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. 177<br />
or conference, there can be no dispute but that you<br />
ought to spend the whole time in such exercises as it<br />
was set apart for. But if your evenings be not strictly<br />
devoted, I see no harm in talking sometimes of your<br />
secular affairs ;<br />
but as if, you say, it does your novice<br />
no good, and does yourselves harm, the case is plain<br />
you must not prejudice your own souls to do another<br />
good, much less ought you to do so when you can do<br />
no good at all. Of this ye are better judges than I<br />
can be.<br />
" It was well you paid not for a double letter. I am<br />
always afraid of putting you to charge, and that fear<br />
prevented me from sending you a long scribble indeed<br />
a while ago. For a certain person [probably John<br />
Whitelamb] and I had a warm debate on some important<br />
points in religion, wherein we could not agree ;<br />
afterwards he wrote some propositions which I endeavoured<br />
to answer. And this controversy I was minded<br />
to have sent you, and to have desired your judgment<br />
upon it, but the unreasonable cost of such a letter then<br />
hindered me from sending<br />
it. Since, I have heard him<br />
in two sermons contradict every article he before<br />
defended, which makes me hope that upon second<br />
thoughts his mind is changed and if that is ; so, what<br />
was said in private conference ought not to be remembered,<br />
and therefore I would not send you the<br />
at all.<br />
papers<br />
" I cannot think Mr. Hall does well in refusing an<br />
opportunity of doing so much service to religion as he<br />
certainly might do if he accepted the living he is about<br />
to refuse. Surely there never was more need of orthodox,<br />
sober divines in our Lord's vineyard than there is<br />
now ; and why a man of his extraordinary piety and<br />
love for souls should decline the service in this<br />
12<br />
critical
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