John Wesley--"the brand plucked out of the burning," as he termed himself--when a boy was remarkable for his piety. At eight his father admitted him to the Holy Communion. He had thus early learned the lesson of self-control; for his mother tells us that having smallpox at this age he bore his disease bravely, "like a man and indeed like a Christian, without any complaint, though he seemed angry at the smallpox when they were sore, as we guessed by his looking sourly at them".