Charterhouse School.
Passing from the watchful eye of his father and the tender, loving, and almost unexampled care and instruction of his mother, he entered, at about the age of eleven, the famous Charterhouse School, London. This was built originally for a monastery. It was purchased by Thomas Sutton, Esq., and under a charter from King James he established a school for the young. In this school forty-four boys, between the ages of ten and fifteen, were gratuitously fed, clothed, and instructed in the classics. Here such notables as Addison, Steele, Blackstone, Isaac Barrows, and others were educated.
Young Wesley was largely aided in securing this position by the Duke of Buckingham, who seems to have been a fast friend of the family. He secured for him a scholarship, which gave him about two hundred dollars a year. By the direction of his father he ran around the playgrounds three times every morning for the benefit of his health. It was a school of trial. Being a charity scholar, he did not escape the taunts of his fellow-students more highly favored than he; but hebore all with meekness, patiently suffering wrongfully. He remained there some six years, and, though a mere youth, he distinguished himself in every branch of scholarship to which he turned his attention.
Mr. Tyerman, who seems to have searched for every spot on this rising sun, is bold to say that Wesley "lost the religion which had marked his character from the days of his infancy. He entered the Charterhouse a saint, and left it a sinner." We cannot find this marked change on the record with the clearness with which it appears to Mr. Tyerman. There is no evidence that Wesley had ever known the converting grace of God up to this time, and, if not, we are unable to see how he could have lost it. That he was a sinner at this time there can be no doubt. But, while he confesses that he was a sinner, he declares that his "sins were not scandalous in the eyes of the world." Instead of being the wicked boy that Mr. Tyerman represents him to have been, he declares: "I still read the Scriptures, and said my prayers morning and evening. And what I now hoped to be saved by was: (1) Not being as bad as other people; (2) Having still a kindness for religion; and (3) Reading my Bible, going to church, and saying my prayers." Should an unconverted young man in these times, in passing through our high schools or seminaries, give evidencethat he read his Bible, prayed morning and evening, attended church regularly, joined in all the devotions, went to the sacrament, and manifested a kindness for religion, who would say that "he entered the school a saint, and left it a sinner"? There is no evidence that Wesley, during his six years' course at the Charterhouse, ever contracted vicious habits or became a flagrant sinner. The wonder is that, with such corrupt and corrupting influences surrounding him, he had not been morally ruined.
Christ College.
At the age of seventeen he entered Christ College, Oxford, one of the noblest colleges of that famous seat of learning, where he remained five years, under the care of Dr. Wigon, a gentleman of fine classical attainments. His excellent standing at the Charterhouse gave him a high position at Oxford. His means of support were very limited. His mother laments their inability to assist him. In a letter to him she says:
Dear Jack: I am uneasy because I have not heard from you. If all things fail, I hope God will not forsake us. We have still his good providence to depend on. Dear Jack, be not discouraged. Do your duty. Keep close to your studies, and hope for better days. Perhaps, after all, we shall pick up a few crumbs for you before the end of the year. Dear Jack, I beseech Almighty God to bless thee.Susannah Wesley.
Dear Jack: I am uneasy because I have not heard from you. If all things fail, I hope God will not forsake us. We have still his good providence to depend on. Dear Jack, be not discouraged. Do your duty. Keep close to your studies, and hope for better days. Perhaps, after all, we shall pick up a few crumbs for you before the end of the year. Dear Jack, I beseech Almighty God to bless thee.
Susannah Wesley.
This indicates the great financial embarrassment in which they were often found, as well as their abiding trust in God.
His mother seems deeply concerned for his religious life. She writes, "Now in good earnest resolve to make religion the business of life; for, after all, that is the one thing that, strictly speaking, is necessary. All things besides are comparatively little to the purposes of life. I heartily wish you would now enter upon a strict examination of yourself, that you may know whether you have a reasonable hope of salvation by Jesus Christ. If you have it, the satisfaction of knowing it will abundantly reward your pains; if you have it not, you will find a more reasonable occasion for tears than can be met with in any tragedy."
His brother Samuel writes hopefully to his father: "My brother Jack, I can faithfully assure you, gives you no manner of discouragement from believing your third son a scholar. Jack is a brave boy, learning Hebrew as fast as he can."
At the age of twenty-one, while yet a student at Oxford, "he appears," says a writer of the time, "the very sensible and acute collegian; a young fellow of the finest classical taste, of the most liberal and manly sentiments." Alexander Knox says: "His countenance, as well as his conversation, expressedan habitual gayety of heart, which nothing but conscious innocence and virtue could have bestowed." Then, referring to him in more advanced life, he says: "He was, in truth, the most perfect specimen of moral happiness I ever saw; and my acquaintance with him has done more to teach me what a heaven upon earth is implied in the maturity of Christian piety than all I have elsewhere seen or heard or read, except in the sacred volume." "Strange," says another writer, "that such a man should have become a target for poisoned arrows, discharged, not by the hands of mad-cap students only, but by college dignitaries, by men solemnly pledged to the work of Christian education!"
