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leave off eating fruits and such like, and gave the money I usually spent in that way to the poor. Afterwards I always chose the worst sort of food, though my place furnished me with variety.

Then he detected spiritual pride in this kind of humility, and began to seclude himself, even from his religious friends, to leave all for Christ's sake. At last Charles Wesley came to his room, warned him of the danger he was running into if he would not take advice, "and recommended me to his brother John, Fellow of Lincoln College, as more experienced than himself. God gave me," says Whitefield, "a teachable temper; I waited upon his brother, who advised me to resume all my externals, though not to depend on them in the least, and from time to time he gave me directions as my pitiable state required."

espousals, a day to be had in everlasting remembrance. At first my joys were like a spring tide, and as it were overflowed the banks. Go where I would, I could not avoid singing of psalms almost aloud.

The buoyancy of returning health settled again into the natural and wholesome course of life, or as Whitefield wrote, "Afterwards it became more settled and, blessed be God, saving a few casual intervals, have abode and increased in my soul ever since."

Samuel Wesley, the elder, died in 1735, when the age of his son John was thirty-two, and George Whitefield's age was about twenty-one. After his father's death, John Wesley came to London t present to Queen Caroline the Dissertations upe Job, which the old gentleman had scarcely lived to finish.

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Soon after this the Lent came on, which our friends kept very strictly, eating no flesh during the six weeks, except on Saturdays and Sundays. I abstained frequently on Saturdays also, and ate nothing on the other days (except on Sunday) but sage-tea without sugar, and coarse bread. I likewise constantly walked out in the cold mornings, till part of one of my hands was quite black. This, with my continued abstinence, and inward conflicts, at length so emaciated my body, that at Passion week, finding I could scarce creep upstairs, I was obliged to inform my kind tutor of my condition, who immediately sent for a physician to me.

This caused no small triumph amongst the gownsmen, who began to cry out "What is his fasting come to now?" But, however, notwithstanding my fit of sickness continued six or seven weeks, I trust I shall have reason to bless God for it through the endless ages of eternity.

It was at the end of the seventh week from the beginning of this illness that Whitefield felt like Christian when his burden fell in presence of the Cross.

The weight of sin went off; and an abiding sense of the pardoning love of God, and a full assurance of faith broke in upon my disconsolate soul. Surely it was the day of my

To the close of his life it was a delight of Jean Wesley when he came to London to pay a visit to the old school-buildings and playground of th Charterhouse, where he had been under-fed and fagged, but not the less had left the place people. for all his after days with happy recollections of boy's life among boys. As Wesley advanced years and grew in spiritual life, outward austerity abated, and his gentleness of heart must have nat pleasant to the boys of a new generation these ocsional visits from an old Carthusian who was making great stir in the world. Times had changed sin the first old Carthusians-twenty-four monks of rigid order-were settled here in a priory built up: ground bought for interment of the plague-strick in 1349, and in which there had actually been bur! fifty thousand of the victims of that memorable p lence. The dissolved priory, with a great house ha on its site by the Duke of Norfolk, was bought of the Duke of Norfolk's son by Thomas Sutton, and r founded by him in James I.'s reign as a school fr boys and a home for eighty decayed gentlemen-a this country the noblest private benefaction of s day or any day before it. The history of the pla

itself might join with his own boyish recollections of it in making for John Wesley a visit to Charterhouse always one incident of a return to London.

