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 SUPERNATURAL NOISES. 121<br />
or anything natural." The young lady also described<br />
how something resembling a white rabbit or a badger<br />
had been seen in the house, and asserted her opinion<br />
that it was witchcraft, adding that her father had been<br />
preaching " warmly " against the custom prevalent in<br />
the parish of consulting cunning men, shortly before<br />
the rappings and other manifestations at his own<br />
house.<br />
Ventriloquism and occult phenomena were not unknown<br />
even in the days of George the First, to those<br />
who posed as wizards and soothsayers ;<br />
and the notion<br />
that some one or other of these cunning me a were<br />
paying the rector out for robbing them of their gains<br />
by denouncing the practice of consulting them from<br />
the pulpit, cannot but suggest itself to the profane and<br />
unbelieving mind of this nineteenth century. But the<br />
<strong>Wesley</strong>s, and many of their biographers, took these<br />
wonders seriously, and firmly believed that they had<br />
beneficial effects on the minds of some of the family.<br />
One incident marvellously like our modern tableturning<br />
was chronicled by Sukey, who wrote to her<br />
brother how " last Sunday, to my father's no small<br />
amazement, his trencher danced upon the table a pretty<br />
while, without anybody's stirring the table, when lo !<br />
an adventurous wretch took it up, and spoiled the<br />
sport, for it remained still ever after."<br />
Samuel probably continued to ask questions, for on<br />
March 27th Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong> wrote to him " I cannot<br />
:<br />
imagine how you should be so curious about our unwelcome<br />
guest. For my part, I am quite tired with<br />
but when you come among<br />
hearing or speaking of it ;<br />
us you will find enough to satisfy all your scruples,<br />
and perhaps may hear or see it yourself."<br />
Mr. <strong>Wesley</strong> himself wrote a detailed account of
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