CHAPTER IV.

_MISSION TO GEORGIA. 1735‒””””1737._

[Sidenote: 1735 Age 32]

WESLEY’S father died on the 25th of April, 1735.

Immediately after that event, the chief of the Oxford Methodists were widely scattered: Gambold was a clergyman at Stanton-Harcourt; Ingham became a curate in Essex; Whitefield, though not ordained, went on an evangelistic tour to Gloucester, Bristol, and other places;[138] Broughton was chaplain at the Tower; and the two Wesleys repaired to the metropolis, where they were the guests of James Hutton, or rather of James Hutton’s father, in Westminster.

Mr. Hutton was now in the twentieth year of his age. At Oxford he had met with the Wesley brothers, and had invited them to visit him. His father was an ordained clergyman of the Church of England; but, not being able to take the oaths at the accession of George I., he had resigned his Church preferments, and now kept a boarding school in a house next door to that of Wesley’s brother Samuel. Here, on Sunday evenings, the venerable man held meetings, at which he read, and prayed, and sung with penitents; and here Wesley preached a sermon on “One thing is needful,” which was the means of converting both James Hutton and his sister.[139]

Just at this juncture, Dr. John Burton, of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, was evincing great interest in the colonisation of Georgia. Three years before, he had preached and published a sermon, with an appendix on the state of the Georgian settlement. He now met with Wesley in London, and introduced him to Oglethorpe, who strongly urged the high church Methodist to undertake a mission to the infant colony. Wesley took counsel with his brother Samuel; asked the advice of William Law; and went to Manchester to consult his friends Clayton and Byrom. Thence he proceeded to Epworth, and laid the proposal before his widowed mother, who replied: “Had I twenty sons, I should rejoice if they were all so employed.”

On September 8 Dr. Burton wrote to him pressing him to consent to go. The doctor told him that “plausible and popular doctors of divinity were not the men wanted for Georgia; for the ease, luxury, and levity in which they were accustomed to indulge disqualified them for such a work.” He and the Georgian trustees wished for men who were “inured to contempt of the ornaments and conveniences of life, to bodily austerities, and to serious thoughts;” and such he considered Wesley.

Ten days after the date of this letter Wesley accepted the proposal, and Burton expressed his pleasure, and added, “You have too much steadiness of mind to be disturbed by the light scoffs of the idle and profane.”[140] In another long letter (hitherto unpublished), dated Eton College, September 28, 1735, Dr. Burton, after reminding Wesley that he will have a fine opportunity for usefulness during the voyage to Georgia, proceeds to recommend him, on his arrival, to visit from house to house, and preach everywhere. He tells him that “some of the colonists are ignorant, and most of them are disposed to licentiousness.” He adds: “You will find abundant room for the exercise of patience and prudence, as well as piety. One end for which we were associated was the conversion of negro slaves. As yet, nothing has been attempted in this way; but a door is opened. The Purisburghers have purchased slaves; they act under our influence; and Mr. Oglethorpe will think it advisable to begin there. You see the harvest truly is great. With regard to your behaviour and manner of address, you will keep in mind the pattern of St. Paul, who became ‘all things to all men that he might gain some.’ In every case, distinguish between what is essential and what is merely circumstantial to Christianity; between what is indispensable and what is variable; between what is of Divine and what is of human authority. I mention this, because men are apt to deceive themselves in such cases; and we see the traditions and ordinances of men frequently insisted on with more vigour than the commandments of God to which they are subordinate.”

This was good advice, and, in Wesley’s case, not unneeded. Sixteen days after the date of Dr. Burton’s letter, Wesley embarked, taking with him five hundred and fifty copies of a treatise on the Lord’s Supper, besides other books,—“the gift of several Christian friends for the use of the settlers in Georgia.”[141]

James Edward Oglethorpe was the third son of Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, of Godalming, Surrey. At a suitable age he entered the army, and became secretary and aide-de-camp to Prince Eugene. In 1722 he succeeded to his father’s estate, and obtained a seat in parliament, which he retained nearly thirty years. From the first, he showed himself to be a steady and faithful friend of humanity. These were days of harsh government. The gallows was the penalty for petty thefts; and each year, at least four thousand unhappy men in Great Britain were immured in prison for the misfortune of being poor. A small debt was quite enough to expose a struggling man to a perpetuity of imprisonment; and an indiscreet bargain doomed many a well-meaning, miserable dupe to lifelong confinement. Oglethorpe obtained a parliamentary committee, to inquire into the state of prisons; the result of which was that a large number of debtors were released from confinement, and restored to light and to liberty. Being released, it was a serious question what to do with them.

It so happened that, though the whole of the eastern seaboard of America seemed to be already parcelled out among companies and colonists, there was still remaining a comparatively small strip of country, intervening between South Carolina and Florida, and situated between the river Alatamaha on the south and the river Savannah on the north, and having a sea-coast stretching a distance of sixty or seventy miles. This strip of land was a wilderness over which England held only a nominal jurisdiction; but it occurred to Oglethorpe and his friends to plant in this sunny clime those children of misfortune whom they had released from prison, but who were still without food and shelter. Accordingly, on the 9th of June, 1732, a charter was obtained from George II., erecting this thin slice of America into the province of Georgia, and appointing Oglethorpe and twenty other gentlemen (of whom Dr. Burton was one) trustees to hold the same for a period of one and twenty years, “in trust for the poor.” The benevolence of England was aroused. The trustees set an example of princely liberality by their private subscriptions; the Bank of England presented a donation of £10,000; an equal amount was voted by the House of Commons; and the total sum raised, with but little effort, and almost without solicitation, was £36,000. Within five months after the signing of the charter, the first company of emigrants, one hundred and twenty in number, set sail, with Oglethorpe as their commander, and the Rev. Henry Herbert, a clergyman of the Established Church, as their minister. At the commencement of the month of February, 1733, the colonists reached the high bluff on which Savannah is now erected, and encamped near the edge of the river. The streets of the intended town were laid out with the greatest regularity; and the houses were to be constructed on one model,—each a frame of sawn timber, measuring sixteen feet by twenty-four, its sides to be enclosed with unplaned boards, and its floor to be of rough deals, and its roof of shingle. Each freeholder was allotted fifty acres of ground, five of which were near Savannah, and the remaining forty-five farther off. Thus began the commonwealth of Georgia. The humane reformer of prison life was already the father of a state. A large number of Indians met him to make an alliance with his colony; the meeting was friendly; to each chief he gave a laced coat, a hat, and a shirt; and to their attendants gunpowder, bullets, linen, tobacco, pipes, tape, and eight kegs of rum, to carry home as presents to their respective towns. In a letter, dated June 9, 1733, Oglethorpe states that a door was opened for the conversion of the Indians; and nothing seemed to be wanting but a minister who understood their language: in action and expression, they were masters of eloquence, and many of their speeches were equal to those which scholars most admire in the Greek and Roman writings.[142]

The next company of emigrants belonged to a different class. About a year before the charter for the Georgian colony was granted, a remarkable revival of religion took place at Saltzburg, in Germany. By merely reading the Bible, above twenty thousand people were led to renounce Popery and to embrace the Reformed religion. The popish priests complained to the Archbishop of Saltzburg that these Protestant converts assembled in various places, and sang hymns and offered prayers. The archbishop published an edict prohibiting such assemblies, upon pain of fines, corporal punishments, and even death itself. The new converts, however, still assembled as before; and now his serene highness the archbishop let loose his partisans, and commenced a murderous persecution, which drove thousands of innocent, unoffending, godly people into exile. Numbers were dragged to prison; some were led about with ropes round their necks; others had their hands so tightly tied with cords behind their backs that the blood spurted from their finger ends. The archbishop’s soldiers struck some of them in the face with their fists, calling them “heretic dogs and hell-hounds.” One poor fellow was fined seventy florins for singing a Protestant psalm of praise. Protestant preachers were called “murderers, buffle-heads, and children of the devil;” and the Protestant doctrine was stigmatised as “faith for swine and stinking goats.” Every one who embraced Luther’s doctrines “would be roasted in hell;” and the moment any one read his books the reader “became an offering to the devil.”[143]

What was the result? The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts heard of these poor persecuted Protestants, and proposed to them to emigrate to Georgia. Thousands of them had fled from Saltzburg; and others were still in prison there, fed with bread and water, and employing themselves in praying and singing psalms. Large numbers were taken into service by Protestants at Augsburg and other places; and one section of the fugitives embraced the proposal just mentioned, and on October 31, 1733, set out for Georgia. After a discourse, prayer, and benedictions, and well supplied with Bibles, hymns, catechisms, and books of devotion, they began their pilgrimage, one wagon conveying all the chattels that they had, and two others their feebler companions and their little ones. We need not stop to tell the charities that cheered them on their journey,—how they entered Frankfort, two by two, in solemn procession, singing sacred songs,—and how they were joined at Rotterdam by the preachers Bolzius and Gronau, both disciplined in piety at the Orphan House of Professor Francke. Six days brought them to Dover, where several of the Georgian trustees met them and provided for their wants; and on January 8, 1734, they set sail, singing the “Te Deum” and praising God with both lips and hearts.

The Saltzburghers arrived in Georgia in the month of March, met with Oglethorpe, and chose a settlement twenty-one miles from Savannah, where there were “rivers, little hills, clear brooks, cool springs, a fertile soil, and plenty of grass.” At Charlestown, where they first landed, they ascertained that in the province of Carolina there were thirty thousand negroes, all of them slaves, working six days in the week for their owners without pay, and allowed to work on the Sundays for themselves. Near Savannah, they found a beautiful garden of ten acres, already planted with thriving orange-trees, olives, mulberries, figs, peaches, cabbages, peas, and pulse. The spot which they had chosen as their settlement, and to which they gave the name of Ebenezer, was surrounded by vast forests of cedars, walnuts, cypresses, and oaks, with wild vines running to the top of the highest trees. As to game, there were eagles, turkeys, roebucks, goats, deer, wild cows, horses, hares, partridges, and buffaloes without number. The Saltzburghers built tents made of the bark of trees, constructed roads and bridges, set up religious services, were furnished with domestic utensils and with cattle, and were soon a prosperous community.

In April Oglethorpe returned to England, bringing with him Tomo-chichi and other Indians, to invigorate the confidence of England in the destiny of Georgia. Parliament continued its benefactions, the king expressed interest in a province which bore his name, and the youngest child of England’s colonial enterprise won universal favour.

The next company of emigrants were a number of Scotch Highlanders, who founded New Inverness, in Darien; the next a number of Moravians, of whom more anon; and the next after that, the company with whom Wesley sailed. Wesley’s predecessor in Georgia was the Rev. Samuel Quincy,[144] a native of Massachusetts, but educated in England. Mr. Quincy wishing to return to England, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts sent Wesley as his successor, at a salary of £50 a year.[145] The chief object in founding the colony was to grow flax and hemp, to breed silkworms, and to raise raw silk.[146] The common seal of the corporation had on one side a group of silkworms at their toils, with the motto, _Non sibi, sed aliis_; and on the other, two figures reposing on urns, emblematic of the boundary rivers; and between them the genius of “Georgia Augusta,” with the cap of liberty on her head, a spear in one hand, and the horn of plenty in the other. It must be added that in this young community ardent spirits were prohibited, and the introduction of slavery forbidden.

The Transatlantic colonies existing in 1735 were nothing more than a mere fringe skirting the eastern coast of that vast continent. The Spaniards were in Florida; the English in Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New England; and the French in Canada. This was all. Excepting these few feeble colonial settlements, the whole of the immense American continent—which, measuring from New York to California, and from Lake Superior to New Orleans, extends in one direction 3300 miles and in the other 1300 miles—was one vast, rich, but uncultivated wilderness, the home of myriads of birds and beasts, and sparsely inhabited by savage Indians. Bancroft enumerates above forty Indian tribes, or nations, embracing about 180,000 souls, whose wigwams and hunting grounds were all situated on the eastern side of the Mississippi. The men were warriors, and the women labourers. Their education was acquired solely in the school of nature, and their chief almanac was the flight of birds, announcing the progress of the seasons. They kept no herds, and were never shepherds, but depended for their food on the chase, the fisheries, and a little farming. Their scanty clothing was made of skins, and their feet protected by soft mocassins. Their principal ornaments were strings of shells, the fairest feathers of the turkey, the skin of the rattlesnake, and an enemy’s scalp. Their skins were oft tattooed; and, when making visits, they painted themselves gloriously, delighting especially in vermilion. They worshipped an unseen power pervading everything, which they called the Great Spirit, and had their sorcerers, medicine men, and prophets. Faith in the spirit world, as revealed by dreams, was universal; and festivals in honour of the dead were frequent.

What became of these Indians? and where are their descendants? To answer these questions would be to pass through scenes of horror without a parallel, and to write a history of blood.

Such was America in 1735. What is it now, and what is likely to be its future? Who could have imagined that, in one hundred and thirty years, this huge wilderness would be transformed into one of the greatest nations upon earth; and that the Methodism, begun at Savannah, would pervade the continent, and, ecclesiastically considered, become the mightiest power existing? But we must now return to Wesley and his Georgian mission.

In a letter, dated October 10, 1735, Wesley gives his reasons for going to Georgia. He writes:—

“My chief motive is the hope of saving my own soul. I hope to learn the true sense of the gospel of Christ by preaching it to the heathen. They have no comments to construe away the text; no vain philosophy to corrupt it; no luxurious, sensual, covetous, ambitious expounders to soften its unpleasing truths. They have no party, no interest to serve, and are therefore fit to receive the gospel in its simplicity. They are as little children, humble, willing to learn, and eager to do, the will of God.

“A right faith will, I trust, by the mercy of God, open the way for a right practice; especially when most of those temptations are removed which here so easily beset me. It will be no small thing to be able, without fear of giving offence, to live on water and the fruits of the earth. An Indian hut affords no food for curiosity, no gratification of the desire of grand, or new, or pretty things. The pomp and show of the world have no place in the wilds of America.

