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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106 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
read, alas ! you do not consider what a people these<br />
are. I do not think one man among them could read<br />
a sermon without spelling a good part of it and how<br />
;<br />
would that edify the rest ? Nor has any of our family<br />
a voice strong enough to be heard by such a number<br />
of people.<br />
" But there is one thing about which I am most<br />
dissatisfied; that is, their being present at family<br />
prayers. I do not speak of any concern I am under,<br />
barely because so many are present, for those who<br />
have the honour of speaking to the great and holy<br />
God need not be ashamed to speak before the whole<br />
world ;<br />
but because of my sex, I doubt if it be proper<br />
for me to present the prayers of the people to God.<br />
" Last Sunday, I fain would have dismissed them<br />
before prayers ;<br />
but they begged so earnestly to stay,<br />
I durst not deny them.<br />
" SUSANNA WESLEY/'<br />
A letter from Mr. Ininan, requesting the Rector to<br />
stop his wife's meetings, and saying that more people<br />
attended them than came to church, must have<br />
followed close on this epistle from Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong>. The<br />
reply of the rector to his wife does not seem to have<br />
been preserved, but it must have been sent almost<br />
immediately, for before the end of the month she again<br />
wrote to him, but had evidently waited several day&<br />
after the receipt of his answer before doing so :<br />
"Epworth,<br />
"DEAR HUSBAND, February 25th, 1712.<br />
"Some days since, I received a letter from<br />
you, I suppose dated the 16th instant, which I made<br />
no great haste to answer, because I judged it
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