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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SURVIVORS AND DESCENDANTS. 227<br />
Hall never spoke<br />
ill of her husband, and used to say<br />
that it was impossible for a wife with true love in her<br />
heart to do so.<br />
She was living at the Foundry when Charles married<br />
Miss Sarah Gwynne at Garth in South Wales,<br />
and wrote her her affectionate congratulations. As<br />
the pair did not for some little time provide themselves<br />
with a home, she would gladly have prepared for<br />
their reception in London, but they preferred settling<br />
at Bristol. To that city Mr. Hall also betook himself,<br />
and summoned his wife to join him ;<br />
but as his feelings<br />
towards her family were the reverse of friendly, she<br />
evidently did not communicate with Charles or his<br />
young wife in Stoke's Croft. Charles met her by<br />
chance in the street when on his way to the room<br />
where he preached, and took her with him ;<br />
but in the<br />
middle of the sermon Mr. Hall entered and fetched<br />
her away. The next day he went in again, calling<br />
Charles by name. Flight appeared the wisest policy,<br />
and Mr. Hall followed, but did not succeed in discovering<br />
his brother-in-law's retreat. The affair ended in<br />
Mrs. Hall's departure to London, and that of her<br />
peccant husband to Ireland, whence he finally went to<br />
the West Indies, but not alone. On the death of his<br />
companion he returned to England full of penitence,<br />
and was warmly received by his patient wife, who<br />
remained with and nursed him till his death, which<br />
took place at Bristol in January 1776, forty years after<br />
their marriage. During his last hours he exclaimed,<br />
" I have injured an angel, an angel that never reproached<br />
me."<br />
These words made up to Mrs. Hall for<br />
all the sorrow he had caused her.<br />
In the long interval<br />
between Charles <strong>Wesley</strong>'s marriage<br />
and Mr. Hall's death, Mrs. Hall had come to<br />
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