During the first eleven years of Wesley's life two events occurred worthy of note. At the age of five he was rescued from the burning parsonage almost by miracle. On a winter night, February 9, 1709, while all the family were wrapped in slumber, the cry of "Fire! fire!" was heard on the street. The rector was suddenly awakened, and, though half naked, sought to arouse his family. He rushed to the chamber, called the nurse and the children, and bade them "rise quickly and shift for themselves." After great effort they succeeded in making their escape from the burning house. They are all safe except "Jack." He had not been seen by anyone. In a few moments his voice was heard, crying for help. The flames were everywhere. The father, greatly excited, attempted to rush upstairs, but the flames drove him back. He fell on his knees and commended the soul of his boy to God.

While the father was on his knees the boy had mounted a trunk and called from the window. There was no time for ladders, for the house was nigh to falling. One cried, "Come here! I will stand against the wall, and you mount my shoulders quickly." In a moment it was done, and the child was pulled through the casement, and the next moment the walls fell—inward, through mercy—and the child, as well as the one who rescued him, was saved. His father received him as "a brand plucked from the burning," and in the joy of his heart cried out: "Come, neighbors, let us kneel down, and give thanks to God! He has given me all my children. Let the house go; I am rich enough."

There is no doubt but that some of his dastardly parishioners fired his house, and now house, books, furniture, manuscripts, and clothing were all gone. But this foul act made him many friends. A new house was built, but it was many years before he recovered from the loss, if, indeed, he ever did.

John's wonderful escape deeply impressed his mother that God intended him for some work of special importance in the history of the Church and the world, and she felt that she ought to devote special attention to him and train him for God.

At eight years of age John contracted that most dreaded disease, smallpox. His father was from home at the time. Mrs. Wesley, writing, says: "Jack has borne his disease bravely, like a man—and, indeed, like a Christian—without any complaint; though he seems angry at the smallpox when they are sore, as we guess by his looking sourly at them; for he never says anything." Brave boy!

Passing from the watchful eye of his father and the tender, loving, and almost unexampled care and instruction of his mother, he entered, at about the age of eleven, the famous Charterhouse School, London. This was built originally for a monastery. It was purchased by Thomas Sutton, Esq., and under a charter from King James he established a school for the young. In this school forty-four boys, between the ages of ten and fifteen, were gratuitously fed, clothed, and instructed in the classics. Here such notables as Addison, Steele, Blackstone, Isaac Barrows, and others were educated.

Young Wesley was largely aided in securing this position by the Duke of Buckingham, who seems to have been a fast friend of the family. He secured for him a scholarship, which gave him about two hundred dollars a year. By the direction of his father he ran around the playgrounds three times every morning for the benefit of his health. It was a school of trial. Being a charity scholar, he did not escape the taunts of his fellow-students more highly favored than he; but he bore all with meekness, patiently suffering wrongfully. He remained there some six years, and, though a mere youth, he distinguished himself in every branch of scholarship to which he turned his attention.

Mr. Tyerman, who seems to have searched for every spot on this rising sun, is bold to say that Wesley "lost the religion which had marked his character from the days of his infancy. He entered the Charterhouse a saint, and left it a sinner." We cannot find this marked change on the record with the clearness with which it appears to Mr. Tyerman. There is no evidence that Wesley had ever known the converting grace of God up to this time, and, if not, we are unable to see how he could have lost it. That he was a sinner at this time there can be no doubt. But, while he confesses that he was a sinner, he declares that his "sins were not scandalous in the eyes of the world." Instead of being the wicked boy that Mr. Tyerman represents him to have been, he declares: "I still read the Scriptures, and said my prayers morning and evening. And what I now hoped to be saved by was: (1) Not being as bad as other people; (2) Having still a kindness for religion; and (3) Reading my Bible, going to church, and saying my prayers." Should an unconverted young man in these times, in passing through our high schools or seminaries, give evidence that he read his Bible, prayed morning and evening, attended church regularly, joined in all the devotions, went to the sacrament, and manifested a kindness for religion, who would say that "he entered the school a saint, and left it a sinner"? There is no evidence that Wesley, during his six years' course at the Charterhouse, ever contracted vicious habits or became a flagrant sinner. The wonder is that, with such corrupt and corrupting influences surrounding him, he had not been morally ruined.

