And it being found inconvenient to assemble in the open air,
subject to its inclemencies, the building of a house to meet in was
no sooner propos'd, and persons appointed to receive contributions,
but sufficient sums were soon receiv'd to procure the ground and erect
the building, which was one hundred feet long and seventy broad,
about the size of Westminster Hall; and the work was carried on
with such spirit as to be finished in a much shorter time than could
have been expected. Both house and ground were vested in trustees,
expressly for the use of any preacher of any religious persuasion
who might desire to say something to the people at Philadelphia;
the design in building not being to accommodate any particular sect,
but the inhabitants in general; so that even if the Mufti of
Constantinople were to send a missionary to preach Mohammedanism to us,
he would find a pulpit at his service.
Mr. Whitefield, in leaving us, went preaching all the way thro'
the colonies to Georgia. The settlement of that province
had lately been begun, but, instead of being made with hardy,
industrious husbandmen, accustomed to labor, the only people fit
for such an enterprise, it was with families of broken shop-keepers
and other insolvent debtors, many of indolent and idle habits,
taken out of the jails, who, being set down in the woods, unqualified for
clearing land, and unable to endure the hardships of a new settlement,
perished in numbers, leaving many helpless children unprovided for.
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