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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166 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
and figures according to the " light of nature." Art<br />
was at a very low ebb ;<br />
and Mr. <strong>Wesley</strong> could have<br />
been no judge of it, or he would not have dreamed<br />
that such drawings could add to the interest of his<br />
book, yet even he could see the lack of artistic merit<br />
in some of them. In return for " poor starveling<br />
Johnnie Whitelamb's " services he received instruction<br />
in Latin and Greek, and finally was sent to Oxford,<br />
where John <strong>Wesley</strong> did all he could for him, and spoke<br />
highly of his industry, intelligence, and faculty in<br />
learning languages. So poor was Whitelamb, that the<br />
<strong>Wesley</strong>s, father and son, and a few friends clubbed<br />
together to buy him a gown, though that is not a very<br />
costly item of apparel. He took deacon's orders, and<br />
became curate at Epworth, to the great comfort of his^<br />
friend and patron who loved and trusted him. He<br />
certainly on one occasion saved his life at Burringham<br />
Ferry, when, Mr.<br />
" <strong>Wesley</strong> says, John Whitelamb's<br />
long legs and arms swarmed up into the keel and<br />
lugged me in after him." He was probably a good<br />
deal younger than Mary, who was thirty-eight when<br />
she married him ;<br />
but the affection between them was<br />
genuine, and the match had the cordial approbation of<br />
all the family. It was extremely difficult to get any<br />
curate to live at Wroote, so damp and uninviting was<br />
the place; but Whitelamb loved it, and was very<br />
earnest in his desire to minister in its church, so Mr*<br />
<strong>Wesley</strong> provided for him and Mary by resigning this<br />
small living, and begging the Lord Chancellor to bestow<br />
it on his son-in-law. This was done ;<br />
and he also contrived<br />
to give them twenty pounds to start with.<br />
Mary did not, however, long enjoy her new status and<br />
her husband's affectionate care, for she died in her<br />
confinement before she had been married a year, and,.
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