This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. No one knows what the future holds, but you deserve a weather app that can help. Weatherbug is easy to use and provides forecasts for your every need, from storm warnings to pollen levels, right at your fingertips. Get the fastest local alerts and comprehensive 10-day forecasts wherever you are.
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Nissan, number one in new vehicle quality among mainstream brands by JD Power. We put it through the worst, so you get its best. For JD Power 2025 US Initial Quality Study Award information, visit jdpower.com/slash awards. Awards based on 2025 model year, newer models may be shown. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously.
On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks.
Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing. Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member FINRA and SIPC.
Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisors. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures are available at public.com/slash disclosures. You're listening to a podcast.
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Mm-hmm. This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star. And the American people coming to you from the city where the West begins, Fort Worth, Texas. They were the most famous men in America. They came from separate countries, followed different philosophies, and led dissimilar lives.
but they were fast friends. No two people did more to shape America in the mid-1700s. Here to tell the story is Randy Peterson, author of The Printer and The Preacher, Ben Franklin. George Whitfield and the surprising friendship that invented America. Let's take a listen.
Who would you say? Were the Most Famous people in America In the 1740s and 1750s. This is a few decades before the Revolutionary War, so think back in your history mind to who was famous at that point. You might say George Washington, but he really wasn't around yet. He wasn't in the public consciousness yet.
You might say Benjamin Franklin, and you would be kind of right about that. But there was somebody else that. Seemed to be even more of a sensation in that era in America. It was the British preacher George Whitfield. George Whitfield was born in 1714 in England.
His widowed mother ran an inn. George was a very smart kid. They thought he might have a future in the ministry, perhaps, which would be a very respectable profession. He wouldn't have to apprentice in a trade or something, so they wanted to send him to school.
So they sent him to what they called a grammar school. It was preparatory for college eventually. George did well there. He was goofing off sometimes, but He especially loved theater. He had a theater teacher that just was full of energy and taught him how to act, how to speak, how to make gestures, how to capture an audience.
And George loved that.
Now, the inn his mother ran came on hard times, and so they didn't have a lot of money, and they thought they might not be able to afford college. It turned out that Oxford University had a program where certain poorer students could get through college, get their degree by being servants to richer students. And so that was sort of demeaning, but George became a servant to richer students, kind of a butler there. As the other students went to college, he would shine their shoes and get them food and stuff. but he also was able to attend classes and to get his degree.
I think this was important in George's life. Because as brilliant as he was, he learned humility. He learned to serve. At Oxford, George Whitfield met two very important friends. John Wesley and Charles Wesley.
John was a bit older, and he was sort of a teacher's assistant there at the school. Charles was a classmate of George's. They also had a group of people they called the Holy Club. This was an interesting group because they were all religious, they were church involved, but they wanted something deeper. They wanted to get more serious about their faith, and so they were methodical about their prayer life.
They were methodical about their Bible study. They were methodical about meeting together for fellowship. They were methodical about doing good deeds and going out into the community, visiting people in prison and visiting sick people. They were methodical about their faith.
So much that their detractors began calling them the Methodists. And that's where we get that term.
Now, George Whitfield wanted all of that too. He wanted to be methodical in his faith, and so he was a member of the Holy Club. But here's an interesting thing that as we look back in history, That all three of those people, George Whitfield, John Wesley, and Charles Wesley, perhaps some of the other members of the group. experienced a later conversion. The method was not enough for them.
It wasn't enough to pray and read the Bible and go to church and do all these religious things. Each of them reported that God individually connected with them at a heart level, at an emotional level, where they emotionally said yes to what God wanted to do in them. It wasn't just a matter of doing religious things. It was a matter of opening their hearts to God. And so there's a famous conversion of John Wesley where he says his heart was strangely warmed.
And that was his experience. It was a heart thing. George Whitfield had a similar experience actually a couple of years earlier than John. He talked about his abiding sense of the pardoning love of God, that there was something emotional that grabbed him. This is important because this became George's message in his preaching later on.
It was also an important part of the Wesley's ministry. We're not going to talk about them so much, but George Whitfield, wherever he went, wherever he preached, he was inviting people to get beyond religiosity, to get beyond just church involvement, to get beyond all that and have a personal experience of. The living God in their heart. George Whitfield was ordained in 1736. Having graduated from Oxford, he got his degree and he began to look around for churches where he might preach.
