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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SURVIVOBS AND DESCENDANTS. 213<br />
order to obtain food, and was reduced to the hourly<br />
expectation of having her very bed seized on account<br />
of being in arrears with her rent. Whether that calamity<br />
actually did come to pass or no is uncertain ; but,<br />
at all events, her husband's death left her free to wind<br />
up her affairs at Gainsborough and come with an old<br />
servant to London. From that time John supported<br />
her, and she was a great deal at the Foundry, though<br />
she does not appear to have lived there altogether.<br />
The Epworth ghost did not altogether desert her, as<br />
is shown by the following letter to John :<br />
" DEAR " BROTHER, Feb. 16th, 1750.<br />
" I want most sadly to see you and talk some<br />
hours with you as in times past. Some things are too<br />
hard for me ;<br />
these I want you to solve. One doctrine<br />
of yours and of many more, viz. no happiness can be<br />
found in any or all things in this world, that as I<br />
have sixteen years of my own experience which lie<br />
flatly against it, I want to talk with you about it.<br />
Another thing<br />
is that wonderful thing called by us<br />
'<br />
Jeffery/ You won't laugh at me for being superstitious<br />
if I tell<br />
you how certainly that something calls<br />
on me against any extraordinary new affliction ;<br />
but<br />
so little is known of the invisible world, that I, at<br />
least, am not able to judge whether it be a friendly or<br />
an evil spirit. I shall be glad to know from you<br />
where you live, where you may be found. If at the<br />
Foundry, assuredly on foot or by coach I shall visit<br />
my dear brother, and enjoy the very great blessing of<br />
some hours' converse.<br />
" I am your really obliged friend and affectionate<br />
sister,<br />
" EMILIA HARPER."
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