with a spice of scholarly erudition like his father before him. Men like John are not born in every generation, and, when they do arise, are usually the outcome of a race which has shown talent in isolated instances, but has never before concentrated all its strength in one scion.
In the records of such a race there are sure to be certain foreshadowings of the coming prophet, priest or seer, and consequently the lives of his progenitors are full of the deepest interest. Boys usually reproduce vividly the characteristics of their mothers, so in the person of Susanna Wesley we should seek the hidden springs of the boundless energy and grasp of mind that made her son stand out so prominently as a man of mark among his fellows. Had it not been for him it is probable that her memory would have perished, for, as far as outsiders saw, she was only the struggling wife of a poor country parson, with the proverbial quiverful of children, a narrow income, and an indomitable fund of what is termed proper pride. She was the twenty-fifth and youngest child of her father, Dr. Samuel Annesley, by his second wife, and was born in Spital Yard on the 20th of January 1669. On both sides of the house she was of gentle birth. Her mother's father, John White, born at Higlan in Pembrokeshire, like so many other Welshmen, graduated at Jesus College, Oxford; he afterwards studied at the Middle Temple and became a bencher. He was probably a sound lawyer and a prosperous man, for we find that he had a goodly number of Puritan clients, and in 1640 was elected M.P. for Southwark. In the House he was known as an active and stirring member of the party opposed to the King, Charles I., and in the proceedings that led to the death of that
