Field Preaching

The crowds that attended the preaching of Whitefield, first suggested to him the thought of preaching in the open air. When he mentioned this to some of his friends, they judged it was mere madness; nor did he begin to practise it until he went to Bristol, when, finding the churches denied to him, he preached on a hill at Kingswood to the colliers; and, after he had done this three or four times, his congregation is said to have amounted to twenty thousand persons. That any human voice could be heard by such a number, is improbable; but that he effected a great moral reform among these colliers, by his preaching, cannot be denied. "The first discovery," he tells us, "of their being effected, was to see the white gutters made by their tears, which plentifully fell down their black cheeks, as they came out of their coal pits." After this, he preached frequently in the open air in the vicinity of London, and in other parts of the country, to assembled thousands.