IT was just when I was maintaining this battle with worldly difficulties that the itinerant Methodists of England first made their appearance in our part of the country.

My wife had heard these preachers once or twice, and as it appeared to me that she came home rather low-spirited, I endeavoured to discourage her from going near them again; but she excited my own curiosity by the terms in which she spoke of the eloquence of the person she had listened to; and one evening, when Mr White-field next came to Maldoun, I determined to accompany her, being desirous of judging for myself as to the man's powers of declamation, and also willing to have something in the shape of distinct knowledge in my possession, in case I should afterwards see fit to oppose Joanne more seriously in her zeal for an entertainment, (such only I considered it,) the tendency of which I strongly suspected to be somewhat dangerous. We repaired together, accordingly, to the church-yard one fine summer's evening, and taking our seat on a tomb-stone, awaited, amidst a multitude, such as I should not have supposed the whole of our valley could have furnished, the forth-coming of the far-famed orator.

And an orator indeed he was. I need not describe him, since you must have read many better descriptions than I could frame; but I will say what I believe, and that is, that Whitefield was, as an orator, out of all sight superior to anything my time, or yours either, has witnessed. The fervour, the passion, the storm of enthusiasm, spoke in every awful, yet melodious vibration of by far the finest human voice I have ever heard. Every note reverberated, clear as a silver trumpet, in the stillness of the evening atmosphere. A glorious sun, slowly descending in a sultry sky, threw a gleam of ethereal crimson over the man and the scene. The immense multitude sat, silent as the dead below them, while the hand of a consummate genius swept, as with the mastery of inspiration, every chord of passion.