Soon after his return to London, in the year 1735, Wesley's attention was drawn very strongly to James Oglethorpe's plan of a settlement in Georgia. James, third son of Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, was born in the year 1689, completed his early education at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and appears then, while still very young, to have served as a gentleman volunteer abroad, before entering the English army as an ensign in 1710. In 1714 he was Captain-Lieutenant of the first troop of the Queen's Life Guards, and afterwards he served abroad as aide-de-camp to Prince Eugene. In 1718 he returned to England, and soon afterwards, on the death of a brother, succeeded to the family estate at Westbrook, near Godalming. In October, 1722, he entered Parliament as member for Haslemere. In 1729, he began his career of beneficence as a reformer of prisons. A friend of Oglethorpe's who fell into poverty had been carried to a sponging-house attached to the Fleet Prison. While he could fee the keeper, he was allowed the liberty of the rules; when he

could do so no more, he was forced into the sponging house, at a time when small-pox raged among its inmates. Oglethorpe's friend, an accomplished man, had never had small-pox, and pleaded for his life that he might be sent to another sponging-house, or to the jail. His petition was refused; he was forced in, caught small-pox, and died, leaving a large family in distress. The member for Haslemere then brought the subject before Parliament, obtained a Jail Committee, and was named its chairman. Painful disclosures were made in the reports of the committee, and some vigorous action was taken upon them. is to the labour of this Jail Committee in 1729 that James Thomson referred in the following passage then added to his "Winter," a poem which had been first published in 1726, followed by "Summer" in 1727,

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It

Spring" in 1728, and "Autumn" in 1730; when the four poems were collected as "The Seasons,” and followed by the closing Hymn.' It was then that

O great design! if executed well,
With patient care, and wisdom-temper'd zeal:
Ye sons of mercy! yet resume the search;
Drag forth the legal monsters into light,
Wrench from their hands oppression's iron rod,
And bid the cruel feel the pains they give.
Much still untouch'd remains; in this rank age,
Much is the patriot's weeding hand required.
The toils of law (what dark insidious men
Have cumbrous added to perplex the truth,
And lengthen simple justice into trade),

How glorious were the day that saw these broke,
And every man within the reach of right.

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The borderland in North America between the English province of South Carolina and the Spanish province of Florida was a debatable ground on which there had been schemes for forming a new colony from England, as one of the schemes said,

"in the most delightful country of the universe." Such scheming suggested to Oglethorpe a plan of his own that he had energy and ability enough to carry out. He would form a colony on this ground, south of the Savannah River, for the restoration to social happiness and usefulness of ruined gentlemen who had in this country become poor debtors. With this object in view, Oglethorpe obtained the support of men with influence and money, and procured, in June, 1732, a charter for the settlement of the proposed colony, which was to be called Georgia, in honour of King George II. Parliament granted £10,000; and the associates who formed the corporation caused themselves to be shut out by their charter from all personal profit. All money obtained was to be applied to the maintenance, transport, and establishment of the selected colonists, on fertile land that cost them nothing and would repay abundantly their labour. A pamphlet published by James

Thomson added his tribute to the labours of Ogle- Oglethorpe to explain his scheme, thus tells who were

thorpe's Jail Committee in 1729

And here can I forget the generous band,

Who, touch'd with human woe, redressive search'd
Into the horrors of the gloomy jail,

Unpity'd, and unheard, where misery moans;
Where sickness pines; where thirst and hunger burn,
And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice?
While in the land of liberty, the land
Whose every street and public meeting glow
With open freedom, little tyrants rag'd:
Snatch'd the lean morsel from the starving mouth;
Tore from cold wintry limbs the tatter'd weed;
Even robb'd them of the last of comforts, sleep;
The free-born Briton to the dungeon chained,
Or, as the lust of cruelty prevail'd,

At pleasure mark'd him with inglorious stripes;
And crush'd out lives, by secret barbarous ways,
That for their country would have toil'd, or bled.

1 See "Shorter English Poems," pages 364, 365.

to be

THE FIRST COLONISTS OF GEORGIA.

Let us cast our eyes on the multitude of unfortunate people in this kingdom, of reputable families and liberal education: some undone by guardians, some by lawsuits, some by accidents in commerce, some by stocks and bubbles, some by suretyship; but all agree in this one circumstance that they must either be burthensome to their relations, or betake themselves to little shifts for sustenance which, it is ten to one, do not answer their purposes, and to which a welleducated person descends with the utmost constraint. These are the persons that may relieve themselves and strengthen Georgia by resorting thither, and Great Britain by their departure.