About this time Wesley became Fellow of Lincoln College, and his brother Charles, who was five years younger, became a student of Christ Church College. He had prepared for college at Westminster grammar school, and was a "gay young fellow, with more genius than grace," loving pleasure more than piety. When John sought to revive the "fireside devotion" of the Epworth home he rejoined, with some degree of earnestness, "What! would you have me be a saint all at once?"
In September of 1725 John was ordained deacon by Bishop Potter, and in March of the following year was elected Fellow of Lincoln College, with which his aged father seems tohave been greatly delighted, saying, "Wherever I am, Jack is Fellow of Lincoln!"
His Father's Curate.
His father's health failing, John was urged to become his curate. He responded to his father's request, but does not seem to have had a very high appreciation of his father's flock, for he describes them as "unpolished wights, as dull as asses and impervious as stones." But for about two years he hammers away, preaching the law as he then understood it, confessing that "he saw no fruit for his labor."
He then returned to Oxford as Greek lecturer, devoting himself to the study of logic, ethics, natural philosophy, oratory, Hebrew, and Arabic. He perfected himself in French, and spoke and wrote Latin with remarkable purity and correctness. He gave considerable attention to medicine. In this way Providence was fitting him for the great work of which he was to be the God-ordained leader. About the time that Wesley entered upon his ministry, by episcopal ordination, and commenced his lifework, Voltaire was expelled from France and fled to England. During a long life he and Wesley were contemporaries. Mr. Tyerman gives a graphic description of these two remarkable men. "Perhaps of all the men then living," he says, "none exercised so great an influence as the restless philosopherand the unwearied minister of Christ. Wesley, in person, was beautiful; Voltaire was of a physiognomy so strange, and lighted up with fire so half-hellish and half-heavenly, that it was hard to say whether it was the face of a satyr or man. Wesley's heart was filled with a world-wide benevolence; Voltaire, though of a gigantic mind, scarcely had a heart at all—an incarnation of avaricious meanness, and a victim to petty passions. Wesley was the friend of all and the enemy of none; Voltaire was too selfish to love, and when forced to pay the scanty and ill-tempered homage which he sometimes rendered it was always offered at the shrine of rank and wealth. Wesley had myriads who loved him; Voltaire had numerous admirers, but probably not a friend. Both were men of ceaseless labor, and almost unequaled authors; but while the one filled the land with blessings, the other, by his sneering and mendacious attacks against revealed religion, inflicted a greater curse than has been inflicted by the writings of any other author either before or since. The evangelist is now esteemed by all whose good opinions are worth having; the philosopher is only remembered to be branded with well-merited reproach and shame." Voltaire ended his life as a fool by taking opium, while Wesley ends his life in holy triumph, exclaiming, "The best of all is, God is with us."
THE EPWORTH RAPPINGS.
Itdoes not seem as if a Life of John Wesley would be complete without an account of what was known as the "Epworth rappings," which occurred in the home of Samuel Wesley in 1716, while John was at the Charterhouse School, London. They occasioned no little speculation among philosophers and doubters in general, not only at the time they occurred, but down to the present day. A brief description of these strange noises, and how they were regarded at the time, may be proper in this place.
On the night of December 2, 1716, Robert Brown, Mr. Wesley's servant, and one of the maids of the family were alone in the dining room. About ten o'clock they heard a strong knocking on the outside of the door which opened into the garden. They answered the call, but no one was there. A second knock was heard, accompanied by a groan. The door was again and again opened, as the knocks were repeated, with the same result. Being startled, they retired for the night.
As Mr. Brown reached the top of the stairsa hand mill, at a little distance, was seen whirling with great velocity. On seeing the strange sight he seemed only to regret that it was not full of malt. Strange noises were heard in and about the room during the night. These were related to another maid in the morning, only to be met with a laugh, and, "What a pack of fools you are!" This was the beginning of these strange noises in the Epworth parsonage.
Subsequently, knocking was heard on the doors, on the bedstead, and at various times in all parts of the house.
Susannah and Ann were one evening below stairs in the dining room and heard knockings at the door and overhead. The next night, while in their chamber, they heard knockings under their feet, while no person was in the chamber at the time, nor in the room below. Knockings were heard at the foot of the bed and behind it.
