listened respectfully, if not to much purpose, to one who hardly knew what philosophy meant; fine gentlemen came to hear one who, in the conventional sense of the term, had very little of the gentleman about him; shrewd statesmen, who had a very keen appreciation of the value of money, were induced by the orator to give first copper, then silver, then gold, and then to borrow from their friends when they had emptied their own pockets.

What was the secret of his fascination?  His printed sermons which have come down to us are certainly disappointing.[748] They are meagre compositions enough, feeble in thought and badly expressed; and what is known of Whitefield’s mental powers would hardly lead us to expect them to be anything else.  But it is scarcely necessary to remark that to judge of the effects of any address delivered by the way in which it reads is misleading; and it should also be remembered that what would sound to us mere truisms were new truths to the majority of those to whom Whitefield preached.  A man of simple, earnest, loving spirit, utterly devoid of self-consciousness and filled with only one thought—­how best to recommend the religion which he loves—­may produce a great effect without much theological learning.  Such a spirit Whitefield had, if any man ever had.  Moreover, if the first qualification of an orator be action, the second action, and the third action, Whitefield was undoubtedly an orator.  A fine presence, attractive features, and a magnificent voice which could make itself heard at an almost incredible distance, and which he seems to have known perfectly well how to modulate, all tended to heighten the effect of his sermons.  As to the matter of them, there was at least one point in which Whitefield was not deficient.  He had the descriptive power in a very remarkable degree.

If it were not that the expression conveyed an idea of unreality—­the very last idea that should be associated with Whitefield’s preaching—­one might say that he had a good eye for dramatic effect.  On a grassy knoll at Kingswood; in the midst of ‘Vanity Fair’ at Basingstoke or Moorfields, where the very contrast of all the surroundings would add impressiveness to the preacher’s words; in Hyde Park at midnight, in darkness which might be felt, when men’s hearts were panic-stricken at the prospect of the approaching earthquake, which was to be the precursor of the end of the world; on Hampton Common, surrounded by twelve thousand people, collected to see a man hung in chains—­the scenery would all lend effect to the great preacher’s utterances.  Outdoor preaching was what he loved best.  He felt ’cribbed, cabined, and confined’ within any walls.  ‘Mounts,’ he said, ’are the best pulpits, and the heavens the best sounding-boards.’  ’I always find I have most power when I speak in the open air—­a proof to me that God is pleased with this way of preaching.’[749] ’Every one hath his proper gift.  Field-preaching is my plan.  In this I am carried as on eagle’s wings.  God makes way for me everywhere.’[750]