Their plain, earnest, practical public preaching and private rebukes aroused the spirit of persecution, which broke upon them without mixture of mercy. Scandal, with its scorpion tongue; backbiting, with its canine proclivities; and gossip, which also does immense business on borrowed capital--these ran like fires over sun-scorched prairies, until these devoted servants of God were well-nigh consumed. At Frederica, Charles narrowly escaped assassination. So general and bitter was the hate that he says: "Some turned out of the way to avoid me." "The servant that used to wash my linen sent it back unwashed." "I sometimes pitied and sometimes diverted myself with the odd expressions of their contempt, but found the benefit of having undergone a much lower degree of obloquy at Oxford." While very sick he was unable to secure a few boards to lie upon, and was obliged to lie on the ground in the corner of Mr. Reed's hut. He thanked God that it had not as yet become a "capital offense to give him a morsel of bread." Though very sick, he was able to go out at night to bury a scout-boatman, "but envied him his quiet grave." He procured the old bedstead on which the boatman had died, upon which to rest his own sinking and almost dying frame; but the bedstead was soon taken from him by order of Oglethorpe himself. But through the mercy of God and the coming of his brother and Mr. Delamotte he recovered. After about six months (February 5 to July 25) spent in labors more abundant, and almost in stripes above measure, Providence opened his way to return to England as bearer of dispatches to the government. He took passage in a rickety old vessel with a drunken captain, and all came near being lost at sea. The ship put into Boston in distress, and there Charles Wesley remained for more than a month, sick much of the time, but preaching several times in King's Chapel, corner of School and Tremont Streets, and in Christ Church, on Salem Street. This latter church remains as it was when Wesley occupied its pulpit. John remained in Georgia--at Frederica and Savannah--battling with sin and Satan, with a Christian boldness which might almost have inspired wonder among the angels. His life was frequently threatened at Frederica, and at Savannah there was no end to the insults he endured. Hearing of his conflicts, Whitefield writes to him to "go on and prosper, and, in the strength of God, make the devil's kingdom shake about his ears."