imprisonment. Returning to Scotland during the Stuart rebellion, he was immediately impressed and sent on board an English ship of war. He made his escape, and connected himself with a coasting vessel which belonged to Robin Hood's Bay, in Yorkshire. Wesley records, in his Journal, frequent visits to this place, where he preached in the mar ket square and on the Quay till he succeeded in founding a society. Joss, who had strictly maintained his morals, and even his religious scrupulousness, in all his adventures, and nad been a diligent student during the winter suspensions of navigation, joined the society, and became noted in the town for the ability of his exhortations. Wesley discerned his talents and encouraged him. He retained his Scotch Calvinism, but as he did not dispute about it, it was no obstacle among his brethren.

Still pursuing his sea-faring life, he preached on board his vessel, and became known as an evangelist in all the harbors which he frequented. His first regular sermon was delivered at Boston, Lincolnshire, where he produced an extraordinary impression. On being appointed to the command of a ship, he established regular worship among his crew, and became at once captain and chaplain, and soon trained a band of his converted tars to exhort and pray publicly.

He was a good sailor, and had accumulated enough property to become owner, in part, of his ship, with a fair prospect of wealth. But now disasters beset him continually, as if providentially to drive him from the seas. He made unfortunate voyages, and was repeatedly wrecked. At one time he lost his ship, and with difficulty saved himself and his crew; but, courageous against all odds, he went to Berwick for the purpose of building a still larger vessel. While there he preached to great crowds, and when about to leave, the common people mourned as at the loss of a faithful pastor. After he had sailed, a friend wrote, without his knowledge, to London, respecting his successful labors in Berwick during the preceding nine months. The letter came under Whitefield's eye, and when he heard of the arrival of the

preaching captain in the Downs, he announced in his Tabernacle that Joss would preach there the next Saturday evening, and dispatched a messenger to the ship, which had already received among sailors the name of "The Pulpit,” to summon him to London. His modesty was startled at the unexpected honor, and he refused to go, but the messenger would not leave the deck till he consented. Amid wondering throngs the sailor proclaimed the Gospel from Whitefield's pulpit, not only on Saturday but on Sunday, and Whitefield insisted that he should at once abandon the chart and compass, and give himself wholly to the ministry. He shrank from the proposition, but on his next voyage met with an accident which Whitefield deemed a warning. On his return to London still greater crowds gathered to hear him. Whitefield again urged him to confine himself to preaching, but he again resisted the call, and his following voyage was attended with a still worse disaster. On his third arrival at London his word was heard by yet greater throngs, and with still greater effect. While in the city his brother, a pious young man, fell overboard and was drowned in the Thames. "Sir," said Whitefield, "all these disasters are the fruits of your disobedience, and let me tell you that if you still refuse to hearken to the call of God, both you and your ship will soon go to the bottom." He yielded at last, and after his fourth voyage gave up the deck and took the pulpit. In 1766 Whitefield had the happiness to recognize him as his colleague at the Tabernacle and Tottenham Court, and Captain Joss became the Rev. Torial Joss, of famous memory in the religious history of the times.

During thirty years he was Whitefield's associate pastor of the London Calvinistic Methodist societies, and his popu larity was only second to that of Whitefield himself. The crowd ran after him, and his word, delivered with great native eloquence, was successful in the conversion of multitudes of souls. Berridge called him "Whitefield's Archdeacon of Tottenham." He not only spread Methodism extensively in the metropolis, but made preaching excursions

into the country. He usually spent four or five months of each year in itinerating in England and Wales. The Welsh especially delighted in his simple eloquence. Many came twenty miles on foot to hear him, and wherever he went he left seals of his ministry. He was a good man, mighty in the Scriptures, and faithful to the end. After preaching the Gospel more than thirty years, he was smitten down by sudden disease. "O the preciousness of faith!" he exclaimed to the groups around his death-bed. "I have finished my course. My pilgrimage is ended. O thou Friend of sinners, take thy poor old friend home!" rapt in visions of the celestial world, he at last uttered the word "Archangels," and expired.2

As if

Thus did Methodism gather its trophies from the sea and the land, and while the "regular" clergy treated with scorn its "irregularities," and bishops wrote diatribes against its "enthusiasm," but failed to save the heathen masses around them, it went forward, redeeming the people.

