Whitefield's Tears Across the Atlantic

George Whitefield crossed the Atlantic Ocean thirteen times in an era when each voyage could easily be his last. Between 1738 and 1770, he endured storms, scurvy, and weeks of uncertainty on the open sea — all because he could not bear to be separated from the congregations he loved. From shipboard, he wrote letters to his converts in Savannah, Philadelphia, and London with a tenderness that still startles historians.…