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are gone! The ship is on her beam-ends! What next?" "The long boat, take to the long boat!" shouted his excited hearers. A very great part of his influence depended, no doubt, upon the matter of his discourses. He avoided all abstract reflections, all trains of reasoning, every thing that could fatigue the attention, or rouse the intellect to question or oppose. His preaching was based upon the most confident assertions, and it dealt almost exclusively with topics which, if firmly believed, could hardly fail to have a deep influence upon men. The utter depravity of human nature-the eternal tortures which are the doom of every unconverted man—the free salvation by Christ-the imminence of death-the necessity to salvation of a complete, supernatural change of character and emotions, were the subjects upon which he continually dilated. It is easy to understand that such topics, urged by a great orator, at a time when some of them were by no means familiar, should have exercised a far deeper influence than any dissertation upon the duties of man, or the authority of revelation. Besides this, Whitefield was perpetually changing his audience. His style was never suffered to pall upon his hearers. The same sermon was again and again repeated, and at every repetition, passages which appeared ineffective were retrenched, and a greater perfection of emphasis and intonation was acquired. Garrick and Foote declared that he never reached his highest perfection till the fortieth repetition. The picturesque scenes and the striking contrasts which out-of-door preaching furnished, added to the effect, and the great multitude who were attracted by his eloquence gave in turn to that eloquence an additional power. A contagion of excitement was aroused, and an irresistible wave of sympathetic feeling rolled through the mighty host.

I have dwelt at some length upon the preaching of Whitefield, for it was of vital importance to the religious revival of the eighteenth century. But for the simultaneous appearance of a great orator and a great statesman, Methodism would

probably have smoldered, and at last perished, like the very similar religious societies of the preceding century. Whitefield was utterly destitute of the organizing skill which could alone give a permanence to the movement, and no talent is naturally more ephemeral than popular oratory; while Wesley, though a great and impressive preacher, could scarcely have kindled a general enthusiasm had he not been assisted by an orator who had an unrivaled power of moving the passions of the ignorant. The institution of field-preaching by Whitefield, in the February of 1739, carried the impulse through the great masses of the poor, while the foundation by Wesley, in the May of the same year, of the first Methodist chapel, was the beginning of an organized body capable of securing and perpetuating the results that had been achieved.

LI.

AFTER CULLODEN.-Stanhope.

[While the Church of England was being stirred to its depths by the preaching of Whitefield and his associates, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the young pretender, as he was called, made an attempt to recover his ancestral throne. Landing in Scotland, in 1745, with only six companions, he rallied many of the Highland clans around him, and gained brilliant successes at Preston Pans and at Falkirk, but was disastrously defeated at Culloden. After wandering for five months as a fugitive in the Highlands, he succeeded in making his escape to France.]

BUT where was he, the young and princely chief of this ill-fated enterprise, the new Charles of this second Worcester? His followers dismissed to seek safety as they could for themselves, he sometimes alone, sometimes with a single Highlander as his guide and companion, sometimes begirt with strange faces, of whose fidelity he had no assurance, a price set upon his head, hunted from mountain to island, and from island to mountain, pinched with famine, tossed by

storms, and unsheltered from the rains--such was now the object of so many long-cherished and lately towering hopes! In the five months of his weary wanderings-from April to November-almost every day might afford its own tale of hardship, danger, and alarm, and a mere outline must suffice for the general historian. It is much to Charles's honor, that, as one of his chance attendants declares, “he used to say that the fatigues and distresses he underwent signified nothing at all, because he was only a single person, but when he reflected upon the many brave fellows who suffered in his cause, that, he behoved to own, did strike him to the heart, and did sink very deep within him." But most of all entitled to praise appear the common Highlanders around him. Though in the course of these five months the secrets of his concealment became intrusted to several hundred persons, most of them poor and lowly, not one of them was ever tempted by the prize of £30,000 to break faith, and betray the suppliant fugitive, and, when destitute of other help and nearly, as it seemed, run to bay, he was saved by the generous self-devotion of a woman.

