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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DISAPPOINTMENTS AND PERPLEXITIES. 139<br />
perhaps sooner if I am quite tired out, I have fully<br />
fixed on a state of life a way indeed that my parents<br />
Bread must<br />
may disapprove, but that I do not regard.<br />
be had, and I won't starve to please any or all the<br />
friends I have in the world."<br />
It must have been about the time of the removal to<br />
Wroote that Mrs. "<strong>Wesley</strong> heard that her brother was<br />
coming home in one of the East India Company's ships<br />
as before mentioned, and undertook the. journey to<br />
London in order to meet him. Her son John was by<br />
that time at Oxford, having obtained a Charterhouse<br />
scholarship worth forty pounds a year, which, however,<br />
did not cover his expenses. Samuel, who was just then<br />
laid up with a broken leg, and knew how glad his<br />
mother would be to see her second son, asked him to<br />
come up to Westminster. This letter gave the youth<br />
so much pleasure that he wept for joy, for he had longed<br />
exceedingly to see his mother again, as well as to go to<br />
Westminster. But as money was scarce, and he was<br />
already in debt, he was unable to leave Oxford ; and,<br />
as soon as Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong> got home, she wrote him an<br />
anxious yet hopeful little note :<br />
" DEAR JACK,<br />
" Wroote, August 19th, 1724.<br />
" I am uneasy because I have not heard from<br />
you. I don't think you do well to stand upon points,<br />
and to write only letter for letter. Let me hear from<br />
you often, and inform me of the state of your health,<br />
and whether you have any reasonable hopes of being<br />
out of debt. I am most concerned for the good,<br />
generous man that lent you ten pounds, and am<br />
ashamed to beg a mouth or two longer, since he has<br />
been so kind as to grant us so much time already. We<br />
were amused with your uncle's coming from India ;
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