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The Old South Church, Newburyport, Massachusetts: Whitefield

During the war twenty-two vessels and one thousand men, from the towns of Newbury and Newburyport, were lost at sea. The first American flag seen in British waters, after the cessation of hostilities, was displayed in the Thames by Nicholas Johnson of Newburyport, captain of the Compte de Grasse. Among the treasures of the church is the Bible which Whitefield used. The evangelist, who died Sunday, September 30, 1770, is buried in the crypt under the pulpit where he had planned to preach on the very day of his death, as he had preached many times during the years since the building of the church. To this dark crypt thousands of reverent visitors have groped IN THE LAND OF THE PILGRIMS their way. One, less reverent, removed an arm of the skeleton and carried it to England as a relic. No one knew what had become of it until, after the death of the thief, it was returned to Newburyport, together with a bust of Whitefield. This bust is also one of the treasures of Old South.

Those who love this old church at Newburyport delight in the lines of John Greenleaf Whittier: "Under the church of Federal Street, Under the tread of its Sabbath feet, Walled about by its basement stones, Lie the marvellous preacher's bones.

No saintly honors to them are shown, No sign nor miracle have they known; But he who passes the ancient church Stops in the shade of its belfry-porch, And ponders the wonderful life of him Who lies at rest in that charnel dim.

Long shall the traveller strain his eye From the railroad car, as it plunges by, And the vanishing town behind him search For the slender spire of the Whitefield Church; And feel for one moment the ghosts of trade And fashion and folly and pleasure laid, By the thought of that life of pure intent, That voice of warning, yet eloquent, Of one on the errands of angels sent.

And if where he labored the flood of sin Like the tide from the harbor-bar sets in.

And over a life of time and sense The church-spires lift their vain defence, As if to scatter the bolts of God With the points of Calvin's thunder-rod,- Still, as the gem of its civic crown, Precious beyond the world's renown, His memory hallows the ancient town!"