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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BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 5<br />
liis acquaintance with John White, whose daughter he<br />
married in after years. But before settling at Cliffe<br />
he had espoused a young wife, who bore him a son,<br />
named Samuel after his father. She died, and was<br />
buried in the chancel of the church where her husband<br />
officiated, and her little<br />
boy survived her only<br />
four years, and was buried there in 1653. Dr.<br />
Annesley was much opposed when he first went to<br />
Cliffe, for the people were tarred with the same brush<br />
as their previous vicar, and received the new one with<br />
spits, pitchforks, and stones. Nothing<br />
daunted by this,<br />
he assured them that he was the last man to be<br />
frightened away from his post, and he should stay at<br />
Clifie till<br />
they were prepared by his means for the<br />
ministry of someone better. He was as good as his<br />
word, and had the pleasure of seeing great improvement<br />
among them before he was called elsewhere.<br />
In 1648 a solemn national fast day was proclaimed,<br />
and Dr. Annesley sent for to preach a sermon before<br />
the House of Commons. His sermon won him much<br />
favour and was printed by command : it contained a<br />
passage very acceptable<br />
to the Parliament in its then<br />
temper, but which gave great offence to the Royalists,<br />
who justly regarded<br />
it as a reflection on the King, who<br />
was at that moment imprisoned at Carisbrooke Castle.<br />
According to the young divine's own account, which is<br />
still to be found in the State Paper Office, when<br />
the King was executed the following year he publicly<br />
asserted his conviction that it was a " horrid murder/'<br />
spoke against Cromwell as " the arrantest hypocrite<br />
that ever the Church of Christ was pestered with/'<br />
and said other disrespectful things of the ruling powers,<br />
which, being repeated, led to his leaving Cliffe, or
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