Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/375

Rh a certain stamp from the men and the circumstances which determine the character of their youthful minds. This is quite natural. And it is easy to see a cause for the more free and fresh spirit which prevails in Georgia if we reflect upon the character of the first founder of the State, James Oglethorpe, and the colony which grew up under his protection.

I must tell you something about this man, whose history I have lately read, and of his work, because among so much which is here incomplete, halting, imperfect, from which the eye turns away dissatisfied, it is a refreshment to fix it upon a human life which will stand the test, which pursued one great purpose from the commencement to the close of its working-day, laboured for it and brought it to a successful issue; upon a man whose sole object in life was to liberate the captive, to make the unfortunate happy, and who, for this purpose, founded a state!

It is not much more than a hundred years since James Oglethorpe came to this country at the head of a little band of emigrants, and pitched his tent upon the high ground between the river Savannah and the sea, where now stands the city of Savannah. He was an Englishman, and had spent a richly diversified life at the University, in the army, and as a member of parliament. A man of heroic character, with a heart full of benevolence and energy, he was the first who sought to alleviate the sufferings of debtors, which at that time were extreme in England; these unfortunate men being often immured in prison for life on account of the smallest debt. As a commissioner for the inspection of jails he obtained the liberation of great numbers, and then sought out for them, as well as for persecuted Protestants, an asylum, a home of freedom in the free lands of the New World, where poverty should not be opprobium; where true piety might freely worship God in its own way.