“Further: I hope from the moment I leave the English shore, under the acknowledged character of a teacher sent from God, there shall be no word heard from my lips but what properly flows from that character; and the same faithfulness I hope to show in dispensing my Master’s goods, if it please Him to send me to those who, like His first followers, have all things common. What a guard is here against that root of evil, the love of money, and all the vile attractions that spring from it!

“I then hope to know what it is to love my neighbour as myself, and to feel the powers of that second motive to visit the heathens, even the desire to impart to them what I have received,—a saving knowledge of the gospel of Christ. I have been a grievous sinner from my youth up, and am yet laden with foolish and hurtful desires; but I am assured, if I be once converted myself, God will then employ me both to strengthen my brethren, and to preach His name to the gentiles.

“I cannot hope to attain the same degree of holiness here, which I may there. I shall lose nothing I desire to keep. I shall still have food to eat, and raiment to put on; and, if any man have a desire of other things, let him know that the greatest blessing that can possibly befall him is, to be cut off from all occasions of gratifying those desires which, unless speedily rooted out, will drown his soul in everlasting perdition.”[147]

Exception may fairly be taken to some of the sentiments contained in this letter. The Indians were not the docile children that Wesley imagined; nor is it true that life in heathendom is more favourable to the attainment of holiness than life in Christendom: but we neither have space nor wish to criticise Wesley’s views, our chief object being to represent him as he represents himself.

Wesley went on board the _Simmonds_, off Gravesend, on October 14, 1735; and, the day following, he wrote a characteristic letter, (probably his last before leaving the English waters,) to his brother Samuel, who was now head master of the school at Tiverton. After telling him that, two days before, he had presented to the queen his father’s “Dissertations on the Book of Job,” and had received “many good words and smiles,” he continues:—

“Elegance of style is not to be weighed against purity of heart; therefore, whatever has any tendency to impair that purity is not to be tolerated, much less recommended, for the sake of that elegance. But of this sort are most of the classics usually read in great schools: many of them tending to inflame the lusts of the flesh, and more to feed the lust of the eye and the pride of life. I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God, who would have us holy as He is holy, that you banish all such poison from your school; and that you introduce, in their place, such Christian authors as will work together with you in building up your flock in the knowledge and love of God. For assure yourself, dear brother, you are even now called to the converting of heathens as well as I. So many souls are committed to your charge by God, to be prepared for a happy eternity. You are to instruct them, not only in the beggarly elements of Greek and Latin; but much more, in the gospel. You are to labour with all your might to convince them, that Christianity is not a negation, or an external thing, but a new heart, a mind conformed to that of Christ, ‘faith working by love,’”[148]

Two days after writing the above, Wesley, in order to converse with his German fellow-passengers, began to study that language; and three days later, believing that self-denial might be helpful to his piety, he wholly left off the use of flesh and wine, and confined himself to a vegetable diet, chiefly rice and biscuit. This he continued during the whole of his residence in Georgia; but on his return to England, for the sake of some who thought he made it a point of conscience, he resumed his former mode of living, and practised it to the end of life, except during a two years’ interim, when he again became vegetarian and teetotaler, because Dr. Cheyne assured him that this was the only way to “be free from fevers.”[149]

Wesley is on board—who are the chief of his fellow voyagers? His brother Charles, Benjamin Ingham, James Edward Oglethorpe, Charles Delamotte, and David Nitschmann. Two others had intended going, namely, Westley Hall and Matthew Salmon; and both had been recently ordained with reference to the Georgian mission. At the last moment, however, Salmon’s friends pounced upon him, and sent him, almost forcibly, to his parental home in Cheshire; while Hall, who had actually hired a coach to carry him and his wife (Wesley’s sister) to Gravesend, where the ship was lying, received, as he was about to start, the intelligence that his family were not only opposed to his embarking, but had procured him a Church benefice. This so changed his missionary views and feelings, that he instantly countermanded the order for the coach, put aside all his luggage and preparations for the mission, and, hastening to General Oglethorpe, told him he had resolved not to go.[150]

Of Charles Wesley nothing need be said; his fame is everywhere. Benjamin Ingham was a young Yorkshireman, twenty-three years of age, and, for the last three months, had been preaching in the villages surrounding the metropolis with singular success. “Fast, and pray,” wrote Wesley at the beginning of September: “fast and pray; and then send me word whether you dare go with me to the Indians.” Ingham at first thought there were heathens enough at home; but, a fortnight after, he acceded to Wesley’s proposal; and, with as pure and devoted a heart as ever throbbed in missionary’s bosom, away he went to convert the Indians in America.

Oglethorpe has been already mentioned. Suffice it to add, that though chivalrous in the highest degree, and the very soul of benevolence and honour,—though brave and loyal, and full of enthusiastic feeling,—he was irascible and sometimes rash, talkative, tinged with vanity, and somewhat boastful. Like many other public men, he became the victim of unmerited censure and injudicious praise. The last thirty years of his life were chiefly spent in the society of literary and learned men. He died in 1785; and Hannah More, in a letter dated a year before his death, spoke of him thus: “He is much above ninety years old, and the finest figure you ever saw. He perfectly realises all my ideas of Nestor. His literature is great, his knowledge of the world extensive, and his faculties as bright as ever. He is quite a _preux chevalier_, heroic, romantic, and full of the old gallantry.”

Charles Delamotte was a young man of twenty-one, the son of a Middlesex magistrate; and was so attached to Wesley, that when he heard he was about to embark for Georgia he determined to go with him, and to act as his servant. His father, naturally enough, strongly objected, and offered to settle him in a handsome business; but the youth was obstinate, and after obtaining a partial consent from his parents and family, set sail with Wesley, lived with him, served under him as a son in the gospel, did much good, and endured great hardships for the sake of Christ. On his return to England, he became a Moravian, settled at Barrow-upon-Humber, where he spent a long life of piety and peace, and died in 1796.[151]

David Nitschmann was born in Moravia, and was now in the sixtieth year of his age. In 1720 a remarkable revival of religion took place in the town where David lived; but, by the intervention of the Jesuits, the meetings of the new converts were prohibited, and many who attended them were imprisoned in stables, cellars, and other offensive places. A police officer entered Nitschmann’s house, where one hundred and fifty of these godly people were assembled, and seized all the books within his reach. The congregation at once struck up a stanza of one of Luther’s hymns:—

“If the whole world with devils swarmed, That threatened us to swallow, We will not fear, for we are armed, And victory will follow.”

Twenty persons, including David, all heads of respectable families, were arrested and sent to gaol. For three days David was deprived of food, and was so cruelly ironed that the blood spurted from his nose and mouth, and oozed from his very pores. After some time, he escaped from his horrid dungeon, and fled for safety to his Moravian friends at Herrnhut. David was now a Moravian bishop, and, accompanied by about thirty Moravians, was on his way to visit the congregations of the Brethren in Georgia.

Such were the chief of Wesley’s fellow voyagers. As already stated, they embarked at Gravesend on October 14, 1735; but it was not until December 10 that they fairly started.[152] First of all, they encountered a storm in the Downs; then, on arriving at Cowes, they had to await the man-of-war that was to be their convoy.

The rules which Wesley and his friends observed during their long voyage were as follows:—From four in the morning till five, they employed in private prayer. From five to seven, they read the Bible together, carefully comparing what they read with the writings of the earliest ages. At seven, they breakfasted. At eight, they had public prayers and expounded the lesson. From nine to twelve, Wesley usually learned German, Delamotte studied Greek and navigation, Charles Wesley wrote sermons, and Ingham gave instruction to the twelve children on board. At twelve, they met together for mutual prayer, and to report progress. About one, they dined; and from the time of dinner till four in the afternoon, they read or spoke to certain of the passengers of whom they had respectively taken charge. At four, they had evening prayers, and either expounded the lesson, or catechized and instructed the children in the presence of the congregation. From five to six was again spent in private prayer. From six to seven they read, each in his own cabin, to three different detachments of the English passengers, of whom about eighty were on board. At seven, Wesley joined the Moravians in their public service; while Ingham read, between the decks, to as many as desired to hear. At eight, the four faithful friends met in private to exhort and instruct each other; and, between nine and ten, they went to bed without mats and blankets, where neither the roaring of the sea nor the rocking of the ship could rob them of refreshing rest.[153]

While detained at Cowes, Wesley, after careful instruction, baptized four unbaptized Quakers.[154] Charles Wesley, being known to the minister of the town, preached several times in the parish church to large congregations; and, in the house of a poor woman, read to the crowds which flocked to hear him. In other respects also their detention was productive of good; for a gentleman who scoffed at religion left the ship; the second mate, who was an insolent and ill natured fellow, was expelled; and a young man was received on board, who, for his piety, had been turned adrift by his rich parents, and had been praying incessantly that he might be directed to a place where he could have the advantage of public prayers and the holy sacrament.

On November 3, while walking in the Isle of Wight, the four friends agreed upon the following resolutions, which they solemnly subscribed:—

“IN the name of God, Amen! We, whose names are underwritten, being fully convinced that it is impossible, either to promote the work of God among the heathen, without an entire union among ourselves, or that such a union should subsist, unless each one will give up his single judgment to that of the majority, do agree, by the help of God:—first, that none of us will undertake anything of importance without first proposing it to the other three;—secondly, that whenever our judgments differ, any one shall give up his single judgment or inclination to the others;—thirdly, that in case of an equality, after begging God’s direction, the matter shall be decided by lot.

JOHN WESLEY, CHARLES WESLEY, BENJAMIN INGHAM, CHARLES DELAMOTTE.”[155]

Of the Moravians on board, Ingham, in a long letter to his mother, wrote as follows:—“They are a good, devout, peaceable, and heavenly-minded people; and almost the only time you know they are in the ship is when they are harmoniously singing the praises of the great Creator, which they constantly do twice a day. Their example was very edifying. They are more like the primitive Christians than any church now existing, for they retain both the faith, practice, and discipline delivered by the apostles. They have regularly ordained bishops, priests, and deacons. Baptisms, confirmation, and the eucharist are duly administered. Discipline is strictly exercised, without respect of persons. They all submit themselves to their pastors in everything. They live together in perfect love and peace, having for the present all things common. They are more ready to serve their neighbours than themselves. In business they are diligent, in all their dealings strictly just; and in everything they behave themselves with meekness, sweetness, and humility.”

From the same letter we learn that, on October 18, Wesley and Ingham began to read the Old Testament together; and, at the rate of between nine and ten chapters daily, finished it before they arrived at Georgia. On the day following, Wesley commenced preaching without notes; and during the passage, in a series of sermons, he went through the whole of our Saviour’s sermon on the mount, and, every sabbath, had a weekly sacrament.

The voyage, from Cowes to the Savannah river, was made in fifty-seven days. Oglethorpe seems to have acted with great kindness. On one occasion, when some of the officers and gentlemen on board took liberties with Wesley and his friends, Oglethorpe indignantly exclaimed, “What mean you, sirs? Do you take these gentlemen for tithe-pig parsons? They are gentlemen of learning and respectability. They are my friends, and whoever offers an affront to them insults me.”[156] This was quite enough, and, ever after, the poor Methodists were treated with respect. Oglethorpe was irritable, but noble-hearted and generous. Wesley, hearing an unusual noise in the general’s cabin, entered to inquire the cause; on which the angry soldier cried: “Excuse me, Mr. Wesley; I have met with a provocation too great to bear. This villain, Grimaldi, an Italian servant, has drunk nearly the whole of my Cyprus wine, the only wine that agrees with me, and several dozens of which I had provided for myself. But I am determined to be revenged. The rascal shall be tied hand and foot, and be carried to the man-of-war; for I never forgive.” “Then,” said Wesley with great calmness, “then I hope, sir, you never sin.” Oglethorpe was confounded, his vengeance was gone, he put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a bunch of keys, and threw them at Grimaldi, saying, “There, villain! take my keys, and behave better for the future.”[157]

The voyage to Georgia was not without danger. On the 17th of January, the sea broke over the ship, and, shaking it from stem to stern, brought down the mainyard upon the decks, and dashed through the cabin windows. Six days after, an immense wave vaulted over Wesley’s head, and drenched him to the skin. Two days later, the winds roared, and the ship rocked to and fro with the utmost violence. The sea sparkled and smoked as if on fire, and the air literally blazed with lightning. The mainsail was torn to tatters, and the companion swept away.[158] Just at the time this occurred, the Moravians were engaged in their evening service, and were singing a psalm of praise. As usual, Wesley was with them. The English passengers began screaming; but the Germans calmly continued singing. Wesley was struck with this, and asked one of them, after the service was concluded, “Were you not afraid?” He answered, “I thank God, no.” Wesley asked again, “But were not your women and children afraid?” “No,” replied the Moravian, “our women and children are not afraid to die.” From the Moravians Wesley went among the terror-struck English, and pointed out the difference between him that feareth God and him that feareth Him not; and then concludes his account of the storm by saying, “This was the most glorious day which I had ever seen.” Eleven days after, on February 5, 1736, they safely cast anchor in the Savannah river, and were welcomed by the firing of cannon, and by all the freeholders, constables, and tithingmen, presenting arms; while Oglethorpe’s first act was to give orders to provide materials to build a church.[159]

Savannah was now a town of about forty houses,[160] standing on a flat bluff, rising forty or fifty feet above the crescent river flowing at its base. On the eastern side of the town was a swamp, on the west a wood, and on the south a forest of pines, fourteen miles in length. The principal buildings were a courthouse, which served also for a church, a log-built prison, a storehouse, a public mill for grinding corn, and a residence for the trustees’ steward. All the houses were of the same size. There were still standing the four beautiful pines, under which Oglethorpe encamped when he landed with the first settlers, and which for nearly a twelvemonth he used as a sleeping place. At the distance of about half a mile was a small Indian town, in which large numbers of the Creek nation were occasionally accustomed to assemble. The climate was exceedingly salubrious, the land rich, and the water good.[161] Every male emigrant was allowed a watch coat, a musket, a bayonet, a hatchet, a hammer, a hand saw, a shovel, a hoe, a gimlet, a knife, an iron pot, a pair of pothooks, and a frying-pan: also for his maintenance, during the first year, 312 lbs. of beef or pork, 104 of rice, 104 of Indian corn or peas, 104 of meal, one pint of strong beer per day, 52 quarts of molasses, 16 lbs. of cheese, 12 of butter, eight oz. of spice, 12 lbs. of sugar, four gallons of vinegar, 24 lbs. of salt, 12 quarts of lamp oil, one lb. of cotton thread, and 12 lbs of soap. Proportionate allowances were made to women and children.[162] Such facts will help the reader to imagine the kind of home and society which Wesley had in Georgia.

