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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138 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
the liberties in their power. Then I came home<br />
again in an evil hour for me. I was well clothed, and,<br />
while I wanted nothing, was easy enough.<br />
. . . Thus<br />
far we went on tolerably well ;<br />
but this winter, when<br />
my own necessaries began to decay, and my money<br />
was most of it spent (I having maintained myself<br />
since I came home, but now could do it no longer), I<br />
found what a condition I was in :<br />
every trifling want<br />
was either not supplied, or I had more trouble to procure<br />
it than it was worth. I know not when we have<br />
had so good a year, both at Wroote and at Epworth,<br />
as this year ; but, instead of saving anything to clothe<br />
my sisters or myself, we are just where we were. A<br />
noble crop has almost all gone, beside Epworth<br />
living, to pay some part of those infinite debts my<br />
father has run into, which are so many, as I have<br />
lately found out, that were he to save fifty pounds a<br />
year he would not be clear in the world this seven<br />
years. So here is a fine prospect indeed of his growing<br />
rich Not but he may be out of debt sooner if<br />
!<br />
he chance to have three or four such years as this has<br />
been ;<br />
but for his getting any matter to leave behind him<br />
more than is necessary for my mother's maintenance is<br />
what I see no likelihood of at present.<br />
. . . Yet in this<br />
distress we enjoy many comforts.<br />
"We have plenty of<br />
good meat and drink, fuel, &c., have no duns, nor any<br />
of that tormenting care for to provide bread which we<br />
had at Epworth. In short, could I lay aside all<br />
thought<br />
of the future, and could be content without three things,<br />
money, liberty, and clothes, I might live very comfortably.<br />
While my mother lives I am inclined to stay<br />
with her ;<br />
she is so very good to me, and has so little<br />
comfort in the world besides, that I think it barbarous<br />
to abandon her. As soon as she is in heaven, or
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