History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

His father's health failing in 1734, strenuous efforts were made by him and the family to induce
John to accept the rectorship of Epworth. A long correspondence ensued, during which his brother
Samuel says, referring to his steady declination of the position, "After this declaration, I believe no
one can move your mind but Him who made it." John closed the question by assigning twenty-six
reasons he would be more useful with his pupils at Oxford and as the head of the Holy Club than to
be shut up in a parish. His father died in April, 1735, and the living of Epworth was given away in
May, so that he now considered himself as settled at Oxford.
Another change of scene takes place in the panorama of his life. The new colony of Georgia in
America was in need of missionaries, not to the colony only, but to the Indians. Mr. Oglethorpe, the
new governor, and others, pressed the Wesley brothers to accept. On the 14th of October, 1735, they
set sail for America. Among the passengers were twenty-six German Moravians with Nitchman, their
bishop. John Wesley at once began the study of the German that he might converse with these godly
people. The ship was made a Bethel for these and the eighty English passengers. A severe tempest
overtook them, imperiling their lives. The English were fearfully alarmed and rent the air with cries
and screams — the Germans calmly sang their devotional hymns. John Wesley afterward asked one
of them, "Was he not afraid?" He answered, "I thank God, no." I asked, "But were not your women
and children afraid?" He replied mildly, "No, our women and children are not afraid to die." After
more than three months' voyage they landed at Savannah. Shortly one of the resident Moravian
pastors was introduced to him by Governor Oglethorpe and in the conversation Wesley was asked,
"Have you the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you
are a child of God?" He said, "I was surprised; I knew not what to answer." He was not yet a
conscious child of God. The two brothers entered zealously upon their clerical work, John at
Savannah and Charles at Frederica. "They had high notions of clerical authority . . . they stood firmly
on little things as well as great, and held the reins of ecclesiastical discipline with a tightness
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unsuitable to infant colonists especially, and which tended to provoke resistance." Another
adumbration of the personal government of the United Societies in the near future, and of the reason
for the official separation of the brothers. The embroilments, intrigues, persecutions, sufferings, and
hard-earned experiences of the Wesleys in Georgia command much space from their biographers,
but it covers, perhaps, the least profitable portion of their lives. Charles returned to England after an
absence of about thirteen months and was followed by John fourteen months later, reaching home
February 3, 1738.
He returned to Oxford, the Spirit of God leading him step by step into the full assurance of faith
enjoyed by the Moravians and already experienced by Charles. He kept up his preaching at Bristol
and in London, meeting there Whitefield, on his return from America, and uniting again with the
mixed society of Methodists and Moravians. He opened a correspondence with Moravians in
Germany; met frequently with Peter Bohler; made a journey to Herrnhut, and had an interview with
Count Zinzendorf at Marienborn; and at last came into the full liberty of the sons of God.
The Society at Fetter Lane, London, was the nucleus of the great after movement denominated
from the stigma of the Holy Club, Methodism. It was organized May 1, 1738. Mr. Wesley
distinguishes three periods for the origin: November, 1729, when four gathered at Oxford; at
Savannah, in April, 1736, when twenty or thirty persons met at his house; and at Fetter Lane, May
1, 1738. But Whitehead contends that this is hardly accurate, and shows that the first United Society