The only other towns in Georgia, even when Wesley came back to England, were Frederica, in St. Simon’s Island, one hundred miles south of Savannah; Darien, the settlement of the Scotch Highlanders, at a distance of about eighty miles; New Ebenezer, consisting of sixty huts, nineteen miles; Highgate and Hampstead, with fourteen families, four or five miles southwest, and Thunderbolt, with three families, six miles southeast. Such were the English settlements in Georgia. All the rest of that large territory was woods, swamps, and prairies, the home of savage Indians, and of savage beasts. The Georgian Indians had no literature, no religion, and no civil government. Every one did what was right in his own eyes; and, if his neighbour felt aggrieved, he would warily do his best to shoot him, scalp him, or cut off his ears. All of them, except perhaps the Choctaws, were gluttons, drunkards, thieves, and liars; implacable, unmerciful, murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, murderers of their own children. Husbands, strictly speaking, the women had none, for the men left their so called wives at pleasure; and the wives, in return for such desertion, would cut the throats of all the children they had had by their faithless swains. The Choctaws possessed a large extent of land, eight or nine hundred miles west of Savannah, had many well inhabited towns, and six thousand warriors. The Chicasaws, dwelling among meadows, springs, and rivers, six or seven hundred miles in the interior, had ten towns, and about nine hundred fighting men,—all of them eating, drinking, and smoking almost day and night, extremely indolent except in war, and torturing and burning their prisoners with the most fiendish cruelty. The Cherokees lived in a mountainous, fruitful, and pleasant country, three or four hundred miles from Savannah, had fifty-two towns, and above three thousand men of war. The Uchees had only one small town, near two hundred miles distant from the Savannah settlement, and were hated by most and despised by all the other Indian tribes, for their cowardice and superlative diligence in thieving. The Creeks were located at a distance of about four hundred miles, had a well watered country, and fifteen hundred fighting men, and, of all the Indians, were the most infected with the insatiate love of drink, as well as other European vices. In such a country John Wesley lived, from February 5, 1736, to December 2, 1737.

One of the first to meet Wesley on the shores of Georgia was the well known Moravian elder, August Gottlieb Spangenberg. Wesley asked his advice how to act in his new sphere of labour. Spangenberg replied, “My brother, I must first ask you one or two questions. Have you the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit, that you are a child of God?” Wesley was surprised at such questions. They were new to him. He was at a loss how to answer. Spangenberg continued, “Do you know Jesus Christ?” This was easier, and Wesley answered, “I know He is the Saviour of the world.” “True,” said Spangenberg; “but do you know He has saved _you_?” Wesley was again perplexed, but answered, “I hope He has died to save me.” Spangenberg only added, “Do you know yourself?” Wesley replied, “I do.” An odd conversation, leaving Spangenberg in doubt respecting the real conversion of the Oxford priest, and leading Wesley to think of doctrines which took him more than the next two years to understand.

Nine days after his arrival, Wesley and his friends were visited by Tomo-Chichi (whom Oglethorpe had brought to England some time before) and half-a-dozen other Indians. Informed of their arrival, the young clergymen met them in their gowns and cassocks. The chief bid them welcome, said he would assemble the great men of his nation, and expressed a wish that they would teach his children; while his wife gave them a jar of milk, as emblematic of her wish that they might feed the Indians with milk, for they were but children, and a jar of honey, with the hope that the missionaries would be sweet to them.[163]

Ingham and Charles Wesley went off with Oglethorpe to lay out the town of Frederica; and Wesley and Delamotte, having no house of their own to live in, lodged, during the first month, with Spangenberg, Nitschmann, and other Moravian friends. Thus, from morning to night, were they mixed up with these godly people, and had ample opportunity to observe their spirit and behaviour. Wesley writes: “They were always employed, always cheerful themselves, and in good humour with one another; they had put away all anger, and strife, and wrath, and bitterness, and clamour, and evil speaking; they walked worthy of the vocation wherewith they were called, and adorned the gospel of our Lord in all things.” Wesley was present at the election and ordination of Anton Seifart[164] as a bishop for Georgia, the simplicity and solemnity of the service making him almost forget the seventeen hundred years between, and imagine himself in one of those assemblies where form and state were not, but Paul the tentmaker or Peter the fisherman presided, with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power. Who can estimate the influence of such intercourse in moulding the subsequent character and life of this inquiring missionary?

Mr. Quincy, Wesley’s predecessor, having now removed to Carolina, Wesley took possession of the wood-built rectory, and, on March 7th, commenced his ministry at Savannah by preaching a sermon from 1 Corinthians xiii. 3, in which he introduced two death-bed scenes,—that of his father at Epworth, and another which he had witnessed at Savannah, and which was “a spectacle worthy to be seen of God and angels and men.”[165] He officiated at nine in the morning, at twelve, and again in the afternoon;[166] and announced his design to administer the sacrament on every Sunday and on every holiday.

A few days subsequent to this, writing to his mother, he remarked:—“We are likely to stay here some months. The place is pleasant beyond imagination, and exceeding healthful. I have not had a moment’s illness of any kind since I set my foot upon the continent; nor do I know any more than one of my seven hundred parishioners who is sick at this time. Many of them indeed are, I believe, very angry already; for a gentleman, no longer ago than last night (March 17), made a ball; but the public prayers happening to begin about the same time, the church was full, and the ballroom so empty that the entertainment could not go forward. I should be heartily glad if any poor and religious men or women of Epworth or Wroote would come over to me. General Oglethorpe would give them land enough, and provisions gratis, till they could live on the produce of it.”[167]

Wesley, in this letter, evidently considers the whole of the Georgian settlements as his parish; for, so far from Savannah having at this time a population of seven hundred souls, there was scarcely that number in the whole of the settlements put together. Georgia was his parish; for, Mr. Quincy being gone, he was the only minister of the Church of England inducted into ministerial work in the Georgian territory. Charles Wesley was Oglethorpe’s secretary; and though Benjamin Ingham had gone with a few colonists to where Frederica was to stand, Frederica itself as yet did not exist. Besides, Ingham’s visit was intended to be but temporary, his mind being fully fixed upon a mission to the Indians. Indeed, this was Wesley’s purpose also. Their only object in quitting England was, not to preach to the colonists, but to the Indians; and the reason why Wesley had begun to preach to the English at Savannah was because Mr. Quincy, the minister of the English, had left the colony, and they were now as sheep without a shepherd; and also because, through the French on the one hand and the Spaniards on the other, the Indians were at present in great confusion, and had become so excited by French and Spanish plots and treachery that it was not only dangerous to go among them, but, as Tomo-Chichi told Wesley and his friends at the interview already mentioned, they seemed determined not to hear “the great word” which the white man had to teach.[168] In these two facts we find the reason, and the only reason, why Wesley’s object in going to Georgia was not fulfilled; and why, instead of preaching to the Indians in the woods, he spent his time in preaching to the English at Savannah.

The commencement of Wesley’s ministry was auspicious. A fortnight after preaching his first sermon, he wrote to his brother Charles as follows: “I have hitherto no opposition at all; all is smooth, and fair, and promising. Many seem to be awakened; all are full of respect and commendation. We cannot see any cloud gathering. But this calm cannot last: storms must come hither, too; and let them come, when we are ready to meet them.”[169]

Wesley had lived so long in the tempest of opposition that it is no wonder he felt it strange to find himself in the midst of an unbroken calm, surrounded by nothing but “respect and commendation.” This was a new experience, but it was soon ended.

Charles Wesley and Ingham were already in hot water at Frederica, and the latter hurried off to Savannah for advice. It was only three weeks since Wesley had there commenced his ministry; yet he had already established daily morning and evening public prayers, and a weekly communion; he had also formed a society, which met on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday nights, to read and pray and sing psalms together; and Delamotte had begun to teach a few orphan children.[170] This was a vigorous beginning, but now Wesley and Delamotte had to hasten to Frederica, leaving Ingham to supply their place in the best way he could.

Charles had been baptizing children by trine immersion, and endeavouring to reconcile scolding women. Some of these termagants had prejudiced Oglethorpe against him, and the poor secretary was now treated with coldness, and even charged with mutiny. A woman, whose husband had been put into confinement, blamed him for being the cause of it, and threatened to be revenged upon him, by “exposing his d——d hypocrisy and his prayers four times a day by beat of drum.”[171] While all the others were provided with boards to sleep upon, he was left to sleep upon the ground. His few well-wishers became afraid to speak to him, and even his washerwoman refused in future to wash his linen.

Wesley and Delamotte left Savannah on April 4, and returned on April 20; having spent ten days on the voyage, and six in settling the miserable squabbles that had sprung up among the palmetto huts of Frederica.

On the day of his arrival, Wesley wrote to Oglethorpe as follows:—

“SAVANNAH, _April 20, 1736_.

“SAVANNAH never was so dear to me as now. I found so little either of the form or power of godliness at Frederica, that I am sincerely glad I am removed from it. There is none of those who did run well whom I pity more than Mrs. Hawkins.[172] Her treating me in such a manner would indeed have little affected me, had my own interests only been concerned. I have been used to be betrayed, scorned, and insulted, by those I had most laboured to serve. But when I reflect on her condition, my heart bleeds for her.”

Wesley then refers to the accusation against his brother, to the effect that, by the frequency of his public prayers, he prevented the men attending to their proper work, and interrupted the progress of the town and colony. He shows the absurdity of this, by stating that, both at Frederica and Savannah, not more than seven minutes were spent in reading the public morning and evening prayers. Fourteen minutes daily, in two public services, could hardly be considered an unreasonable taxation of the people’s time. Wesley writes: “These cannot be termed long prayers: no Christian assembly ever used shorter.” And then he naively informs Oglethorpe that these short prayers had no repetitions in them! We should think not![173]

Within a month after his return to Savannah, Wesley began to carry out his high church principles. He refused to baptize a child of Mr. Parker’s, second bailiff of the town, because the parents objected to its being dipped. On Sundays, he divided the public prayers, according to the original appointment of the Church; reading the morning service at five; the communion office and a sermon at eleven; and the evening service at three. He also commenced visiting his parishioners in order, from house to house, setting apart for this purpose three hours every day.

He had no sooner begun, however, than his brother, wearied with his life at Frederica, and full of abhorrence at the false-heartedness of the people,[174] unexpectedly presented himself at Savannah. Places were exchanged, and John and Delamotte instantly started off to the forsaken flock. They arrived at Frederica on May 22nd, and remained until June 23rd. During this brief visit, Wesley read the commendatory prayer over Mrs. Germain, at the point of death; made Mr. Lassel’s will; arranged a small society-meeting, like that which had been organised at Savannah; and reproved an officer of a man-of-war for swearing. One of his congregation said to him: “I like nothing you do; all your sermons are satires upon particular persons. Besides, we are Protestants: but as for you, we cannot tell what religion you are of. We never heard of such a religion before; we know not what to make of it. And then your private behaviour: all the quarrels that have been here since your arrival have been because of you; and there is neither man nor woman in the town who minds a word you say.” The next day Wesley returned to Savannah.

He was no sooner back than a large party of Indians came, including several chiefs and an interpreter, with whom he had several interviews. He now hoped that a door was opened for the fulfilment of his intention to be a missionary among the heathen; but when he informed Oglethorpe of his purpose, the general objected, on the ground that there was great danger of his being taken or killed by the French, and that it was inexpedient to leave Savannah without a minister. Wesley answered that, though the trustees of Georgia had appointed him to the office of minister of Savannah, this was done without his solicitation, desire, or knowledge; and that he should not continue longer than until his way was opened to go among the Indians. And so the matter ended.

On the 26th of July, after spending a little more than five months in Georgia, his brother Charles embarked for England. At the same time, Wesley went again to ill-natured Frederica, where he spent the next twelve weeks. Here he read, with Delamotte, Bishop Beveridge’s “_Pandectæ Canonum Conciliorum_,” and became more convinced than ever that both particular and general councils may err. He set up a small library; and as several Germans, through not understanding the English tongue, were unable to join in the public service, he agreed to meet them every day at noon, in his own house, where, in their own language, he expounded to them a chapter of the New Testament, and prayed with them. Finding, however, that his prospects of doing good at Frederica became less and less, he returned to Savannah on the 31st of October, where he continued until the beginning of 1737.

Meanwhile, Wesley’s friends in England did not forget him. The following was from his old acquaintance, Mr. Morgan, and is now for the first time given to the public.

“OXON, _November 27, 1735_.

“DEAR SIR,— ... Be pleased to let Mr. Ingham know that I intend going to Yorkshire, if not hindered by my father. God has made Mr. Dickison the instrument of awakening his landlord and landlady. I read to them at Mr. Fox’s an hour every other day, in the Bishop of Man’s Catechism. Mr. Fox and his wife, especially the former, are most zealous Christians; and are earnestly bent on going to Georgia. So is Mr. Dickison, who is ‘an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile.’ I do not doubt but we shall be able to send you a colony of thorough good Christians. I have undertaken the care of Bocardo. I go there three days in the week, and Mr. Broughton a fourth. I read every Sunday night to a cheerful number of Christians at Mr. Fox’s. I could say a great deal respecting our meetings, etc.; but I am obliged to steal even this time from the holy Scriptures, in which I find more and more comfort every day. Indeed, the Lord’s kingdom increaseth apace. My love to your brother, and Mr. Ingham, and Mr. Delamotte; and best respects to Mr. Oglethorpe. I should be very glad if you could spare me some of your prayers, or anything else which may be of service to me.