Mr. Wesley says that, on the night of the 21st of December, "I was wakened, a little before one o'clock, by nine distinct and very loud knocks, which seemed to be in the next room to ours, with a short pause at every third knock." The next night Emily heard knocks on the bedstead and under the bed. She knocked, and it answered her. "I went down stairs," says Mr. Wesley, "and knocked with my stick against the joists of the kitchen.It answered me as loud and as often as I knocked." Knockings were heard under the table; latches of doors were moved up and down as the members of the family approached them. Doors were violently thrust against those who attempted to open or shut them.
When prayer was offered in the evening, by the rector, for the king, a knocking began all around the room, and a thundering knock at theamen. This was repeated at morning and evening, when prayer was offered for the king. Mr. Wesley says, "I have been thrice pushed by an invisible power, once against the corner of my desk in my study, and a second time against the door of the matted chamber, and a third time against the right side of the frame of my study door, as I was going in."
Mr. Poole, the vicar of Haxey, an eminently pious and sensible man, was sent for to spend the night with the family. The knocking commenced about ten o'clock in the evening. Mr. Wesley and his brother clergyman went into the nursery, where the knockings were heard. Mr. Wesley observed that the children, though asleep, were very much affected; they trembled exceedingly and sweat profusely; and, becoming very much excited, he pulled out a pistol and was about to fire it at the place from whence the sound came. Mr. Poole caught his arm and said: "Sir, you are convinced that this is something preternatural. If so, youcannot hurt it, but you give it power to hurt you." Then going close to the place, Mr. Wesley said: "Thou deaf and dumb devil, why dost thou frighten these children, who cannot answer for themselves? Come to me in my study, who am a man." Instantly the particular knock which the rector always gave at the gate was given, as if it would shiver the board in pieces. The next evening, on entering his study, of which no one but himself had the key, the door was thrust against him with such force as nearly to throw him down.
A sound was heard as if a large iron bell was thrown among bottles under the stairs; and as Mr. and Mrs. Wesley were going down stairs they heard a sound as if a vessel of silver were poured upon Mrs. Wesley's breast and ran jingling down to her feet; and at another time a noise as if all the pewter were thrown about the kitchen. But on examination all was found undisturbed.
The dog, a large mastiff, seemed as much disturbed by these noises as the family. On their approach he would run to Mr. and Mrs. Wesley, seeking shelter between them. While the disturbances continued the dog would bark and leap, and snap on one side and on the other, and that frequently before any person in the room heard any noise at all. But after two or three days he used to tremble and creep away before the noise began; and by this the familyknew of its approach. Footsteps were heard in all parts of the house, from cellar to garret. Groans and every sort of noise were heard all over the house too numerous to relate. Whenever it was attributed to rats and mice the noises would become louder and fiercer.
These disturbances continued for some four months and then subsided, except that some members of the family were annoyed by them for several years.
Mr. Wesley was frequently urged to quit the parsonage. His reply was eminently characteristic: "No," said he, "let the devil flee from me. I will never flee from the devil."
Every effort was made to discover the cause of these disturbances, but without satisfactory results, save that all believed they were preternatural. The whole family were unanimous in the belief that it was satanic.
A full account of these noises was prepared from the most authentic sources by John Wesley and published in theArminian Magazine. Dr. Priestley, an unbeliever, confessed it to have been the best-authenticated and best-told story of the kind that was anywhere extant; and yet, so strongly wedded was he to his materialistic views, he could not accept them, nor find what might be regarded as a commonsense solution of them. He thought it quite probable that it was a trick of the servants,assisted by some of the neighbors, and that nothing was meant by it except puzzling the family and amusing themselves. But Mrs. Wesley and other members of the household declared that the noises were heard above and beneath them when all the family were in the same room.
Dr. Southey, though he does not express an opinion of these noises in hisLife of Wesley, in a letter to Mr. Wilberforce avows his belief in their preternatural character. In hisLife of Wesleyhe does say, "The testimony upon which it rests is far too strong to be set aside because of the strangeness of the relation."
Dr. Priestley observes in favor of the story that all the parties seemed to have been sufficiently void of fear, and also free from credulity, except the general belief that such things were supernatural. But he claims that "where no good end is answered we may safely conclude that no miracle was wrought."
Mr. Southey replies to Priestley thus: "The former argument would be valid if the term 'miracle' were applicable to the case; but by 'miracle' Mr. Priestley intends a manifestation of divine power, and in the present case no such meaning is supposed, any more than in the appearance of departed spirits. Such things may be preternatural and yet not miraculous; they may be in the ordinary course ofnature, and yet imply no alteration of its laws. And in regard to the good end which it may be supposed to answer, it would be end sufficient if sometimes one of those unhappy persons, who, looking through the dim glass of infidelity, sees something beyond this life and the narrow sphere of mortal existence, should, from the well-established truth of such a story (trifling and objectless as it may appear), be led to conclude that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in their philosophy."[M]
Mr. Coleridge finds a satisfactory solution of this knotty question in attributing the whole thing to "a contagious nervous disease" with which he judged the whole family to have been afflicted, "the acme or intensest form of which is catalepsy." The poor dog, it would seem, was as badly afflicted as the rest.
