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would be suspended first and after wards excommunicated. An appeal to the bishop himself must have pro cured a satisfactory reply, for on the chancellor’s reading the letter he tried to persuade Whitefield that the latter had misunderstood him, and he with drew his opposition. OPEN AIR PREACHING. Under these circumstances it was that Whitefield inaugurated the mod ern revival of the ancient custom of open-air preaching. It was at Kings- wood collieries near Bristol that he started. This is his own account of it: “Finding that the pulpits are denied me, and the poor colliers are ready to perish for lack of knowledge, I went, to them, and preached on a mount to upwards of two hundred of them. Blessed be God that the ice is broken, and I have now taken the field. I thought it might be doing the service of my Creator, who had a mountain for His pulpit, and the heavens for His sounding-board, and who, when the Gospel was refused by the Jews, sent His servants into the highways and hedges.” The next time he preached to the colliers upwards of 10,000 gathered to hear him. “All was hush; I spoke “I FIND The King’s Business very help ful and cannot afford to be without it.” “I have enjoyed the- pages so much dur ing the past year. May God’s richest bless ing rest upon you, your work and workers.” “Have just finished reading The King’s Business from cover to cover, and enjoyed it so much that I am enclosing postal order to cover a year’s subscription.” “We are greatly pleased with your ex position of the Sunday School lesson.” “We think The King’s Business very help
for an hour, and so loud that all, I was told, could hear. Having no righteousness of their own to re nounce, they were glad to hear of a Jesus who was a friend to publicans and sinners, and came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. The first discovery of their being af fected was to see the white gutters made by their tears, which plentifully fell down their black cheeks as they came out of their coalpits. Hundreds and hundreds of them were sOon brought under deep conviction, which, as the event proved, happily ended in a sound and thorough conversion.” - Whitefield had now found his op portunity. Never again would he be stayed from preaching the Gospel by the fact that no pulpit was open to him; never again would he be satis fied to preach to a few hundreds in a church if there were thousands who would gladly listen to him outside; no longer would he be an “inshore” fisher of men, he would “launch out into the deep, and let down the net for a draught” where the fishes were. For thirty years did this indefatiga ble servant keep at his Master’s task in season and out of season, until he was called up higher. (To be concluded.) ful, and do not wish to be without it.” ' “The King’s Business came to hand all right. I am very much pleased with it, and would like to get the back numbers of Volume 5 as soon as you can send them.” “I am sending my subscription for The King’s Business and would like very much to have back numbers from the first of the year. It is a fine, Scriptural, safe, sure, sane, definite, deep, direct, Helpful, doctrinal and practical magazine, besides being an information bureau for the King’s business.”
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