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Showing posts from September, 2011

Whitefield compells Ben Franklin to give his Ben Franklins

I like Benjamin Franklin's description of Whitefield's appeal for money to build an orphanage in Georgia . . . Whitefield waited many months before he took the first offering in the states for an orphanage even though it was for the orphans within the states. "Mr. Whitefield . . . preached up this charity . . . I refused to contribute [because of a disagreement on the location] . . . I happened, soon after, to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all." George Whitefield, by Arnold Dallimor