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tary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, an office which he held until his death in 1777. For thirty-four years the secretarial duties of this society were his principal employment. In the society's house he spent five hours every day in the week, except on Saturdays and Sundays. It was a Bible, Prayer-book, Religious Tract, Home and Foreign Mission, and Industrial Society, all in one, of which Broughton was the chief manager. It had the honor of being the pioneer of some of the greatest movements of the present day. It distributed Bibles long before the British and Foreign Bible Society existed. The great Religious Tract Society was not formed until twenty-two years after Broughton's death. Its foreign missions were few in number, but were important and successful-one of its missionaries being the celebrated Schwartz. One Sunday morning Broughton put on his ministerial robes and, according to his wont, retired into his room till church-time. The bells were ringing, and he continued in his closet. They ceased, but he made no appearance. His friends entered, and found him on his knees-dead. An original portrait of him hangs in the Room of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

Kinchin, a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, left Oxford about the same time the Wesleys did, and became rector of a small village church. Like a good primitive Methodist, he visited from house to house, catechised the children, and had public prayers twice every day-in the morning before the people went to work, and in the evening, after their return. He was elected Dean of Corpus Christi, but he continued faithful to the principles of the Methodists, and, on the removal of Hervey, Whitefield, and others from the University, Kinchin assumed the spiritual charge of the prisoners. Charles Wesley, on his return from Georgia, hastened to Oxford, where, in February, 1737, he met with "good Mr. Gambold," "poor, languid Smith," and "Mr. Kinchin, whom," says he, "I found changed into a courageous soldier of Christ." He died in 1742.

Hall was, as has been seen, the Judas of the company-“ a hawk among the doves of the Wesley family." It is on record by those who were with Hall during his dying-hours, that his last testimony concerning his deserted wife was: "I have injured an angel! an angel that never reproached me." John Wesley notes in his journal (January 2, 1776): "I came [to Bristol] just

time enough not to see but to bury poor Mr. Hall, my brotherin-law, who died on Wednesday morning, I trust in peace, for God had given him deep repentance. Such another monument of Divine mercy, considering how low he had fallen, and from what heights of holiness, I have not seen-no, not in seventy years." The other Oxford Methodists-Boyce, Chapman, and Atkinson, and the rest-made small record. Glimpses of them show the parish priest, in humble places, doing his worksome in the later, and others in the earlier, Methodist spirit; but all earnest. The best we can say with certainty of each is: When last seen he was in good company. Of John Whitelamb-connected with both the Epworth and the Oxford families-there are a few memorials. He was the son of one of Samuel Wesley's peasant parishioners at Wroot, and as an amanuensis, had rendered the rector important service for four years. While resident beneath his roof, Whitelamb acquired a sufficient knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages to enter Lincoln College, where he was principally maintained by the Epworth rector, and had John Wesley for his tutor.

Wesley wrote of him in 1731: "He reads one English, one Latin, and one Greek book alternately; and never meddles with a new one, in any of the languages, till he has ended the old one. If he goes on as he has begun, I dare take upon me to say that by the time he has been here four or five years there will not be such a one, of his standing, in Lincoln College, perhaps not in the University of Oxford." Like his patrons, however, Whitelamb was very poor; and poverty implies trials. Obliged to wear second-hand gowns and other gear, he was spoken of by one not used to employ opprobrious epithets as "poor, starveling Johnny."

In 1733 Whitelamb became Samuel Wesley's curate, and soon afterward married his daughter Mary. She was eleven years older than himself. Her amiable temper made her the delight and favorite of the whole family. To provide for the newlymarried pair, Samuel Wesley resigned to Whitelamb his rectory at Wroot. The village-a few miles from Epworth-was seques. tered, and the salary small; but, despite their thatched residence, and the boorishness of the people among whom they lived, they were happy. Their union, however, was of brief duration. Within a year of their marriage the wife died.*

*Stevenson's Memorials of the Wesley Family.

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At this time Oglethorpe returned from Georgia, whither he had gone with his first company of motley emigrants. Samuel Wesley, now within six months of his decease, took an intense interest in the Georgian colony, and declared that if he had been ten years younger he would gladly have devoted the remainder of his life and labors to the emigrants, and in acquiring the language of the Indians among whom they had to live. Among others who had gone to Georgia with Oglethorpe, and had returned with him, was one of Samuel Wesley's parishioners, of whom the venerable rector earnestly inquired whether the ministers who had migrated to the infant colony understood the Indian language, and could preach without interpreters. Correspondence with General Oglethorpe followed, and the rector had the pleasure, as he could not go himself into that missionary field, of forwarding an application from his son-in-law-inconsolable at his late bereavement. His sons John and Charles sailed for the colony next year, but for some unknown reason his son-in-law did not. Tyerman asks: "Did Whitelamb miss the way of Providence in not becoming a Georgian missionary? Perhaps he did. At all events, the remaining thirty-four years of his life seem to have been of comparatively small importance to his fellow-men. A person of retiring habits and fond of solitude," he lived and died at Wroot; and though he was unable to accept the later development of Methodism that was soon shaking the land, we must always think kindly of the man who made the gifted and afflicted Mary Wesley happy.

