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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134 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
'<br />
success. He is apt to rest upon deceitful promises.'<br />
Would to heaven that neither he nor I, nor any of<br />
our children, had ever trusted to deceitful promises.<br />
But it is a right-hand error, and I hope God will<br />
forgive us all. '<br />
He wants Mr. Eaton's thrift/ This<br />
'<br />
I can readily believe. He is not fit for worldly<br />
business/ This I likewise assent to, and must own I<br />
was mistaken when I did think him fit for it: my<br />
own experience hath since convinced me that he is one<br />
'<br />
of those who, our Saviour saith, are not so wise in<br />
their generation as the children of this world.' And<br />
did I not know that Almighty Wisdom hath views<br />
and ends in fixing the bounds of our habitation, which<br />
are out of our ken, I should think it a thousand<br />
pities that a man of his brightness and rare endowments<br />
of learning and useful knowledge in relation<br />
to the Church of God should be confined to an obscure<br />
corner of this country, where his talents are buried,<br />
and he determined to a way of life for which he is<br />
not so well qualified<br />
as I could wish ;<br />
and it is with<br />
pleasure that I behold in my eldest son an aversion<br />
from accepting a small country cure, since, blessed be<br />
God !<br />
he has a fair reputation for learning and piety,<br />
preaches well, and is<br />
capable of doing more good<br />
where he is. You conclude,<br />
'<br />
My wife will make my<br />
cousin Emily ? ' It was a small and insignificant<br />
present to my sister indeed; but, it<br />
poor girl,<br />
was<br />
her whole estate ;<br />
and if it had been received as<br />
kindly as it was meant, she would have been highly<br />
pleased. I shall not detain you any longer not so<br />
much as to apologise for the tedious length of this<br />
letter.<br />
"I should be glad<br />
if<br />
my service could be made<br />
acceptable to my sister, to whom, with yourself, the
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