Lady Huntingdon and Her Friends - Helen Knight - eBook

First printed in 1853 this book covers a wide range of historic and biographical revival material concerning the Great Awakening in England in the 18th century. Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, (1707-91) was converted in early 1739 and became a member of the famed Fetter Lane Society. Although she had very close links with the Wesley brothers and used Methodist preachers to evangelise in her residences, she broke with the Wesley’s in 1740. 

She developed strong Calvinistic leanings and appointed her favourite preacher, the Calvinistic George Whitefield, as her personal chaplain, employing him, and others, to preach to her aristocratic friends. She built chapels in the south from 1761, in Bath in 1765 and in other places in England in the 1770’s. These chapels, built to provide an evangelical witness where there was none, eventually became the Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion. In 1768 she got Trevecca College from Howell Harris and she had her ministers trained there.

Clearly she was a very influential lady and had contact with many of the evangelical giant’s of the day. This particular book does a superb job of describing the evangelical revival in Britain and it’s principal labourers - although it confines itself to the more Calvinistic elements of the day.