Susanna Wesley

THE HOME REBUILT. 93
intends him to be simply a healthy young animal, may
be questioned. In this instance the reaction set in
soon after he left home for school, and from the age
of eleven to that of twenty-two he appears to have
been like other youths, and neither to have made any
special profession of religion, nor to have contemplated
going into the Church.
There is no doubt that from the time of settling
down in the new rectory and gathering together of
her flock, Mrs. Wesley and her husband, when at home,
concentrated their attention on John's education, that
he might start fairly and be a credit to himself and
them on entering a public school. He was a disputatious
youngster, given to very cool deliberation and
much argument. One of his biographers says that
if asked between meals whether he would take a piece
of bread or fruit he would answer, with cool unconcern,
"I thank you, I will think of it" ;
but this is
somewhat at variance with the mother's accepted rule
that no child was permitted to eat anything between
meals. His impetuous father was on one occasion
so far provoked with the boy that he exclaimed:
" Child, you think to carry everything by dint of argument
but ; you will find how little is ever done in the
world by close reasoning." This characteristic love of
argument, which always makes a child trying to teach
and manage,
is further illustrated by Mr. Wesley's
jocosely affectionate remark to his wife " I : profess,
sweetheart, I think our Jack would not attend to the
most pressing necessities of nature, unless he could
give a reason for it."
But whatever else Mrs. Wesley found to occupy her,
she still made time to write to her eldest son, even if
the letter were short ;
and there is one epistle, dated