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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*64 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
over him, but it<br />
only went over his gown sleeve, and<br />
the nails took a little skin off his knuckles, but did<br />
him no further hurt.<br />
"Sus. WESLEY."<br />
Mr. <strong>Wesley</strong> was evidently much shaken by<br />
this accident,<br />
from which he never thoroughly recovered ; and,<br />
perhaps, taking it in conjunction with his brother's<br />
remonstrances, began to think seriously what would<br />
become of his wife and unmarried daughters<br />
if he were<br />
to die. Previously his sons seem to have been his first<br />
consideration, and perhaps that rankled a little in the<br />
minds of the girls, not because they grudged their brothers<br />
anything or were not proud of them, but because<br />
girls are conscious that they have at least as much<br />
claim on their parents as the boys. However this<br />
may<br />
have been, the father began to think it desirable that he<br />
should resign the living in favour of one of his sons, if<br />
that son could only be persuaded to accept<br />
it.<br />
First of<br />
all, he proposed<br />
it to Samuel, who had just lost his<br />
only son, and was terribly unsettled besides, because,<br />
after having been for twenty years an usher in Westminster<br />
School, he was deprived of what he considered<br />
his right. The head-master resigned ;<br />
Dr. Nicoll, the<br />
second master was appointed in his stead ;<br />
and Samuel<br />
<strong>Wesley</strong>, according to old precedent, expected the position<br />
of under or second master. Unhappily, he was not<br />
merely a Tory, but a positive Jacobite, and compromised<br />
by his devotion to the exiled Bishop Atterbury<br />
and his cause, which was that of the Pretender ;<br />
consequently he found himself shut off from everything<br />
he most desired. At this crisis came his father's suggestion<br />
that he should become Rector of Epworth.<br />
" You have been," said the old man, " a father to your
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