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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8URVIVOBS AND DESCENDANTS. 225<br />
on one occasion the father was angry with the Isaac<br />
of the family while his mother was tending an Ishmael,<br />
and frightened the child terribly by locking him up in<br />
a dark cupboard for some very trivial fault. This was<br />
almost more than she could endure, but she was determined<br />
that her husband's authority over his boy<br />
should not suffer. The punishment was out of all<br />
proportion to the offence, but she could not persuade<br />
him of it. At last she reminded him that though he<br />
was unreasonably passionate with her child she had not<br />
turned his out of the cradle, but declared that she<br />
would do it unless he released and forgave the terrified<br />
little fellow. John and Charles ultimately removed<br />
their nephew from his father's house and educated him<br />
at their own expense; but when about fourteen he<br />
caught the small-pox at school, and died before his<br />
mother could reach him. This was a grief which it<br />
was feared would have killed her ; but she was patient<br />
and resigned, and Time, the great healer, brought her<br />
consolation.<br />
Charles <strong>Wesley</strong> once asked his sister how she could<br />
provide comforts and even money in her hour of need<br />
for a woman who had usurped her<br />
" place. Ah," she<br />
said., "I knew I could obtain what I wanted from<br />
many but she, poor creature, could not, for so many<br />
;<br />
would make a merit of abandoning her to the distress<br />
she had brought upon<br />
herself. . . . I did not act as a<br />
woman, but as a Christian/' It was a sublime Christianity<br />
and worthy of that Master who did not spurn<br />
Magdalen from His feet. Few, indeed, are the professing<br />
Christians who attain to like it.<br />
anything<br />
When Mrs. Hall fell into poverty she was still sogenerous<br />
that her brother Charles said, " It is in vain<br />
to give Patty anything to add to her comforts, for she<br />
15
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