John Wesley

John Wesley was the fifteenth child of Samuel Wesley, an Anglican rector in Epworth, Lincolnshire, and his wife Susanna, who taught her children at home. When he was five, the rectory burned and he was rescued from an upstairs window, and he later called himself a brand plucked from the burning. At Oxford, he and his brother Charles led a group of students, nicknamed Methodists for their methodical habits of prayer, study and visiting prisoners. After an unhappy mission to Georgia, on 24 May 1738, at a meeting in Aldersgate Street in London, he felt his heart strangely warmed and trusted in Christ alone for salvation. Encouraged by George Whitefield, he began preaching in the open air to miners and workers, often thousands at a time. Over fifty years he traveled about 250,000 miles on horseback and preached some 40,000 sermons, organizing converts into societies and classes led by lay preachers. He wrote on medicine, opened free clinics and schools, and his last letter encouraged William Wilberforce in the fight against slavery. He died in 1791.

John Wesley is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Anglican priest (ordained 1727) who led the Methodist movement. Source: Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography (via Wikisource)