emptied my pocket wholly
My next church history interview in a few weeks is between George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin on the topic of matters of conscience. I am representing Whitefield and will be interviewing Franklin. I have been researching both Whitefield and Franklin and found this tidbit of information as told by historian Frank Lambert.
Frugal Benjamin Franklin, in his Autobiography, wrote, “I happened … to attend of his [George Whitefield’s] sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me.” The collection was for Whitefield’s Georgia orphanage, which Franklin thought ill-planned, and he had told Whitefield so, to no avail. Thus for some time he had refused to give to it.At his sermon, though, Franklin said, “I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector’s dish, gold and all.”
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