Page:EB1911 - Volume 28.djvu/546

Rh Oxford, with an annual allowance of £40 as a Charterhouse scholar. His health was poor and he found it hard to keep out of debt, but he made good use of his opportunities. A scheme of study which he drew up for 1722 with a time-table for each day of the week is still to be seen in his earliest diary, which became the property of Mr George Stampe of Great Grimsby. The diary runs from April 5, 1725, to February 19, 1727. A friend describes Wesley at this time as "a young fellow of the finest classical taste, and the most liberal and manly sentiments." He was "gay and sprightly, with a turn for wit and humour."

The standard edition of Wesley's Journal (1909) has furnished much new material for this period of Wesley's life, the Rev. N. Cumock having unravelled the difficult cipher and shorthand in which Wesley's early diaries were kept. He reached the conclusion that the religious friend who directed Wesley's attention to the writings of Thomas a Kempis and Jeremy Taylor, in 1725, was Miss Betty Kirkham, whose father was rector of Stanton in Gloucestershire. Up to this time Wesley says he had no notion of inward holiness, but went on " habitually and for the most part very contentedly in some or other known sin, indeed with some intermission and short struggles especially before and after Holy Communion, " which he was obliged to attend three times a year. On the 25th of September 1725 he was ordained deacon, and on the 17th of March 1726 was elected fellow of Lincoln. His private diaries, seven of which are in the hands of Mr Russell J. Colman of Norwich, contain monthly reviews of Wesley's reading. It covered a wide range, and he made careful notes and abstracts of it. He generally took breakfast or tea with some congenial friend and delighted to discuss the deepest subjects. At the coffee house he saw the Spectator and other periodicals. He loved riding and walking, was an expert swimmer and enjoyed a game at tennis.

He preached frequently in the churches near Oxford in the months succeeding his ordination, and in April 1726 he obtained leave from his college to act as^his father's curate. The new material in the Journal describes the simple matter of his life. He read plays, attended the village fairs, shot plovers in the fenland, and enjoyed a dance with his sisters. In October he returned to Oxford, where he was appointed Greek lecturer and moderator of the classes. He gained considerable reputation in the disputation for his master's degree in February 1727. He was now free to follow his own course of studies and began to lose his love for company, unless it were with those who were drawn like himself to religion. In August he returned to Lincolnshire, where he assisted his father till November 1729. During those two years he paid three visits to the university. In the summer of 1729 he was up for two months. Almost every evening found him with the little society which had gathered round Charles.

Wesley's father died on April 25, 1735, and in the following October John and Charles took ship for Georgia, with Benjamin Ingham and Charles Delamotte. John was sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and hoped to labour as a missionary among the Indians, but though he had many interesting conversations with them the mission was found to be impracticable. The cabin of the " Simmonds " became a study for the four Methodists. The calm confidence of their Moravian fellow-passengers amid the Atlantic storms convinced Wesley that he did not possess the faith which casts out fear. Closer acquaintance with these German friends in. Savannah deepened the impression. Wesley needed help, for he was beset by difficulties. Mrs Hawkins and Mrs Welch poisoned the mind of Colonel Oglethorpe against the brothers for a time. Wesley's attachment to Miss Hopkey also led to ihuch pain and disappointment. All this is now seen more clearly in the standard edition of the Journal. Wesley was a stiff High Churchman, who scrupulously followed every detail of the rubrics. He insisted on baptizing children by trine immersion, and refused the Communion to a pious German because he had not been baptized by a minister who had been episcopally ordained. At the same time he was accused of "introducing into the church and service at the altar compositions of psalms and hymns not inspected or authorized by any proper judicature." The list of grievances presented by Wesley's enemies to the Grand Jur>' at Savannah gives abundant evidence of his unwearying labours for his flock. The foundation of his future work as the father of Methodist hymnody was laid in Georgia. His first Collection of Psalms and Hymns (Charlestown, 1737) contains five of his incomparable translations from the German, and on his return to England he published another Collection in 1738, with five more translations from the German and one from the Spanish. In April 1736 Wesley formed a little society of thirty or forty of the -serious members of his congregation. He calls this the second rise of Methodism, the first being at Oxford in November 1729. The company in Savannah met every Wednesday evening " in order to a free conversation, begun and ended with singing and prayer." A select company of these met at the parsonage on Sunday afternoons. In 1781 he writes, " I cannot but observe that these were the first rudiments of the Methodist societies."

In the presence of such facts we can understand the significance of the mission to Georgia. Wesley put down many severe things against himself on the return voyage, and he saw afterwards that even then he had the faith of a servant though not that of a son. In London he met Peter Bohler who had been ordained by Zinzendorf for work in Carolina. By Bohler Wesley was convinced that he lacked " that faith whereby alone we are saved." On Wednesday, May 24, 1738, he went to a society meeting in Aldcrsgate Street where Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans was being read. "About a quarter