I appeal to the recollection of the reader-though he be opulent, though he be noble-does not his own sphere of acquaintances furnish him with some instances of such

2 Matthew xxv. 34-45.

verse.

As the time came for taking orders, his mother urged him to make religion the business of his life. He applied himself then closely to the study of divinity. The book by which he was most influenced was Jeremy Taylor's "Rules for Holy Living and Dying." He ascribed to the influence of Jeremy Taylor the resolve to dedicate all his life to God, "all my thoughts and words and actions; being thoroughly convinced there was no medium, but that every part of my life (not some only) must either be a sacrifice to God or myself." John Wesley, whose younger brother Charles had followed him to Christ Church, was ordained in 1725, and obtained a fellowship at Lincoln College in 1726. The change The change of college enabled him to break with the acquaintances at Christ Church who had ceased to be congenial, and to know none in Lincoln College but such as, he afterwards said, “I had reason to believe would help me on the way to heaven." In his new college he was appointed Greek lecturer and moderator of the classes. There were disputations six times a week, which caused him to observe closely the process of argument, and gave him skill in the detection of fallacies. His religious feeling had deepened, and he desired seclusion for devout thought, when the growing infirmities of his father called John Wesley to Wroote to act as his father's curate. He held the curacy two years, and during this time he took priest's orders, but the conditions of his fellowship then recalled him to Lincoln College. Before his return he had been impressed by the words of a friend, who said to him, "Sir, you wish to serve God and go to heaven. Remember you cannot serve Him alone; you must therefore find companions or make them. The Bible knows nothing of solitary religion."

When John returned to Oxford, he found that his younger brother Charles had already formed for him such a body of companions. Just before Charles Wesley went to Christ Church he had declined an offer of adoption by a namesake in Ireland on condition of his living with his patron. The fortune he thus lost went to the grandfather of the Duke of Wellington, who took the name of Wesley or Wellesley, and was first Earl of Mornington. Charles was of a lively temper, and when John left Oxford for Wroote he had not succeeded in bringing his brother into his own state of religious fervour. But while John was curate at Wroote, Charles at Oxford suddenly became strict in religious observances, and at once associated himself with others who agreed to live by Christian rule and take the sacrament every week. These associates were soon ridiculed

as

Sacramentarians," "Bible-moths," the "Godly Club." One of the names given to them had been applied sometimes before in a sense like that given to "Precisian" and "Puritan," and this was "Methodist." John Wesley thought that the name had been given with reference to an ancient sect of physicians that had been so called. When John Wesley returned to Lincoln College, his standing at the University, his religious earnestness, and his seniority to Charles, caused him to become the leader of this new society, and he was styled by those who laughed at it, the Father of the Holy Club." It was a society of about fifteen, who visited the sick and the prisoners,

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fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays, practised strict examination, and strove "for a recovery of the image of God." When, after a while, the question arose whether John Wesley should not apply for the next presentation to his father's living of Epworth, to keep the house for his mother and sisters, and take his position in the Church, his enthusiasm was already straining towards a larger field of action, and no family reasoning, however prudent, conquered his resolve to go on in the way of life to which his heart was given. John Wesley's father died in April, 1735.

Of the young Oxford Methodists who shared the enthusiasm of the Wesleys, the most famous in after years was George Whitefield, whose sketch of his own life begins with an account of the frowardness of his childhood, from the time of his birth in Gloucester in the month of December, 1714, at the Bell Inn. But, he says,

I had early some convictions of sin, and once I remember, when some persons (as they frequently did) made it their business to tease me, I immediately retired to my room, and kneeling down, with many tears, prayed over that psalm wherein David so often repeats these words, "But in the Name of the Lord will I destroy them." I was always fond of being a Clergyman, used frequently to imitate the Ministers reading prayers, &c. Part of the money I used to steal from my parent I gave to the poor, and some books I privately took from others (for which I have since restored fourfold) I remember were books of devotion.

