Mr. Quincy, Wesley’s predecessor, having now removed to Carolina, Wesley took possession of the wood-built rectory, and, on March 7th, commenced his ministry at Savannah by preaching a sermon from 1 Corinthians xiii. 3, in which he introduced two death-bed scenes,—that of his father at Epworth, and another which he had witnessed at Savannah, and which was “a spectacle worthy to be seen of God and angels and men.”[165] He officiated at nine in the morning, at twelve, and again in the afternoon;[166] and announced his design to administer the sacrament on every Sunday and on every holiday. A few days subsequent to this, writing to his mother, he remarked:—“We are likely to stay here some months. The place is pleasant beyond imagination, and exceeding healthful. I have not had a moment’s illness of any kind since I set my foot upon the continent; nor do I know any more than one of my seven hundred parishioners who is sick at this time. Many of them indeed are, I believe, very angry already; for a gentleman, no longer ago than last night (March 17), made a ball; but the public prayers happening to begin about the same time, the church was full, and the ballroom so empty that the entertainment could not go forward. I should be heartily glad if any poor and religious men or women of Epworth or Wroote would come over to me. General Oglethorpe would give them land enough, and provisions gratis, till they could live on the produce of it.”[167] Wesley, in this letter, evidently considers the whole of the Georgian settlements as his parish; for, so far from Savannah having at this time a population of seven hundred souls, there was scarcely that number in the whole of the settlements put together. Georgia was his parish; for, Mr. Quincy being gone, he was the only minister of the Church of England inducted into ministerial work in the Georgian territory. Charles Wesley was Oglethorpe’s secretary; and though Benjamin Ingham had gone with a few colonists to where Frederica was to stand, Frederica itself as yet did not exist. Besides, Ingham’s visit was intended to be but temporary, his mind being fully fixed upon a mission to the Indians. Indeed, this was Wesley’s purpose also. Their only object in quitting England was, not to preach to the colonists, but to the Indians; and the reason why Wesley had begun to preach to the English at Savannah was because Mr. Quincy, the minister of the English, had left the colony, and they were now as sheep without a shepherd; and also because, through the French on the one hand and the Spaniards on the other, the Indians were at present in great confusion, and had become so excited by French and Spanish plots and treachery that it was not only dangerous to go among them, but, as Tomo-Chichi told Wesley and his friends at the interview already mentioned, they seemed determined not to hear “the great word” which the white man had to teach.[168] In these two facts we find the reason, and the only