In the hope of finding a French ship to convey him, Charles had embarked, only eight days after Culloden, for that remote cluster of isles, to which the common name of Long Island is applied. Driven from place to place by contrary winds and storms, and having sometimes no other food than oatmeal and water, he at length gained South Uist, where his wants were in some degree relieved by the elder Clanranald. But his course being tracked or suspected, a large body of militia and regular troops, to the number of two thousand men, landed on the island, and commenced an eager search, while the shores were surrounded by small vessels of war. Concealment or escape seemed alike impossible, and so they must have proved, but for Miss Flora Macdonald, a name, says Dr. Johnson, which will forever live in history. This young lady was then on a visit to Clanranald's family, and was step

daughter of a captain in the hostile militia which occupied the island. Being appealed to in Charles's behalf, she nobly undertook to save him at all hazards to herself. She obtained from her step-father a passport to proceed to Skye, for herself, a man-servant, and a maid who was termed Betty Burke, the part of Betty to be played by the chevalier. When Lady Clanranald and Flora sought him out, bringing with them a female dress, they found him alone in a little hut upon the shore, employed in roasting the heart of a sheep upon a wooden spit. They could not forbear from shedding tears at his desolate situation, but Charles observed, with a smile, that it would be well, perhaps, for all kings if they had to pass through such an ordeal as he was now enduring. On the same evening he took advantage of the passport, embarking in his new attire, with Flora and a faithful Highlander, Neil MacEachan, who acted as their servant. The dawn of the next day found them far at sea in their open boat, without any land in view; soon, however, the dark mountains of Skye rose on the horizon. Approaching the coast at Waternish, they were received with a volley of musketry from the soldiers stationed there, but none of the balls took effect, and the rowers, vigorously plying their oars, bore them away from that scene of danger, and enabled them to disembark on another point.

Charles was now in the country of Sir Alexander Macdonald, at first a waverer in the contest, but of late a decided foe. When the prudent chief saw the Jacobite cause decline, he had been induced to levy his clan against it, and was now on the main-land in attendance upon the duke of Cumberland. Yet it was of his wife, Lady Margaret, a daughter of the earl of Eglinton, that Flora determined to implore assistance, having no other resource, and knowing from herself the courageous pity of a female heart. Lady Margaret received the news with pain and surprise, but did not disappoint Flora's firm reliance; her own house was filled with militia officers, but she intrusted Charles, with earnest injunctions for his safety, to the

charge of Macdonald of Kingsburgh, the kinsman and factor of her husband. As they walked to Kingsburgh's house, Charles still in woman's disguise, they had several streams to pass, and the prince held up his petticoats so high as to excite the surprise and laughter of some country people on the road. Being admonished by his attendants, he promised to take better care for the future, and accordingly, on passing the next stream, allowed the skirts to hang down and float upon the water. "Your enemies," said Kingsburgh, "call you a pretender, but if you be, I can tell you, you are the worst of your trade I ever saw!"

Next day, at Portree, Charles took leave of the nobleminded Flora with warm expressions of his gratitude, and passed over to the Isle of Rasay, under the less inconvenient disguise of a male servant, and the name of Lewis Caw. His preservers soon afterward paid the penalty of their compassion, both Kingsburgh and Flora Macdonald being arrested and conveyed in custody, the former to Edinburgh, the latter to London. The conduct of Lady Margaret likewise was much inveighed against at court, but once, when it provoked some such censure from the princess of Wales, " And would not you, madam," asked Frederick, with a generous spirit, would not you in like circumstances have done the same? I hope, I am sure you would!" It was at the intercession, it is said, of his royal highness, that Flora was released from prison after a twelvemonth's confinement. A collection was made for her among the Jacobite ladies in London, to the amount of nearly fifteen hundred pounds. She then married Kingsburgh's son, and many years afterward went with him to North America, but both returned during the civil war, and died in their native Isle of Skye.

From Rasay Charles again made his way to the main-land, where he lay for two days cooped up within a line of sentinels, who covered each other upon their posts, so that he could only crouch among the heather, without daring to light

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