“I am, your brother in Christ Jesus, “RICHARD MORGAN.

“To the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, in Georgia.”

Another unpublished letter lies before us, written by Sir John Thorold, and breathing a most Christian spirit. Omitting what is purely sentimental, we give the following extracts:—

“LONDON, ST. JAMES’S PALACE, _May 24, 1736_.

“DEAR SIR,—I am unwilling to lose the opportunity of writing to you, by Capt. Thompson, and inquiring after the welfare of yourself, your brother, Mr. Ingham, Mr. Delamotte, and the whole colony of Georgia. I have read the journal of your voyage to that new settlement, and can, with pleasure, discern the footsteps of Divine Providence towards you.... Our dear friend Mr. Broughton is curate at the Tower, and has undertaken to preach to the poor prisoners in Ludgate every Tuesday in the afternoon. Mr. Whitefield and Mr. Hervey propose to enter into holy orders this next ordination. May they become burning and shining lights in the Church! Sir John Phillips has been, for several weeks, hindered from attending the societies, by reason of sickness and infirmities. He piously allows Mr. Whitefield £20 per annum. Several of Mr. Broughton’s late parishioners at Cowley forget not the assembling of themselves together. Your friends at Oxford continue to exhort and edify one another. Tell me what progress you make in spiritualizing your flock; and what probability there is of the Lord opening the door of faith to the Indians.... May the God of love keep you all knit together in the bond of charity, and may you at last receive a beautiful crown at the Lord’s hand, and enter amongst angels and archangels, to sing everlasting songs of praise to the Lord Almighty. I desire your prayers for me and mine.

“J. THOROLD.”

The next was from James Hutton:—

“_September 3, 1736._

“DEAR SIR,—I am this day twenty-one years old. Mr. Whitefield has taken orders, and is in town to supply Mr. Broughton’s places at the Tower and Ludgate prison. Mr. Broughton reads prayers every night to a religious society that meet in Wapping chapel. Mr. Morgan is obliged by his father’s orders to study physic at Leyden, where the name of Wesley stinks as well as at Oxford. I had the happiness of seeing your good mother, who came to town, in her way from Gainsborough, to Mr. Hall first, and thence very soon to Tiverton. Mr. Law visited her at Gainsborough, and again at London. Your mother desired her blessing to you, and would have wrote, but had no time. She prayed for you and blessed you. If all matters relating to receiving your fellowship are not exact, write fresh ones, and send over. Take care to inquire carefully and strictly concerning the mission of the Moravian bishop. I will make what inquiries I can. A great deal depends upon the validity of ordinations.”[175]

At the same time, Hervey at Oxford wrote:—“I am still a most weak corrupt creature. But, blessed be the unmerited mercy of God, and thanks be to your never-to-be-forgotten example, that I am what I am! You have been both a father and a friend to me. I heartily thank you, as for all other favours, so especially for teaching me Hebrew.”[176]

William Chapman, a student of Pembroke College, wrote as follows:—“Your kind concern and repeated endeavours for my spiritual good, while at Oxford, will not suffer me to think that you have utterly lost all remembrance of me. I sit every evening with Mr. Hervey, that great champion of the Lord of hosts, and read five times a week to a religious society in St. Ebbs’ parish. God and the angels be with you!”[177]

Wesley, before leaving England, had begun to read the mystics, and on November 23, 1736, addressed a long letter to his brother Samuel, showing that, though he had been in danger of embracing their bewildering heresies, he had now abandoned them. He writes:—

“I think the rock on which I had the nearest made shipwreck of the faith was the writings of the mystics: under which term I comprehend all, and only those, who slight any of the means of grace. I have drawn up a short scheme of their doctrines, and beg your thoughts upon it, as soon as you can conveniently. Give me them as particularly, fully, and strongly as your time will permit. They may be of consequence, not only to all this province, but to nations of Christians yet unborn.

“‘All means are not necessary for all men: therefore each person must use such means, and such only, as he finds necessary for him. When the end is attained the means cease.’

“‘Men utterly divested of free will, of self-love, and self-activity, are entered into the passive state, and enjoy such a contemplation as is not only above faith, but above sight—such as is entirely free from images, thoughts, and discourse, and never interrupted by sins of infirmity, or voluntary distractions. They have absolutely renounced their reason and understanding; else they could not be guided by a Divine light. They seek no clear or particular knowledge of anything, but only an obscure, general knowledge, which is far better.’

“‘Having thus attained the end, the means must cease. Hope is swallowed up in love. Sight, or something more than sight, takes the place of faith. All particular virtues they possess in the essence, and therefore need not the distinct exercise of them. They work likewise all good works essentially, not accidentally, and use all outward means, only as they are moved thereto.’

“‘Public prayer, or any forms, they need not; for they pray without ceasing. Sensible devotion in any prayer they despise; it being a great hindrance to perfection. The Scripture they need not read; for it is only His letter, with whom they converse face to face. Neither do they need the Lord’s supper; for they never cease to _remember_ Christ in the most acceptable manner.’”

Such was the mystified balderdash which Wesley had been in danger of adopting. He concludes his letter thus:—

“May God deliver you and yours from all error, and all unholiness! My prayers will never, I trust, be wanting for you. I am, dear brother, my sister’s and your

“Most affectionate brother, “JOHN WESLEY.”[178]

At the end of the year 1736, Wesley and Delamotte set out, on foot, to Cowpen, missed their way, walked through a cypress swamp, with the water breast high, and slept on the ground in their wet clothes, which during the night were frozen, and in the morning were white as snow. They then started for Frederica, fell short of provisions, used bear’s flesh, and proved it to be wholesome. Arriving on January 5, 1737, they found the people, as they expected, cold and heartless. Wesley’s life was repeatedly threatened; and, after spending twenty more days in this unhappy place, he departed from Frederica for ever. In his passage to Savannah he read a volume containing the works of Nicholas Machiavel, and formed the deliberate opinion, “that if all the other doctrines of devils, which have been committed to writing, were collected together in one volume, it would fall short of this; and that should a prince form himself by this book, so calmly recommending hypocrisy, treachery, lying, robbery, oppression, adultery, whoredom, and murder of all kinds, Domitian or Nero would be an angel of light compared to that man.”

Wesley had now been fifty-two weeks in America, twenty-four of which he had spent at Savannah, and the rest at Frederica and at other places between the two. He remained forty-six weeks longer. How was he occupied? And what were his troubles?

Delamotte was teaching between thirty and forty children at Savannah to read, write, and cast accounts, and Wesley catechized them every Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Every sabbath he had three public services, at five in the morning, twelve at mid-day, and three in the afternoon; and then at night as many of his parishioners as desired it met at his house, with whom he spent an hour in prayer, singing, and mutual exhortation. A similar meeting was held in the same place every Wednesday night, and selecter ones on all the other evenings of the week.

There being no immediate prospect of commencing a mission among the heathen, Wesley, Delamotte, and Ingham consulted together, and agreed that the last mentioned should return to England; and accordingly, after spending exactly fifty-five weeks in Georgia, he embarked for home, having literally done next to nothing either for the colonists or the Indians, with the exception of composing, in Dr. Byrom’s shorthand, a catalogue of half the words in the Indian language,[179] in a house built for him near the Indian town, a few miles from Savannah. The chief object of sending Ingham to England was to obtain more help for the colonists. In a letter dated February 16, 1737, and addressed to a friend in Lincoln College, Oxford, Wesley writes:—

“There is great need that God should put it into the hearts of some, to come over to us, and labour with us in His harvest. But I should not desire any to come unless on the same views and conditions with us; without any temporal wages, other than food and raiment, the plain conveniences of life. For one or more, in whom was this mind, there would be full employment in the province: either in assisting Mr. Delamotte or me, while we were present here; or in supplying our places when abroad; or in visiting the poor people in the smaller settlements as well as at Frederica, all of whom are as sheep without a shepherd.

“By these labours of love might any that desired it be trained up for the harder task of preaching the gospel to the heathen. The difficulties he must then encounter God only knows; probably martyrdom would conclude them. But those we have hitherto met with have been small. Persecution, you know, is the portion of every follower of Christ, wherever his lot is cast; but it has hitherto extended no farther than words with regard to us, unless in one or two inconsiderable instances. Still, every man that would come hither ought to be willing and ready to embrace the severer kinds of it.”[180]

Meanwhile, Oglethorpe’s troubles had begun. From a letter which Wesley wrote to him, on February 24, 1737, we learn that Sir Robert Walpole had turned against the general, and parliament had resolved to make a strict scrutiny into Georgian affairs. The trustees had charged Oglethorpe with misapplying moneys, and with abusing his entrusted power. Wesley adds: “Perhaps in some things you have shown you are but a man: perhaps I myself may have a little to complain of: but oh what a train of benefits have I received to lay in the balance against it! I bless God that ever you was born. I acknowledge His exceeding mercy in casting me into your hands. I own your generous kindness all the time we were at sea. I am indebted to you for a thousand favours here. Though all men should revile you, yet will not I.”[181]

Sinister rumours were circulated in reference to Wesley, as well as Oglethorpe. Hence the following hitherto unpublished letter, endorsed by Wesley thus:—“The Trustees’ Letter, June 17, 1737, fully acquitting me:”—

“_Trustees of Georgia to the Rev. J. Wesley._

“GEORGIA OFFICE, _June 15, 1737_.

“SIR,—The Rev. Mr. Burton has this day laid before the trustees a letter from you to them, dated Savannah, March 4, 1737, wherein you express a concern that they should receive an accusation of your embezzling any part of their goods, and likewise a desire to know the name of your accuser.

“The trustees have ordered me to assure you, that they are very much surprised at any apprehensions you have of such accusation being brought before them. No complaint of any kind has been laid before them relating to you. They have never as a board, nor has any of them privately, heard of one; nor have they the least suspicion of any ground for one. They would not (if they had received any) form a judgment of you without acquainting you with the accusation, and the name of the accuser. At the same time, they believe you will think it reasonable to let them know who has informed you that any such accusation has been brought before them, and that, for the future, you will not believe nor listen to any private informations or insinuations, that must make you uneasy, and may lead you to distrust the justice of the trustees, and the regard they have for you.

“The trustees are very sensible of the great importance of the work you have engaged in; and they hope God will prosper the undertaking, and support you in it; for they have much at heart, not only the success of the colony in general, but the progress of piety among the people, as well as the conversion of the Indians. They are very glad to find that Mr. Causton has seconded your endeavours to suppress vice and immorality, and that a reformation gains ground, as you observe it does. The trustees will take into consideration your application in favour of Robert Haws, and have a regard to it.

“I am, sir, your most obedient servant, “BENJAMIN MARTIN, _Secretary_.”

The following letter, also now first published, refers to the same subject, besides containing other information which we hope will be found not devoid of interest. It was addressed to “The Rev. Mr. John Wesley, at Savannah, in Georgia:”—

“OSSET, _October 19, 1737_.

“DEAR BROTHER,—By your silence one would suspect that you were offended at my last letter. Am I your enemy because I tell you the truth? But perhaps I was too severe. Forgive me then. However, I am sure that, by soaring too high in your own imaginations, you have had a great downfall in your spiritual progress. Be lowly, therefore, in your own eyes. Humble yourself before the Lord, and He will lift you up. I do assure you it is out of pure love, and with concern, that I write. I earnestly wish your soul’s welfare. O pray for mine also. The Lord preserve you!

“Could you, think you, live upon the income of your fellowship? If you can, do. The trustees are indeed very willing to support you, and they take it ill that anybody should say you have been too expensive. But the Bishop of London (as I have heard), and some others, have been offended at your expenses. And not indeed altogether without reason, because you declared at your leaving England that you should want scarcely anything. I just give you these hints. Pray for direction, and then act as you judge best.

“Charles is so reserved: I know little about him: he neither writes to me, nor comes to see me: what he intends is best known to himself. Mr. Hutton’s family go on exceedingly well. Your friend Mr. Morgan (I hear) either has, or is about publishing a book, to prove that every one baptized with water is regenerate. All friends at Oxford go on well. Mr. Kinchin, Mr. Hutchins, Mr. Washington, Bell, Turney, Hervey, Watson, are all zealous. Mr. Atkinson labours under severe trials in Westmoreland; but is steady, and sincere, and an excellent Christian. Dick Smith is weak, but not utterly gone. Mr. Robson, and Grieves, are but indifferent: the latter is married to a widow, and teaching school at Northampton. Mr. Thompson, of Queen’s, has declared his resolution of following Christ.

“Remember me to Mr. Wallis, Mark Hind, and the Davison family, Mrs. Gilbert Mears, Mr. Campbell, Mr. and Mrs. Burnside, Mr. and Mrs. Williamson.

“Yours in Christ, “BENJAMIN INGHAM.”

Wesley’s ideas of religion, at this period, may be gathered from the following extracts from a letter, dated “Savannah, March 28, 1737,” and addressed to “William Wogan, Esq., in Spring Gardens, London.”[182]

“I entirely agree with you, that religion is love, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; that, as it is the happiest, so it is the cheerfulest thing in the world; that it is utterly inconsistent with moroseness, sourness, severity, and indeed with whatever is not according to the softness, sweetness, and gentleness of Christ Jesus. I believe it is equally contrary to all preciseness, stiffness, affectation, and unnecessary singularity. I allow, too, that prudence, as well as zeal, is of the utmost importance in the Christian life. But I do not yet see any possible case wherein trifling conversation can be an instance of it. In the following scriptures I take all such to be flatly forbidden: Matt. xii. 36; Eph. v. 4, and iv. 29; Col. iv. 6.

“That I shall be laughed at for this, I know; so was my Master. I am not for a stern, austere manner of conversing. No: let all the cheerfulness of faith be there, all the joyfulness of hope, all the amiable sweetness—the winning easiness of love. If we must have art, ‘_Hic mihi erunt artes_.’”

