Following the meal John decided to take a walk alone along the shoreline. As John walked, Bishop August Spangenberg, the leader of the Moravians in the colony who had accompanied Oglethorpe back to the ship from Savannah, fell in step beside him. John found himself in the company of a man who was as straight talking as he was. As the waves gently lapped at the sandy beach, Spangenberg leveled his blue eyes at John and instead of questioning him about the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean asked, “Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God?”
John felt his face turn red. He had no idea what to say.
Given John’s silence, Spangenberg pressed on. “Do you know Jesus Christ?”
“I know He is the Savior of the world,” John replied sheepishly.
“That is true, but do you know He has saved you?” quizzed the Moravian bishop.
“I hope He has died to save me,” John said.
The short conversation left John feeling deeply unsettled, and he determined to spend more time with the Moravians and learn their secrets to living a holy life.
The following morning a flotilla of small boats came alongside the Simmonds, and soon passengers and cargo were being unloaded for the ten-mile trip upriver to Savannah.
Under orders from James Oglethorpe, when John arrived in Savannah, he took up his post as vicar. Meanwhile his brother Charles assumed his duties as Governor Oglethorpe’s private secretary and accompanied Oglethorpe south to inspect the new settlement of Frederica. As the southernmost English settlement in North America, Frederica was the first line of defense against Spanish invasion from Florida.
John assumed that he would dive right into his missionary work among the Indians, but he was in for a shock. He was introduced to the Reverend Samuel Quincy, the man he was replacing. Mr. Quincy gave a look of surprise when John announced that he wanted to start learning the local Chocktaw Indian language as soon as possible. “That will not be necessary,” Mr. Quincy said. “Your duty lies with the English settlers. We must not interfere with the Indians. They could easily misinterpret what we are trying to do for them and go over to join the French or Spanish. Then we would have a serious situation.”
John was speechless. He had been told that part of his duty as vicar would be evangelizing the Indians, or had he? Had that really been plainly spelled out to him in his conversations with Oglethorpe back in England, or had the impression that that is what he would be doing been given as a way of getting him to agree to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to Georgia? Whichever way it had happened, John felt cheated and betrayed. And such feelings were not a good foundation on which to build his ministry in this beautiful, new land he found himself in.
John moved into the parsonage (a house provided for a clergyman), but for the first few days he was so upset that he barely left the house. Then, resigned to his fate, he set out to visit his five hundred parishioners. Savannah was set on a bluff above the river. It had been meticulously planned with wide streets and squares at each intersection. Lining the streets were lots fifty feet wide and ninety feet deep on which sat houses. Many of the houses were the original 24-by-16-foot structures built of rough-hewn, unpainted wood. But many new, larger houses had also been built of planed wood painted white. Most of the lots were surrounded by picket fences. At the foot of the bluff, nestled beside the Savannah River, was a small fort armed with twenty cannons and manned around the clock by men from the community. Beyond the settlement were five-acre plots that each man in the community was given to grow produce for his family, and beyond these were the forty-five-acre farms each man was also allotted.
On March 7, 1736, John preached his first sermon in Savannah. In the course of delivering it, he outlined what he expected of the citizens of Savannah. Communion would be celebrated every Sunday and on special feast days, and no one who had not been baptized in the Church of England could partake. John also announced that anyone who wished to take Communion would have to give notice the day before so that he could assess the state of that person’s soul. And finally he announced that he would not conduct funeral services for anyone who was not an Anglican and that the women should appear in church wearing plain, woolen or linen dresses. Those with jewelry or elaborate clothing styles should stay at home.
Such rigid rules, of course, gave John many instant enemies. One woman refused to allow her baby to be immersed in water three times (the common practice for baptism in the Church of England at the time), and another family grew incensed when John would not conduct the funeral service of their devout Dissenter father. Some of the colonists complained directly to James Oglethorpe about what they saw as John Wesley’s heavy-handed approach, while others chose more subtle ways to get back at their new, strict and unbending minister.
Chapter 8
Escape
Governor James Oglethorpe decided to take up residence at Frederica, located on St. Simons Island seventy miles south of Savannah. This made it difficult for the residents of Savannah to complain about John’s heavy-handed ways. And since he was the governor’s private secretary, Charles Wesley also had taken up residence there. But things were not going well for Charles. He was not able to keep up with the paperwork his job entailed, and so Oglethorpe had relieved him of many of his private secretarial duties and assigned him a new responsibility. Since there was no vicar at Frederica, Oglethorpe had installed Charles in that position. But even in this new role, Charles was having problems. Like his older brother, he instituted a strict code of conduct for the members of the church to follow. And just like the residents of Savannah, the residents of Frederica reacted negatively to Charles’s rules for Christian living.
