Wesley Corpus

I will resign to any of you all or any part of my charge. Choose what seemeth good in your own eyes. Here are within these walls children of all ages and dispositions. Who will bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, till they are meet to be preachers of righteousness Here are adults from the farthest parts of Europe and Asia and the inmost kingdoms of Africa; add to these the known and unknown nations of this vast continent, and you will indeed have a great multitude which no man can number. To James Vernon SAVANNAH, September 11, 1736. You have a just claim to my repeated acknowledgments not only for continuance of your regard to my mother, but for your strengthening my hands, and encouraging me not to look back from the work wherein I am engaged. I know that if it shall please our Great God to give it His blessing, the god of this world will oppose in vain; and that therefore the whole depends on our approving our hearts before Him, and placing all our confidence in His power and mercy. Mr. Ingham has made some progress in the Creek language, but a short conversation I had with the chief of the Chickssaws (which my brother I presume has informed you of) moves me to desire rather to learn their language, if God shall give me opportunity. The generality of that despised and almost unheard-of nation, if one may judge from the accounts given either by their own countrymen or strangers, are not only humble and peaceable qualities, scarce to be found among any other of the Indian nations, but have so firm a reliance on Providence, so settled a habit of looking up to a Superior Being in all the occurrences of life, that they appear the most likely of all the Americans to receive and rejoice in the glorious-Gospel of Christ. What will become of this poor people, a few of whom now see the light and bless God for it, when I am called from among them, I know not. Nor indeed what will become of them while I am here; for the work is too weighty for me. A parish of above two hundred miles in length laughs at the labors of one man.