Glimpses #197: George Whitefield: The Controversial Evangelist
Format: 4-page bulletin insert
Our Price: $2.00 per pack (each pack contains 25 copies). Back issues are available only in packs of 25 copies.
Product Description: Whitefield was a gifted orator who mesmerized audiences, using his voice in the manner of a skilled actor. He was a master storyteller, a skill he used often in his preaching. Once, when he described a storm at sea, his description was so vivid that a sailor in the audience actually cried out, "To the lifeboats! To the lifeboats!" George had endured many storms during his thirteen voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, and drew on this experience to paint his vivid word pictures. Some people even fell to the floor as though dead, so strong were their feelings of conviction when they heard Whitefield's messages. At a time when there were no microphones, this powerful preacher projected his voice so that he could be heard up to a mile away.
An Important Friendship:
George Whitefield's preaching provided a young Philadelphia printer with the opportunity to perform an experiment. Benjamin Franklin joined the crowds that thronged to hear Whitefield preach, but rather than listening to his message, Ben turned and walked away. As he walked further and further away, he stopped periodically to see if he could still hear the British preacher. Franklin said, "Imagining then a semicircle, of which my distance should be the radius, and that it were filled with auditors to each of whom I allowed two square feet, I computed that he might be heard by more than thirty thousand. This reconciled me to the newspaper accounts of his having preached to twenty-five thousand in the fields."