Wherever he got the opportunity to preach, they loved him. He was really good at this preaching thing. People appreciated the way he brought passion to his ministries. In that time, A lot of the preaching in England and later in America was pretty dry. It was very academic.
It was about ideas. Preachers read from manuscripts. In some cases, they were trying to be impressive with their erudition, with how much they knew, and to kind of showing off their great intelligence. And you've been listening to Randy Peterson. He's the author of The Printer and The Preacher, Ben Franklin, George Whitfield.
And the surprising friendship that invented America. Right now, we're learning about the preacher, that seminal experience he had getting into Oxford, not through a scholarship. But through, well, sort of a kind of indentured servitude, he had to serve the wealthier kids. Whitfield learned humility from this experience. When we come back, more of the story of the printer and the preacher.
Here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here. As we approach our nation's 250th anniversary, I'd like to remind you that all the history stories you hear on this show are brought to you by the great folks at Hillsdale College. And Hillsdale isn't just a great school for your kids or grandkids to attend, but for you as well. Go to hillsdale.edu to find out about their terrific free online courses.
Their series on communism is one of the finest I've ever seen. Again, go to hillsdale.edu and sign up for their free and terrific online courses. No one knows what the future holds, but you deserve a weather app that can help. Weatherbug is easy to use and provides forecasts for your every need, from storm warnings to pollen levels, right at your fingertips. Get the fastest local alerts and comprehensive 10-day forecasts wherever you are.
It's hyper-local, real-time, customizable alerts. Make sure the weather never takes you by surprise so you can plan every day with confidence. Download the free weather bug app from the App Store today and start getting accurate weather forecasts 24-7. You won't see the engineer that slams the Nissan Rogue's door 13,920 times, or the corrosive chamber that simulates 15 years of life in five months, or the rogue heat-baked for over 300 combined hours. What you will see is a vehicle that can take punch after punch and keep rolling.
Nissan, number one in new vehicle quality among mainstream brands by JD Power. We put it through the worst, so you get its best. Yeah. For JD Power 2025 U.S. Initial Quality Study Award information, visit jdpower.com/slash awards.
Awards based on 2025 model year, newer models may be shown. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work.
It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast.
Paid for by Public Investing. Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. member Finra and SIPC. Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool.
Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures. Sink into affordable luxury. Annabe is the only machine-washable sofa inside and out. With stain-resistant slip covers and a cloud-like frame duvet, everything goes right in the wash.
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If there was a big red button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead. From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life, and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
And we continue with our American stories and with Randy Peterson and the story of Ben Franklin and George Whitfield's remarkable and surprising friendship, one that shaped American life and certainly mid-17th century America. Let's pick up where we last left off. Here is author Randy Peterson. George Whitfield challenged that just by the nature of his work. It was not brilliant new ideas.
It was the same invitation that God has been offering since biblical times: that you must be born again, that there was a commitment he was calling people to. And he often did it. Without notes, he used his dramatic gifts to make it interesting, but it wasn't about exalting his own reputation, it was about inviting people into a relationship with God. There's one great story about the leading actor in London at the time was a man named David Garrick. And he was quoted as saying, Oh, I would give a hundred guineas just to be able to say the word, oh.
like George Whitfield. The definition we used to get of preaching in seminary is that preaching is God's truth coming through personality. That's what preaching is. It's God's truth coming through personality. And so he began to make a name for himself in England in 1736, 1737.
In 1738, he felt God's call to go to America as a missionary, to the colony of Georgia, which was the most recent colony established. It was established for, well, for people who couldn't pay their bills in England. They were thrown in debtors' prison in England, but a man named Oglethorpe had the brilliant idea: let's start a colony in America where these people can get a second chance, where they can begin to build their lives anew. And so they did that. The problem was that.
Georgia was then full of people who couldn't pay their bills, who didn't have a sense of responsibility to the larger community. There were some criminals in that group as well. And so it was a rough and tumble society. John and Charles Wesley had both been there in the previous years, and they had a terrible time. They did not have successful ministries at all there.
