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/57

 my only child and son about four months old. Many things occurred to make me believe he was not only to be continued to me, but to be a preacher of the everlasting gospel. Pleased with the thought, and ambitious of having a son of my own, so divinely employed, satan was permitted to give me some wrong impressions, whereby, as I now find, I misapplied several texts of scripture. Upon these grounds I made no scruple of declaring, "that I should have a son, and that his name was to be John." I mentioned the very time of his birth, and fondly hoped, that he was to be great in the sight of the. Every thing happened according to the predictions, and my wife having had several narrow escapes while pregnant, especially by her falling from a high horse, and my driving her into a deep ditch in a one-horse chaise a little before the time of her lying-in, and from which we received little or no hurt, confirmed me in my expectation, that would grant me my heart's desire. I would observe to you, that the child was even born in a room, which the master of the house had prepared as a prison for his wife for coming to hear me. With joy would she often look upon the bars and staples and chains which were fixed in order to keep her in. About a week after his birth, I publickly baptized him in the Tabernacle, and in the company of thousands solemnly gave him up to that , who gave him to me. A hymn, too fondly composed by an aged widow, as suitable to the occasion, was sung, and all went away big with hopes of the child's being hereafter to be employed in the work of ; but how soon are all their fond, and as the event hath proved, their ill-grounded expectations blasted, as well as mine. House-keeping being expensive in London, I thought best to send both parent and child to Abergavenny, where my wife had a little house of my own, the furniture of which, as I thought of soon embarking for Georgia, I had partly sold, and partly given away. In their journey thither, they stopped at Gloucester at the Bell-Inn, which my brother now keeps, and in which I was born. There, my beloved was cut off with a stroke. Upon my coming here, without knowing what had happened, I enquired concerning the welfare of parent and child; and by the answer, found that the flower was cut down. I immediately called all to join in prayer, in which I blessed the Father of mercies for giving me