Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/97

 ;’ in the ‘Methodist’ (published 1761, but never acted) he figures again as ‘Squintum.’ These attacks, which were felt to be unworthy, raised Whitefield's repute instead of injuring it. He was seriously ill at the time, and for nearly a twelvemonth, from March 1671, was practically disabled from preaching. He felt, too, the pressure of financial obligations connected with his philanthropic undertakings. On 4 June 1763 he started from Greenock in the Fanny, for his sixth voyage to America. During his stay there of two years he exerted himself in procuring gifts of books for Harvard College library, lately burned (Works, iii. 307). His preaching powers were still limited, but his popularity showed no diminution. He reached England again on 7 July 1765 much enfeebled. On 6 Oct. he opened Lady Huntingdon's chapel at Bath. Wesley, who met him in London on 28 Oct., describes him as ‘an old, old man, fairly worn out … though he has hardly seen fifty years’ (, Journal). Yet he continued his missionary tours and his open-air preaching. From 17 June 1767 to 12 Feb. 1768 he corresponded with Secker respecting the conversion of his orphanage into a college. He was willing that the first master should be an Anglican clergyman, but refused to narrow the foundation by excluding others in the future, or by making the daily use of the common prayer-book a statutable obligation. On these points the governor and council of Georgia were with him. In August 1767 he attended Wesley's conference with Howel Harris. His wife, who died 9 Aug. 1768, was buried in Tottenham Court Road chapel. She left him 700l. He opened Lady Huntingdon's college at Trevecca on 24 Aug. 1768, and her chapel at Tunbridge Wells on 23 July 1769. His last sermons in England were preached at Ramsgate on 16 Sept., shortly before his final embarkation for America. His assistant, whom he left in charge of the London chapels, was Torial Joss (1731–1797), formerly a sea-captain.

His last public work was the settlement of a scheme for his ‘orphan house academy,’ or Bethesda College. He might probably have obtained for it a charter had he placed it under the direction of the state authorities, but he bequeathed the whole institution to Lady Huntingdon (the main building was destroyed by fire in June 1773, and never rebuilt). Leaving Savannah on 24 April 1770, he moved about Pennsylvania and New England, preaching nearly every day. His last letter was written on 23 Sept.; his last sermon, two hours in length and full of vigour, was given at Exeter, New Hampshire, on 29 Sept. That evening he reached the manse of Jonathan Parsons (1705–1776), presbyterian minister of Newburyport, Massachusetts, whom he had converted from Arminianism. He was to have preached next morning, and was going to bed tired, but was prevailed on to address, from the staircase, a gathered throng till his bed candle burned out. During the night he was seized with asthma, as he thought; it was probably angina pectoris. He died at six o'clock in the morning of 30 Sept. 1770, and was buried at his own desire in a vault beneath the pulpit of the presbyterian meeting-house, Federal Street, Newburyport. Among the pall-bearers was Edward Bass (1726–1803), rector of St. Paul's, Newburyport, afterwards (1797) first bishop of the protestant episcopal church in Massachusetts. The coffin was opened in 1784, when the body was found perfect; in 1801 it was again opened, the flesh was gone, but the ‘gown, cassock, and bands’ remained (, ii. 602). Later, the ‘main bone of the right arm’ was stolen by an admirer and sent to England, but restored in 1837 (ib. p. 606). At Newburyport there is a monument, erected in 1828 (figured in HARSHA). An inscription to his memory was added to the marble monument erected to his wife in Tottenham Court Road chapel (, p. 277). This monument has since perished; the chapel, now [1900] rebuilding, will contain a memorial. Funeral sermons were very numerous. The most important are those by Parsons and by Wesley; the latter was delivered both at the tabernacle and at Tottenham Court Road, in accordance with Whitefield's own request. His will is printed by Gillies, and reprinted by Philip; he died worth about 1,400l.

Whitefield's unrivalled effects as a preacher were due to his great power of realising his subject, and to his histrionic genius, aided by a fascinating voice of great compass and audible at immense distances (, Memoirs, 1818, i. 87). Lord Chesterfield, hearing him portray a blind beggar as he tottered over the edge of a precipice, bounded from his seat and exclaimed, ‘Good God! he's gone!’ (, 1872, p. 197; for a vivid description of the potency of his rhetoric see, Hist. of England, ii. 562 sq.; for its effect on Hume, , p. 378). His printed sermons by no means explain his reputation; it should be remembered that he preached over eighteen thousand sermons; only sixty-three were published by himself, forty-six of them before he was twenty-five years of age. Eighteen other sermons in print were published from