But George felt that maybe, well, he felt God was calling him there, and so he went there. And in George's ministry there, he listened, he paid attention, he got a sense of what the people wanted and needed. He learned to speak their language and to have an effect on the people around him. And one of the things he learned was that what they really needed was an orphanage. In this rough and tumble society, there were a lot of kids who were abandoned and neglected and needed a safe place to grow up.
And so George determined to build an orphanage there. And that really became his passion for the rest of his life. That he was raising money for this orphanage in Georgia. He came back to America many times after that and preached. And whenever he preached, he raised money, not for his own ministry, not to become rich himself, but to support this orphanage, to create a place where kids could learn and grow and learn about God.
Uh At the end of that year in Georgia, George Whitfield returns to England. And he's there for maybe a year, but that's when his ministry really takes off. And There are a number of key developments in that time. For one thing, Yeah. There were a number of churches in England.
This later happened in America too, where churches They didn't like his new style. He was a little too popular for them. They didn't like the fact that people were flocking to hear him and leaving their churches. On Whitfield's first preaching tour, when he arrived specifically in Newbury in 1740. When Whitfield came through the first time, that he was welcome to preach in the pulpit.
But when Whitfield came back a second time, he wasn't allowed to preach. But Whitfield was here for just a few days. And then he left and he was gone. And so you have this whole network of all these itinerant new light ministers who are also preaching around different churches. And then if people experience the new birth, And then they go back to their churches and they start to want that similar type of preaching from their pastors.
and their ministers are not giving that type of preaching to them. And not just that type of preaching, but that essential message of what it means to be truly a Christian and to experience that new birth through conversion. And so these people are being kicked out of their congregations. And so, in many ways, yes, Whitfield has sort of stimulated this new movement, but the real people who are carrying this on and who found this church are a mix of. these local revival, itinerant ministers, and lay people.
And so they closed their doors to him. He might say, Could I preach in your church? And they'd say, No, no. And so he, by necessity, would find some outdoor place to preach, sometimes in a field. Just set up a platform in a field, and people would be able to come from miles around with their carts and horses, and they'd just come and sit and listen to George Whitfield.
There's some wonderful accounts of a Connecticut farmer and he talked about how people had left the plow with the animal in the middle of the field and they would say, Whitfield is coming, Whitfield is coming, and they went running. And then he went looking across the field and he saw this big cloud of dust and he wondered what it was and he realized it was the dust from all the horses. and carts that were going down the road to hear Whitefield preach. In that process, George Whitfield began preaching to the common folk and not the upper class who came to church. But people who sometimes were ignored by the churches, just the common people, including coal miners.
This was an important industry in England at the time. This was their energy source. But these coal miners were often just kind of too dirty, too unchurched for the churches to care about. And yet, here was George Whitfield preaching this passionate message to the coal miners, setting up shop outside of the coal mines. And when the coal miners would get out of work, they would come and listen to this amazing preacher preach to them.
There's an amazing story that George writes in his journal about one particular coal miner that he spoke to after a meeting, and he will never forget that this man's face was blackened with the coal dust. But this man was moved to tears, and tears were streaming down his face and making little rivulets in the coal dust on his face. And so he had this streaky face as he was responding to the invitation of God. 1739 marks an important development in George's ministry. He goes back to America and he's going to get to the orphanage and check in on what's happening there, but he starts in Philadelphia, the center, geographically, the center of the eastern seaboard there.
It was also the largest city in the colonies at the time. And so he goes to Philly and he starts preaching there.
Now, in Philadelphia is a man named Ben Franklin. He's got his own story of how he got there. We're not going to get into that. But Ben was established now as a printer in Philadelphia and the publisher of the leading weekly newspaper there. Benjamin Franklin is reading stories in newspapers that he's getting from London about this new upstart preacher, George Whitfield.
And he himself sees an opportunity to latch onto that and to what Whitfield's doing. And so he, before Whitfield arrives in Philadelphia, before he ever gets there. Franklin has already been publishing. that he's coming and publishing in the Philadelphia Gazette Some of his sermons and some other things, so people already know who Whitfield is. And you've been listening to author Randy Peterson and his book is The Printer and the Preacher.
Ben Franklin, George Whitfield, and the surprising friendship that invented America. And we had just heard about that early meeting and how Franklin was ahead of the curve. Wanting to bring Whitfield to Philadelphia.
