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. 187<br />
accepted, to the great joy of his mother, who was,<br />
however, at the moment confined to her room by<br />
illness.<br />
In July 1737, Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong> took up her abode with<br />
the Halls, where she seems to have been very comfortable.<br />
About her residence with them at Wootton,<br />
little is known. A letter from her to Mrs. Berry at<br />
Tiverton is in existence, but it is almost exclusively<br />
theological. In the concluding paragraph she says :<br />
" I thank God, I am somewhat better in health than<br />
when I wrote last, and I tell you, because I know you<br />
will be pleased with it, that Mr. Hall and his wife are<br />
very good to me. He behaves like a gentleman and a<br />
Christian, and my daughter with as much duty and<br />
tenderness as can be expressed, so that on this<br />
account I am very easy." When the Halls moved to<br />
Fisherton near Salisbury, she accompanied them, and<br />
it was while living there that she had the joy of seeing<br />
John return from Georgia, and, from what she heard<br />
from him and Charles, came to the conclusion that<br />
neither of them ought to go back there. She was<br />
very much astonished when her sons made the discovery<br />
(so called) that their religious creed and teaching<br />
had up to that time been erroneous, and declared<br />
that only by faith in the Atonement of Christ could<br />
men believe in the salvation of their souls. From<br />
that time forth they preached the doctrines known to<br />
theologians as justification by faith and the witness of<br />
the Spirit. She, perhaps, recognised that " God<br />
fulfils Himself in many ways," and was, moreover,<br />
approaching the border-land where souls see through<br />
the mist of prejudices to the eternal verities ;<br />
for in<br />
reply to an excited letter from her eldest son, who<br />
cautioned everyone he knew to beware of this novel
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