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.
112 SUSANNA WE8LET. Both with equal ardour moving, Dearly loved, and truly loving. Long may both enjoy the pleasure Without guilt and without measure ! Only two children were born to the young couple, the former of whom was named Samuel, after his father and grandfather. Being the first grandchild, he was thought a great deal of, and much grief was felt when he died shortly before what would have been his twenty-first birthday. The daughter was a great favourite with her uncles, and attached herself especially to Charles Wesley. She was known in the family as " Phil."
113 CHAPTER XI. THE SUPERNATUEAL NOISES. THE subject of supernatural manifestations is one on which mortals must agree to differ. One half of humanity refuses to give credence to anything but what it can see and handle, and regards those who believe in spiritual influences of any kind as the dupes and votaries of degrading superstition while the ; other half has a deeply rooted, if indefinable, faith in second sight, mysterious intuitions, and communications from the unseen. The Apostle's Creed contains a sentence which is frequently interpreted as embodying belief in some kind of intercourse between the dead and the living, and even between those who, though absent from each other in the body, are present in the spirit, when it states, "1 believe in the Communion of Saints/' In this Mrs. Wesley had a firm faith, having been heard by her son John, during her widowhood, to say, that she was often as fully persuaded of her deceased husband's presence with her as if she could see him with her bodily eyes. Her sons, inheriting her temperament to the full, always found an irresistible attraction in the subject ; John iu- 8
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113<br />
CHAPTER XI.<br />
THE SUPERNATUEAL<br />
NOISES.<br />
THE subject of supernatural manifestations is one on<br />
which mortals must agree to differ. One half of<br />
humanity refuses to give credence to anything but<br />
what it can see and handle, and regards those who<br />
believe in spiritual influences of any kind as the dupes<br />
and votaries of degrading superstition while the<br />
;<br />
other<br />
half has a deeply rooted, if indefinable, faith in second<br />
sight, mysterious intuitions, and communications<br />
from the unseen. The Apostle's Creed contains a<br />
sentence which is frequently interpreted as embodying<br />
belief in some kind of intercourse between the dead<br />
and the living, and even between those who, though<br />
absent from each other in the body, are present in the<br />
spirit, when it states, "1 believe in the Communion<br />
of Saints/' In this Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong> had a firm faith,<br />
having been heard by her son John, during her widowhood,<br />
to say, that she was often as fully persuaded<br />
of her deceased husband's presence with her as if she<br />
could see him with her bodily eyes. Her sons, inheriting<br />
her temperament to the full, always found<br />
an irresistible attraction in the subject ;<br />
John iu-<br />
8
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