So he wrote about him, wrote about what was going on in England and in London. And of course, when you're in the newspaper business, You want to attract eyeballs. And Ben Franklin understood that. Moreover, what we learn here about this preacher is his talent, one of the foremost actors of his day, the Brad Pitt of his day, David Garrick. Often commented that he wished he could just speak an O or just speak as beautifully, as brilliantly, as passionately.
As Whitfield did.
So he went out into the fields and met the ordinary people where they lived in front of coal mines, out in fields. And of course, there was nothing anyone could do about God's spirit, the Lord's Spirit, coming through. When we come back, More of this remarkable story here on Our American Stories. No one knows what the future holds, but you deserve a weather app that can help. Weatherbug is easy to use and provides forecasts for your every need, from storm warnings to pollen levels, right at your fingertips.
Get the fastest local alerts and comprehensive 10-day forecasts wherever you are. It's hyper-local, real-time, customizable alerts. Make sure the weather never takes you by surprise so you can plan every day with confidence. Download the free weather bug app from the App Store today and start getting accurate weather forecasts 24-7. You won't see the engineer that slams the Nissan Rogue's door 13,920 times, or the corrosive chamber that simulates 15 years of life in five months, or the rogue heat-baked for over 300 combined hours.
What you will see is a vehicle that can take punch after punch and keep rolling. Nissan, number one in new vehicle quality among mainstream brands by JD Power. We put it through the worst, so you get its best. Yeah. For JD Power 2025 US Initial Quality Study Award information, visit jdpower.com/slash awards.
Awards based on 2025 model year, newer models may be shown. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work.
It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast.
Paid for by Public Investing. Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets. Is an interactive analysis tool.
Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com/slash disclosures. Uh Uh Life gets messy. Spills, stains, head accidents, and kid chaos. But with Anibay, cleaning up is easy.
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From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life, and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And we return to our American stories and the story.
of the printer and the preacher. Let's pick up where we last left off with author Randy Peterson.
So they're in this print culture where they're already hearing about these mass preaching services that no one else has ever experienced before. In England at the time. And at this time, Whitfield is about in his mid-20s. And so he's young. And so here's this upstart young celebrity coming to, again, this isn't America, this is part of the British Empire.
And so here's one of our fellow British citizens who's coming. People are already primed to receive his preaching. And so George begins preaching in central spots in Philadelphia. The Christ Church of Philadelphia closed their doors to him, and they were really afraid that there would be too many people, that it would ruin the church building. And so he set up shop a block away, second in market, on the courthouse steps, and people thronged the streets in front of him.
When Whitfield was telling the story of Abraham about to sacrifice his son Isaac, the audiences said they were so caught up in his description and his gesticulation that when he raised a hand like this, there were people said they could see a knife in his hand. And they were yelling, don't, Abraham, don't, because it was so vivid, it was so powerful, and it had an electrifying effect. on the people who heard him. Ben Franklin had heard reports from England that George Whitfield spoke in some field in England somewhere to 20,000 people. And Ben had a skeptical mind.
He was questioning that. Could any human voice actually reach 20,000 people?
So he decided to test it out scientifically. He was Benjamin Franklin, after all. And so his scientific mind decided to pace out the distance. He started at the courthouse steps where George was preaching, and he started walking. He walked a block away, and he could still hear George Whitfield.
He walked a little further. He could still hear George Whitfield. He measured how far it was before he couldn't hear George Whitfield anymore. He measured that out and he did the math on it and he determined that 30,000 people could hear the voice of George Whitfield. That's how powerful his voice was.
Thousands and thousands of people went to hear him, and of course they wrote their friends and their relatives.
So when Whitfield went from one place to another, there was a ready audience of thousands of people rushing in to see him. Even Benjamin Franklin. Said, I went to hear Whitfield determined not to be moved. and by the end of his talk I had emptied my pockets, you know, into the collection plight. Whitfield had two eyes that moved in different directions.
So wherever you were in the audience, you thought he was looking at you. In fact, Whitfield would say in his sermons, repent and follow God right now because what if you died on your way home?
So people were frozen by this. And had spiritual experiences right there. It was the immediacy of Whitfield that was controversial.
