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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WIDOWHOOD. 185<br />
my pleasure, my happiness, in this world as well as in<br />
the world to come. And although I have not been so<br />
faithful to His grace as I ought to have been, yet I feel<br />
my spirit adheres to its choice, and aims daily at<br />
cleaving steadfastly unto God. Yet one thing often<br />
troubles me that :<br />
notwithstanding I know that while<br />
we are present with the body we are absent from the<br />
Lord, notwithstanding I have no taste, no relish left<br />
for anything the world calls pleasure, yet I do not long<br />
to go home, as in reason I ought to do. This often<br />
shocks me ;<br />
and as I constantly pray (almost without<br />
ceasing) for thee, my son, so I beg you likewise to<br />
pray for me, that God would make me better, and<br />
take me at the best.<br />
" Your loving mother,<br />
" SUSANNA WESLEY."<br />
'In September 1736, Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong>, who moved about<br />
more in her widowhood than she had done during all<br />
her previous life, went to reside with her eldest son at<br />
Tiverton, most likely taking the place of Kezia, who<br />
was invited by the Halls to go and live with them.<br />
She was heartily welcomed by Samuel and his wife,<br />
and Mrs. Berry the mother of the latter. Samuel<br />
declared himself to be socially<br />
in a<br />
" desert, having no<br />
conversable person except my wife, until my mother<br />
came last week.' 7 It is almost certain that, while at<br />
Tiverton, Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong> must have told her son as many<br />
as she could remember about her father's<br />
particulars<br />
family.<br />
It will be remembered that he was first cousin<br />
to the Earl of Anglesey, that he had only two sons (both<br />
of whom were dead, leaving no children), and that he<br />
left all papers in the hands of his youngest daughter,<br />
and, unhappily, they were destroyed in the fire that
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