considerable wealth, when he renounced the seas and became one of the great lay preachers. Whitefield insisted that he should abandon the chart, the compass, and the deck, and take to the pulpit. He did so. In London his fame was second only to that of Whitefield himself.

He became Whitefield's coadjutor at the Tabernacle, where, first as associate pastor, and afterwards as pastor, he continued for thirty years. The chapel at Tottenham Court Road was his chief field, and John Berridge called him "Whitefield's Archdeacon of Tottenham."

We cannot particularise others: there were Sampson Staniforth, the soldier, Alexander Mather, Christopher Hopper, John Haime, John Parson-and these are only representative names. There were crowds of them; they travelled to and fro, with hard fare, throughout the land. Their excursions were not recreations or amusements. Attempt to think what England was at that time. It is a fact that they often had to swim through streams and wade through snows to keep their appointments; often to sleep in summer in the open air, beneath the trees of a forest. Sometimes a preacher was seen with a spade strapped to his back, to cut a way for man and horse through the heavy snow-drifts. Highwaymen were abroad, and there are many odd stories about their encounters with these men; but, then, usually, they had nothing to lose. Rogers, in his Lives of the Early Preachers, tells a characteristic story. One of these lay preachers, as usual on horseback, was waylaid by three robbers; one of them seized the bridle of his horse, the second put a pistol to his head, the third began to pull him from the saddle-all, of course, declaring that they would have his money or his life. The preacher looked solemnly at them, and asked them "if they had prayed that morning." This confounded them

a little, still they continued their work of plunder. One pulled out a knife to rip the saddlebag open; the preacher said, "There are only some books and tracts there; as to money, I have only twopence halfpenny in my pocket ;" he took it out and gave it them. "All that I have of value about me," he said, "is my coat. I am a servant of God; I am going on His errand to preach; but let me kneel down. and pray with you; that will do you more good than anything I can give you." One of them said, "I will have nothing to do with anything we can get from this man!" They had taken his watch; they restored this, and took up the bags and fastened them again on the horse. The preacher thanked them for their great civility to him; "But now," said he, "I will pray !" and he fell upon his knees, and prayed with great power. Two of the rascals, utterly frightened at this treatment, started off as fast as their legs could carry them; the third-he who had first refused to have anything to do with the job-continued on his knees with the preacher; and when they parted company he promised that he would try to lead a new life, and hoped to become a new man.

Should the reader search the old magazines and documents in which are enshrined the records of the early days of the Revival, he will

く

find many incidents showing what a romantic story is this of the self-denials, the difficulties, and enthusiasm of these men, whose best record is on high-most of them faithful men, like Alexander Coates, who, after a life of singular length and usefulness in the work, went to his rest. His talents were said to be extraordinary, both in preaching and in conversation. Just as he was dying, one of his brethren called upon him and said, "You don't think you have followed a cunningly-devised fable now ?" "No, no, no!" said the dying man. "And what do you see?" "Land ahead!" said the old man. They were his last words. Such were the men of this Great Revival; so they lived their lives of faithful usefulness, and so they passed away.

CHAPTER VIII.

A GALLERY OF REVIVALIST PORTRAITS.

If we were writing a sustained history of the Revival, we might devote some pages, at this period, to notice the varied forms of satire and ribaldry by which it was greeted. While the noble bands of preachers were pursuing their way, instructing and awakening the popular mind of the country, not only heartless and affected dilettanti, like Horace Walpole, regarded it with the condescension of their supercilious sneers, but for the more popular taste there was The Spiritual Quixote, a book which even now has its readers, and in which Whitefield and his followers were held up to ridicule; and Lackington, the great bookseller, in his disgraceful, but entertaining autobiography, attempted to cover the Societies of Wesley with his scurrility. It was about the year 1750 that The Minor was brought out on the stage of the Haymarket Theatre; the author was that great comedian, but most despicable and dissolute character, Foote. The play lies before us as we write; we have taken it down to notice the really shameless buffoonery and falsehood in