This notion does not need refutation. Dr. Adam Clarke, who collected all the accounts of these disturbances and published them in hisWesley Family, claims that they are so circumstantial and authentic as to entitle them to the most implicit credit. The eye and ear witnesses were persons of strong understanding and well-cultivated minds, untinctured by superstition, and in some instances rather skeptically inclined.
attic full of trunksJEFFREY'S ATTIC ROOM, WHENCE THE MYSTERIOUS NOISES CAME.
These unexplained noises in the Epworth rectory found their counterpart in what was known a little earlier as "New England witchcraft," and in our times as the Rochester and Hidsville knockings in 1848, which have ripened into modern Spiritualism, which, if real, is satanic.
There is but little doubt that these remarkable occurrences at his Epworth home made a deep and lasting impression on John Wesley's mind and life. There was ever present to his mind the reality of an invisible world, and he was convinced that satanic as well as angelic forces were all about us, both to bless and to ruin us if permitted to do so by Him who rules all the world.
ORIGIN OF THE HOLY CLUB.
Itwas while he was a member of Lincoln College that that unparalleled religious career of Mr. Wesley, which has always been regarded as the most wonderful movement of modern times, began. "Whoever studies the simplicity of its beginning, the rapidity of its growth, the stability of its institutions, its present vitality and activity, its commanding position and prospective greatness, must confess the work to be not of man, but of God."
The heart of the youthful collegian was profoundly stirred by the reading of theChristian Pattern, by Thomas à Kempis, andHoly Living and Dyingby Jeremy Taylor. He learned from the former "that simplicity of intention and purity of affection were the wings of the soul, without which he could never ascend to God;" and on reading the latter he instantly resolved to dedicate all his life to God. He was convinced that there was no medium; every part must be a sacrifice to either God or himself. From this time his whole life was changed. How much he owed under God to these two works eternity alone willreveal. Law'sCallandPerfectiongreatly aided him.
A little band was formed of such as professed to seek for all the mind of Christ. They commenced with four; soon their number increased to six, then to eight, and so on. Their object was purely mutual profit. They read the classics on week days and divinity on the Sabbath. They prayed, fasted, visited the sick, the poor, the imprisoned. They were near to administer religious consolation to criminals in the hour of their execution. The names of these remarkable religious reformers were: John and Charles Wesley, Robert Kirkham, William Morgan, George Whitefield, John Clayton, T. Broughton, B. Ingham, J. Harvey, J. Whitelamb, W. Hall, J. Gambold, C. Kinchin, W. Smith, Richard Hutchins, Christopher Atkinson, and Messrs. Salmon, Morgan, Boyce, and others.
As might have been expected, they were ridiculed and lampooned by those who differed from them, and who could not comprehend the motive to such a religious life. They were called in derision "Sacramentarians," "Bible Bigots," "Bible Moths," "The Holy Club," "The Godly Club," "Supererogation Men," and finally "Methodists." Their strict, methodical lives in the arrangement of their studies and the improvement of their time, their serious deportment and close attention to religiousduties, caused a jovial friend of Charles Wesley to say, "Why, here is a new sect of Methodists springing up!" alluding to an ancient school of physicians, or to a class of Nonconforming ministers of the seventeenth century, or to both, who received this title from some things common to each. The name took, and the young men were known throughout the university as the Methodists. The name thus given in derision was finally accepted, and has been retained in honor to this day by the followers of Wesley.
A writer in one of the most respectable journals of the day, in describing these inoffensive men, employed the most unwarrantable language. It was affirmed that they had a near affinity to the Essenes among the Jews, and to the Pietists of Switzerland; they excluded what was absolutely necessary to the support of life; they afflicted their bodies; they let blood once a fortnight to keep down the carnal man; they allowed none to have any religion but those of their own sect, while they themselves were farthest from it. They were hypocrites, and were supposed to use religion only as a veil to vice; and their greatest friends were ashamed to stand in their defense. They were enthusiasts, madmen, fools, and zealots. They pretended to be more pious than their neighbors. These were but the beginning of sorrows, as we shall see later.
Wesley says: "Ill men say all manner of evil of me, and good men believe them. There is a way, and there is but one, of making my peace. God forbid I should ever take it."
