the ring. "When I gave it you," said the governor, "I never expected to see you again, but I thought it would be of service to your brother, and you. I had many omens of my death, but God has been pleased to preserve a life which was never valuable to me, and yet in the continuance of it, I thank God, I can rejoice." He then talked of the strangeness of his deliverance, when betrayed, as it appeared, on all sides, and without human support; and he condemned himself for his late conduct, imputing it, however, to want of time for consideration, and the state of his mind. "I longed, Sir," said Charles, "to see you once more, that I might tell you some things before we finally parted; but then I considered, that if you died, you would know them all in a moment." Oglethorpe replied, "I know not whether separate spirits regard our little concerns; if they do, it is as men regard the follies of their childhood, or I my late pas sionateness." About three months afterwards, Mr. Oglethorpe sent him to England with despatches, and followed him thither in the autumn of the same year.

At the beginning of the ensuing year, it was determined that Ingham should go to England also, and endeavour to bring over some of their friends to assist them. When Wesley had been twelve months in Georgia, he sent to the trustees an account of the expenses for that time, for himself and Delamotte, which, deducting building and journeys, amounted to only £44. 4s. 4d. A salary of £50 was allowed for his maintenance, which he had resolved not to accept, thinking his fellowship sufficient for him; but his brother Samuel expostulated with him upon the injustice of such conduct, both to himself and to those who should come after him. These arguments were too reasonable to be resisted, especially when Wesley looked to an event which would have deprived him of his income from college.

Sophia Causton, the niece of the chief magistrate at Savannah, had fixed her eyes upon Wesley; and it is said that Mr. Oglethorpe wished to bring about a marriage between them, thinking it the likeliest means of reclaiming him from those eccentricities which stood in the way of his usefulness. She was a woman of fine person, polished manners, and cultivated mind, and was easily led to bear her part in a design which was to cure an excellent man of his extravagancies, and give her a good husband. Accordingly she was introduced to him as one suffering under a wounded spirit, and inquiring after the way of eternal life. Nor was it enough to place herself thus in a more particular manner under his spiritual guidance; she became his pupil also, like another Heloisa. She dressed always in white, and with the utmost simplicity, to please his taste; and when, in consequence of his having taken meat and wine, one day, at the General's express desire, as a proof that he did not think the use of these things unlawful, he was seized with fever, and confined to his bed, she attended him night and day with incessant and sincere solicitude. Wesley's manner of life had hitherto estranged him from women, and he felt these attentions as it was designed he should feel them. But she had a difficult part to act, and might well doubt whether with all his virtues it was likely that such a husband would make her happy. While she was at Frederica, he wrote to his brother Charles concerning her, in language which strongly marks his anxie

ty; the letter was partly written in Greek, that it might not be exposed to impertinent curiosity. It was to this purport :-"I conjure you spare no time, no address or pains to learn the true cause of my friend's former grief. I much doubt you are in the right. God forbid that she should again err thus. Watch over, guard her as much as you possibly can. Write to me, how it behooves me to write to her." Here not being under Wesley's eye, her life was not regulated with the same reference to his opinion; and when he went to Frederica, some weeks after his brother's departure, " he found her," he says, scarce the shadow of what she was when he had left her." He endeavoured to convince her of this; the kind of remonstrance excited some pain and some pride; and in her resentment she told him she would return to England immediately. 66 I was at first little surprised," says he, "but I soon recollected my spirits, and remembered my calling.*

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-non me, qui cætera vincet

Impetus; at rapido contrarius evehar orbi."

He had recourse to prayer, however, and to the exhortations of Ephrem Syrus, whom he thought at this time the most awakening writer of all the ancients; and after several fruitless attempts, he at length succeeded in dissuading her from what he called the fatal resolution of going to England. She went back with him to Savannah, and in a short time he believed she had recovered the ground which she had lost. This was the close of October. "In the beginning of December," he writes, "I advised Miss Sophy to sup earlier, and not immediately before she went to bed. She did so, and on this lit tle circumstance, what an inconceivable train of consequences depend! not only all the colour of remaining life for her, but perhaps my happiness too."

Notwithstanding this docility, Delamotte suspected that both her obedience and her devotion were merely assumed for the occasion; he therefore told Wesley what he thought of her artfulness and his simplicity, and plainly asked him if it was his intention to marry her. That he had formed this intention in his heart, is beyond a doubt, but he had not declared it; the question embarrassed him, and he made no decisive answer; but being staggered by what Delamotte had said, he called upon the Moravian Bishop. The Bishop replied thus Marriage is not unlawful. Whether it is expedient for you at this time, and whether this lady is a proper wife for you, ought to be maturely considered." The more he considered, the more he was perplexed, so he propounded the matter to the elders of the Moravian Church. When he went to learn their determination, he found Delamotte sitting with the elders in full conclave assembled; and upon his proposing the question, the Bishop replied: "We have considered your case; will you abide by our decision?" He made answer that he would. Then, said the Bishop, we advise

*It was perhaps on this occasion, that he composed these lines, which, as he tells us in his "Platp Account of Christian Perfection," were written at Savannah in the year 1736 :

Is there a thing beneath the sun

That strives with thee my heart to share?

