The Escurial, or the Louvre.”
Their parishioners were sketched by Mehetabel Wesley, in the lines following:—
“High births and virtue equally they scorn,
As asses dull, on dunghills born;
Impervious as the stones, their heads are found,
Their rage and hatred, steadfast as the ground.”
The pictures are not attractive; but, despite their thatched residence, and the boorishness of the people among whom they lived, Whitelamb and his wife were happy. Their union, however, was of brief duration. Within one short year of her marriage, the grave received all that was mortal of Mrs. Whitelamb and her infant child. She died in childbirth, at the end of October, 1734.
This was a terrible stroke to the young husband. For a season, he was inconsolable, and, to divert him from his trouble, his father-in-law brought him to the Epworth Rectory. This was just about the time when 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 labours 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 John Lyndal, 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. All this tended to turn poor Whitelamb’s thoughts to Georgia; and, five weeks after Mrs. Whitelamb’s death, the Rector of Epworth wrote to General Oglethorpe as follows:—
“Epworth, December 7, 1734.
“Dear Sir,—I cannot express how much I am obliged by your last kind and instructive letter concerning the affairs of Georgia. I could not read it without sighing, when I reflected on my own age and infirmities, which made such an expedition utterly impracticable for me. Yet, my mind worked hard about it; and it is not impossible but Providence may have directed me to such an expedient as may prove more serviceable to your colony than I should ever have been.”