"As for reputation," he says, "though it be a glorious instrument of advancing our Master's service, yet there is a better than that—a clean heart, a single eye, a soul full of God." What words are these for a minister of the Lord Jesus! It implies heroic, unselfish devotion to a glorious object. He had discovered the secret of success.
What golden words are these: "I once desired to make a fair show in language and philosophy. But that is past. There is a more excellent way; and if I cannot attain to any progress in one without throwing up all thoughts of the other, why, fare it well." This gives the reader an idea of the motive which governed him to the end of life.
In the midst of these scenes of persecution Wesley addressed a letter to his venerable father, still living at Epworth, asking his advice. The old man urged him to go on and not be weary in well-doing; "to bear no more sail than necessary, but to steer steady. As they had called his son the father of the Holy Club, they might call him the grandfather, and he would glory in that name rather than in thetitle of His Holiness." These were noble words from sire to son at such a time and in such a conflict.
In years after, when looking back upon the scenes of Oxford and that mustard-seed beginning, Wesley said: "Two young men, without name, without friends, without either power or fortune, set out from college with principles totally different from those of the common people, to oppose all the world, learned and unlearned, to combat popular prejudices of every kind. Their first principle directly attacked all wickedness; their second, all the bigotry in the world. Thus they attempted a reformation not of opinions (feathers, trifles not worth naming), but of men's tempers and lives; of vice of every kind; of everything contrary to justice, mercy, or truth. And for this it was that they carried their lives in their hands, and that both the great vulgar and the small looked upon them as mad dogs, and treated them as such." Such was the beginning of the religious career of this wonderful man. Wesley refers to three distinct periods of the rise of Methodism. He says: "The first rise of Methodism was in November, 1729, when four of us met at Oxford. The second was at Savannah, in April, 1736, when twenty or thirty persons met at my house. The last was at London, May 1, 1738, when forty or fifty of us agreed to meet together everyWednesday evening, in order to free conversation, begun and ended with singing and prayer. God then thrust us out to raise a holy people."
It would be interesting to follow these men and learn the results of their lives; but our space does not permit. We refer the reader to that most excellent work,The Oxford Methodists, by Tyerman. Of Robert Kirkham little or nothing is known. William Morgan died while a mere youth, and died well. John Clayton became a Jacobite Churchman, and treated Wesley and his brother Charles with utter contempt. Thomas Broughton became secretary of the "Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge," and was faithful to his trust till death. He died suddenly upon his knees, on a Sabbath morning just before he was to have preached. James Harvey, author ofMeditations, was a man of beautiful character, but opposed Wesley's Arminian views. Charles Kinchin, unlike most of the "Holy Club," remained the fast friend of Wesley until death. John Whitelamb married John Wesley's sister Mary, who died within one year, leaving her husband broken-hearted and despondent. He seems to have lost much of his early devotion, causing Mr. Wesley to say, "O, why did he not die forty years ago?" Wesley Hall married John Wesley's sister Martha, a lady of superior talents and sweetness of disposition.Wesley regarded Hall as a man "holy and unblamable in all manner of conversation." After some years Hall went to the bad. He became, first, a Dissenter, then a Universalist, then a deist, after that a polygamist. He abandoned his charming wife, nine of his ten children having died, and the tenth soon followed. He went to the West Indies with one of his concubines, living there until her death. Broken in health and awakened to his terrible condition, he returned to England, where he soon after died. His lawful and faithful wife, hearing of his condition, like an angel of mercy hastened to his bedside. He died in great sorrow of heart, saying—and they were his last words—"I have injured an angel, an angel that never reproached me." Wesley says: "I trust he died in peace, for God gave him deep repentance." John Gambold became a Moravian bishop, and was so opposed to Wesley that he frankly told him he was "ashamed to be seen in his company." Wesley, however, always held him in high esteem. Of Richard Hutchins little is known, except that he was rector of Lincoln College, and never seems to have opposed the Wesleys. Christopher Atkinson was for twenty-five years vicar of Shorp-Arch and Walton. His last words were, "Come, Lord Jesus, and come quickly." Charles Delamotte was one who accompanied the Wesleys to Georgia. Little further isknown of him, except that he became a Moravian and died in peace at Barrow upon the Humber.
Here ends our account of the "Holy Club." All of them maintained a correct life except Hall. They were nearly all Calvinists, and in this they came in conflict with Wesley. Had they remained with Wesley, what a record they might have made! We trust their end was peace.
A Triumphant Death Scene.
Go with me to the Epworth rectory. The venerable Samuel Wesley is dying; no, not dying, but languishing into life. John and Charles have been summoned from Oxford, and they are at the bedside. The faithful wife is so overcome that she cannot be present to witness the dying scene.
