John Wesley Plucked from Flames ___________________________________________________Few people in Epworth, England attended the town's one church. For the most part, they were rough people who wanted nothing to do with Christianity or with their rector, Samuel Wesley. Some louts were so hostile that on this night, February 9, 1709, they set the rectory(parsonage) on fire. All of the family and servants escaped, except five-year-old John, who had slept through the commotion. His nursery was directly under the flaming roof. Waking, his white face appeared at the window and he cried for help. Samuel tried to make his way back into the burning house but was unable. It seemed John was doomed for there was no time to go for a ladder. Then some brawny neighbors heaved a lighter man onto the shoulders of a big fellow and stood him upright, making a human ladder. The rescuer snatched John out of the window seconds before the flaming roof collapsed. Rejoicing aloud that all their children were safe, Samuel and Susannah found another home and continued to minister to the hostile town. Haunted for years by that terrifying moment, John wondered why he had been saved as a "brand plucked from burning." Eventually the whole world found out when God used him to bring revival and a vigorous new kind of church society to England and other nations.http://www.gospelcom.net/chi/DAILYF/2001/02/daily-02-09-2001.shtml