Ah tear it thence, and reign alone,

The Lord of every nation there!

VOL. I.

9

you to proceed no further in this business. Upon this Wesley replied, The will of the Lord be done," and from that time, in per fect obedience to their decision, it is affirmed that he carefully avoided the lady's company, though he perceived what pain this change in his conduct gave her. Had the lady herself known that a consultation of Moravian elders had been held upon her case, whatever pain and whatever love she might have felt, would soon have given place to resentment.

Docile, however, as he had shown himself to his spiritual directors, his private diary shows what pain he felt in their decision, and that even when he thought it best for his salvation that the match should be broken off, he had not resolution to break it off himself, so that the point on his part was still undecided, when she put an end to his struggles by taking another husband. Passages in his private journal make this beyond a doubt: “ Feb. 5, 1737. One of the most remarkable dispensations of Providence towards me, which I have yet known, began to show itself this day. For many days after, I could not at all judge which way the scale would turn nor was it fully determined till March 4, on which God commanded me to pull out my right eye; and by his grace I determined so to do; but being slack in the execution, on Saturday, March 12, God being very merciful to me, my friend performed what I could not. I have often thought one of the most difficult commands that ever was given, was that given to Ezekiel concerning his wife. But the difficulty of obeying such a direction appeared to me now more than ever before, when, considering the character I bore, I could not but perceive that the word of the Lord was come to me likewise, saying, 'Son of man, hold I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke, yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down."" The fourth of March appears to have been the day on which the consultation was held: "From the direction I received from God this day," he says, "touching an affair of the last importance, I cannot but observe, as I have done many times before, the entire mistake of many good men, who assert that God will not answer your prayer unless your heart be wholly resigned to his will. My heart was not wholly resigned to his will; therefore, I durst not depend on my own judgment; and for this very reason I cried to him the more earnestly to supply what was wanting in me. And I know, and am assured, that he heard my voice, and did send forth his light and his truth." The twelfth of March was the day on which Sophia married Mr. Williamson, "being," says Wesley, "the day which completed the year from my first speaking to her. What thou doest, O God, I know not now, but I shall know hereafter."*

be

Upon this part of Wesley's private history, Dr. Whitehead says, "Mr. Wesley has observed a silence in his printed journal on some circumstances of this affair, which has induced many persons to suspect the propriety of his conduct in this business. He has, however, been more open in his private journal, which was written at the time, as the circumstances arose. And as this private journal, and bis other papers, lay open to the inspection of his friends for several years, I cannot help thinking that it would have been more to the reputation of themselves and Mr. Wesley to have openly avowed the fact, that he did intend to marry Miss Causton, and was not a little pained when she broke off the connexion with him. From a careful perusal of his private journal, this appears to me to have been the case. But, whatever may be said of his weakness, (and who is not weak in something or other?) or of his prudence in this affair, nothing can be laid to his charge in point of criminality." Wesley would naturally say as little as possible upon this subject in his printed journal; and in private, whether he remembered the lady with any degree of tenderness or not, he must have been conscious of much eccentricity during the course of the attachment, and great indiscre

His first consolation was derived from reflecting upon the part which he believed himself called to perform. Walking to one of the newly settled lots, he says, "I plainly felt that had God given me such a retirement with the companion I desired, I should have forgotten the work for which I was born, and have set up my rest in this world." It was not long, however, before he began to find cause for consolation from the lady's character, which took its natural course, when she no longer acted with the view of pleasing him. "God," he says, "has shown me yet more of the greatness of my deliverance, by opening to me a new and unexpected scene of Miss Sophy's dissimulation. O never give me over to my own heart's desires, nor let me follow my own imaginations!" Some time afterwards, immediately after the communion, he mentioned to her some things in her conduct which he thought reprehensible; no man but Wesley would have done so, after what had passed between them, but at this time, his austere notions led him wrong in every thing. The reproof irritated her, as it was likely to do, and she replied angrily, that she did not expect such usage from him, and turned abruptly away. At this time he was still upon friendly terms with her uncle, Mr. Causton, the chief magistrate in the colony, and one who had hitherto been among his best friends: he had attended him lately during a slow illness, with a kindness of which that gentleman appeared fully sensible, and Mrs. Causton, upon hearing what had now passed with her niece, endeavoured to excuse her to Wesley, expressed her sorrow for the affair, and desired him to tell her in writing what it was which he disapproved. The matter might easily have been ended here, if Wesley had so chosen ; but his notions of clerical duty during this part of his life, would have qualified him in