John sympathetically inquires, "Do you suffer much, father?" The dying man responds, "Yes, but nothing is too much to suffer for heaven. The weaker I am in body the stronger and more sensible support I feel from God." The dying saint lays his trembling hand on the head of Charles, and, like a true prophet, says, "Be steady! The Christian faith will surely revive in this kingdom. You shall see it, though I shall not." John inquires again, "Are you near heaven?" The dying rector joyfully responds, "Yes, I am." "Are all theconsolations of God small with you, father?" The emphatic answer is, "No! no! no!"
He then called his children each by name, and said to them, "Think of heaven; talk of heaven! All the time is lost when we are not thinking of heaven." The hour came for his departure. The children knelt beside his bed; John prayed. As the prayer ended, in a feeble whisper the rector said, "Now you have done all." Again John prayed, commending the soul of his honored father to God. All was silent as the tomb. They opened their eyes, and the rector was with the Lord, "beholding the King in his beauty." "Can anything on earth be more beautiful," says one writer, "than such a death? It was indeed fitting that this tried, scarred Christian warrior should pass thus peacefully to his reward."
"Now," said his widow, in great sorrow, "I am appeased in his having so easy a death, and I am strengthened to bear it."
On the very day of the rector's funeral a heartless parishioner, to whom the rector owed seventy-five dollars, seized the widow's cattle to secure the debt. But it was such a deed as his godless people were ever ready to perpetrate. John came to the relief of his poor mother, and gave the woman his note for the amount.
Wesley is again at Oxford, intent on service for his Lord.
WESLEY IN AMERICA.
Oneof the most remarkable chapters in the life of John Wesley relates to his mission to America.
There was a tract of land in North America, lying between South Carolina and Florida, over which the English held a nominal jurisdiction. It was a wild, unexplored wilderness, inhabited only by Indian tribes. Under the sanction of a royal charter in 1732 a settlement was made in this territory, and as a compliment to the king, George II, it was named Georgia.
The object of such a settlement was twofold: first, to supply an outlet for the redundant population of the English metropolis; and, secondly, to furnish a safe asylum for foreign Protestants who were the subjects of popish intolerance. No Roman Catholic could find a home there. James Edward Oglethorpe, an earnest friend of humanity, was appointed the first governor of the territory, and he and twenty others were named as trustees, to hold the territory twenty years in trust for the poor.
The first company of emigrants, one hundredand twenty-four in number, had already landed at Savannah and were breathing its balmy air, and the enthusiastic governor was on his return to inspire in the mind of the English people increased confidence in the new enterprise.
Having long been a personal friend of the Wesley family, Oglethorpe knew well the sterling worth of the two brothers, John and Charles, who were still at Oxford. An application was made to some of the Oxford Methodists to settle in the new colony as clergymen. Such sacrifices as they were ready to endure, and such a spirit as seemed to inflame them, were regarded as excellent qualities for the hardships of such a country as Georgia. Mr. Wesley was earnestly pressed by no less a person than the famous Dr. Burton to undertake a mission to the Indians of Georgia, Dr. Burton telling him that "plausible and popular doctors of divinity were not the men wanted in Georgia," but men "inured to contempt of the ornaments and conveniences of life, to bodily austerities, and to serious thoughts." He finally consented, his brother Charles, Benjamin Ingham, and Charles Delamotte joining him.
When the project was made public it was regarded by many as a Quixotic scheme. One inquired of John: "Do you intend to become a knight-errant? How did Quixotism get into your head? You want nothing. You have agood provision for life. You are in a fair way for promotion, and yet you are leaving all to fight windmills."
"Sir," replied Mr. Wesley, "if the Bible be not true, I am as very a fool and madman as you can conceive. But if that book be of God, I am sober-minded; for it declares, 'There is no man that hath left houses, and friends, and brethren for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold in this present time, and in the world to come everlasting life.'"
He submitted his plans to his widowed mother, asking her advice. She replied, "Had I twenty sons, I should rejoice to see them all so employed." His sister Emily said, "Go, my brother;" and his brother Samuel joined with his mother and sister in bidding him Godspeed.
All things being in readiness, on the 14th of October, 1735, the company embarked on board theSimmonds, off Gravesend, and after a few days' detention set sail for the New World.
This was a voyage of discovery—the discovery of holiness.
"Our end in leaving our native land," Wesley says, "was not to avoid want, God having given us plenty of temporal blessings; nor to gain the dung and dross of riches and honor; but simply to save our souls, to live wholly to the glory of God."
