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asked rhetorically as he returned to his notes. “What did he have that Whitefield never had? To put it in military terms: troops.” He left the word hanging there, and Jared could hear hundreds of pencil tips and ball-points scratching against paper in the silence. Jared frowned. He hadn’t expected to take notes and had left his notebook back in his original seat. “The first troop John joined was a rather strange one — his own family. You see, his father, Samuel, was a brilliant, outspoken, and somewhat eccentric Anglican clergyman. His mother, Susanna, was disciplined, outspoken, and also somewhat eccentric. One day she refused to say ‘Amen’ to his prayer for the king. She explained that she would not acknowledge William of Orange to be the rightful king — to which Samuel declared: ‘If that be the case, you and I must part; for if we have two kings, we must have two beds.’” Hopkins paused for chuckles from the crowd. “Fortunately for John’s sake, the king died later that year. The couple reunited, and nine months later, in 1703 — eleven years before Whitefield — John Wesley was born.” Embarrassed or not, Jared knew he had to get back to his pencil and paper. He took the pause as an opportunity to return to his seat, hoping his old professor wouldn’t recognize the back of his head. “John’s father taught him the knowledge of the faith. In fact, by age twelve, John knew how to read the New Testament in the original Greek. But it was his mother who modeled the secret of the troop. Susanna http://www.servantofmessiah.org