Page:The Works of the Reverend George Whitefield, M.A. (1771 Vol 1).djvu/429

need) gladly have washed your feet. I doubt not but your imprisonment was for Christ's sake. I am persuaded, the letter from your friend that doubted, was the sorest stab of all; but all is intended to draw us from the creature, even from the new creature, and bring us nearer to the Creator, God blessed for evermore. Paul's friends deserted, and no doubt judged him. "All they in Asia forsook me," says he; and again, "At my first trial no man stood by me;" and what follows? but "the Lord stood by me:" and will he not, dear brother, also stand by you? I cannot help believing but that Georgia will yet be a glorious colony. The counsel of God shall stand. He surely put it into my heart to build the Orphan-house. He certainly brought you to Georgia to superintend it. He will bless you and yours. I join in blessing God with you, and in admiring how he has spread a table for my dear family in that wilderness. But what shall we say? The Lord loves to encourage faith; and since his honour is so much concerned, I am sure he will vindicate it, and never suffer his enemies to say thus of us, "There, there, so would we have it." I am kept from the least doubting; and God only knows how many prayers of faith I have put up for you. I have often wished as it were for the wings of a dove, that I might fly unto you, and take you one by one into my unworthy arms, and weep over you with tears of love. Blessed be God, the time draws near apace. I am just now about to publish a further account of the Orphan-house, and hope shortly to collect some more money towards its support. I am blessed with far greater success than ever, and satan roars louder. You will see by what I here send, how the archers of different classes shoot at me; but the Lord (for ever adored be his never-failing love) causes my bow to abide in strength, and enables me to triumph in every place. The comforts and success the Lord gives to me, is unspeakable. Last Lord's day, I believe there were here thirty thousand people, and above two thousand five hundred communicants. The work spreads, and I believe will yet spread. My bodily strength is daily renewed, and I mount on the wings of faith and love like an eagle. I can only cry Grace! grace! My dear brother, I feel every day more and more, that I am a poor, very poor sinner. I often wonder why Jesus suffers me to