About the tenth year of my age, it pleased God to permit my Mother to marry a second time. It proved what the World would call an unhappy match, but God overruled it for good.

When I was about twelve, I was placed at a school called St. Mary de Crypt, in Gloucester, the last Grammar School I ever went to. Having a good elocution, and memory, I was remarked for making speeches before the corporation at their annual visitation. But I cannot say I felt any drawings of God upon my soul for a year or two, saving that I laid out some of the money that was given me on one of those forementioned occasions in buying Ken's "Manual for Winchester Scholars," a book that had much affected me when my brother used to read it in my mother's troubles, and which, for some time after I bought it, was of great benefit to my soul.

Before he was fifteen George Whitefield asked that he might be taken from school, since he had no hope of a University education.

My mother's circumstances being much on the decline, and being tractable that way, I from time to time began to assist her occasionally in the public-house, till at length I put on my blue apron and my snuffers, washed mops, cleansed rooms, and, in one word, became a professed and common drawer.

Notwithstanding I was thus employed in a large inn, and had sometimes the care of the whole house upon my hands, yet I composed two or three sermons, and dedicated one of them in particular to my elder brother. One time I remember I was very much pressed to self-examination, and found myself very unwilling to look into my heart. Frequently I read the Bible when sitting up at night. Seeing the boys go by to school has often cut me to the heart. And a dear youth (now with God) would often come entreating me, when serving at the bar, to go to Oxford. My general answer was, "I wish I could."

After Whitefield had spent a year in this way, his mother failed, and was obliged to leave the inn; but it was made over to a son who had been bred to the business, and who then married. George remained at the "Bell" as an assistant, until he found that he could not agree with his brother's wife; for that cause he left, and went to his eldest brother at Bristol. There his religious enthusiasm deepened for a time, and he resolved never again to serve in a publichouse. He kept this resolve when he returned to Gloucester, "and therefore," he says, "my mother gave me leave, though she had but a little income, to have a bed upon the ground, and live at her house, till Providence should point out a place for me."

Having lived thus for some considerable time, a young student who was once my schoolfellow, and then a Servitor of Pembroke College, Oxford, came to pay my Mother a visit. Amongst other conversation, he told her how he had discharged all College expenses that quarter, and received a penny. Upon that my Mother immediately cried out, "That will do for my Son." Then turning to me, she said, "Will you go to Oxford, George?" I replied, "With all my heart." Whereupon, having the same friends that this young student had, my Mother, without delay, waited on them. They promised their interest to get me a Servitor's place in the same College. She then applied to my old master, who much approved of my coming to school again.

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Near this time I dreamed that I was to see God on Mount Sinai, but was afraid to meet him. This made a great impression upon me; and a gentlewoman to whom I told it, said, "George, this is a Call from God."

For a twelvemonth I went on in a round of duties, receiving the Sacrament monthly, fasting frequently, attending constantly on public worship, and praying often more than twice a day in private. One of my brothers used to tell me, "He feared this would not hold long, and that I should forget all when I came to Oxford."

At eighteen Whitefield went to Pembroke College, Oxford, in the desired way, a friend lending ten pounds to pay the first expense of entering.

Soon after my admission I went and resided, and found my having been used to a public-house was now of service to me. For many of the Servitors being sick at my first coming up, by my diligent and ready attendance I ingratiated myself into the gentlemen's favour so far, that many who had it in their power chose me to be their Servitor. This much lessened my expense; and indeed God was so gracious that with the profits of my place, and some little presents made me by my kind tutor, for almost the first three years I did not put all my relations together to above £24 expense.

I now began to pray and sing psalms thrice every day, besides morning and evening, and to fast every Friday, and to receive the Sacrament at a parish church near our College, and at the Castle, where the despised Methodists used to receive once a month.

