FEBRUARY 1737

FEBRUARY  1737

February 1737 

Wesley's Warming Journey

By Brenda Rees

February 1737 finds John Wesley consumed with thoughts and concerns about Miss Sophy.  John Wesley’s writings are filled with his “Miss Sophy” situation.  The following brief notes only hint at the obsession Wesley had with Miss Sophy.  I highly recommend getting your own copy of Curnoch’s extensive publications of Wesley’s diaries and journal and reading this month in complete detail.

Notes from Wesley’s deciphered diaries and Journal.  Material is “accumulated for its elucidation.”  Curnoch wrote (1909) “an unusual shorthand had to be learned … a cipher without a key deciphered.”

New to Wesley's Warming Journey Blog by Brenda Rees?  Go to beginning blog of Introduction and February 1736.  Follow by month.  Hope to have rearranged soon for easier access.  Enjoy.

SIXTH SAVANNAH JOURNAL

Picture of Christ Church in Savannah.  To fully appreciate this, one needs to study the border dispute between Florida and Georgia.  While John Wesley was worshiping at this site, the land was claimed by Spain and England had yet to defeat the Spanish in this area.  Photograph by Brenda Rees ©

Tuesday, Feb.1, 1737 – “Being the anniversary feast, on account of the first convoy’s landing in Georgia, we had a sermon and the Holy Communion.”   Miss Sophy’s other love interest, Mellichamp, is out of jail and is considered dangerous.

Wednesday, Feb. 2, 1737 –  Wesley is informed and against Miss Bovey’s desire to marry Mr. Burnside.  Curnoch eludes that Wesley is against this marriage because he desired to make her a deaconess.

Thursday, Feb. 3, 1737 –  Wesley, “I was now in a great strait.  I still thought it best for me to live single.  And this was still my design; but I felt the foundations of it shaken more and more every day.  Insomuch that I again hinted at a desire of marriage, though I made no direct proposal.”  Wesley said if Miss Sophy had “closed with me at that time” he would have made a “faint resistance” and viewed it later as a narrow escape.  Ingham and Delamotte are not in favor of his marriage to Miss Sophy.  Mr. Toltschig seems more open.

Tuesday, Feb. 8, 1737 – Wesley, “The next morning I was obliged to go down to Savannah.  There I stayed about an hour; and there again I felt, and groaned under the weight of, an unholy desire.  My heart was with Miss Sophy all the time.  I longed to see here, were it but for a moment….”

Monday, Feb. 14, 1737 – Wesley had regularly been recounting his thoughts and feelings about Miss Sophy in his Journal.  “About seven in the morning, I told her in my own garden, ‘I am resolved, Miss Sophy, if I marry at all, not to do it till I have been among the Indians.’”

Wednesday, Feb. 16, 1737 – By today, Miss Sophy had told Wesley that she would not visit him alone anymore and no longer study French.

Monday, Feb. 21, 1737 – Wesley writes to Hird in Frederica.

Thursday, Feb. 24, 1737 – It is decided Ingham should go back to England.  Wesley told Miss Sophy that he or Ingham needed to return to England.  Miss Sophy said, “’What, are you going to England? Then I have no tie to America left.’”  Wesley asked Miss Sophy what she meant.  She replied, “’You are the best friend I ever had in the world….’”

Sunday, Feb. 27, 1737 – Wesley, “After all the company but Miss Sophy was gone, Mr. Delamotte went out and left us alone again.  Finding here still the same, my resolution failed.  At the end of a very serious conversation, I took her by the hand, and perceiving she was not displeased, I was so utterly disarmed, that that hour I should have engaged myself for life, had it not been for the full persuasion I had of her entire sincerity, and in consequence of which I doubted not but she was resolved (as she had said) ‘never to marry while she lived.’”

He resolved to “be more wary in the future … and the following week … touched her not.”