rger inveighing against the Moravians and Ziegenhagen put
forth every effort to reclaim Spangenberg from the supposed error of
his ways, and to persuade him to stop the company about to start for
Georgia, or at least to separate himself from them, and return to the
old friends at Halle. Oglethorpe smiled at the prejudice against the
Moravians, and told them frankly that efforts had been made to influence
him, but he had preferred to wait and judge for himself. "It has ever
been so," he said, "from the time of the early Christians; it seems
to be the custom of theologians to call others heretics. They say, in
short, 'you do not believe what I believe, a Mohammedan also does not
believe what I believe, therefore you are a Mohammedan;' and again 'you
explain this Bible passage so and so, the Socinian also explains it so
and so, therefore you are a Socinian.'" As for opposition, he, too, was
beginning to find it since the Georgia Colony was proving a success.

Meanwhile new friends were springing up on every side of the Moravians.
A doctor helped them lay in a store of medicine, another gave them
some balsam which was good for numberless external and internal uses. A
German merchant, who had become an English citizen, helped them purchase
such things as they would require in Georgia, and a cobbler assisted
Riedel in buying a shoemaker's outfit. Weapons were offered to all the
members of the party, but declined, as they wished to give no excuse to
any one who might try to press them into military service. They yielded,
however, to the argument that they would need to protect themselves
against wolves and bears, and sent Peter Rose, the gamekeeper, with Mr.
Verelst, one of the secretaries of the Trustees, to purchase a fowling
piece and hunting knives.

Letters of introduction to various prominent men in America were given
to them; and, perhaps most important of all in its future bearing,
people discovered the peculiar charm of the Moravian services. Reference
is made in the diaries to one and another,--from English cl