The young men so called because they lived by Rule and Method, were then much talked of at Oxford. I had heard of and loved them before I came to the University; and so strenuously defended them when I heard them reviled by the students, that they began to think that I also in time should be one of them.

For above a twelvemonth my soul longed to be acquainted with them, and I was strongly inclined to follow their good example, when I saw them go through a ridiculing crowd to receive the holy Sacrament at St. Mary's. At length God was pleased to open a door. It happened that a poor woman in one of the workhouses had attempted to cut her throat, but was happily prevented. Upon hearing of this, and knowing that both the Mr. Wesleys were ready to every good work, I sent a poor aged apple-woman of our College to inform Mr. Charles Wesley of it, charging her not to discover who sent her. She went; but, contrary to my orders, told my name. He having heard of my coming to the Castle and a Parish Church Sacrament, and having met me frequently walking by myself, followed the woman when she was gone away, and sent an invitation to me by her, to come to breakfast with him the next morning.

I thankfully embraced the opportunity. He put into my hands Professor Franks' Treatise against the Fear of Man; and in a short time let me have another book entitled "The Life of God in the Soul of Man."

At my first reading it, I wondered what the author meant by saying, "That some falsely placed Religion in going to Church, doing hurt to no one, being constant in the duties of the closet, and now and then reaching out their hands to give alms to their poor neighbours." Alas! thought I, "If this be not Religion, what is?" God soon shewed me. For in reading a few lines further, that "true Religion was an Union of the Soul with God, or Christ formed within us," a ray of divine light instantaneously darted in upon my soul, and from that moment, but not till then, did I know that I must be a new creature.

Upon this I had no rest till I wrote letters to my relations, acquainting them there was such a thing as the New Birth. I imagined they would have gladly received them. But, alas! they thought that I was going beside myself, and by their letters confirmed me in the resolutions I had taken not to go down into the country, but continue where I was, lest that by any means the good work which God had begun in my soul might be obstructed.

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I daily underwent some contempt from the Collegians. Some have thrown dirt at, and others took away their pay from me. And two friends, that were very dear to me, soon grew shy of and forsook me. My inward sufferings were of a more exercising nature. God only knows how many nights I have lain upon my bed, groaning under what I felt. Whole days and weeks have I spent lying prostrate on the ground, in silent or vocal prayer; and having nobody to shew me a better way, I thought to get peace and purity by outward austerities. Accordingly by degrees I began to

persons as have been here described? Must they starve? What honest heart can bear to think of it? Must they be fed by the contributions of others? Certainly they must, rather than be suffered to perish. I have heard it said, and it is easy to say so, 'Let them learn to work; let them subdue their pride, and descend to mean employments; keep alehouses, or coffee-houses, even sell fruit, or clean shoes, for an honest livelihood.' But alas! these occupations, and many others like them, are overstocked already by people who know better how to follow them than do they whom we have been talking of. As for labouring, I could almost wish that the gentleman or merchant who thinks that another gentleman or merchant in want can thrash or dig to the value of subsistence for his family, or even for himself;

say I could wish the person who thinks so were obliged to make trial of it for a week, or-not to be too severe-for only a day. He would then find himself to be less than the fourth part of a labourer, and that the fourth part of a labourer's wages could not maintain him. I have heard a man may learn to labour by practice; 'tis admitted. But it must also be admitted that before he can learn he may starve. Men whose wants are importunate must try such expedients as will give immediate relief. 'Tis too late for them to begin to learn a trade when their pressing necessities call for the exercise of it.

