Mrs. Wesley devoted herself to the training of her children, taught
them to cry softly even when they were a year old, and conquered their
wills even earlier than that. Her one great object was so to prepare
her little ones for the journey of life that they might be God's
children both in this world and the next. To that end she devoted all
her endeavours.
Is it wonderful that, with her example before their eyes and her
fervent prayers to help them, the Wesleys made a mark upon the world?
John Wesley--"the brand plucked out of the burning," as he termed
himself--when a boy was remarkable for his piety. At eight his father
admitted him to the Holy Communion. He had thus early learned the
lesson of self-control; for his mother tells us that having smallpox
at this age he bore his disease bravely, "like a man and indeed like
a Christian, without any complaint, though he seemed angry at the
smallpox when they were sore, as we guessed by his looking sourly at
them".
At the age of ten John Wesley went to Charterhouse School. For a long
time after he got there he had little to live on but dry bread, as the
elder boys had a habit of taking the little boys' meat; but so far
from this hurting him he said, in after life, that he thought it was
good for his health!
Although he was not at school remarkable for the piety he had shown
earlier, yet he never gave up reading his Bible daily and saying his
prayers morning and evening.
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