CHRISTIAN LEADERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

( CHAPTER  5 )  -  { PT.  7 } - I am rich enough. In the year 1714, when John Wesley was eleven years old, he was placed at the Charter-house School in London. That mighty step in life--a boys's first entrance at a public school--seems to have done him no harm. He had probably been well-grounded at his father's house in all the basics of a classical education, and he soon became distinguished and progress at sixteen, his elder brother, then a leader at Westminster, describes him as a brave boy, learning Hebrew as fast as he can. In the year 1720, at the age of seventeen, John Wesley went to Oxford as an undergraduate, having been elected to Christ Church. Little is known of the first three or four years of his university life except that he was consistent, studious, and remarkable for his classical knowledge and genius for composition. It is evident, however, that he made the best use of his time at college, and he picked up as much as he could in a day when honorary class list

  ( CHAPTER  5 )  -  { PT.  6 } - A mother of this kind was just the person to leave deep marks and impressions on the minds of her children. We can only find a little trace of the old rector of Epworth in his sons John and Charles, except, perhaps, in their poetical genius. However, there is much in John's career and character throughout his life that shows the hand of his mother. The early years of John Wesley's life appear to have passed quietly away in his Lincolnshire home. The only remarkable event recorded by his biographers is his marvelous escape from being burned alive when the Epwoth rectory was burned down. This happened in 1709, when he was six when he was six years old, and seems to have been vividly impressed on his mind. He was pulled through the bedroom widow at the last moment by a man who, for lack of a ladder, stood on another man's shoulders. Just at that moment, the roof of the house fell in, but fortunately fell inward, and the boy and his rescuer esc