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:—

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:—

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:—

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:—

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:—