The attendance at the services now increased so as completely to fill the rooms.  At length some three or four persons, headed by the curate, wrote to the rector in London concerning the doings of his wife and the danger of a “conventicle.”  Mr. Wesley was sufficiently interested and apprehensive to write to her and ask what had been done, and whether it did not look “particular.”  To this his wife, rather glad to be challenged, lost no time in replying; and her written explanation to the head of the house and parish has resulted in our possessing an ample account of the movement.  “As to its looking particular,” she said, “I grant it does, and so does almost everything that is serious, or that may any way advance the glory of God or the salvation of souls, if it be performed out of a pulpit or in the way of common conversation.”  After giving various reasons for her action, she proceeds:  “Now, I beseech you, weigh all these things in an impartial balance....  If you do, after all, think fit to dissolve this assembly, do not tell me that you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience; but send me your positive command in such full and express terms as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment for the neglecting this opportunity of doing good, when you and I shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

[Illustration:  S Wesley]

No wonder that all opposition on the part of the rector from this moment disappeared, and on returning to his charge he found many signs of a happy change, and that all things were as if freshened under the dew of the blessing of God.

IX.

RELATION TO HER SONS.

Susanna Wesley was the life-long counsellor of her children.

Amid those interesting conversations which were held with each member of the family on appointed days and hours, and which are frequently noted in Mrs. Wesley’s private meditations, we are arrested by the heading of one of them—­“Son John”—­and we learn that he became a communicant at the Lord’s table at eight years of age, this important step being taken by reason of his great seriousness and of the signs of grace that were seen in him.

His mother gives us another striking glimpse of him, in April 1712, when the scourge of small-pox attacked five of the children—­“Jack bore his disease bravely like a man, and indeed a Christian without any complaint.”

On recovering he was, through the influence of the Duke of Buckingham, to whom his father was known, sent to Charterhouse School; but at this period there is little or nothing recorded of correspondence with his mother.  It is tolerably clear that the reason of this was that the boy was studious to a degree, and needed his father’s injunction to see to it that he took regular exercise in the garden.  The letters of Mrs. Wesley to her sons are best represented by those addressed to Samuel, now twenty years of