Wesley hoped by subjecting himself to thehardships of such a life to secure that holiness for which his soul so ardently longed. He had no clear conception as yet of the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. He hoped by spending his life among rude savages to escape the temptations of the great metropolis. In the wilds of America he could live on "water and bread and the fruits of the earth," and speak "without giving offense." He justly concluded that "pomp and show of the world had no place in the wilds of America." "An Indian hut offered no food for curiosity." "My chief motive," he says, "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." "I cannot hope to attain the same degree of holiness here which I do there." "I hope," he continues, "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."
But Wesley could not get away from himself. The greatest hindrance to holiness was in his own heart. He had looked for holiness in works, sacrifices, austerities, etc., but had failed to see that it was by faith alone.
The voyage, though of almost unparalleled roughness, was of infinite profit to Wesley. A company of Moravians, with David Nitschmann as their bishop, were passengers, boundto the New World, fleeing from popish persecutions. Wesley, observing their behavior in the midst of great peril, was convinced that they were in possession of that to which he was a stranger. Ingham represented them as "a heavenly minded people."
Fifty-seven days of sea life brought them within sight of the beautiful Savannah. Soon they were kneeling upon its soil, thanking God for his merciful care and providential deliverance.
An event occurred on the voyage to Georgia illustrating Wesley's character. General Oglethorpe had become offended at his Italian servant. Hearing a disturbance in the cabin, Wesley stepped in. The general, observing him, and being in a high temper, sought to apologize. "You must excuse me, Mr. Wesley," he said; "I have met with a provocation too great for a man to bear. You know I drink nothing but Cyprus wine. I provided myself with several dozens of it, and this villain, Grimaldi, has drank nearly the whole lot of it. I will be avenged. He shall be tied hand and foot, and carried to the man-of-war. [A man-of-war accompanied the expedition for protection.] The rascal should have taken care how he used me so, for I never forgive." Wesley, fixing his eye upon the general—an eye that seemed to penetrate his soul—said, "Then I hope, general, you never sin!"
The general's heart was touched, his conscience smitten. He stood speechless before the youthful evangelist for a moment, and then threw his bunch of keys on the floor before his poor, cringing servant, saying, "There, villain, take my keys; and behave better in the future." Wesley, it seems, had the moral courage, which probably no other man possessed on that ship, to reprove GeneralOglethorpeto his face.
Soon after landing in Georgia, Wesley met Spangenberg, the Moravian elder, and desired to know of him how he should prosecute his new enterprise. The devout man of God saw clearly the need of the young evangelist, and inquired of him: "Have you the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God?" Wesley seemed surprised at such questions. Spangenberg continued, "Do you know Jesus Christ?" Wesley replied, "I know him as the Saviour of the world." "True," responded the Moravian elder, "but do you know that he saves you?" Wesley replied, "I hope he has died to save me." Spangenberg gravely added, "Do you know yourself?" Wesley answered, "I do;" and here the interview ended.
tufted chairWESLEY'S ARM-CHAIR.
Charles Wesley was Oglethorpe's secretary, in place of Rev. Samuel Quincy, a native of Massachusetts, who retired from the office, desiringto return to England, where he had been educated. Ingham seems to have attached himself to Charles Wesley, and devoted himself to the children and the poor, and was the first to follow Charles to England. Delamotte was impelled to go to Georgia from his love of John Wesley and his desire to serve him in any capacity; and he never left him for a day while Wesley remained in America. He was the last to leave the colony. John Wesley was the sole minister of the colony, and stood next to Oglethorpe himself.
The Georgia to which Wesley came was very different from the Georgia of to-day. It had only a few English settlements, the most of the territory being the home of savage Indians. These tribes being at war with each other, all access to them was cut off. Not being able to extend their mission among them, Wesley and his colaborers turned their attention to the whites, hoping that God would before long open their way to preach the Gospel to the Indians. In the prosecution of their mission they practiced the most rigid austerities. They slept on the ground instead of on beds, lived on bread and water, dispensing with all the luxuries and most of the necessities of life. They were, in season and out of season, everywhere urging the people to a holy life. Wesley set apart three hours of each day for visiting the people at their homes, choosingthe midday hours when the people were kept indoors by the scorching heat.
Charles Wesley and Mr. Ingham were at Frederica, where the people were frank to declare that they liked nothing they did. Even Oglethorpe himself had become the enemy of his secretary, and falsely accused him of inciting a mutiny.
Their plain, earnest, practical public preaching and private rebukes aroused the spirit of persecution, which broke upon them without mixture of mercy. Scandal, with its scorpion tongue; backbiting, with its canine proclivities; and gossip, which also does immense business on borrowed capital—these ran like fires over sun-scorched prairies, until these devoted servants of God were well-nigh consumed.
At Frederica, Charles narrowly escaped assassination. So general and bitter was the hate that he says: "Some turned out of the way to avoid me." "The servant that used to wash my linen sent it back unwashed." "I sometimes pitied and sometimes diverted myself with the odd expressions of their contempt, but found the benefit of having undergone a much lower degree of obloquy at Oxford."