Again, in another letter, written to Mrs. Chapman a day later, he says:—

“You seem to apprehend that I believe religion to be inconsistent with cheerfulness, and with a social friendly temper. So far from it, that I am convinced, as true religion cannot be without cheerfulness, so steady cheerfulness cannot be without true religion. I am equally convinced that religion has nothing sour, austere, unsociable, unfriendly in it; but on the contrary, implies the most winning sweetness, the most amiable softness and gentleness. Are you for having as much cheerfulness as you can? So am I. Do you endeavour to keep alive your taste for all the truly innocent pleasures of life? So do I. Do you refuse no pleasure but what is a hindrance to some greater good, or has a tendency to some evil? It is my very rule. In particular, I pursue this rule in eating, which I seldom do without much pleasure. I know it is the will of God, that I should enjoy every pleasure that leads to my taking pleasure in Him, and in such a measure as most leads to it. We are to do nothing but what, directly or indirectly, leads to our holiness; and to do every such thing with this design, and in such a measure as may most promote it.

“I am not mad, my dear friend, for asserting these to be the words of truth and soberness; neither are any of those, either in England or here, who have hitherto attempted to follow me. I am and must be an example to my flock; not indeed in my prudential rules, but, in some measure, in my spirit and life and conversation. Yet all of them are, in your sense of the word, unlearned, and most of them of low understanding; and still not one of them has been, as yet, in any case of conscience which was not solved. As to the nice distinctions you speak of, it is you, my friend, who are lost in them. We have no need of nice distinctions; for I exhort all, and dispute with none. I feed my brethren in Christ, as He giveth me power, with the pure, unmixed milk of the word; and those who are as little children receive it, not as the word of man, but as the word of God.”[183]

These are important letters, as tending to refute the commonly received opinion, that, at this period of his history, Wesley was morose, sour, gloomy, and in fact thought that cheerfulness was inconsistent with religion. His views and some of his practices might seem to many to be peculiar; but he was a cheerful and happy man, even amid the vigils, fastings, and solitudes of Georgia. Some of his views were novel, but they were not incompatible with happiness. He writes: “When I first landed at Savannah, a gentlewoman said, ‘I assure you, sir, you will see as _well dressed_ a congregation on Sunday as most you have seen in London.’ I did so; and soon after I took occasion to expound those scriptures which relate to dress; and all the time that I afterward ministered at Savannah, I saw neither gold in the church, nor costly apparel, but the congregation in general was almost constantly clothed in plain clean linen or woollen.”[184] This wears an aspect of anchorite severity, but still Wesley and his plain-robed followers were happy.

In April, 1737, Wesley began to learn the Spanish language, in order to converse with his Jewish parishioners. Easter being in the same month, he “had every day in this great and holy week a sermon and the holy communion.” Finding that a clergyman in Carolina had been marrying some of his (Wesley’s) parishioners, without either banns or licence, he set out for Charlestown to put a stop to such proceedings. Mr. Garden, the Bishop of London’s commissary, assured him he would take care no such irregularity should be committed for the future. At Garden’s request, Wesley preached a sermon on, “whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world”; which led a man of education and character to object—“Why if this be Christianity, a Christian must have more courage than Alexander the Great.”

Returning to Savannah, in the month of May, Wesley found one of his congregation, who had been exemplarily religious, turned a deist; and expressed the opinion that bad a religion as Popery is, no religion is worse; and that a baptized infidel is twofold worse than even a bigoted papist. This was only one of Wesley’s trials. A wicked woman, whom he had offended, decoyed him into her house, threw him down, and, with her scissors, cut off from one side of his head the whole of those long locks of auburn hair, which he had been accustomed to keep in the most perfect order. After this, he preached at Savannah with his hair long on one side and short on the other, those sitting on the side which had been cut observing, “What a cropped head of hair the young parson has.”[185]

At Whitsuntide, four of his scholars, after being instructed daily for several weeks, were admitted to the Lord’s table, and many of the other children evinced a remarkable seriousness in their behaviour and conversation. This was doubtless a cause of great joy both to Wesley and his friend Delamotte, each of whom taught a school, and, like all schoolmasters, met with discouragements. A part of the boys in Delamotte’s school wore stockings and shoes, and the others not. The former ridiculed the latter. Delamotte tried to put a stop to this uncourteous banter, but told Wesley he had failed. Wesley replied, “I think I can cure it. If you will take charge of my school next week I will take charge of yours, and will try.” The exchange was made, and on Monday morning Wesley went into school barefoot. The children seemed surprised, but without any reference to past jeerings Wesley kept them at their work. Before the week was ended, the shoeless ones began to gather courage; and some of the others, seeing their minister and master come without shoes and stockings, began to copy his example, and thus the evil was effectually cured.”[186]

In the early summer of 1737, Whitefield wrote to Wesley, telling him of his success in England. A young country lad had brought him a peck of apples seven miles upon his back, as a token of gratitude for the benefit he had derived from Whitefield’s ministry, and had such a sense of the Divine presence that he walked, for the most part, with his hat off his head. God was also moving on the hearts of some young ladies. Whitefield continues:—

“The devil, I find, has a particular spite against weekly communion; but I am in hope we shall have the sacrament administered every Sunday at the cathedral. It would have been mentioned to the bishop ere now, but Oxford friends advised to defer it till next summer.

“But now I have mentioned the bishop: alas! how should I tremble to tell you how I have been continually disturbed with thoughts, that I, a worm taken from a common public-house, should, ere I die, be one myself. Your earnest prayers, surely, will not be wanting for me, that I may not split on that most dangerous of all rocks—worldly ambition. Parsonages, I believe, are providing for me; but I trust Satan will never catch me by pluralities, or induce me to take upon me anything inconsistent with the duty of a disciple of Jesus Christ. I hope our friends all continue steadfast and zealous at Oxford. My love to the young merchant, whose example I hope we shall all be enabled to follow, if God requires our assistance in Georgia. O may you go on and prosper, and, in the strength of God, make the devil’s kingdom shake about his ears! I received benefit by your father’s ‘Advice to a Young Clergyman.’”[187]

Whitefield’s dream about being made a bishop is amusing; and yet Providence and grace made him greater than a bishop.

Wesley still felt intensely anxious respecting the heathen. In July he met a Frenchman, who had lived several months among the Chicasaws, and wrote to Dr. Humphreys as follows:—[188]

“Concerning the conversion of the heathen, where is the seed sown, the _sanguis martyrum_? Do we hear of any who have sealed the faith with their blood in all this vast continent? Or do we read of any church flourishing in any age or nation without this seed first sown there? Give me leave, sir, to speak my thoughts freely. When God shall put it into the hearts of some of His servants, whom He hath already delivered from earthly hopes and fears, to join hand in hand in this labour of love; when out of these He shall have chosen one or more, to magnify Him in the sight of the heathen by dying, not with a stoical or Indian indifference, but blessing and praying for their murderers, and praising God in the midst of flame with joy unspeakable and full of glory, then the rest, waxing bold by their sufferings, shall go forth in the name of the Lord God, and by the power of His might cast down every high thing that exalteth itself against the faith of Christ. Then shall ye see Satan, the grand ruler of this New World, as lightning fall from heaven!”

Oh for missionaries like these! Wesley’s notions are right. Men going merely because others send them, or men going merely to obtain a livelihood, are not the men to convert the inhabitants of lands like Africa, India, Japan, and China. To make an impression there, men must be animated with the martyrs’ spirit. Church history, including the history of missions, affords abundant proof of this. Mere duty-doing ministers are bad enough in England, but they are vastly worse when among the heathen. Money spent upon them there is worse than wasted; for their cold perfunctory labours produce, upon the whole, a bad effect instead of good. The greatest boon the church could now receive from the hands of God would be a multiplication of ministers and missionaries like those which Wesley was sighing for in Georgia.

From Wesley’s private manuscript journal, we learn that in July, by going from house to house, he took a census of his parishioners, and computed that there were in Savannah 518 inhabitants, of whom 149 were under sixteen years of age. Frederica was without a minister, though three hundred acres of land had been granted by the trustees for a church establishment in that unhappy town.[189] Other places with scanty populations were equally destitute. New Ebenezer had the Moravians; and Darien had Mr. M’Leod, a serious, resolute, and pious Presbyterian: but this seems to have been all the ministerial agency existing in Georgia. Hence the following letter, addressed by Wesley to his friends at Oxford:—

“SAVANNAH, _September 8, 1737_.

“... Long since, I begun to visit my parishioners in order, from house to house; but I could not go on two days longer. The sick were increasing so fast as to require all the time I had to spare—from one to five in the afternoon. Nor is even that enough to see them all, as I would do, daily. In Frederica and all the smaller settlements here are above five hundred sheep almost without a shepherd. What a single man can do is neither seen nor felt. Where are ye who are very zealous for the Lord of hosts? Who will rise up with me against the wicked? Whose spirit is moved within him to prepare himself for publishing glad tidings to those on whom the Sun of Righteousness never yet arose? Do you ask what you shall have? Why, all you desire: food to eat, raiment to put on, a place where to lay your head, and a crown of life that fadeth not away! Do you seek means of building up yourselves in the knowledge and love of God? I know of no place under heaven where there are more than in this place. Does your heart burn within you to turn many others to righteousness? Behold, the whole land, thousands of thousands are before you! I will resign to any of you all or any part of my charge. Choose what seemeth good in your own eyes. There are within these walls children of all ages and dispositions. Who will bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, till they are meet to be preachers of righteousness? Here are adults from the farthest parts of Europe, and Asia, and the inmost kingdoms of Africa; add to these the known and unknown nations of this vast continent, and you will indeed have a great multitude which no man can number.”[190]

While Wesley was thus longing for help, events were transpiring, by which he himself within three months was driven out of Georgia, and obliged to return to England. This was the closing scene in Wesley’s missionary life, and though a painful one it must not be shirked. All the facts in the writer’s possession shall be given, and the reader shall have materials to form his own opinion. The chief actors in the scene, besides Wesley himself, were Sophia Christiana Hopkey, Thomas Causton, and William Williamson.

Causton was one of the first company of emigrants, and landed in Georgia with Oglethorpe, in February, 1733. He was a man of no substance, and his character was not as good as it might have been. In fact, he left England in disgrace, having practised a fraud upon the public revenue. He was naturally proud, covetous, cunning, and deceitful. By his clever rascality he wriggled himself into Oglethorpe’s favour, and, on the arrival of the few emigrant gaol-birds in the Savannah river, was appointed a sort of dictator of the infant settlement, and had charge of the stores which the trustees sent over for the use of the colonists. We have already seen that, even when Wesley left for England at the end of the year 1737, the inhabitants of Savannah were not more than 518 in number, of whom only 369 were adult males and females. This was no large kingdom; but Thomas Causton was a large man, because he was at the head of it. Indeed, the molehill empire seems to have magnified itself to the utmost extent possible, by the introduction of law, the establishment of courts, the appointment of officers, the election of juries, and the adoption of everything else within its power which was likely to make it a pompous minikin miniature of the great system of government at home. Causton was “chief magistrate,” and of course a “chief” had subordinates under him. There was a recorder, also a bailiff. There were constables, and tithingmen, and other great functionaries, all armed with solemn authority to rule, govern, and keep in order, first themselves, and then about five hundred men, women, and children, including John Wesley the Oxford priest, and Charles Delamotte the merchant master of almost a ragged school.

“The ocean is in tempest tossed, To waft a feather and to drown a fly.”

Of all the great powers, however, in this log-built village of five hundred souls, Thomas Causton, in his own estimation, and in fact, was greatest. The other Tom Thumb magistrates were ciphers in his august presence. Sometimes, indeed, he would ask their opinion in public on the state matters of the great city of Savannah; but it was principally to have the pleasure of uttering an opinion of his own, directly opposite to theirs. Juries he threatened without the least compunction, and especially when their verdicts disagreed with his inclinations. As his power increased, so did his pride, haughtiness, and cruelty. The court in which this fraudulent refugee—we beg his pardon, this “chief magistrate”—expounded law and dispensed justice, was guarded by eight freeholders, with an officer to direct their movements, all armed with guns and bayonets. Seated, in such high dignity, and so far above his fellows, upon the judicial bench, it was beneath his office to sit uncovered; and hence he almost invariably wore his hat, even when administering an oath. Should any foolish wight be bold enough to oppose, in the least degree, his arbitrary proceedings, the “chief magistrate” at once threatened the impudent recusant with the stocks, the whipping-post, and a lodging in the log-house prison. Even his fellow officials were treated with scant respect. In December, 1734, the trustees sent a Mr. Gordon from England, to act as magistrate; but Causton, not liking a compeer, refused him provisions from the store, and he was obliged to leave. Indeed, Causton, who had sufficient cleverness to induce Oglethorpe, despite his roguery in England, to make him magistrate in Savannah, seems to have used the same worldly cunning in allowing none to be his subordinates except those whom he could, with the utmost ease, twist to his own purposes. Mr. Bailiff Parker, mentioned in Wesley’s journal, had nothing to support himself and his large family, except what he earned by his daily labour as a sawyer. He was a man of no education, and was an absolute slave to liquor. Another bailiff was a man of the name of Daru, nearly seventy years old, and crazed in both body and mind; and another was R. Gilbert, who could neither read nor write. Causton’s despotic career was of short duration. The same grand jury which found, under Causton’s guidance, ten bills against Wesley, immediately proceeded to examine the official doings of their own illustrious “chief magistrate;” and found charges against him, to the effect that he had grossly abused his power as keeper of the public stores, and that he had hindered people settling on the lands that the trustees had allotted them. These and other charges, dated September 1, 1737, were sent to England; and the result was—Causton, in October, 1738, was turned out of all his offices, and the store was sold to pay the trustees’ debts; Causton’s certified accounts were refused by the trustees as incorrect; William Williamson was made recorder, and Henry Parker (the drunken uneducated sawyer above mentioned) was made first magistrate; and, finally, Causton, the great man who prosecuted Wesley, and drove him from Georgia, settled down at Oxstead, three miles from Savannah; and there, we hope, he lived a more honest life than he had done in England.[191]

Sophia Christiana Hopkey was the niece of Thomas Causton’s wife. William Williamson, who became her husband, was a young adventurer, who arrived in Georgia a short time after Wesley did.[192] And now, with these explanations, let us look at the miserable business, which, in a life of Wesley, cannot be omitted.

