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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PARTINGS. 167<br />
with her babe, was buried in the church. Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong><br />
felt her loss very much, and the widower went to<br />
Epworth for sympathy. He was in the frame of mind<br />
in which men volunteer for missions, or hard work of<br />
any kind, and absence from the scenes that recall their<br />
sorrows ;<br />
so Mr. <strong>Wesley</strong> wrote about him to General<br />
Oglethorpe, who was already at work in Georgia, and<br />
had a Wroote man among his party :<br />
" DEAR SIR,<br />
" Epworth, Dec. 7th, 1734.<br />
" I cannot express how much I am obliged by<br />
your last kind and instructive letter concerning the<br />
affairs of Georgia. I could not read it over without<br />
sighing (though I have read it several times) when I<br />
again reflected on my own age and infirmities, which<br />
made such an expedition utterly impracticable for me.<br />
Yet my mind worked hard about it and it is not im-<br />
;<br />
possible but Providence may have directed me to such<br />
an expedient as may prove more serviceable to your<br />
colony than I should ever have been.<br />
" The thing<br />
is thus. There is a young man who has<br />
been with me a pretty many years, and assisted me in<br />
my work of Job ;<br />
after which I sent him to Oxford,<br />
to my son John <strong>Wesley</strong>, Fellow of Lincoln College,<br />
who took care of his education, where he behaved himself<br />
very well, and improved in piety and learning.<br />
Then I sent for him down, having got him into<br />
deacon's orders, and he was my curate in my absence<br />
in London ;<br />
when I resigned my small living of Wroote<br />
to him, and he was instituted and inducted there. I<br />
likewise consented to his marrying one of my daughters,<br />
there having been a long and intimate friendship<br />
between them. But neither he nor I were so happy<br />
as to have them live long together, for she died in
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