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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228 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
know a good deal of her Welsh sister-in-law, and also<br />
of her friends the Joneses of Fonmon Castle, with<br />
whom she became so intimate that they lived together<br />
for some time at Salisbury. She also took an almost<br />
maternal interest in the children of Mr. and Mrs.<br />
after her.<br />
Charles <strong>Wesley</strong>, who named a little girl Like many other babes born to them, it died ;<br />
but<br />
when Charles junior, Sally, and Samuel arrived, successively,<br />
she took the warmest delight in them. Sally<br />
grew up to be her beloved companion and friend, and,<br />
had it not been for the intimacy between them, much<br />
that we now know of the <strong>Wesley</strong> family would have<br />
been lost.<br />
Mrs. Hall appears to have been very serenely happy<br />
during the latter part of her life, which was principally<br />
spent in London. She was a methodical, deliberate<br />
person, looking on the bright side of everything and<br />
everybody, and shunning all sad subjects. She spent<br />
a great deal of time with Dr. Johnson, who enjoyed her<br />
lively conversation and depended on her strong and<br />
accurate memory. He would gladly have persuaded<br />
her to become an inmate of his house, but two old<br />
ladies, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Du Moulin, lived with<br />
him already, and she thought her own presence, except<br />
as an occasional visitor, unnecessary.<br />
John <strong>Wesley</strong> respected the old lexicographer very<br />
highly, and sent him, through Mrs. Hall, a copy of his<br />
Notes on the Old and New Testament. She also had<br />
the pleasure of introducing them personally to one<br />
another, and Dr. Johnson liked the zealous scholarly<br />
man extremely, and would fain have seen more of him.<br />
He got quite provoked because John, who had long<br />
ago taken leave of leisure, had not time to cultivate<br />
him and his circle, and said one day to Boswell :
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