To Benjamin Franklin from George Whitefield, 21 January 1768
From George Whitefield
ALS: University of Pennsylvania Library
Tottenham Court Jan: 21—1768
My Dear Doctor
When will it suit you to have another interview? The College affair lies dormant.5 For above a week I have been dethroned by a violent cold and hoarsness. Who would but work and speak for God while it is day? The night of sickness and death cometh when no man can work. Through rich grace I can sing “O Death where is thy sting”-but only through Jesus of Nazareth. Your Daughter I find is beginning the world.6 I wish you joy from the bottom of my heart. You and I shall soon goe out of it-Ere long we shall see it burnt-Angels shall summon us to attend on the funeral of Time-And (Oh transporting thought!) we shall see Eternity rising out of its ashes. That you and I may be in the happy number of those who in the midst of the tremendous final blaze shall cry Amen-Hallelujah-is the hearty prayer of, my dear Doctor, Your &c. &c.
GW
PS I hope Mr. Strahan is well.
5. For twenty years Whitefield had been hoping to convert his Bethesda Orphanage in Georgia into a “seminary of learning.” His hope began to be realized in 1769, when additions to the buildings were begun, but was cut short by his death in 1770. Thomas Gamble, Jr., Bethesda, an Historical Sketch of Whitefield’s House of Mercy in Georgia … (Savannah, 1902), pp. 42–7. For the earlier affairs of the orphanage see above, III, 71–4, 143–4.
6. An allusion to Sarah’s marriage to Richard Bache in the previous October.