So somebody could have been preaching in a church for twenty years. with a kind of Ho-hum effect on people's spiritual lives, and here comes this itinerant guy, comes into the neighborhood, and suddenly half the congregation are converted on the spot. People were changed. Ben Franklin liked what he saw in the changes in people. He wrote in his autobiography about how he would walk down the street and you would hear in the various homes as he passed people singing psalms that they were worshiping God in their individual homes.
He recognized how people were treating one another better. There was the fruit of repentance in people's lives, which indicates that the spirit was moving. Whitfield preached up and down the colonies, all the way up and down the seaboard. Whitfield became really the. you know, the first international celebrity in American history.
The two of them became business partners. And on that first trip to Philadelphia, they established a connection where Ben could print some of the sermons of Whitfield, that he could print the journals of George Whitfield. People were just clamoring for all this printed material. It was Whitfield mania going on there. And Ben was ready to supply it with printed material and make some money on it in the process.
Ben was an expert at public relations, at publicity. George Whitfield was also pretty good at publicity. And so together, they were able to put the word out wherever George was speaking. And he traveled then to the southern colonies. He took a boat up to New England and traveled through New England.
He preached in every colony of the 13 American colonies at that time. He preached in every one, and there are estimates that half of the American colonists. Heard George Whitfield speak in person.
Now, this is no radio or TV at this point. This is all people coming to a place where George Whitfield was speaking from some kind of a platform. They heard his booming voice speaking to them. Half of Americans did. And of course, the other half knew who he was.
He was. famous. He was a star. There was not only a business partnership, but a friendship that developed between Ben Franklin and George Whitfield. They weren't best friends, but they were.
Pretty good friends. We have about a dozen letters that pass between them over the next 30 years. From that time until George passed away in 1770. But not only did they write to each other, they also wrote to friends and relatives about each other. Ben's sister and brother were very impressed that he knew the great George Whitfield, which is interesting because he was Ben Franklin, but they were more impressed with Whitfield than they were with their own brother.
I suppose that always happens. Of course, Ben was also writing about Whitfield in his newspaper all the time and putting out editorials and sort of pro and con. There was some controversy from time to time about George's ministry. There were ups and downs in their friendship as well, and there were times when they kind of went silent, but then one or the other would write a letter. And also, George had a number of visits to America there.
He'd come and spend two years traveling through the colonies and then go back to England for a while, and later he'd have another visit. In those letters that passed between them, George kept trying to convert Ben.
Now, Ben was brought up as a Puritan. He never totally rejected that, but he sort of made up his own religion. Even from his teenage years, he was making lists of how to live a good life, what ethics somebody might. require. But he wasn't really a Christian.
He respected the teachings of Jesus, but this idea of giving your life to Jesus, Ben wasn't so interested in that. And of course, that was all that George preached. And so he was preaching to his friend, Ben, in these letters, saying, Think about it, Ben. Apply your heart to what God wants for you. Open your heart to God's call to you to have this personal relationship.
And you've been listening to Randy Peterson tell the story of George Whitfield and Ben Franklin and this unique collaboration. We hear about Whitfield's absolute oratory prowess and how just brilliant he is at moving the masses, thousands and thousands. Would appear and appear because Ben Franklin had been, well, promoting Whitfield's arrival in the United States. and what he was doing with Field. Was moving people with the Holy Spirit on the spot.
To mass crowds, and they weren't used to this in churches and delivering people on the spot, saving people. And of course, what Franklin was amazed at was the change in the people. In the neighborhoods he dwelt in in Philadelphia and the area. And he liked what he saw. We saw what repentance had done in people's lives.
They become better versions of themselves. And there it was. Franklin had helped, in some ways, create this massive star who had, by many counts, had spoken to nearly one in two Americans on his tours across all 13 colonies. Forget about big concert tours, forget about big promoters. The very first big concert tour and promoter, the printer and the preacher.
When we come back, more of this remarkable story. Here are Now American Stories. No one knows what the future holds, but you deserve a weather app that can help. Weatherbug is easy to use and provides forecasts for your every need, from storm warnings to pollen levels, right at your fingertips. Get the fastest local alerts and comprehensive 10-day forecasts wherever you are.
