I am alive, and if spared to be made instrumental in making any poor dead soul alive to God, I shall rejoice that the all-*wise Redeemer has kept out of heaven a little longer,
Yours, &c.
G. W.
LETTER DLXIII. To Mr. .
My dear Friend, Boston, Jan. 18, 1745.
BY this time I suppose you have heard, by your brother's letter, how good old Mr. Moody, in his honest way, said, I was welcome to all the faithful ministers in New-England. But the good old man judged too much by his own honest feelings. You see I am now at Boston, whither I was brought from Piscataway in a coach and four. The joy with which I was received by the common people, cannot well be described; but many of the ministers how shy?—And how different from what once they were? When last in Boston, governor Belcher was in the chair: then, reges ad exemplum, totus componitur orbis, he honoured me with great honour, and the clergy paid the nod, and obeyed. In many I then perceived it was quite forced, and I think when at his table I whispered to some and said, if ever I came again, many of those who now seem extremely civil, will turn out my open and avowed enemies. The event has proved, that in this respect I have been no false prophet. You know where it is written, "There arose a king, who knew not Joseph." Freed therefore from their former restraint, many have appeared in puris naturalibus. Some occasions of offence had undoubtedly been given whilst I was here and preached up and down the country.—Nothing however appeared but a pure, divine power working upon, converting, and transforming people's hearts, of all ranks, without any extraordinary phænomena attending it. Good Mr. T succeeded me; numbers succeeded him. Lecture upon lecture were set up in various places; one minister called to another, to help drag the gospel net; and by all the accounts that I can have from private information, or good Mr. Prince's weekly history, which I send you with this, one would have imagined the millennium was coming indeed.