In particular, Ann Welch and Beata Hawkins, two of the women who had sailed over with Charles and John on the Simmonds, grew tired of listening to Charles and began a plot to get rid of him. Their plan was carried out in two parts. First, they went separately to Charles, and each of them told him that she had been Governor Oglethorpe’s mistress. Then each woman went to the governor and said just the opposite—that she had been involved with Charles! Of course, Oglethorpe was as shocked as Charles at the allegations. The situation quickly devolved into a nightmare for Charles. No one knew who or what to believe about the situation, and Governor Oglethorpe held Charles responsible, regardless of whether he had done anything or not. In Oglethorpe’s opinion, Charles had brought the whole situation on himself and the community by preaching such high standards of behavior that made life too difficult for the colonists.
Things continued to deteriorate in Frederica, and by the time John arrived to visit his brother, he found Charles sick and depressed. Unable to rouse Charles’s spirits, John finally persuaded Governor Oglethorpe to allow his brother to return to England to personally deliver some important papers. In July 1736, Charles set sail from Georgia for England. He had been in the Georgia colony for less than six months and was never more pleased to leave a place in his entire life.
Despite the complaints he had heard about John and his heavy-handed ways in Savannah, James Oglethorpe took no action, and following the departure of his brother, John returned to his pastoral duties at Savannah. But he soon had a female problem of his own there. The problem came in the form of Sophia Hopkey, the eighteen-year-old niece of Tom Causton, the magistrate of Savannah. Sophia was a student at the school Charles Delamotte ran, and John tutored her there in French and religious studies. However, it was not long before John was visiting Sophia four times a day to supervise her schoolwork and walk with her in the myrtle woods while conversing with her in French.
John was probably the last person to admit it, but he had taken a great liking to Sophia. There was just one problem: he had taken his lead from St. Paul in the New Testament and had decided a long time ago that he would remain an unmarried minister. But Sophia was testing his resolve to the limit, and John had the strength neither to break off the relationship with her nor to tell her that he could not marry her. Eventually, in a state of torment, John sought out Johanns Toltschig, one of the Moravian pastors, to talk to about the situation. He asked if it was right for him to continue meeting alone with a certain young woman.
Johanns thought for a moment and then replied, “What do you fear might happen if you continue to meet with her?”
“I fear that I should marry her,” John replied.
“I don’t see what would be wrong with that!” the Moravian pastor exclaimed.
John shook his head. It was not the answer he had hoped to get, but as he thought about it, he realized that he was unsure of what answer he really wanted to hear. So John tried another tack. He confided in Charles Delamotte, who responded by suggesting that they draw lots, as the Moravians did, to see what God’s will was in this instance. John agreed that this would be an acceptable approach, and Charles then took three slips of paper. On the first slip he wrote, “Think not [of marrying] this year.” On the second slip he jotted, “Think of it no more,” and on the third slip, “Marry.” Charles then folded the slips of paper and placed them in a hat.
John reached cautiously into the hat and pulled out one of the slips of paper. He unfolded it and read, “Think of it no more.” It may have been God’s guidance to him, but deep down inside John was disappointed with the answer he had received. It was at that moment that he realized just how much he wanted to marry Sophia. But feelings aside, he believed that God had spoken to him and that he must do as guided.
Despite his best efforts, John found it nearly impossible not to think of Sophia. Savannah was a small, isolated village of about five hundred inhabitants, and John ran into Sophia just about everywhere he went. Finally, Sophia herself resolved the situation, or so it appeared at first. Sophia gave up on John and decided to marry a man named William Williamson, who was a boarder in her uncle’s house. But while William was considered a good man throughout the community, as far as John Wesley was concerned, he was not good enough for Sophia Hopkey.
Perhaps sensing that their wedding would create trouble, William and Sophia decided to marry across the Savannah River in South Carolina. John heard of their marriage only after it had taken place, and he was infuriated, especially since the couple had not “posted banns of marriage” in Georgia. This meant that William and Sophia should have come to John, as their minister, to announce their intention to marry. Then for four consecutive Sundays, John would have read out the banns announcing the couple’s intent of marriage, allowing time for anyone who knew of any reason why the two should not be married to come forward. Although this was not a legal requirement, it was common practice and was expected for Anglican weddings. John was annoyed that William and Sophia had gone behind his back, and as he tried to thank God for dealing with the situation he had gotten himself into with Sophia, he found himself too angry to give the newlyweds his blessing.
Naturally John’s behavior upset Sophia, who in turn, along with William, stopped attending church regularly. John grew sick thinking about how he had let Sophia go. His bitter feelings over the marriage came to a head on August 6, 1737. Stating that she had tried to follow John’s rules for holy living to the best of her ability, Sophia requested that she be allowed to take Holy Communion at the service the following day. But during the service, when Sophia came forward to the altar to receive Communion, John could not bring himself to administer it to her. Sophia was shamed by being refused Holy Communion in public, and her husband, William, was furious with John. He thought that John was trying to ruin his marriage to Sophia. John responded that he was merely a concerned pastor looking after a member of his flock.