It's hyper-local real-time customizable alerts. Make sure the weather never takes you by surprise so you can plan every day with confidence. Download the free weather bug app from the App Store today and start getting accurate weather forecasts 24-7. You won't see the engineer that slams the Nissan Rogue's door 13,920 times, or the corrosive chamber that simulates 15 years of life in five months, or the rogue heat baked for over 300 combined hours. What you will see is a vehicle that can take punch after punch and keep rolling.
Nissan, number one in new vehicle quality among mainstream brands by JD Power. We put it through the worst, so you get its best. Wow. For JD Power 2025 U.S. Initial Quality Study Award information, visit jdpower.com/awards.
Awards based on 2025 model year, newer models may be shown. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high-free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work.
It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the SP 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com/slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com/slash podcast.
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Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. If there was a big red button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead. From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life, and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And we continue with our American stories and the story of the printer. and the preacher. Let's pick up where we last left off with author Randy Peterson.
When Franklin began doing science and being recognized for his great scientific achievements with lightning, you remember the kite and the string, Whitfield sent him a congratulatory letter saying, I see you're becoming famous as a scientist. That's great. But here's something that you should experiment with. Look into the new birth! And Ben stayed with the friendship, and that's what I find amazing: that he wasn't turned off by this.
He respected that George was doing what George always did. There were times in that friendship when Ben stood up for George and George stood up for Ben, and that despite their religious differences, Ben had a great respect for George's ministry. And there was a backlash against George's ministry, and some were doubting whether there was really an orphanage in Georgia. And George did everything he could to prove, yes, it's there, but they were saying, oh, he's just lining his own pockets with all the money he raises and whatever. Ben wrote an important editorial in his newspaper that was then picked up by other papers as well: that George has integrity.
There really is an orphanage there, and this is all that George thinks about and works for. There was a later point when Ben was in England speaking to Parliament about the Stamp Act. that Americans hated the to pay taxes on paper goods. And while they did repeal the Stamp Act, they actually passed other taxes on Americans. And some of the Americans blamed Ben Franklin for that.
And there was a backlash against Ben at that time in the 1760s. George wrote a letter. And this is a fascinating element of George's ministry, too. He had a letter network, a letter writing network where he could write a letter to a friend in America who would make a dozen copies and send them to a dozen friends who would make another dozen copies and send to other friends and other friends. It was social media in the 1700s that George sent a letter to his network that was passed through the American colonies saying Ben has served his country well.
The end of George's life. It was 1769. He made his last visit, his seventh voyage to America, which is quite. important when you think about it took two to three months to cross the ocean each time and so those round trips, you add them up and that's like three years of George's life he spent on a ship going back and forth to America. Anyway, he makes his last trip in 1769 and he's still just in his 50s, but he is worn down.
He is asthmatic, he is fatigued. He has kind of preached himself to death here that traveling. Riding a horse for an hour and getting off and preaching, and then riding another hour and preaching again, preaching four times a day sometimes. It had caught up with him, and he was at the end of his ministry and his life. And he was in New England at the time and staying with a friend in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
And as the story goes, there was a group of people outside the home pleading for Whitfield to speak to them, some final words to them, some exhortation for them. And so he did, and went to a balcony and spoke to that group. And those were the last public words that he spoke. He went to bed that night, had a fitful night, and the next afternoon passed away. There was, of course, an outpouring of grief in America and England.
Charles Wesley wrote a beautiful eulogy. The young poet Phyllis. Wheatley wrote a poem that is still a classic of early American literature in honor of George Whitfield. Phyllis Wheatley was The most famous. African American poet, male or female, in the 18th century.
And she had actually Heard Whitfield. Preach. And it seems responded positively to his message. She really embraced. The message that he preached.
And in her poem, you see these roots. about the impartiality of God's love. for her people. And so his message was transformative for her, not just on a personal level, but actually connected deeply to her. Phyllis Wheatley is one of those figures who links the Great Awakening message.
The spiritual message of new birth to social transformation in things like the abolition of slavery. And of course, Ben Franklin put out a statement praising. The integrity. of George Whitfield and his zeal for God. One more story.
I want to tell, and it goes back to 1756, sort of the middle of this friendship between George and Ben, the middle of George's ministry in America. Ben writes a letter to George. Interesting that this is Ben suggesting something to George, not George pushing something on Ben. Ben says to George, Wouldn't it be great if you and I. could start a colony out by the Ohio River.
