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amidst the tempest; for to love the
Lord Jesus as a
brother gave consolation.
At
Charleston Oglethorpe bade them welcome; and, in five days more, the way-
faring men, whose home was beyond the skies, pitched their tents near
Savannah.
It remained to select for them a residence.
To cheer their principal men, as they toiled through the forest and across brooks, Oglethorpe, having provided horses, himself joined the little party.
By the aid of blazed trees and Indian guides, he made his way through morasses; a fallen tree served as a bridge over a stream, which the horses swam, for want of a ford;
at night, he encamped with them abroad round a fire, and shared every fatigue, till the spot for their village was chosen, and, like the little stream which formed
its border, was named Ebenezer.
There they built
their dwellings, and there they resolved to raise a column of stone, in token of gratitude to God, whose providence had brought them safely to the ends of the earth.
In the same year, the town of Augusta was laid out,
soon to become the favorite resort of Indian traders.
The good success of
Oglethorpe made the colony increase rapidly by volunteer emigrants.
‘His under taking will succeed,’ said
Johnson, the governor of
South Carolina; ‘for he nobly devotes all his powers to serve the poor, and rescue them from their wretchedness.’
‘He bears a great love to the servants and children of God,’ wrote the pastor of
Ebenezer.
‘He has taken care of us to the utmost of his ability.’
‘God has so blessed his presence and his regulations in the land, that others would not in many years have accomplished what he has brought about in one.’
At length, in April, 1734, after a residence in America of about fifteen months, Oglethorpe sailed for Eng-