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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102 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
rated a little, or perhaps when her congregation<br />
became so large she adjourned to the barn or granary,<br />
or some other roomy outbuilding. Certain it is that<br />
the rectory kitchen remains the same size as it always<br />
was ;<br />
and a very ardent <strong>Wesley</strong>an, who has spent his<br />
life in collecting particulars respecting the various<br />
members of the <strong>Wesley</strong> clan, recently stood in it, and<br />
expressed his opinion that it could not have accommodated<br />
even forty persons. In summer-time, with open<br />
windows, many might have stood outside, and joined<br />
in the service going on within but in the ; depth of<br />
winter that was impracticable. The story goes that<br />
when Mr. <strong>Wesley</strong> returned, his parishioners complained<br />
of the curate's shortcomings, and he thereupon requested<br />
him to prepare a sermon for the following<br />
Sunday morning on the "<br />
text, Without faith it is<br />
impossible to please God," saying that he should make<br />
a point of being present to hear it.<br />
Sunday came, and<br />
Mr. Inman " began<br />
: Friends, faith is a most excellent<br />
virtue, and it produces other virtues also. In particular<br />
it makes a man pay his debts." In this strain he proceeded<br />
for a quarter of an hour, and the Rector considered<br />
the case fully proven. Possibly this conduct was<br />
intentional impertinence ; possibly, as cash was scarce,<br />
Mr. Inman's stipend was in arrears ;<br />
but the situation<br />
was an extremely unpleasant one for all parties. Mrs.<br />
<strong>Wesley</strong> took matters into her own hands in conducting<br />
her home services, at which she always read a sermon,<br />
and she distinctly told her husband that reading the<br />
account of the Danish mission to Travancore stirred<br />
her up to endeavour to do something more for the<br />
parishioners as well as for her own family. He certainly<br />
wrote from London remonstrating with her,<br />
and her reply is characteristically clear and lucid :
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