Susanna Wesley
This is the story of Susanna Wesley, 1669-1742 Mother of Charles and John Wesley, who were founders of the Methodist Church. Susanna and her husband, Samuel, had nineteen children, ten of whom survived to adulthood. Her son Charles became a well-known hymn writer and her son John became the found of Methodism. Susanna was brought up in a Puritan home as the youngest of twenty-five children. As a teenager, she became a member of the Church of England. She became the wife of a chronically debt-ridden parish rector in an English village. She said, "I have had a large experience of what the world calls adverse fortune." Nonetheless, Susanna managed to pass down to her children Christian principles that stayed with them.
This is the story of Susanna Wesley, 1669-1742 Mother of Charles and John Wesley, who were founders of the Methodist Church. Susanna and her husband, Samuel, had nineteen children, ten of whom survived to adulthood. Her son Charles became a well-known hymn writer and her son John became the found of Methodism.
Susanna was brought up in a Puritan home as the youngest of twenty-five children. As a teenager, she became a member of the Church of England. She became the wife of a chronically debt-ridden parish rector in an English village. She said, "I have had a large experience of what the world calls adverse fortune." Nonetheless, Susanna managed to pass down to her children Christian principles that stayed with them.
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THE HOME. REBUILT. 97<br />
happiness permitted to a very few to choose their<br />
company. Yet, lest the comparing yourself with<br />
others that are worse may be an occasion of your<br />
falling into too much vanity, you would do well sometimes<br />
to entertain such thoughts as these :<br />
'<br />
Though<br />
I know my own birth and education, and am conscious<br />
of having had great advantages, yet how little do I<br />
know of the circumstances of others. Perhaps their<br />
parents were vicious, or did not take early care of their<br />
minds, to instil the principles<br />
of virtue into their<br />
tender years ;<br />
but suffered them to follow their own<br />
inclinations till it was too late to reclaim them. Am<br />
I sure that they have had as many offers of grace, as<br />
many and strong impulses of the Holy Spirit, as I<br />
have had ? Do they sin against as clear conviction<br />
as I do? Or are the vows of God upon them as<br />
upon me ? Were they so solemnly devoted to Him<br />
at their birth as I was ? ' You have had the example<br />
of a father who served God from his youth, arid<br />
for it is too<br />
though I cannot commend my own to you,<br />
bad to be imitated, yet surely earnest prayers for many<br />
years, and some little good advice, have not been wanting.<br />
" But if,<br />
after all, self-love should incline you to partiality<br />
in your own case, seriously consider your own<br />
many feelings, which the world cannot take notice of<br />
because they were so private, and if still, upon comparison,<br />
you seem better than others are, then ask yourself<br />
who it is that makes you to differ ;<br />
and let God have all<br />
the praise, since of ourselves we can do nothing. It<br />
is He that worketh in us both to will and to do of His<br />
own good pleasure; and at if, any time, you have vainly<br />
ascribed the glory of any good performance to yourself,<br />
humble yourself for it before God, and give Him<br />
the glory of His grace for the future.<br />
7
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