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. 179<br />
know how to make an end. I fully purposed, when<br />
I began to write, to be very brief; but I will conclude,<br />
though I find I shall be forced to make up<br />
such a clumsy letter as I did last time. To-day<br />
John Brown, sen., sets forward for London, in order to<br />
attend your father home. Pray give my love and<br />
blessing to Charles. I hope he is well, though I have<br />
never heard from him since he left Epworth. Dear<br />
Jacky, God Almighty bless thee !<br />
" SUSANNA WESLEY."<br />
This last journey had been made by the Rector to<br />
London in his endeavour to see his " Dissertations on<br />
Job " through the press. He printed five hundred<br />
copies, more than three hundred of which were subscribed<br />
for, and Samuel at Tiverton and John at<br />
Oxford did their best to obtain subscriptions<br />
for the<br />
rest. Meanwhile he and his eldest son both did their<br />
utmost to persuade John to take the living of Epworth,<br />
so as to keep on the old home ;<br />
but John gave<br />
twenty-six reasons against it, very good in his own<br />
eyes and in those of posterity. Perhaps the one uppermost<br />
at the moment was his utter freedom from care<br />
while in residence at Oxford. His food was ready at<br />
certain hours, and his income at fixed periods,<br />
so that<br />
he had only to take, count, and carry it home. The<br />
family had seen so much of care for meat and drink<br />
and the wherewithal for clothing, that this was perfectly<br />
natural. Afterwards, however, he did inquire in the<br />
necessary quarter whether it was possible that the Lord<br />
Chancellor might give him the living of Epworth, and,<br />
hearing that it was most unlikely, abandoned the project<br />
altogether.<br />
The last time Mrs. Weslev put pen to paper before<br />
12 *
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