Prisons were visited by a committee of the trustees of the colony, to obtain the discharge of poor debtors who deserved their help. Another committee selected colonists, who were put through military drill, that they might be able to hold their own in their new home, and serve also the political purpose of fixing an unsettled frontier. There was to be no slavelabour in the colony. When the first shipload of colonists, thirty-five families, numbering one hundred and twenty persons, was ready to sail from Gravesend, Oglethorpe resolved to give up ease at home, and go with them to secure the success of his undertaking. Having made it a condition that he should receive no payment in any form, he was empowered to act as a colonial governor, and left for Georgia in November, 1732. The writer of a published account of a voyage from Charleston to Savannah, in March, 1733, thus tells how he found the governor laying the foundations of his colony :

:

Mr. Oglethorpe is indefatigable, and takes a vast deal of pains. His fare is indifferent, having little else at present but salt provisions. He is extremely well beloved by all the people. The title they give him is Father. If any of them are sick, he immediately visits them, and takes great care of them. If any difference arises, he is the person who decides it. Two happened while I was there and in my presence; and all the parties went away to outward appearance satisfied and contented with the determination. He keeps a strict discipline; I neither saw one of his people drunk nor heard one swear all the time I have been here. He does not allow them rum, but in lieu gives them English beer. It is surprising to see how cheerfully the men go to work, considering they have not been bred to it. There are no idlers here; even the boys and girls do their part. There are four houses already up, but and he hopes, when he has got none finished; more sawyers, to finish two houses a week. He has ploughed up some land, part of which is sowed with wheat, which is come up and looks promising. He has two or three gardens, which he has sowed with divers sorts of seeds, and planted thyme, with other pot-herbs, and several sorts of fruit-trees.

He was palisading the town round, including some part of the Common. In short, he has done a vast deal of work : the time, and I think his name deserves to be immortalized.

The eight tribes of the Lower Creek Indians who were settled beside Oglethorpe's colony were very friendly. They were well-grown men, great hunters, and worshippers without idolatry of a Supre Being whom they called Sotolycaté, He-who-sitte above. They welcomed the white brothers wh offered friendship, and believed they had come i the good of the red brothers, to whom they couli bring knowledge. One of the chiefs, Tomo Chach... said at the treaty-making :—

When these white men came, I feared that they would drive us away, for we were weak; but they promised not molest us. We wanted corn and other things, and they ha given us supplies; and now, of our small means, we them presents in return. Here is a buffalo skin, adm with the head and feathers of an eagle. The eagle sim speed, and the buffalo strength. The English are swift a the eagle, and strong as the buffalo. Like the eagle they hither over great waters, and, like the buffalo, nothing withstand them. But the feathers of the eagle are soft, 2signify kindness; and the skin of the buffalo is covera and signifies protection. Let these, then, remind them: be kind, and protect us

Having successfully laid the foundations of t state of Georgia, James Oglethorpe returned England in the spring of 1734, bringing with t Tomo Chachi, with his wife and nephew, and other native chiefs. They reached England in J Tomo Chachi went to court, and presented feathers to King George II. Poems were write and the Gentleman's Magazine offered a prize for a medal to commemorate Mr. Oglethorpe's benevo and patriotism. They were introduced also to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and to him Tomo Chac expressed the desire of his people for religious k. ledge. After a stay of four months in England th natives were sent home to spread the impres they had received of English culture and of E kindness. Their coming had also in this co** drawn friendly attention to their people, and thorpe's desire now was to bring the Gospel ho them. John Wesley's father had received pers kindness from Oglethorpe, who also at this put down his name as a subscriber for seven paper copies, at three guineas each, of the gentleman's "Dissertationes in Librum Jobi,” portrait of the author seated in the character of In the last year of his life, Samuel Wesley, the el wrote from Epworth, on the 6th of July, 174 “Honoured Sir, may I be admitted, whe crowds of our nobility and gentry are pouring in congratulations, to press my poor mite of thank

the

presence of one who so well deserves the ti Universal Benefactor of Mankind. It is not = your valuable favours, on many accounts, to my s late of Westminster" (Samuel, the eldest son myself, when I was a little pressed in the wond your extreme charity to the poor prisoners; these only that so much demand my warmest &

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