The religious sentiments and the glowing eloquence of the most remarkable evangelist of modern times soon attracted the attention of the Countess of Huntingdon, and, in 1748, she made George Whitefield one of her chaplains. She then, and for many years afterwards, thought that, as a peeress of the realm, she had a right to employ the clergymen of the Church whom she had appointed as her chaplains in openly proclaiming the everlasting gospel. Whitefield often preached in the drawing-rooms of the Countess to large numbers of the most highly distinguished nobility. Gifted by nature in an unusual degree as a public speaker, her chaplain, despite the vilest aspersions, spoke as one who had received a commission from on high to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Christ; and this mission he fulfilled with unabated ardour and success for nearly forty years. In the New World as well as the Old, Whitefield had his trophies, and was listened to with great delight by the princes of intellect and the beggars in understanding. If souls would hear the gospel only under a ceiled roof, he preached it there. If only in a church or a field, he proclaimed it there. In temples made with hands, the parliament of letters, of fashion, of theology, of statesmanship,—such men as Hume, Walpole, Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Garrick, Warburton, and Chesterfield, acknowledged the power of the preacher. On Moorfields, Kennington Common, and Blackheath, vast crowds were powerfully impressed, and cried out for salvation. He preached at Kingswood, and the miners came out of their coal-pits in swarms—thousands on thousands flocked from Bristol, till about twenty or thirty thousand persons were present. The singing could be heard for two miles off, and the clear, rich, and powerful voice of Whitefield could be distinctly heard for about a mile. This is his own world; he loves, he says, to “mount his field throne.” These colliers are as ignorant of religion as the inhabitants of negro-land—as hardened as the islanders of Madagascar—without feeling or education, profligate, abandoned, ferocious. He addresses them, and what is the result? Tears flow from eyes which perhaps never shed them before. Those white streaks which contrast so strongly with the dark ground on which they are interlined, tell of the emotion that is going on within. This celebrated preacher, in his letters speaks of Lady Huntingdon in very flattering terms. He says, “She shines brighter and brighter every day, and will yet I trust be spared for a nursing mother to our Israel.”