Wesley landed in Georgia on February 5, 1736, and seems at once to have become acquainted with Miss Hopkey. Oglethorpe, Charles Wesley, Ingham, and fifty other settlers set out immediately for Frederica. The young lady went with them; and, on March 22, Wesley wrote to his brother concerning her as follows: “I conjure you, spare no time, no address or pains, to learn the true cause of the former distress of my friend. I much doubt you are in the right. God forbid that she should again, in like manner, miss the mark. Watch over her; keep her as much as possible. Write to me, how I ought to write to her.”[193]

Miss Hopkey was a young lady of good sense, and elegant in person and manners. She was introduced to Wesley as a sincere inquirer after salvation, and soon took every possible opportunity of being in his company, and requested him to assist her in studying French. Oglethorpe also did his best to help on a courtship. Meanwhile, Wesley was seized with fever, which confined him for nearly a week; and the young lady (who would hardly allow Delamotte to do anything for his friend) attended him night and day. She even consulted Oglethorpe what kind of female dress Wesley liked the best, and therefore came always dressed in white, neatly and simply elegant. Young Delamotte began to be suspicious, and asked Wesley if he meant to marry Miss Hopkey. Delamotte’s question puzzled Wesley, but, perceiving that Delamotte was prejudiced against the lady, he waived an answer. The next step taken was to consult David Nitschmann, the Moravian bishop. Nitschmann’s answer was: “Marriage is not unlawful; but whether it is now expedient for you, and whether this lady is a proper wife for you, ought to be maturely weighed.” Wesley’s perplexity was increased, and he now resolved to submit the matter to the elders of the Moravian church. When he entered the house where they were met together, he found Delamotte in the midst of them. On naming his business, Nitschmann said: “We have considered your case; will you abide by our decision?” After some hesitation, Wesley replied, “I will.” “Then,” said Nitschmann, “we advise you to proceed no further in the matter!” Wesley answered, “The will of the Lord be done!” “From this time,” says Henry Moore, “he avoided everything that tended to continue the intimacy with Miss Hopkey, and behaved with the greatest caution towards her.”[194]

The whole of this is painfully ludicrous. Mr. Moore, in a manuscript letter before us, says that he had the account from Wesley’s own lips, and that he is not aware that it was ever given to any one except himself. He adds that Dr. Coke knew nothing of it, and that Wesley refrained from publishing the whole of the affair in his printed journal, _chiefly_ through tenderness to General Oglethorpe. It might be so; but we greatly doubt the correctness of Moore’s assertion, that, from the time Wesley consulted the Moravian elders, he “avoided everything that tended to continue the intimacy.” Wesley was in love, and, like all lovers, he did, not wicked, but foolish things. Let us look at some other facts.

At this period, the summer of 1736, Wesley’s method of preaching, and his manner of life, excited great attention in the small settlement of Savannah; and there were not a few who charged him with making the people idle by summoning them so frequently to public prayers. His more than ordinary friendship with Miss Hopkey was also a subject of common conversation.[195] He was looked upon as a Roman Catholic—(1) Because he rigidly excluded all Dissenters from the holy communion, until they first gave up their faith and principles, and, like Richard Turner and his sons, submitted to be rebaptized by him; (2) Because Roman Catholics were received by him as saints; (3) Because he endeavoured to establish and enforce confession, penance, and mortification; mixed wine with water at the sacrament; and appointed deaconesses in accordance with what he called the Apostolic Constitutions.[196] He was, in point of fact, a Puseyite, a hundred years before Dr. Pusey flourished.

Miss Hopkey was put under his ghostly care. She was one of his early morning congregation, and constantly went to his lodgings, in order to be further instructed.[197] He fell in love with her; and there can be little doubt that he made proposals to marry her, and, if his own inclinations had been carried out, the marriage would have been completed.[198] The following extracts are taken from his unpublished journal.

1736. October 16.—Frederica. “Poor Miss Sophy was scarce the shadow of what she was when I left her. I endeavoured to convince her of it, but in vain. And to put it effectually out of my power to do so, she was resolved to return to England immediately. I tried to divert her from her fatal resolution of going to England, and, after several fruitless attempts, I at length prevailed. Nor was it long before she more than recovered the ground she had lost.”

“October 25.—I took boat for Savannah with Miss Sophy.”

“In the beginning of December, I advised Miss Sophy to sup earlier, and not immediately before she went to bed. She did so, and on this little circumstance what an inconceivable train of consequences depend. Not only—

‘All the colour of my remaining life’

for her; but perhaps all my happiness too, in time and in eternity.”

“February 5, 1737.—One of the most remarkable dispensations of Providence towards me began to show itself this day. For many days after, I could not at all judge which way the scale would turn; nor was it fully determined till March 4th, on which day God commanded me to pull out my right eye; and, by His grace, I determined to do so: but, being slack in the execution, on Saturday, March 12th, God being very merciful to me, my friend performed what I could not.”

What is the meaning of this? Two other extracts from the same journal will show.

“March 7.—I walked with Mr. Causton to his country lot, and plainly felt that, had God given me such a retirement with the companion I desired, I should have forgot the work for which I was born, and have set up my rest in this world.”

“March 8.—Miss Sophy engaged herself to Mr. Williamson, a person not remarkable for handsomeness, neither for greatness, neither for wit, or knowledge, or sense, and least of all for religion; and on Saturday, March 12th” [four days after!] “they were married at Purrysburg,—this being the day which completed the year from my first speaking to her. What Thou doest, O God, I know not now, but I shall know hereafter.”

Such is Wesley’s own statement. The disappointment was a most painful blow. Forty-nine years after, he wrote, in reference to this event, “I remember when I read these words in the church at Savannah, ‘Son of man, behold, I take from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke,’ I was pierced through as with a sword, and could not utter a word more. But our comfort is, He that made the heart can heal the heart.”[199] He also wrote to his brother Samuel at the time, who replied, “I am sorry you are disappointed in the match, because you are very unlikely to find another.”[200]

With this evidence before us, it is difficult to give credence to Henry Moore’s assertion, “that Wesley never allowed himself to _determine_ on a marriage with Miss Hopkey.”[201] But in addition to all this, there is the testimony of the young lady herself, contained in her affidavit, given to the Savannah court, and which Wesley inserts in the private journal already mentioned. In that document she avers that she was committed to the care of Mr. John Wesley, the missionary, by her relatives; that he proposed marriage to her; and that he further proposed that, as she might not like his present wandering way of life, he would settle in Savannah. She adds that, about three days before she married Williamson, she was visited by Wesley, who urged her to tell him whether she had not been overpersuaded or forced to agree to marry Williamson by her friends, and whether such a marriage might not still be prevented. He also added that, if there was anything in his way of life (by which she understood him to mean fastings and other mortifications), which she disliked, he would make all these things easy to her, in case she would consent to marry him.

Such is the substance of Sophy’s statement. How is it possible, in the face of all this, to believe Henry Moore’s statement, that there was no intimacy between Wesley and Miss Hopkey, from the time that he consulted the Moravian elders?

We grudge the space that has been devoted to this subject; but perhaps the following reasons will be accepted by the reader, as an apology for the tax upon his patience.

1. The matter, though trivial in itself, has been made important by the conflicting statements of the biographers. Mr. Moore says Wesley never came to the determination to marry her. Dr. Whitehead says he did intend to marry her. Southey agrees with Whitehead; Mr. Watson presumes that Mr. Moore is a better authority than Dr. Whitehead; Mr. Jackson seems to think the same. We have given all the facts within our reach, and leave the reader to form his own opinion.

2. Though the courtship of young people is an ordinary, commonplace sort of thing, inconceivably great events were dependent upon the result of this. John Wesley was thirty-three years old, and was perfectly justified in seeking to obtain a wife; neither is there anything to be found fault with in his intercourse with Miss Hopkey, unless it was his silly simplicity in asking the opinion, if not consent, of the Moravians. The young lady, also, was beautiful, and accomplished, and, to all human appearance, pious. Her uncle was a respectable rascal; but that was no fault of hers. We know nothing to her prejudice before she became a wife, except that it might have been more decorously prudent if she had allowed Delamotte to nurse Wesley in his fever instead of doing it, day and night, herself; and that there was certainly an impetuous haste, not to be commended, in her marrying Mr. Williamson only four days after he first proposed to her. Excepting this, the friendship, courtship, or whatever else the reader likes to call it, between Wesley and his “poor Sophy” seems to have been sincere, pure, honourable, and, in the opinion of Oglethorpe, who was not ill qualified to judge, desirable. But, supposing the courtship had ended in marriage, is it likely that we should ever have heard of Wesley at Bristol, Kingswood, Kennington Common, and Moorfields? Is it likely that there would ever have been any “United Societies of the People called Methodists”? Should we have ever heard of either the Methodism of the past or present? Perhaps an equally great work might have been witnessed; but the great Head of the church must have wrought it by other agencies and means; for had John Wesley married Sophia Christiana Hopkey, the probability is that, instead of returning to England and beginning the greatest religious revival of modern times, he would have settled in Georgia, and, like another Xavier, have spent a most spiritual and devoted life in converting Indian and other kinds of heathen. The results of such a life might have been glorious. Who can tell what might have been its influence upon the civilisation and perpetuation of the nobly formed aboriginal inhabitants of the vast American continent? Would America, in the decline of the nineteenth century, have been inhabited by European strangers, or by educated, civilised, hardworking, prosperous descendants of the wild Indians of the woods? These are useless questions, because questions none of us can answer; but the mere suggestion of such points will serve to show that Wesley’s courtship in Georgia was pregnant with infinite momentousness. “The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad: clouds and darkness are round about Him; righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne” (Ps. xcvii. 1, 2).

3. Then a third reason, for dwelling at so great a length on Wesley’s courtship, is, that the courtship was very improperly mixed up with the subsequent troubles which led to his almost forceful departure from the Georgian colony. But this brings us to the remainder of Wesley’s Georgian history, which shall now be given as succinctly as possible.

We have already seen that Wesley was an extreme ritualist. He himself, nearly a dozen years subsequent to his flight from Georgia, gives us a specimen of his high church bigotry and intolerance. Having inserted in his journal a beautiful letter written to him by John Martin Bolzius, he, under the date of September, 1749, remarks: “What a truly Christian piety and simplicity breathe in these lines! And yet this very man, when I was at Savannah, did I refuse to admit to the Lord’s table, because he was not baptized; that is, not baptized by a minister who had been episcopally ordained. Can any one carry high church zeal higher than this? How well have I been since beaten with mine own staff!”[202]

Wesley still paid pastoral attentions to Mrs. Williamson as one of his parishioners. Her not too accomplished husband took umbrage at this, and, eight days after her marriage, forbade her attending his place of worship, or ever to speak to him again.[203] Notwithstanding this interdict, however, we find her on the 3rd of July at a sacramental service, at the conclusion of which Wesley mentioned certain things which he thought reprovable in her behaviour. This made her extremely angry, and, three days later, Causton, accompanied by the bailiff and the recorder, came to demand an explanation. Wesley gave his visitors to understand that, in the execution of his office, and acting without respect of persons, he might find it necessary to repel one of Causton’s family from the holy communion. He further told the “chief magistrate” what the people of Savannah were saying against his magisterial proceedings.[204] All this made the coming storm more threatening.

Some weeks elapsed; and then, on August 7, five months after her marriage, Wesley refused to allow Mrs. Williamson to join in the Lord’s supper. The next day, Mr. Recorder issued a warrant for the apprehension of “John Wesley, clerk,” and commanding the constables and tithingmen to bring him before one of the bailiffs of Savannah, to answer the complaint of William Williamson for defaming his wife, and refusing to administer to her the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, in a public congregation, without cause; “by which the said William Williamson was damaged one thousand pounds sterling.”

Wesley was arrested and brought before Mr. Bailiff Parker and Mr. Recorder Christie. His answer to the charge was, “that the giving or refusing the Lord’s supper being a matter purely ecclesiastical, he could not acknowledge their power to interrogate him concerning it.” The bailiff told him he must appear at the next Savannah court; and Williamson demanded bail for his appearance, but the officials ruled that Wesley’s word was in itself sufficient.

Two days later, Causton called on Wesley, and demanded that he should send to Mrs. Williamson, in writing, “the reasons for repelling her before the whole congregation.” Wesley complied, and wrote as follows:—

“_To Mrs. Sophia Williamson._

“At Mr. Causton’s request, I write once more. The rules whereby I proceed are these:—

“‘So many as intend to be partakers of the holy communion shall signify their names to the curate, at least some time the day before.’ This you did not do.

“‘And if any of these have done any wrong to his neighbours, by word or deed, so that the congregation be thereby offended, the curate shall advertise him, that in anywise he presume not to come to the Lord’s table until he hath openly declared himself to have truly repented.’

“If you offer yourself at the Lord’s table on Sunday, I will advertise you (as I have done more than once) wherein you have done wrong. And when you have openly declared yourself to have truly repented, I will administer to you the mysteries of God.

“_August 11, 1737._

“JOHN WESLEY.”

On receiving this, Causton began to read, to as many of the people as he could collect together, extracts from the letters which Wesley had written to himself or to his niece, from the beginning of their acquaintance, adding comments of his own, to Wesley’s disadvantage. Others of Causton’s family were assiduous in their endeavours to convince their neighbours that Wesley had repelled Mrs. Williamson from the communion because she had refused to marry him. In the midst of all this Wesley writes: “I sat still at home, and, I thank God, easy, having committed my cause to Him, and remembering His word, ‘Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him.”[205]

Meanwhile, Causton desired Mr. Burnside, the trustees’ secretary, to sign a certificate to the effect that Mrs. Williamson had been for ten months past as constant a communicant as any other, and that she had been of unblamable behaviour. Mr. Burnside said he could not sign it with a safe conscience, knowing it to be false. Upon which Causton severely reproached him, and discharged him from his employment. However, a number of names were procured to the certificate, though, Wesley adds, the first part of it was shamefully untrue, for Mrs. Williamson had omitted communicating nine times in three months; in other words, had only communicated once a month instead of once a week.[206]

The Savannah court was to sit on August 22, a fortnight after Wesley’s arrest; and Causton employed his utmost power, and art, and application, in prejudicing the persons who were to form the grand jury. His table was free to the whole of them. Whatever they desired from the public stores was delivered to them. Old misunderstandings were forgotten, and nothing was too much to be done or promised for men who, a week before, were unable, from such a source, to procure even a crust of bread.

