ONE:Only the raucous cry of a seagull cut into that chill silence!More deliberately, settling down, first the hanging bulk of the unknown man, then the spreading folds of the parachute drifted into mistand mystery.
TWO:Whitefield and Wesley soon separated into distinct fields of labour, as was inevitable, from Whitefield embracing Calvinism and Wesley Arminianism. Whitefield grew popular amongst the aristocracy, from the Countess of Huntingdon becoming one of his followers, and, at the same time, his great patron. Whitefield, like the Wesleys, made repeated tours in America, and visited all the British possessions there. When in England, he generally made an annual tour in it, extending his labours to Scotland and several times to Ireland. On one of his voyages to America he made some stay at Lisbon. Everywhere he astonished his hearers by his vivid eloquence; and Benjamin Franklin relates a singular triumph of Whitefield over his prejudices and his pocket. He died at Newbury Port, near Boston, United States, on the 30th of September, 1770. If Whitefield did not found so numerous a body as Wesley, he yet left a powerful impression on his age; and we still trace his steps, in little bodies of Calvinistic Methodists[144] in various quarters of the United Kingdom, especially in Wales.The time arrived when this last liberty was to be taken away. In the year 529, Justinian issued his famous decree prohibiting the public teaching of philosophy in Athens, and confiscating the endowments devoted to the maintenance of its professors. It is probable that this measure formed part of a comprehensive scheme for completing the extirpation of paganism throughout the empire. For some two centuries past, the triumph of Christianity had been secured by an unsparing exercise of the imperial authority, as the triumph of Catholicism over heresy was next to be secured with the aid of the Frankish sword. A few years afterwards, the principal representatives of the Neo-Platonic school, including the Damascius of whom we have already spoken, and Simplicius,361 the famous Aristotelian commentator, repaired to the court of Khosru Nuschirvan, the King of Persia, with the intention of settling in his country for the rest of their lives. They were soon heartily sick of their adopted home. Khosru was unquestionably an enlightened monarch, greatly interested in Hellenic culture, and sincerely desirous of diffusing it among his people. It is also certain that Agathias, our only authority on this subject, was violently prejudiced against him. But it may very well be, as stated by that historian530 that Khosru by no means came up to the exaggerated expectations formed of him by the exiled professors. He had been described to them as the ideal of a Platonic ruler, and, like inexperienced bookmen, they accepted the report in good faith. They found that he cared a great deal more for scientific questions about the cause of the tides and the modifications superinduced on plants and animals by transference to a new environment, than about the metaphysics of the One.531 Moreover, the immorality of Oriental society and the corruption of Oriental government were something for which they were totally unprepared. Better, they thought, to die at once, so that it were but on Roman soil, than to live on any conditions in such a country as Persia. Khosru was most unwilling to lose his guests, but on finding that they were determined to leave him, he permitted them to depart, and even made it a matter of express stipulation with the imperial government that they should be allowed to live in their old homes without suffering any molestation on account of their religious opinions.532
