Page:The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield, M.A., late of Pembroke-College, Oxford, and Chaplain to the Rt. Hon. the Countess of Huntingdon (1771 Volume 2).djvu/303

 the gospel in the East-Indies. Have you seen a little piece entitled Sunday Thoughts? I think you would like it much. But I forget myself. I wish you the best of blessings, all the blessings of the everlasting covenant, and beg leave to subscribe myself, dear Madam, Your most obliged and ready servant for 's sake, G. W.     LETTER DCCXCI. To Mr. W L.

My dear Mr. L,     London, Dec. 9, 1749.

I Find by your last kind letter that the king's business requires haste. I therefore immediately dispatched it to good Lady H, who I am persuaded will think it her highest privilege to serve the dear people of Cork. Whether your account of their sufferings has reached her Ladyship I cannot tell, but you will know soon. However this we know, that they have reached the ears of the blessed, who sitteth in heaven, and laughs all his enemies to scorn. He will take care that the bush, though burning, shall not be consumed, nay he will take care that it shall flourish even when in the midst of fire. In all our afflictions he is afflicted, and though the under shepherds be smitten, and his poor sheep for a while scattered, yet even this scattering shall be over-ruled for the propagation of the glorious gospel. It will be melancholy to have any preachers transported; but really the thoughts do not affect me so much, because I know what a field of action there is for them abroad. It has been my settled opinion for a long time, that 's labourers (at least some of them,) love home too much, and do not care enough for those thousands of precious souls, that are ready to perish for lack of knowledge in yonder wilderness. We propose having an academy or college at the Orphan-house in Georgia. Supposing the worst, hundreds may find a sweet retreat there. The house is large; it will hold an hundred. I trust my heart is larger, and will hold ten thousand. Be who or what they will, if they belong to, the language of my heart shall be, "Come in, ye blessed of the ." But perhaps this may not be the issue. The threatning storm