John was the fifteenth, and Charles the eighteenth, child of Samuel Wesley, Rector of Epworth, Lincolnshire, and his wife, Susannah. John was born on June 17th, 1703, and Charles on December 18th, 1707. Of the nineteen Wesley siblings, only ten lived to maturity. Under their mother’s tutelage, all of them were schooled each day in six-hour sessions, always begun and concluded with the singing of psalms.

Their theological writings and sermons ar…