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In 1768 the Countess of Huntingdon made excursions into Gloucestershire and neighboring counties, attended by a corps of regular and irregular preachers whose ministry spread a great sensation throughout their course. 66 A re'markable power from on high," wrote the Countess, “ companied the message of His servants, and many felt the arrows of distress."3 Shirley, Romaine, Madan, Venn, and Maddock were with her, and Whitefield joined them at Cheltenham. They preached in the churches when they could obtain permission; when it was denied they betook themselves to Methodist and Dissenting chapels, to church yards, to highways, and fields. At Cheltenham the church was refused them by its rector and wardens, but Lord Dartmouth, noted as a Methodist himself, opened his mansion for them. Downing, his chaplain, was a Methodist evangelist, and had done much good in the neigh borhood. His lordship hoped to obtain the church for

2 Gillies's Whitefield, ch. 19; Life, etc., of Lady Huntingdon, sh, 12. 3 Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon, chap. 25€

Whitefield, but when the latter arrived it was denied to him also. An immense assembly had been attracted by the fame of the preacher and the exertions of the earl; finding the church door closed, Whitefield mounted a tombstone and cried aloud, "Ho! every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters!" A singular spectacle was it-the closed church, the graves covered with thousands of the people, and such churchmen as Venn, Madan, Shirley, Maddock, Talbot, Rowlands, and Whitefield, ordained and gowned, and yet proscribed for preaching to the famishing multitudes the doctrines of the Anglican Reformation; and this, too, while a peer of the realm, a nobleman distinguished for his wealth. and dignity, admired by the king, the first Lord of Trade, sworn of the Privy Council, and Principal Secretary of State for the American Department, stood with his family among them, their friend and patron.4 Such was the treatment of Methodism by the Established Church of the land. Venn spoke of this "field day," and those which immediately ensued, as remarkable for interest and success beyond what his "powers could describe." He says he was overwhelmed by a sense of the awful power and presence of Jehovah; that the effect of Whiteneid's discourse was so irresistible that some of the hearers fell prostrate upon thẻ graves, others sobbed aloud, some wept in silence, and almost the whole assembly seemed struck with awe. When the preacher came to the application of his text to the ungodly, "his word cut like a sword." Many cried out with anguish. At this juncture Whitefield made an "awful pause of a few seconds, then burst into a flood of tears. Madan

4 America still respects the name of the noble Methodist at the college (Dartmouth, Hanover, N. H.) which he patronized. It was to him thɛt Cowper alluded in the verses:

"We boast some rich ones whom the Gospel sways,

And one who wears a coronet and prays.

"They call my Lord Dartmouth an enthusiast," said George III.; "but surely he says nothing on religion but what any Christian may and ought to say." There was a vein of outright good sense running through thə insanity of the aged king,

and Venn stood up during this short interval and exhorted the people to restrain as much as possible their emotions. Twice afterward they had to repeat the same advice. 66.0 with what eloquence," writes Venn, "what energy, what melting tenderness did Whitefield beseech sinners to be reconciled to God, to come to him for life everlasting, and rest their weary souls in Christ the Saviour.” When the sermon

ex

was ended the people seemed spellbound to the ground. Madan, Talbot, Downing, and Venn found ample employment in endeavoring to comfort those who had broken down under a sense of guilt. They separated in different directions among the crowd, and each was quickly surrounded by an attentive audience still eager to hear the word of life. Turned away from the church, the evangelists found shelter at Lord Dartmouth's mansion. Whitefield administered the sacrament there the same evening. Talbot " horted," and Venn closed the day with prayer and thanksgiving. The next day was equally interesting. Whitefield addressed "a prodigious congregation" in the church-yard, and Talbot preached at night at the earl's residence, where all the rooms and the adjacent grounds were crowded. A table was brought out before the door, and Whitefield mounting it, again addressed them with overwhelming effect. Intelligence of these extraordinary scenes soon spread abroad, and the next day Charles Wesley, and many Methodists from Bristol, Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Rodborough, and their neighboring villages, arrived and shared in the Pentecost; but all "loud weeping and piercing cries had subsided, and the work of conversion went on, and much solid good was done."

On leaving Cheltenham Madan and Talbot itinerated through Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, and Northamptonshire. They went," says Hervey, who met them, "like men baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire," and through all those regions, as well as Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, they sounded the alarm day and night, and woke up slumbering thousands. These proceedings seemed, indeed, disorderly to grave Churchmen, but Whitefield expressed the