History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

METHODIST REFORM
Edward J. Drinkhouse, M.D., D.D.
Volume I
CHAPTER 3
John Wesley; birth, education, and training — Characteristic anecdote of him — Holy Club
experience — Life in Georgia — The Moravians — Mixed society in London of Methodists and
Moravians — The separation and the reasons for it — The Wesleys and Whitefield — First
Methodist Societies — Lay-preachers — Classes — General Rules.
John Wesley was the second son of Samuel and Susannah Wesley, and was born at Epworth
rectory on the 17th of June, old style, 1703. The salient events of his early life shall be sketched,
leaving the reader who wishes to peruse in detail to Whitehead, Moore, and Watson among the
earlier biographers, followed by the candid Tyerman in England, and by the thorough Stevens in
America.
The burning of the rectory when he was less than six years old, his imminent peril and wonderful
deliverance, have furnished material for an exciting adventure, and a clear special providence is
claimed for it. His mother took it closely to heart with a full persuasion that a divine mission was
ordered for him. So assiduously was he cultivated in piety that at eight years of age he was esteemed
worthy by his watchful parents to receive publicly the Church sacrament. He continued under his
mother's exclusive tutorage until 1714. More than any of the children he inherited the strong traits
of both his remarkable parents: the indomitable will and versatile mentality of the father reinforced
by the positive character and religious consecration of the mother. At eleven years he was placed at
the Charter House School in London under Dr. Walker, its eminent head master. He remained until
he was seventeen years of age, when he was elected to Christ Church, Oxford. While at the Charter
School he suffered much from the hazing of the elder boys, and this accounts in part for the
[1]
following incident taken in full from Zion's Advocate. Tyerman gives it with the original authority,
[2]
but omits Tooke's inference. The story runs that Tooke, then school usher, once broke in upon
Wesley while delivering an oration to a number of the smaller boys, and he was desired to follow
him to the parlor, which he did with reluctance. Mr. Tooke then said to him, "I wonder that you, who
are so much above the lower forms, should constantly associate with them, for you should affect the
company of the bigger boys, your equals." Young Wesley boldly replied, "Better to rule in hell, than
serve in heaven." Tooke dismissed his pupil with this observation to an under master, "That boy,
though designed for the Church, will never get a living in it, for his ambitious soul will never
acknowledge a superior, or be confined to a parish." Riggs, in his work entitled, "The Living
Wesley," admits the association with the smaller boys as probable, but dismisses the story as an
invention and embellishment added by the older school fellows. He gives no better reason for his
opinion, however, than the slip in the quotation from Milton, insisting that young Wesley would
have quoted accurately, — reign instead of rule, — but this change could easily have been made in
the transmission typographically. This space is given to an immaterial matter as showing the
disposition of partial biographers to suppress incidents lacking in the color they prefer, and to mark
an early development of a dominating passion as the boy is seen to be the father of the man. The
tradition is in no sense discreditable, and bears every token of verisimilitude in the light of his after