While very sick he was unable to secure a few boards to lie upon, and was obliged to lie on the ground in the corner of Mr. Reed's hut. He thanked God that it had not as yet becomea "capital offense to give him a morsel of bread." Though very sick, he was able to go out at night to bury a scout-boatman, "but envied him his quiet grave." He procured the old bedstead on which the boatman had died, upon which to rest his own sinking and almost dying frame; but the bedstead was soon taken from him by order of Oglethorpe himself. But through the mercy of God and the coming of his brother and Mr. Delamotte he recovered.
After about six months (February 5 to July 25) spent in labors more abundant, and almost in stripes above measure, Providence opened his way to return to England as bearer of dispatches to the government. He took passage in aricketyold vessel with a drunken captain, and all came near being lost at sea. The ship put into Boston in distress, and there Charles Wesley remained for more than a month, sick much of the time, but preaching several times in King's Chapel, corner of School and Tremont Streets, and in Christ Church, on Salem Street. This latter church remains as it was when Wesley occupied its pulpit.
John remained in Georgia—at Frederica and Savannah—battling with sin and Satan, with a Christian boldness which might almost have inspired wonder among the angels. His life was frequently threatened at Frederica,and at Savannah there was no end to the insults he endured. Hearing of his conflicts, Whitefield writes to him to "go on and prosper, and, in the strength of God, make the devil's kingdom shake about his ears."
Through the cunning craftiness and manifest hypocrisy of one Miss Hopkey, niece of the chief magistrate, and a lady of great external accomplishments, he came near being ruined. She sought his company; bestowed on him every attention; watched him when sick; was always at his early morning meetings; dressed in pure white because she learned that he was pleased with that color; was always manifesting great interest in his spiritual state; and all, without doubt, to cover up deeper designs. Mr. Wesley, always unsuspecting and confiding, became strongly attached to her for a time, but was subsequently convinced that God did not approve of an alliance in that direction, and at once determined to cut every cord which bound them. At this the lady became greatly exasperated, and within a few days was married to another man—Williamson—and then, with her husband and uncle to aid her, she sought in every way the overthrow of Mr. Wesley.
Mr. Tyerman seeks to make this case, as, in fact, many others, turn to the disadvantage of Wesley. He will have it that Wesley had promised to marry Miss Hopkey, thoughHenry Moore declares that Wesley told him that no such thing ever occurred. Mr. Tyerman gives credit to the testimony of the hypocritical Miss Hopkey rather than to that of Henry Moore and John Wesley.
After a time Wesley, for just causes, excluded Mrs. Williamson from the Lord's table, and gave his reasons for so doing. For this he was prosecuted before the courts, a packed and paid grand jury bringing against him ten indictments, and the minority presenting a strong counter report. The case never came to trial, though Wesley made seven fruitless efforts to have it tried.
The prejudice excited against him by the chief magistrate and others became so strong that he could accomplish but little good among the people.
In the midst of these conflicts he held every Sunday, from five to six, a prayer service in English; at nine, another in Italian; from 10:30 to 12:30 he preached a sermon in English and administered the communion; at one he held a service in French; at two he catechised the children; at three he held another service in English; still later he conducted a service in his own house, consisting of reading, prayer, and praise; and at six attended the Moravian service.
He finally resolved, as his mission seemed at an end, to leave Georgia and return toEngland. His public announcement of his purpose created great excitement among all classes. The magistrate forbade his departure. Williamson demanded that he give bail to answer the suit against him; but this he refused to do, telling them that he had sought seven times to have the case tried, but in vain, and that for the balance they could look after that. On the same night, after public prayers, with four men to accompany him, Wesley left Savannah, December 2, 1737, never more to return. They took a small boat to Perrysburg, a distance of some twelve miles. They then made their way on foot through swamps and forests, suffering untold hardships from cold, hunger, and thirst for four days, when they safely arrived at Port Royal. Here Delamotte joined them, and all took boat for Charleston, where they arrived after four more days of toil.
After spending a few days in Charleston Mr. Delamotte returned to Savannah, and on the 22d day of December Mr. Wesley set sail for England, where he safely arrived on the first day of the following February, the next day after Mr. Whitefield had sailed for America.
Mr. Wesley did not regard his mission to America as a failure. He blessed God for having been carried to America, contrary to all his preceding resolutions. "Hereby I trustHe hath, in some measure,humbled me and proved me, and shown me what was in my heart."
Mr. Whitefield writes, on his arrival in Georgia: "The work Mr. 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 man nor devils will ever be able to shake. O, that I may follow him as he followed Christ!"