought a refuge in devotion; and it is only to be regretted that under the melancholy impressions of the period, her mind the more deeply imbibed the Calvinistic tenets." (Not exactly!)

"An affecting incident shows that at this time she still retained the fond recollections of human regard in all their wonted intensity. Lady Huntingdon had a fine bust of herself placed upon the tomb of her deceased husband; and it is but justice to observe, that the widowed bosom in which his