age.  After having distinguished himself at Westminster School, and won the special regard and friendship of those two eminent men, Bishops Sprat and Atterbury, Samuel repaired to Oxford.  Following the fashion of the time, the youth had hitherto addressed his mother as “Dear Madam.”  His mother disliked the phrase, but had waited till the change should be made spontaneously to “Dear Mother,” which instantly evoked the response, “Dear Sammy,—–­I am much better pleased with the beginning of your letter than with that you used to send me, for I do not love distance or ceremony; there is more of love and tenderness in the name of mother than in all the complimentary titles in the world...  You complain that you are unstable and inconstant in the ways of virtue.  Alas! what Christian is not so too?  I am sure that I, above all others, am most unfit to advise in such a case:  yet since I love you as my own soul, I will endeavour to do as well as I can.”

Admirable advice is then given as to choice of company, with strictness yet with charity, for “we must take the world as we find it;” and the wholesome caution to beware “lest the comparing yourself with others may be an occasion of your falling into too much vanity,” and “rather entertain such thoughts as these, ’Though I know my own birth and advantages, yet how little do I know of the circumstances of others!’ ‘Were they so solemnly devoted to God at their birth as I was?’ You have had the example of a father who served God from his youth; and though I cannot commend my own to you, for it is too bad to be imitated, yet surely my earnest prayers for many years and some little good advice have not been wanting....  If still upon comparison you seem better than others are, then ask yourself who it is that makes you differ:  and let God have all the praise....  I am straitened for paper and time, therefore must conclude.  God Almighty bless you and preserve you from all evil.  Adieu.

“SUSANNA WESLEY.”

It is a striking fact that Mrs. Wesley’s letters to her son John are for the most part concerning his secular affairs; the inference is not remote that, as regards his spiritual welfare, John Wesley appeared to his mother at all times to be in a satisfactory condition.  At one time he presses her for an opinion on Thomas a Kempis, and receives an elaborate answer, at once philosophical and theological, in the course of which the remark is made—­“I take a Kempis to have been an honest weak man, with more zeal than knowledge, by his condemning all mirth or pleasure as sinful or useless, in opposition to so many plain and direct texts of Scripture.  ’Tis stupid to say nothing is an affliction to a good man; nor do I understand how any man can thank God for present misery, yet do I know very well what it is to rejoice in the midst of deep afflictions.  Not in the affliction itself, for then it would cease to be one; but in this we may rejoice, that we are in the hand of a God who has promised that all things shall work together for good, for the spiritual and eternal good, of those that love Him.”  Evidently it is from an unshaken soul the concluding words of the letter proceed—­“Your brother has brought us a heavy reckoning for you and Charles.  God be merciful to us all!”