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John Wesley
by
Thus matters stood in the year Seventeen Hundred Thirty-five, when James Oglethorpe was attracted to that Oxford group of ascetic enthusiasts. The life of Oglethorpe reads like a novel by James Fenimore Cooper. He was of aristocratic birth, born of an Irish mother, with a small bar sinister on his scutcheon that pushed him out and set him apart. He was a graduate of Oxford, and it was on a visit to his Alma Mater that he heard some sarcastic remarks flung off about the Wesleys that seemed to commend them. People hotly denounced usually have a deal of good in them. Oglethorpe was an officer in the army, a philanthropist, a patron of art, and a soldier of fortune. He had been a Member of Parliament, and at this particular time was Colonial Governor of Georgia, home on a visit.
He had investigated Newgate and other prisons and had brought charges against the keepers and succeeded in bringing their inhumanities before the public. Hogarth has a picture of Oglethorpe visiting a prison, with the poor wretches flocking around him telling their woes. In a good many instances prisoners were given their liberty on the promise of Oglethorpe that he would take them to his colony. The heart of Oglethorpe was with the troubled and distressed; and while his philanthropy was more on the order of that of Jack Cade than it was Christian, yet he at once saw the excellence in the Wesleys, and strong man that he was, wished to make their virtue his own. He proposed that the Wesleys should go back with him to America and evolve an ideal commonwealth.
Oglethorpe had with him several Indians that he had brought over from America. They were proud, silent, and had the reserve of their kind. Moreover, they were six feet high, and when presented at court wore no clothes to speak of.
King George the Second, when these sons of the forest were presented to him, appeared like a pigmy. Oglethorpe knew how to march his forces on an angle. London society went mad trying to get a glimpse of his savages. He declared that the North American Indians were the finest specimens–intellectually, physically and morally–of any people the world had ever seen. They needed but one thing to make them perfect– Christianity.
The Wesleys, discouraged by the small impress they had made on Oxford, listened to Oglethorpe’s arguments and accepted his terms. Charles was engaged as Secretary to the Governor, and John Wesley was to go as a missionary.
And so they sailed away to America. On board ship they methodized the day–had prayers, sang hymns and studied, read, exhorted and wrote as if it were their last day on earth. This method excited the mirth of several scions of nobility who were on board, and Oglethorpe opened out on the scoffers thus: “Here, you damned pirates, you do not know these people. They forget more in an hour than you ever knew. You take them for tithe-pig parsons, when they are gentlemen of learning, and, like myself, graduates of Oxford. I am one of them, I would have you know. I am a religious man and a Methodist, too, and I’ll knock hell out of anybody who, after this, smiles at either my friends or my religion!”
Long years after, Wesley told this story to illustrate the fact that a man might give an intellectual assent to a religion and yet not have much of it in his heart. Oglethorpe looked upon Methodism as a good thing–cheaper than a police system–and sure to bring good results. If John Wesley and George Whitefield could convert his colony and all the Indians round about, his work of governing would be much reduced. Oglethorpe was a very practical man.
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