At the age of seventeen he entered Christ College, Oxford, one of the noblest colleges of that famous seat of learning, where he remained five years, under the care of Dr. Wigon, a gentleman of fine classical attainments. His excellent standing at the Charterhouse gave him a high position at Oxford. His means of support were very limited. His mother laments their inability to assist him. In a letter to him she says:

This indicates the great financial embarrassment in which they were often found, as well as their abiding trust in God.

His mother seems deeply concerned for his religious life. She writes, "Now in good earnest resolve to make religion the business of life; for, after all, that is the one thing that, strictly speaking, is necessary. All things besides are comparatively little to the purposes of life. I heartily wish you would now enter upon a strict examination of yourself, that you may know whether you have a reasonable hope of salvation by Jesus Christ. If you have it, the satisfaction of knowing it will abundantly reward your pains; if you have it not, you will find a more reasonable occasion for tears than can be met with in any tragedy."

His brother Samuel writes hopefully to his father: "My brother Jack, I can faithfully assure you, gives you no manner of discouragement from believing your third son a scholar. Jack is a brave boy, learning Hebrew as fast as he can."

At the age of twenty-one, while yet a student at Oxford, "he appears," says a writer of the time, "the very sensible and acute collegian; a young fellow of the finest classical taste, of the most liberal and manly sentiments." Alexander Knox says: "His countenance, as well as his conversation, expressed an habitual gayety of heart, which nothing but conscious innocence and virtue could have bestowed." Then, referring to him in more advanced life, he says: "He was, in truth, the most perfect specimen of moral happiness I ever saw; and my acquaintance with him has done more to teach me what a heaven upon earth is implied in the maturity of Christian piety than all I have elsewhere seen or heard or read, except in the sacred volume." "Strange," says another writer, "that such a man should have become a target for poisoned arrows, discharged, not by the hands of mad-cap students only, but by college dignitaries, by men solemnly pledged to the work of Christian education!"

About this time Wesley became Fellow of Lincoln College, and his brother Charles, who was five years younger, became a student of Christ Church College. He had prepared for college at Westminster grammar school, and was a "gay young fellow, with more genius than grace," loving pleasure more than piety. When John sought to revive the "fireside devotion" of the Epworth home he rejoined, with some degree of earnestness, "What! would you have me be a saint all at once?"

In September of 1725 John was ordained deacon by Bishop Potter, and in March of the following year was elected Fellow of Lincoln College, with which his aged father seems to have been greatly delighted, saying, "Wherever I am, Jack is Fellow of Lincoln!"

His father's health failing, John was urged to become his curate. He responded to his father's request, but does not seem to have had a very high appreciation of his father's flock, for he describes them as "unpolished wights, as dull as asses and impervious as stones." But for about two years he hammers away, preaching the law as he then understood it, confessing that "he saw no fruit for his labor."

He then returned to Oxford as Greek lecturer, devoting himself to the study of logic, ethics, natural philosophy, oratory, Hebrew, and Arabic. He perfected himself in French, and spoke and wrote Latin with remarkable purity and correctness. He gave considerable attention to medicine. In this way Providence was fitting him for the great work of which he was to be the God-ordained leader. About the time that Wesley entered upon his ministry, by episcopal ordination, and commenced his lifework, Voltaire was expelled from France and fled to England. During a long life he and Wesley were contemporaries. Mr. Tyerman gives a graphic description of these two remarkable men. "Perhaps of all the men then living," he says, "none exercised so great an influence as the restless philosopher and the unwearied minister of Christ. Wesley, in person, was beautiful; Voltaire was of a physiognomy so strange, and lighted up with fire so half-hellish and half-heavenly, that it was hard to say whether it was the face of a satyr or man. Wesley's heart was filled with a world-wide benevolence; Voltaire, though of a gigantic mind, scarcely had a heart at all—an incarnation of avaricious meanness, and a victim to petty passions. Wesley was the friend of all and the enemy of none; Voltaire was too selfish to love, and when forced to pay the scanty and ill-tempered homage which he sometimes rendered it was always offered at the shrine of rank and wealth. Wesley had myriads who loved him; Voltaire had numerous admirers, but probably not a friend. Both were men of ceaseless labor, and almost unequaled authors; but while the one filled the land with blessings, the other, by his sneering and mendacious attacks against revealed religion, inflicted a greater curse than has been inflicted by the writings of any other author either before or since. The evangelist is now esteemed by all whose good opinions are worth having; the philosopher is only remembered to be branded with well-merited reproach and shame." Voltaire ended his life as a fool by taking opium, while Wesley ends his life in holy triumph, exclaiming, "The best of all is, God is with us."