Page:Susanna Wesley (Clarke 1886).djvu/76

64 will not), and doing nothing which may justly displease and grieve her, or show you unworthy of such a mother. You will endeavour to repay her prayers for you by doubling yours for her, as well as your fervency in them ; and, above all things, to live such a virtuous and religious life that she may find that her care and love have not been lost upon you, but that we may all meet in heaven.

"In short, reverence and love her as much as you will, which I hope will be as much as you can. For though I should be jealous of any other rival in your heart, yet I will not be of her; the more duty you pay her, and the more frequently and kindly you write to her, the more you will please your, affectionate father, "."

The tenderness of the father's nature is very touchingly shown in his whole series of letters to the "dear child" who was the first to leave home and go out into the world.

No exact date has ever been assigned to the birth of Martha, who was Mrs. Wesley's next baby, her eighth daughter and seventeenth child; but it must have been during the later months of 1706. She was an ailing and delicate infant, and from the time she began to take notice always reserved her brightest smiles for her little brother John, who was next to her in age, and about three years and a half old when she was born. Her mother's hands must have been very full during the first few months of Martha's life, though her elder girls were big enough to relieve her sometimes of the care of the child. Nevertheless, there was a break of several months in the correspon-