Six days previous to the opening of the court, Wesley, at the request of several of his communicants, read a short statement of the case, after the evening prayers, in the open congregation.[207]

At length the great day of trial, in this Lilliputian kingdom, came. The grand jury consisted of forty-four of the illustrious inhabitants, about a fifth part of the adult male population of Savannah. One was a Frenchman, ignorant of the English language; one a papist; one a professed infidel; three were Baptists; sixteen or seventeen others were Dissenters; and of the rest, several had personal quarrels against Wesley, and had openly vowed revenge.

Causton gave a long and earnest charge to the jury, “to beware of spiritual tyranny, and to oppose the new, illegal authority which was usurped over their consciences.” Mrs. Williamson’s affidavit was read, the substance of which has been already given, with the exception that, after her marriage, Wesley took every opportunity to force upon her his private discourse, and terrified her by telling her that her soul would be in danger, if she did not spend her time, and converse with him, in the same manner, as she did before her marriage.[208]

Causton then delivered to the grand jury a paper, entitled “A List of Grievances,” pretending to show that the Rev. John Wesley “deviates from the principles and regulations of the Established Church in many particulars inconsistent with the happiness and prosperity of this colony,” as:—

“1. By inverting the order and method of the liturgy.

“2. By altering such passages as he thinks proper in the version of the psalms, publicly authorised to be sung in the church.

“3. By introducing into the church, and service at the altar, compositions of psalms and hymns not inspected or authorised by any proper judicature.

“4. By introducing novelties, such as dipping infants, etc., in the sacrament of baptism, and refusing to baptize the children of such as will not submit to his innovations.

“5. By restricting the benefits of the Lord’s supper to a small number of persons, and refusing it to all others who will not conform to a grievous set of penances, confessions, mortifications, and constant attendance at early and late hours of prayer, very inconsistent with the labours and employment of this colony.

“6. By administering the sacrament of the Lord’s supper to boys ignorant and unqualified; and that notwithstanding of their parents and nearest friends remonstrating against it, and accusing them of disobedience and other crimes.

“7. By refusing to administer the holy sacrament to well disposed and well living persons, unless they should submit to confessions and penances for crimes, which they utterly refuse, and whereof no evidence is offered.

“8. By venting sundry uncharitable expressions of all who differ from him; and not pronouncing the benediction in church, until all the hearers, except his own communicants, are withdrawn.

“9. By teaching wives and servants that they ought absolutely to follow the course of mortifications, fastings, and diets, and two sets of prayers prescribed by him; without any regard to the interests of their private families, or the commands of their respective husbands and masters.

“10. By refusing the Office of the Dead to such as did not communicate with him, or by leaving out such parts of the service as he thought proper.

“11. By searching into and meddling with the affairs of private families, by means of servants and spies employed by him for the purpose, whereby the peace both of public and private life is much endangered.

“12. By calling himself ‘ordinary,’ and thereby claiming a jurisdiction which is not due to him, and whereby we should be precluded from access to redress by any superior jurisdiction.”[209]

How did the grand jury deal with these charges?

First of all, Mrs. Williamson was called, but acknowledged, in the course of her examination, that she had no objection to Wesley’s behaviour previous to her marriage. After her, Mr. and Mrs. Causton were examined; the former confessing that, if Wesley had asked his consent to marry his niece, he would not have refused it.[210] Ten other witnesses were put into the box, and several of Wesley’s letters to Mrs. Williamson were read.[211]

Some days were spent in sifting the business; and then, on September 1, a majority of the jurymen agreed to the following indictments:—

1. That, after the 12th of March last, the said John Wesley did several times privately force his conversation to Sophia Christiana Williamson, contrary to the express desire and command of her husband; and did likewise write and privately convey papers to her, thereby occasioning much uneasiness between her and her husband.

2. That, on the 7th of August last, he refused the sacrament of the Lord’s supper to Sophia Christiana Williamson, without any apparent reason, much to the disquiet of her mind, and to the great disgrace and hurt of her character.

3. That he hath not, since his arrival in Savannah, emitted any public declaration of his adherence to the principles and regulations of the Church of England.

4. That, for many months past, he has divided on the Lord’s day the order of morning prayer, appointed to be used in the Church of England, by only reading the said morning prayer and the litany at five or six o’clock, and wholly omitting the same between the hours of nine and eleven o’clock, the customary time of public morning prayer.

5. That, about the month of April, 1736, he refused to baptize, otherwise than by dipping, the child of Henry Parker, unless the said Henry Parker and his wife would certify that the child was weak and not able to bear dipping; and added to his refusal, that, unless the said parents would consent to have it dipped, it might die a heathen.

6. That, notwithstanding he administered the sacrament of the Lord’s supper to William Gough, about the month of March, 1736, he did, within a month after, refuse the sacrament to the said William Gough, saying that he had heard that William Gough was a Dissenter.

7. That in June, 1736, he refused reading the Office of the Dead over the body of Nathaniel Polhill, only because Nathaniel Polhill was not of his opinion; by means of which refusal the said Nathaniel Polhill was interred without the appointed Office for the Burial of the Dead.

8. That, on or about the 10th of August, 1737, he, in the presence of Thomas Causton, presumptuously called himself “Ordinary of Savannah,” assuming thereby an authority which did not belong to him.

9. That in Whitsun-week last he refused William Aglionby to stand godfather to the child of Henry Marley, giving no other reason than that the said William Aglionby had not been at the communion table with him.

10. That, about the month of July last, he baptized the child of Thomas Jones, having only one godfather and godmother, notwithstanding that Jacob Matthews did offer to stand godfather.[212]

Such were the findings of the majority of the grand jury. The minority of twelve, including three constables and six tithingmen, drew up and signed a document, and transmitted it “to the honourable the trustees for Georgia,” to the following effect:—

1. That they were thoroughly persuaded that the charges against Mr. Wesley were an artifice of Mr. Causton’s, designed rather to blacken the character of Mr. Wesley than to free the colony from religious tyranny, as he had alleged.

2. That it did not appear that Mr. Wesley had either spoken in private or written to Mrs. Williamson since the day of her marriage, except one letter, which he wrote on the 5th of July, at the request of her uncle, as a pastor, to exhort and reprove her.

3. That, though he did refuse the sacrament to Mrs. Williamson on the 7th of August last, he did not assume to himself any authority contrary to law, for every person intending to communicate was bound to signify his name to the curate, at least some time the day before; which Mrs. Williamson did not do; although Mr. Wesley had often, in full congregation, declared he did insist on a compliance with that rubric, and had before repelled divers persons for non-compliance therewith.

4. That, though he had not in Savannah emitted any public declaration of his adherence to the principles and regulations of the Church of England, he had done this, in a stronger manner than by a formal declaration, by explaining and defending the three creeds, the thirty-nine articles, the whole Book of Common Prayer, and the homilies; besides a formal declaration is not required, but from those who have received institution and induction.

5. That though he had divided, on the Lord’s day, the order of morning prayer, this was not contrary to any law in being.

6. That his refusal to baptize Henry Parker’s child, otherwise than by dipping, was justified by the rubric.

7. That, though he had refused the sacrament to William Gough, the said William Gough (one of the twelve jurors who signed the document sent to the trustees) publicly declared that the refusal was no grievance to him, because Mr. Wesley had given him reasons with which he was satisfied.

8. That, in reference to the alleged refusal to read the burial service over the body of Nathaniel Polhill, they had good reason to believe that Mr. Wesley was at Frederica, or on his return thence, when Polhill was interred; besides Polhill was an anabaptist, and desired, in his lifetime, that he might not be buried with the office of the Church of England.

9. That they were in doubt about the indictment concerning Wesley calling himself “Ordinary of Savannah,” not well knowing the meaning of the word.

10. That, though Mr. Wesley refused to allow William Aglionby to stand godfather to the child of Henry Marley, and Jacob Matthews to stand godfather to the child of Thomas Jones, he was sufficiently justified by the canons of the Church, because neither Aglionby nor Matthews had certified Mr. Wesley that they had ever received the holy communion.

Such were the findings of his foes and of his friends: the only difference, as to fact, between the majority of thirty-two and the minority of twelve, is that which relates to Mrs. Williamson and Nathaniel Polhill. The minority declare that it is not true that Mr. Wesley did _several times_ privately force his conversation to Sophia Williamson after her marriage; and that they have good reason to believe that it is not true that he refused to read the burial service over Nathaniel Polhill, because, at the time of the burial, he was absent from Savannah. All the other alleged facts are admitted, but are also justified. How did Wesley meet the indictments?

On September 2, the day after they were presented and were read to the people, he appeared in court, and spoke to this effect:—“As to nine of the ten indictments against me, I know this court can take no cognisance of them, they being matters of an ecclesiastical nature. But that concerning my speaking and writing to Mrs. Williamson is of a secular nature; and this, therefore, I desire may be tried here where the facts complained of were committed.”[213]

In this Wesley was unquestionably right. His conduct as a priest of the Church of England might be, as it doubtless was, arrogant, foolish, offensive, intolerant; but the petty magisterial court at Savannah had no more right to try him for his high church practices than an Old Bailey judge and jury have to try the half-fledged papistical rectors, curates, and incumbents, who are playing such fantastic tricks in the Protestant churches of old England at the present day. They had a right to try him on the matter mentioned by himself, inasmuch as it was alleged that Mrs. Williamson had been injured in her character, and, on that account, her husband demanded damages to the extent of £1000.

Wesley was prepared to answer this indictment, and moved for an immediate hearing; but the court evaded his request, and postponed the hearing to its next sitting. From September 1, when the indictments were first presented, to the end of November, when Wesley made known his intention to return to England, he seems to have attended not fewer than seven different sittings of the court, asking to be tried on the charge affecting the character of Mrs. Williamson; but all to no purpose. The fact is, Mr. and Mrs. Williamson, after having stabbed him, were about to set sail to England,[214] and their contemplated absence was made a pretext for not proceeding with the trial. There can be little doubt that the whole affair was as the twelve jurors believed, a device of Thomas Causton, to gratify his spite, and, by annoyances, to drive Wesley from the colony.

Six days after the majority of the grand jury presented their indictments, Mr. Dixon, chaplain to a company of soldiers at Frederica, called on Wesley, and informed him that the magistrates of Savannah had given him authority to perform ecclesiastical offices in the town; and that he should begin to do so the day following, by reading prayers, preaching, and administering the Lord’s supper. Accordingly, on September 8, the bell was rung, and Mr. Dixon read prayers and preached, in Wesley’s church, to Mr. Causton, Mr. and Mrs. Williamson, and about half-a-score other persons. He announced that he had intended to administer the holy communion, but some of his communicants were indisposed. He would, however, read prayers and preach every Thursday, and would administer baptism to as many children as might be brought for that purpose. This was _ipso facto_ a setting aside of Wesley; or, at all events, it was an arbitrary appointment of another clergyman to fill his place.

On the Sunday following, September 11, Wesley preached from, “It must needs be that offences come;” and then proceeded to read a paper which he had read before, on the day he began his ministry at Savannah, and in which he had apprised his congregation:—1. That he must admonish every one of them, not only in public, but from house to house. 2. That he could admit none to the holy communion without previous notice. 3. That he should divide the morning service in compliance with the first design of the Church. 4. That he should obey the rubric by dipping in baptism all children who were well able to endure it. 5. That he should admit none who were not communicants to be sureties in baptism. 6. That though, in general, he had all the authority which was entrusted to any one within the province, yet he was only a servant of the Church of England,—not a judge, and therefore obliged to keep the regulations of that Church in all things.[215]

On succeeding Sundays, he read to the congregations the homilies, and then began reading Dr. Rogers’s eight sermons, as an antidote against the poison of infidelity. Up to the present, he had no intention of leaving the colony. Indeed, as lately as the 7th of June last, he had written to his sister Keziah, and had made her an offer to come and live with him at Savannah;[216] but, as soon as it was known that Williamson and his wife were about to start for England, Delamotte urged that Wesley ought to go as well, in order to prevent, or remove, the misrepresentations which they were likely to make. This was on September 9;[217] and, a month later, Wesley took counsel with his friends on the same subject. They were unanimously of opinion “that he ought to go, but not yet;” and accordingly he abandoned his purpose for the present.

Meanwhile, he commenced three kinds of services which he had not before attempted. He offered to read prayers, and to expound the Scriptures, in French, every Saturday afternoon, to the French families settled at Highgate, five miles from Savannah, which offer was thankfully accepted. The French at Savannah heard of this, and requested he would do the same for them, with which request he willingly complied. He also began to read prayers and expound in German, once a week, to the German villagers of Hampstead.

His Sunday labour, during the few weeks that he yet remained in Savannah, was as follows:—1. English prayers from five o’clock to half-past six. 2. Italian prayers at nine. 3. A sermon and the holy communion, for the English, from half-past ten to about half-past twelve. 4. The service for the French at one, including prayers, psalms, and Scripture exposition. 5. The catechizing of the children at two. 6. The third English service at three. 7. After this, a meeting in his own house for reading, prayer, and praise. 8. At six, the Moravian service began, which he was glad to attend, not to teach, but learn.