The Oxford family, like the Epworth, is broken up-dispersed forever. In a qualified sense, we may apply to Oxford Methodism the words of the sacred text: "A river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads."

CHAPTER VII.

Voyage to Georgia-The Moravians-Lessons in a Storm-Reaches Savannah -Labors There-The Indians-A Beginning Made-The Wesleys Learo Georgia.

JOH

OHN WESLEY is on board the ship Symmonds, bound for America, with one hundred and twenty-four persons-men, women, and children. His brother Charles, Benjamin Ingham, Charles Delamotte, and David Nitschman, are on board also. David is a Moravian bishop, and, accompanied by twenty-six Moravians, is on his way to visit the Brethren in Georgia, who had emigrated during the preceding year under the guidance of their ministers, Spangenberg, John Toelschig, and Anthony Seyffart.

Such were the chief of Wesley's fellow-voyagers. As already stated, they left London to embark, on October 14, 1735; but it was not until December that they fairly started. They encountered storms and calms; then had to await the man-of-war that was to be their convoy.

Ingham's journal reads:

We had two cabins allotted us in the forecastle; I and Mr. Delamotte having the first, and Messrs. Wesley the other. Theirs was made pretty large, so that we could all meet together to read or pray in it. This part of the ship was assigned to us by Mr. Oglethorpe, as being most convenient for privacy.

October 17, Mr. John Wesley began to learn the German tongue, in order to converse with the Moravians, a good, devout, peaceable, and heavenly-minded people, who were persecuted by the papists, and driven from their native country, upon the account of their religion. They were graciously received and protected by Count Zinzendorf, of Herrnhut, a very holy man, who sent them over into Georgia, where lands will be given them. There are twenty-six of them in our ship; and almost the only time that you could know they were in the ship was when they were harmoniously singing the praises of the Great Creator, which they constantly do in public twice a day, wherever they are. Their example was very edifying. They are more like the Primitive Christians than any other Church now in the world; for they retain both the faith, practice, and discipline delivered by the apostles.

From the same source we learn that, on October 18, Wesley and Ingham began to read the Old Testament together, and, at the rate of between nine and ten chapters daily, finished it before they arrived at Georgia. On the day following, Wesley commenced preaching without notes; and during the passage, in a

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series of sermons, he went through the whole of our Saviour's Sermon on the Mount, and, every Sunday, had the sacrament.

General Oglethorpe was in command, but John Wesley was the religious head of the floating community, and his habits prevailed over all around him. The daily course of life among the Methodist party was directed by him. From four till five o'clock in the morning each of them used private prayer; from five till seven they read the Bible together, carefully comparing it with the writings of the earliest Christian ages; at seven they breakfasted; at eight were the public prayers. From nine to twelve Wesley usually studied German, and Delamotte Greek or Navigation, while Charles Wesley, lately ordained, wrote sermons, and Ingham instructed the children. At twelve they met to give an account of what they had done since their last meeting, and of what they designed to do before the next. About one they dined; the time from dinner to four was spent in reading to persons on board, a number of whom each of them had taken in charge. At four were the evening prayers, when either the second lesson was explained (as the first was in the morning) or the children were catechised and instructed before the congregation. From five to six they again used private prayer. From six to seven they read in their cabins to the passengers (of whom about eighty were English). At seven Wesley joined with the Germans in their public service, while Mr. Ingham was reading between the decks to as many as desired to hear. At eight they all met together again, to give an account of what they had done, whom they had conversed with, and to deliberate on the best method of proceeding with such and such persons: what advice, direction, exhortation, or reproof, was necessary for them. Sometimes they read a little, concluding with prayer; and so they went to bed about nine, sleeping soundly upon mats and blankets, regarding neither the noise of the sea nor of the sailors.

It has been well remarked that the ship became at once a Bethel and a seminary. "It was Epworth rectory and Susanna Wesley's discipline afloat on the Atlantic." The meeting of the Wesleys with the pious refugees appeared to be casual, but it was, in fact, one of those providential arrangements out of which the most momentous consequences arise. The great event of the voyage, as affecting Methodism, was the illustration of genuine religion which the little band of Moravian passengers