02. THE GEORGIA LETTERS

THE GEORGIA LETTERS OCTOBER 10, 1735, TO NOVEMBER 26, 1737 PRINCIPAL EVENTS

The mission to Georgia was a crucial event in Wesley’s life. He undertook it in ’the hope of saving his own soul,’ as well as to do good to the settlers. He hoped eventually to find his way open for work among the Indian tribes. Letters and Journal now throw light upon each other. Wesley enjoyed in an extraordinary degree the confidence of such men as Dr. Burton and Mr. Vernon, whose letters to him overflow with goodwill. He was living in an atmosphere of slander, and his letter to the Trustees on March 4, 1737, shows how this preyed on his mind. Dr. Burton had told him, ’You come to a people, some ignorant and most disposed to licentiousness,’ and he and the Trustees sent Wesley letters full of confidence and regard. Wesley’s care for the highest good of his parishioners stands out in his letter to Charles on March 22, 1736. The letters in this section are of special interest. He tells his brother at Tiverton his views about some of the classical authors read in great schools, and refers to the peril he had run from the writings of the Mystics. His letter to his friends at Oxford won Whitefield for America. His business ability is manifest in his communications to the Georgia Trustees; whilst his loyalty to Oglethorpe comes out in the cheering message he sends him when the founder of the colony was troubled by events in Parliament. Old friends like James Hutton and Miss Granville are net forgotten. All the correspondence bears witness to the purity of Wesley’ s heart and mind and his devotion to his work. The letters to Thomas Causton and Mrs. Williamson show how the storm of opposition drove him back to England sadder yet infinitely wiser, and ready to welcome the light and peace to which as yet he was a stranger. He had put his stiff High Churchmanship to the test, and it had failed him utterly.