tion after it was broken off. But it is remarkable that his private journal should only hint at the consultation of Moravians, and so remotely, that unless the fact had elsewhere been mentioned, it could never have been inferred. Dr. Coke and Mr. Moore say, "There is a silence observed in Mr. Wesley's journal in respect to some parts of this event, which it is possible has caused even friendly readers to hesitate concerning the propriety of his conduct, or at least concerning that propriety which they might be led to expect from so great a character. But what has hitherto been defective, we are happy in being able to supply. The actors in this scene are now, we may hope, in a better world; the last of them died but a few years since. We are not, therefore, bound, as Mr. Wesley thought himself, when he published the account, to let a veil be thrown over this transaction: rather we are bound to let his innocency appear as the light, and his just dealing as the noonday." They add some circumstances which, to say the least, are not very probable. A young lady who had married after her arrival in Georgia, was troubled in conscience, and told Wesley, under a promise of secrecy, the plot which General Oglethorpe had laid to cure him of his enthusiasm, adding these words: "Sir, I had no rest till I resolved to tell you the whole affair. I have myself been urged to that behaviour towards you, which I am now ashamed to mention. Both Miss Sophia and myself were ordered, if we could but succeed, even to deny you nothing." These biographers say further, "when General Oglethorpe perceived by Wesley's altered manner, and some incautious expressions, that his scheme had been discovered, he gave him a hint that there were Indians who would shoot any man in the colony for a bottle of rum, and actually sent an Indian to intimidate if not to murder him.

Surely it cannot be supposed that Wesley would have persisted in his wish, if not in his purpose, of marrying Sophia Causton, after he was fully assured that she had designed to entrap him by such means. Yet it is certain that he persevered in that mind three months after Mr. Oglethorpe's departure, and that the connexion was not broken off by him at last. Dr. Whitehead, who has printed from the private journal Wesley's own remarks, written as the events occurred, censures with great justice the official biographers, saying, "I cannot help thinking it would have been more to the reputation of themselves and Mr. Wesley, to have openly avowed the fact that he did intend to marry Miss Causton, and was not a little pained when she broke off the connexion with him." With regard to the young lady's curious confession, Mr. Wesley seems not to have asked himself the question whether it were more likely that General Oglethorpe would give such instructions to two young women under his protection, or that one of those women should have invented the story for purposes of mischief, at a time when it was wished to drive the obnoxious minister out of the colony. Mr. Moore believes that Mr. Wesley never related these circumstances to any person but himself; Dr. Coke was wholly ignorant of them; and he supposes that Mr. Wesley forbore to publish the whole account, chiefly through tenderness to General Oglethorpe. There was, indeed, sufficient reason for not bringing forward a charge at once so vague and so atrocious as that respecting the Indian; for though Messrs. Coke and Moore incline to think the man was sent only to intimidate the story is not related so as to leave that impression upon the reader.

other ages to have played the part of Becket or of Hildebrand. What he wrote to the lady has never been made public; the temper in which it was written may be estimated by the letter which he previously sent to her uncle. "To this hour you have shown yourself my friend; I ever have and ever shall acknowledge it and it is my earnest desire that he who hath heretofore given me this blessing would continue it still. But this cannot be unless you will allow me one request, which is not so easy a one as it appears,-don't condemn me for doing, in the execution of my office, what I think it my duty to do. If you can prevail upon yourself to allow me this, even when I act without respect of persons, I am persuaded there will never be, at least not long, any misunderstanding between us. For even those who seek it, shall, I trust, find no occasion against me, except it be concerning the law of my GOD." This curious note brought Mr. Causton to his house, to ask how he could possibly think he should condemn him for executing any part of his office. Wesley replied, "Sir, what if I should think it the duty of my office to repel one of your family from the Holy Communion ?" If you repel me or my wife," answered Causton, "I shall require a legal reason, but I shall trouble myself about none else; let them look to themselves."

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These circumstances must needs have thrown the lady into considerable agitation; she miscarried but though her aunt was now so incensed against Mr. Wesley as to impute this to his reproof and the letter which he had afterwards written, she herself was generous or just enough to declare that it was occasioned by anxiety during her husband's illness.-Causton forbore from taking any part in the affair, and continued his usual friendly conduct towards the untractable chaplain: he, however, on the first Sunday in the ensuing month persisted in his purpose, and repelled her from the communion. The next day a warrant was issued against him for defaming Sophia Williamson, and refusing to administer to her the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in a public congregation without cause; for which injury the husband laid his damages at one thousand pounds. Upon this warrant he was carried before the Recorder and one of the Bailiffs there he maintained that the giving or refusing the Lord's Supper was a matter purely ecclesiastical; and, therefore, he would not acknowledge their power to interrogate him concerning it. The Bailiff, nevertheless, said he must appear at the next Court holden for Savannah; and Williamson desired that he might be required to give bail for his appearance; but the Bailiff replied, that Mr. Wesley's word was sufficient. Mr. Causton, still professing a regard to the friendship which had hitherto subsisted between them, required him to give the reasons for his conduct in the Courthouse, which Wesley refused, saying, he apprehended many ill consequences might arise from so doing; "Let the cause," he said, "be laid before the trustees." The uncle now broke off all terms, and entered with great animosity into the business as a family quarrel, declaring he had drawn the sword, and would never sheath it till he had obtained satisfaction: and he called upon Wesley to give the reasons of his repelling her before the whole congregation. This he did accordingly, in writing, to the lady herself, and in these words: "The rules whereby 1 proceed are these: so many as in