encouraged Mr. Maxwell to expound the Scriptures before he was ordained, and thus opened the way for lay-agency. She threw open her house at Chelsea for the preaching of Whitefield; and there Lords Bolingbroke and Chesterfield, and many others of the aristocracy, heard him. When Doddridge, sinking in consumption, found it necessary to go to Lisbon, the countess gladly gave and collected the requisite funds.
The celebrated Romaine, turned out of St. George's, Hanover-square, was invited by the countess to preach at her house in Park-street. He became her chaplain, and her adviser in her work of chapel building and itinerancy of ministers for the preaching of the Gospel. She herself made tours with Whitefield, Romaine, and others, and accompanied them in their field-preaching and other works of usefulness. Mr. Romaine's success encouraged the countess to establish chapels in different parts of England, where they seemed to be needed. Some of the principal were those at Brighton, Bath, Bristol, Swansea, Chichester, Guildford, Basingstoke, Oathall, and there were others besides what was done in London. On the death of the Earl of Huntingdon, in 1746, she had the entire command of her fortune, which she employed without stint for religious purposes.
When the breach between Wesley and Whitefield took place, the Tabernacle, Moorfields, was used by the party of the latter. There Whitefield, Cennick, Ingham, and others of the Calvinistic school preached, and there the countess attended; and afterwards at Tottenham Court Chapel, which was opened in 1756, and at Long Acre Chapel. On the 24th August, 1768, the sixty-first anniversary of the countess's birthday, Mr. Whitefield preached at the opening of Trevecca College, South Wales, an institution for the training of ministers, which she had founded at her own expense. Many useful ministers were sent forth from this institution, and their ministry was especially blessed in Yorkshire, whither they had been invited. In 1792, after her death, this institution was removed to Cheshunt, where it has ever since been successfully carried on. And not long before
