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.<br />
197<br />
enough. They leave off the liturgy in the fields ;<br />
though Mr. Whitfield expresses his value for it, he<br />
never once read it to his tatterdemalions on a<br />
common. Their societies are sufficient to dissolve all<br />
other societies but their own. Will any man of<br />
common sense, or spirit, suffer any domestic to be in a<br />
bond engaged to relate everything without reserve to five<br />
or ten people, what concerns the person's conscience,<br />
how much soever it<br />
may concern the family ? Ought<br />
any married persons to be there, unless husband and<br />
wife be there together<br />
? This is<br />
literally putting<br />
asunder whom God hath joined together. As I told<br />
am not afraid the Church should excommuni-<br />
Jack, I<br />
cate him, discipline is at too low an ebb, but that he<br />
should excommunicate the Church. It is pretty near<br />
it; holiness and good works are not so much as conditions<br />
of our acceptance with God. Love feasts are<br />
introduced, and extemporary prayers and expositions<br />
of scripture, which last are enough to bring in all<br />
confusion ;<br />
nor is it likely they will want any miracles<br />
to support them. He only can stop them from being<br />
a formed sect, in a very little time, who ruleth the<br />
madness of the people.<br />
" Ecclesiastical censures have lost their terrors,<br />
thank fanaticism on the one hand, and atheism on the<br />
other. To talk of persecution, therefore, from thence,<br />
is mere insult. It is .<br />
'<br />
To call the bishop greybeard Gaff,<br />
And make his power as mere a scaff,<br />
As Dagon when his hands were off.'<br />
* * * *<br />
" My sister Hall has written to me on the subject,<br />
whom I will answer as soon as ever I can. In the<br />
meantime I shall be glad to hear from you, and beg
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