Thus things proceeded until November 22, when Causton sent for Wesley and showed him an affidavit, sworn on September 15, to the effect that he had called Causton a liar and a villain; but, with characteristic duplicity, said he had not sent _this_ affidavit to the trustees,—a statement, which, in fact, was both true and false, for although he had not sent _this_ affidavit he had sent a _copy_ of it. Causton bitterly added, that the last court held in Savannah had reprimanded him as “an enemy to and a hinderer of the public peace.” “Both,” says an eye-witness, “displayed warmth of temper; but Causton was most vehement. They parted with mutual civilities.”[218]

This caused Wesley to again consult his friends about the propriety of his leaving the colony. He saw that at present there was no possibility of instructing the Indians; neither had he as yet found or heard of any Indians who had the least desire of being instructed. Thus the great reason of his leaving England was not realised. Then, as to Savannah, he had never engaged himself, either by word or letter, to stay there a day longer than he should judge convenient. And, further, he now saw a probability of doing more service to the unhappy colonists by going to England, than he could do by remaining in Georgia; for there he could, without fear or favour, report to the trustees the state in which the colony was placed. All his friends agreed with him; and accordingly, next morning, he called on Causton, and told him he “designed to set out for England immediately, and placarded an advertisement in the great square” of the unbuilt town to the same effect.

Savannah was in great excitement. Causton had his partisans, and so had Wesley his. Scandal was plentiful. Wesley’s congregations dwindled, and were now extremely thin. Mr. Stephens, the secretary of the trustees at Savannah, relates[219] that, in November, he heard Wesley preach on “Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cæsar or not?” from which he discoursed largely on the duties of magistrates, and on the obedience which was due to them; setting forth how far it was consistent with Christian liberty for people to insist upon their rights, when they found themselves oppressed by inferior magistrates exercising a discretionary authority which exceeded their commission. Stephens adds, that the congregation was very poor, and that he found that the magistrates and many of the principal inhabitants had of late wholly absented themselves from church.

On November 20, Wesley preached from the text, “Jesus wept.” Stephens writes: “He showed himself a good casuist; but his metaphysical discourse would have been better adapted to a learned audience than such a poor thin congregation as his, who stood in need of plain doctrine.”

On November 27, he preached from Acts xx. 26, 27. Stephens, who was present, says: “He enforced the practice of all Christian duties most pathetically, which he was well qualified to do. Some people imagined, from the choice of the text, that he meant it as a sort of farewell sermon; but it did not appear so from any particular expressions employed.”

No sooner was it known that Wesley meant to embark for England, than Williamson issued an advertisement that he had brought an action against him for £1000 damages; and that if any one assisted his escape from the colony, he would prosecute such accomplice with the utmost rigour of the law.[220] The magistrates also sent for Wesley, and told him he must not leave the province till he had answered the indictments against him. Wesley replied that he had already attended seven sessions of the court to answer them, and had not been permitted. They then requested him to sign a kind of bond, engaging him, under a penalty of £50, to appear at their court when he should be required; and added that Mr. Williamson also demanded that he should give bail to answer his action. Wesley replied that he would give neither any bond, nor any bail at all; and so he left them. In the afternoon of the same day they published an order requiring all the officers and sentinels to prevent his leaving the province, and forbidding any person to assist him in doing so.

He was now a prisoner at large, and the same evening, after public prayers, he set out in a boat for Purrysburg, distant about twenty miles, and thus left Savannah and Georgia for ever.[221]

Arriving at Purrysburg early in the morning of December 3, Wesley and the four men who had assisted in his escape, and had rowed him to Purrysburg, set out on foot to Port Royal. Tramping their way through trackless forests, they came to a large swamp, around which they wandered for three weary hours. Then they had to force their way through an almost impassable thicket. They had now been trudging from an hour before sunrise in the morning till nearly sunset at night, and had not tasted food, except a gingerbread cake, which Wesley happened to have in his pocket. They were faint and weary, and no wonder. Thrusting a stick into the ground, and finding its end moist, two of them set to work digging with their hands, and, at about three feet depth, obtained water. They thanked God, drank, and were refreshed. The month was December, and the night cold; but there was no complaining; and, having commended themselves to God, they lay down on the ground, close together, and Wesley, at least, slept till near six in the morning.

The next day was Sunday; but the bewildered fugitives started again, and after three more days of weary wandering reached Port Royal. Delamotte joined them on Thursday, December 8, when, taking a boat, they all set sail for Charlestown. This was no comfortable steamer, but a small watercraft, without covering, and impelled by oars. Four days were spent in making the passage, the winds were contrary, and their provisions short; but, cold and hungry, they arrived in safety on Tuesday, December 13.[222]

Wesley and Delamotte, with the exception of a few brief days, had not been parted for the last six-and-twenty months: but on December 22 the former set sail for England; the latter, for a season, was left behind. One of Wesley’s fellow passengers was a young gentleman, who had been one of his parishioners at Savannah; and another was Eleanor Hayes, who became one of the first Methodists in London, and of whom an interesting notice may be found in the _Methodist Magazine_ for 1867. It was impossible for Wesley to live an idle life. During the voyage, he began instructing two negro lads and the cabin-boy in the principles of the Christian religion. On Sundays, at least, he had morning and evening prayers. He finished his abridgment of De Renty’s Life; and he read and explained to a poor Frenchman a chapter in the New Testament every morning. When in mid-ocean they encountered a terrific storm, which gave Wesley an opportunity of speaking faithfully to all on board about their eternal interests. On February 1 they landed at Deal, the day after George Whitefield had set sail for the very settlement which Wesley had been obliged to leave.

During the passage Wesley had ample time for self-examination, and wrote as follows:—

“By the most infallible of proofs, inward feeling, I am convinced—

“1. Of unbelief; having no such faith in Christ as will prevent my heart being troubled.

“2. Of pride, throughout my life past; inasmuch as I thought I had what I find I have not.

“3. Of gross irrecollection; inasmuch as in a storm I cry to God every moment, in a calm not.

“4. Of levity and luxuriancy of spirit; appearing by my speaking words not tending to edify, but most by my manner of speaking of my enemies.”

He adds:—

“I went to America to convert the Indians; but oh, who shall convert me? I have a fair summer religion. I can talk well; but let death look me in the face, and my spirit is troubled. I think, verily, if the gospel be true, I am safe: for I not only have given, and do give, all my goods to feed the poor; and not only give my body to be burned, drowned, or whatever God shall appoint for me; but I follow after charity, if haply I may attain it. I now believe the gospel is true. I show my faith by my works,—by staking my all upon it. I would do so again and again, a thousand times, if the choice were still to make. Whoever sees me sees I would be a Christian. But in a storm, I think, ‘What if the gospel be not true? Then thou art of all men most foolish. For what hast thou given thy goods, thy ease, thy friends, thy reputation, thy country, thy life? For what art thou wandering over the face of the earth—a dream! a cunningly devised fable?’ Oh, who will deliver me from this fear of death? A wise man advised me some time since, ‘Be still and go on.’ Perhaps this is best, to look upon it as my cross.”

After landing in England, he penned another remarkable paper, which has often been cited without a quotation of the notes he appended in after years.[223] He asserts that when he went to America, to convert the Indians, he was not himself converted; but in the appended note he adds, “I am not sure of this.” Neither are we. By his conscientious severity in comparing himself with the standard of a perfect Christian, as contained in the New Testament, and by his imperfect and mystified views of the scriptural plan of salvation, he might deprive himself of the filial confidence and joy belonging to a child of God; but we dare not affirm that he was a child of wrath because he was without the joy. On the same principle, thousands of us would be children one day, but not the next. Wesley’s assertion was too strong; in after life he felt it so; and those who quote it ought, in all fairness, to add what he himself appended.

In another part of the same document he says of himself: “Alienated as I am from the life of God, I am a child of wrath, an heir of hell.” But the note he attached to this, in subsequent years, is, “I believe not”; and if not a child of wrath, then in his opinion, and after mature reflection, he had a right to think himself a child of grace and an heir of heaven.

Another of his notes is: “I had even then the faith of a servant, though not that of a son;” and that the reader may know what interpretation to put upon such words, we give the following extract from one of Wesley’s own sermons:—

“But what is the faith which is properly saving? It is such a Divine conviction of God, and the things of God, as, even in its infant state, enables every one that possesses it to fear God and work righteousness. And whosoever, in every nation, believes thus far, is accepted of Him. He actually is, at that very moment, in a state of acceptance. But he is at present only a _servant_ of God, not properly a _son_. Meanwhile let it be well observed that the wrath of God no longer abideth on him. Nearly fifty years ago, when the preachers, commonly called Methodists, began to preach that grand scriptural doctrine, salvation by faith, they were not sufficiently apprised of the difference between a servant and a child of God. In consequence of this, they were apt to make sad the hearts of those whom God had not made sad. For they frequently asked those who feared God, ‘Do you know that your sins are forgiven?’ And upon their answering ‘No,’ immediately replied, ‘Then you are a child of the devil.’ No; that does not follow. It might have been said (and it is all that can be said with propriety), ‘Hitherto you are only a _servant_, you are not a _child_ of God. You have already great reason to praise God that He has called you to His honourable service. Fear not, continue crying unto Him, and you shall see greater things than these!’ And, indeed, unless the servants of God halt by the way, they will receive the adoption of sons. They will receive the _faith_ of the children of God, by His _revealing_ His only begotten Son in their hearts. Thus, the faith of a child is, properly and directly, a Divine conviction, whereby every child of God is enabled to testify, ‘The life that I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.’ And whosoever hath this, the Spirit of God witnesseth with his spirit, that he is a child of God. This then it is, that properly constitutes the difference between a servant of God and a child of God.”[224]

Let those who have been accustomed to cite Wesley’s hasty and incautious condemnation of himself, on his return from Georgia, read it again in the light of his own appended notes, and in the light of this extract from a sermon written by himself nearly fifty years afterwards; and they will then have a more correct idea of Wesley’s religious state at Oxford and in America, and will also be better fitted to understand what is meant by what is called his conversion on the 24th of May, 1738. This matter, however, must be resumed in its proper place.

Wesley, in Georgia, was accepted of God through Christ; but, to cite his own words at the conclusion of his own condemnatory document, he wanted “a sure trust and confidence in God, that, through the merits of Christ, his sins were forgiven.” “I want,” says he, “that faith which none can have without knowing that he hath it.”

Wesley, according to his own explanation, had long been in a _saved_ state (though he knew it not); but he was far from being perfect, either in spirit or behaviour. No man could be more sincere or earnest; but it is hoped that few ministers of equal learning, wisdom, and sanctity make greater blunders than were made by him at Savannah. There can be little doubt that he had ecclesiastical authority for most, if not all, his priestly practices; and so have the half papistical priests and ritualists of the present day. But as England now is right in resisting the introduction of rites and ceremonies, fasts and feasts, confessions and penances, absolutions and interdicts, savouring more of the man of sin than of the word of God,—so Savannah then was right in resisting similar innovations attempted to be introduced by the extremely high church priest, fresh from the society of the Oxford Methodists. If we are right in denouncing _ritualism_ now, Savannah was right in denouncing _ritualism_ then. If the thing is offensive and obnoxious here, it was equally offensive and obnoxious there; and if no other end had been answered by Wesley’s mission to America than knocking out of him his high church nonsense, the good effected would have been an ample compensation for two dangerous voyages of six thousand miles, and for all the discomforts of living two-and-twenty months, in a log-built hut, among almost homeless emigrants, who had taken with them to the swamps and woods of Georgia more covetousness than courtesy, more rudeness than rank, more quarrelsomeness than quietude, and more conceit than common sense.

Wesley has been blamed for repelling Mrs. Williamson from the communion; and if he had nothing more to allege against her than the offence that, since her marriage, she had come to sacrament once a month only, instead of once a week, he deserves to be blamed. It was a rash proceeding, utterly unwarranted; and both she and her husband did right in resisting it. So far we agree with Wesley’s censors; but we cannot agree with them in saying that the great, if not only, reason of his repelling her was revenge arising out of her refusal to marry him. There is not a particle of evidence in proof of that. Five months had elapsed since her marriage; and, again and again, during that interval, he had administered to her the holy communion. The repulse was, on his part, a strictly conscientious, not a revengeful act; but though conscientious, it was, to say the least, mistaken, and deserves censure instead of praise. Mr. Moore says that, about three months after Mrs. Williamson’s marriage, Wesley saw things in her conduct which induced him to bless God for his deliverance in not marrying her, and that these things were noted in his private journal never printed. We have not the slightest wish to defend the lady where she deserves censure: but fairness compels us to say that we have seen the private journal; but neither in it, nor elsewhere, have we met with anything charged against her more serious than what has been already mentioned in the present far too lengthy chapter. Dissimulation is the strongest word Wesley has used concerning her; and this is used in reference to something which happened three months after she was married, and of which no explanation is given.[225] Miss Hopkey, like Wesley himself, was not so good as she might have been; but that is not a sufficient reason why Wesley’s biographers should insinuate, if not assert, that she was worse than she really was.

Wesley’s mission to America seemed a failure! But was it so? When Whitefield arrived, he wrote: “The good Mr. John Wesley has done in America is inexpressible. His name is very precious among the people; and he has laid a foundation that I hope neither men nor devils will ever be able to shake. Oh that I may follow him as he has followed Christ.”[226]

Wesley himself observes:—

“Many reasons I have to bless God for my having been carried to America, contrary to all my preceding resolutions. Hereby, I trust, He hath in some measure ‘_humbled me and proved me, and shown me what was in my heart_.’ Hereby, I have been taught to ‘_beware of men_.’ Hereby, God has given me to know many of His servants, particularly those of the church of Herrnhuth. Hereby, my passage is open to the writings of holy men, in the German, Spanish, and Italian tongues. All in Georgia have heard the word of God, and some have believed and begun to run well. A few steps have been taken towards publishing the glad tidings both to the African and American heathens. Many children have learned how they ought to serve God, and to be useful to their neighbour. And those whom it most concerns have an opportunity of knowing the state of their infant colony, and laying a firmer foundation of peace and happiness to many generations.”[227]

These are no mean results to be realised in about two years,—self-knowledge, caution, acquaintance with the church that was to help him to clearer views of the plan of salvation, the acquisition of three European languages, the unprecedented fact of preaching Christ to _all_ the widely scattered inhabitants of an English colony, steps taken to evangelise negroes and Indians, many children religiously educated, and the way prepared for promoting the prosperity of Georgia to the end of time!