Wesley Corpus

But I had not the same degree of regard for them when I saw the dark as well as the bright side of their character. “I doubt your regard for them was not lessened till they began to interfere with what you thought your province.” If this were only a doubt, it were not much amiss; but it presently shoots up into an assertion, equally groundless: For my regard for them lessened, even while I was in Georgia; but it increased again after my return from thence, especially while I was at Hernhuth; and it gradually lessened again for some years, as I saw more and more which I approved not. How then does it appear that “I was influenced herein by a fear of losing my own authority; not by a just resentment to see the honour of religion and virtue so scandalously trampled upon?”--Trampled upon! By whom? Not by the Moravians: I never saw any such thing among them. But what do you mean by “a just resentment?” I hope you do not mean what is commonly called zeal; a flame which often “sets on fire the whole course of nature, and is itself set on fire of hell!” “Rivers of water run from my eyes, because men keep not thy law.” This resentment on such an occasion I understand. From all other may God deliver me ! 8. You go on: “How could you so long and so intimately converse with--such desperately wicked people as the Moravi ans, according to your own account, were known by you to be?” O Sir, what another assertion is this! “The Moravians, accord ing to your own account, were known by you to be desperately wicked people, while you intimately conversed with them l” Utterly false and injurious. I never gave any such account. I conversed intimately with them, both at Savannah and Hern huth.