It is impossible to help respecting a lady whose whole life was devoted to so noble an aim.  In one sense she gave up more than any of the promoters of Methodism had the opportunity of doing.  For, in the first place, she had more to give up; and, in the second, it required more moral courage than the rest were called upon to exercise to run counter to all the prejudices of the class to which she naturally belonged.  Both by birth and by marriage she was connected with some of the noblest families in the kingdom, and, by general confession, religion was at a very low ebb among the nobility in Lady Huntingdon’s day.  The prominent part which she took in the Evangelical Revival exposed her to that contempt and ridicule from her own order which are to many harder to bear than actual persecution.  To the credit, however, of the nobility, it must be added that most of them learnt to respect Lady Huntingdon’s character and motives, though they could not be persuaded to embrace her opinions.  With a few exceptions, chiefly among her own sex, Lady Huntingdon was not very successful in her attempts to affect, to any practical purpose, the class to which she belonged; but she was marvellously successful in persuading the most distinguished persons in the intellectual as well as the social world to come and hear her favourite preachers.  No ball or masquerade brought together more brilliant assemblies than those which met in her drawing-room at Chelsea, or her chapel at Bath, or in the Tabernacle itself, to hear Whitefield and others preach.  To enumerate the company would be to enumerate the most illustrious men and women of the day.  The Earl of Chatham, Lord North, the Earl of Sandwich, Bubb Doddington, George Selwyn, Charles Townshend, Horace Walpole, Lord Camden, Lord Northington, the Earl of Chesterfield, Viscount Bolingbroke, the Earl of Bath, Frederick, Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cumberland, John, Lord Hervey, the Duke of Bolton, the Duke of Grafton, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, the Duchess of Buckingham, Lady Townshend, were at different times among the hearers.[758] Horace Walpole tells us that in 1766 it was quite the rage at Bath among persons in high life to form parties to hear the different preachers who ‘supplied’ the chapel.  The bishops themselves did not disdain to attend ‘incognito;’ curtained seats were placed immediately inside the door, where the prelates were smuggled in; and this was wittily called ‘Nicodemus’s corner.’  The Duchess of Buckingham accepted an invitation from Lady Huntingdon to attend her chapel at Bath in the following words:  ’I thank your ladyship for the information concerning the Methodist preachers; their doctrines are most repulsive and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect towards their superiors, in perpetually endeavouring to level all ranks and do away with all distinctions.  It is monstrous to be told you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth.  This is highly offensive