QUOTE: John Wesley’s escape [from the fire] made his mother the more zealous for her boy’s true welfare. Two years after the fire she wrote in the book where she noted down her private meditations,. “I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this child, that Thou hast so mercifully Provided for, than ever I have been, that I may do my endeavour to instil into his mind the principles of Thy true religion and virtue. Lord, give me grace to do it sincerely and prudently, and bless my attempts with good success.” Such was the effect of her training that his lather admitted John to the Communion when he was only eight years old.* He says in his journal,t “I believe till I was about ten years old I had not sinned away that ‘washing of the Holy Ghost’ which was given me in baptism, having been strictly educated and carefully taught, that I could only be saved ‘by universal obedience, by keeping all the commandments of God,’ in the meaning of which I was diligently instructed.”
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The quote above is from The Life of John Wesley by John Telford – Chapter 2, CHILDHOOD AT EPWORTH and is found at http://wesley.nnu.edu/?id=84. Copyright © 1993-2011. Wesley Center for Applied Theology, c/o Northwest Nazarene University. All Rights Reserved.