That was sort of the Wild West for them at that point, right? They hadn't settled out further than that.
So that in the western reaches of the colonies, what if we started a colony? Wouldn't it be great to combine the things that we each do? Your Religion. and my sense of of industry. We could create a colony that was both religious and industrious, a community that worked together.
And you think about Ben's, what Ben did, and he was always finding ways for communities to work together. He started a lending library when people couldn't afford books. He started a fire company when they were worried about fires raging through the cities. He started a town watch for security. He started all sorts of ways for communities to band together and to work together for the good of all.
That's what Ben would bring to that kind of colony. But of course he recognized that George brought a spiritual element. George brought a connection with God. that was equally important in starting a new colony.
Now, Ben Probably wasn't. Actually, suggesting that they would do this. This wasn't a proposal, it was kind of amusing. For him, a wistful thinking, wouldn't it be great if we could do that? And that particular colony never got started.
Except maybe it did. And maybe it's called the United States of America. Think about it. That These two elements. the spiritual element.
That George Whitfield brought, and that sense of a community working together for the good of all. Both of those things Came together in the forming of the United States just a few decades later. Of course, Ben was involved in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution. He was actually making those things happen in that time. But there was a deep sense of spirituality that was in America at that time, in large part thanks to the ministry of George Whitfield, who had gone throughout all of the colonies saying, you can't let a church do your believing for you.
It's up to you. You can't let your faith rest in the church. You are trusting in God who loves you. Open your heart to God, it's up to you. not any other body to do that for you.
Jesus said Truly, truly I say to you, Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. It was that sense of personal responsibility that George preached throughout the colonies and that people made part of their own spiritual lives. It was a massive revival. We call it the Great Awakening now. And it really changed America in a spiritual direction.
So, George Whitfield Ben Franklin, together they form a combination that we still have today. Of a society that works, but also a society that trusts, that opens its heart to God. And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Craig Hengler. And a special thanks to author Randy Peterson. His book, The printer and the preacher, Ben Franklin, George Whitfield, and the surprising friendship.
that invented America. And what a story he told And what I love is that Woodfield was continually trying to convert his pal Ben. and Ben took no offence. He knew that George was being George. and loved him for it.
And Whitfield, well, that interesting part of his life where he essentially had created his own social media network. Through his letter writing, but I can only tell you his letters must have been remarkable. Why else would people copy 10, 12, 14 copies? And then send them off to their friends. But he had a way of connecting with ordinary people about spiritual life and being the life of being a Christian.
Seven voyages he took to the United States, and I'm not talking flying across the pond. I mean sailing across the pond two to three months For each trip, three years of his life spent on the ocean and into his 50s, worn down by all this travel. He had preached himself almost literally. to death. The story of the printer and the preacher.
here on our American stories. No one knows what the future holds, but you deserve a weather app that can help. Weatherbug is easy to use and provides forecasts for your every need, from storm warnings to pollen levels, right at your fingertips. Get the fastest local alerts and comprehensive 10-day forecasts wherever you are. It's hyper-local, real-time, customizable alerts.
Make sure the weather never takes you by surprise so you can plan every day with confidence. Download the free weather bug app from the App Store today and start getting accurate weather forecasts 24-7. This is Julian Edelman from Games with Names. I want to take a second to talk about something that's personal to me. I've had the privilege of working closely with Robert Kraft for a long time.
And one thing I've always respected is how seriously he takes up standing up to hate. As a Jewish athlete my identity is something I am proud of. But I also know what it feels like to be singled out for it. That's why this new commercial for the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate that aired during the big game really hit home. It's about showing up for someone when they're targeted, even if you don't have the perfect words.
And sometimes standing next to someone is enough. And you can show support by sharing the blue square. You won't see the engineer that slams the Nissan Rogue's door 13,920 times, or the corrosive chamber that simulates 15 years of life in five months, or the rogue heat baked for over 300 combined hours. What you will see is a vehicle that can take punch after punch and keep rolling. Nissan, number one in new vehicle quality among mainstream brands by JD Power.
We put it through the worst, so you get its best. Wow. For JD Power 2025 U.S. Initial Quality Study Award information, visit jdpower.com slash awards. Awards based on 2025 model year, newer models may be shown.
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Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Yeah.
