Youth
John Wesley was born in 1703 in Epworth, 23 miles (37 km) northwest of Lincoln, the fifteenth child of Samuel Wesley and his wife Susanna Wesley (née Annesley). His father was a graduate of the University of Oxford and a Church of England rector. In 1689 Samuel had married Susanna, twenty-fifth child of Dr. Samuel Annesley, a Dissenter pastor. Wesley's parents had both become members of the established Church of England early in adulthood. Susanna bore Samuel Wesley nineteen children, but only ten lived. In 1696 Wesley's father was appointed the rector of Epworth.
At the age of five, Wesley was rescued from the burning rectory. This escape made a deep impression on his mind, and he regarded himself as providentially set apart, as a "brand plucked from the burning" quoting Zechariah 3:2. As in many families at the time, Wesley's parents gave their children their early education. Each child, including the girls, was taught to read as soon as they could walk and talk. In 1714, at age 11, Wesley was sent to the Charterhouse School in London (under the mastership of John King from 1715), where he lived the studious, methodical and—for a while—religious life in which he had been trained at home.
Read more about this topic: John Wesley
Famous quotes containing the word youth:
“The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period. When it has come to the knowledge of good and evil it is stronger, but we care less about it.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“And, oh God, in my misspent youth as a housewife, I, too, used to bake bread, in those hectic and desolating days just prior to the woman’s movement, when middle-class women were supposed to be wonderful wives and mothers, gracious hostesses.... I used to feel so womanly when I was baking my filthy bread.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)