Page:The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield, M.A. (1771 Vol 1).djvu/268

 Correct me when I go astray, And lead me in thy perfect way. And now, dear Mr. C, I have in some measure unbosomed my heart. What shall I say more? Pray for me both in public and private; give thanks, as well as pray, especially for the mercies of this voyage. Dear Sir, adieu till I come on shore, which I hope will be very speedily, being now in soundings; then you shall hear again, willing, from  Your truly affectionate friend, brother, and servant,  G. W.     LETTER CCLXXII. To Mr. J H.

My dear Sir,     London, March 25, 1741.

I Wrote to you immediately on my coming on shore. We arrived at Falmouth last Wednesday was sevennight, and got here the Sunday following.—Blessed be, we had a summer's passage. Many of our friends, I find, are sadly divided, and, as far as I am able to judge, have been sadly misled. Congregations at Moorfields, and Kennington Common, on Sunday, were as large as usual.—On the following week days, quite contrary: Twenty thousand dwindled down to two or three hundred. It has been a trying time with me. A large orphan family, consisting of near a hundred, to be maintained, about four thousand miles off, without the least fund, and in the dearest part of his Majesty's dominions; also, above a thousand pounds in debt for them, and not worth twenty pounds in the world of my own, and threatened to be arrested for three hundred and fifty pounds, drawn for in favour of the Orphan house, by my late dear deceased friend and fellow-traveller Mr. S. My Bookseller, who, I believe, has got some hundreds by me, being drawn away by the Mns, refuses to print for me; and many, very many of my spiritual children, who, at my last departure from England, would have plucked out their own eyes to have given to me, are so prejudiced by the dear Messrs. W.'s dressing up the doctrine of Election in such horrible colours, that they will neither hear, see, nor