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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230 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
Doctor, and showing him the verses she wrote from time<br />
to time. The sage used to pat her head kindly, and say<br />
to her<br />
" aunt, She will do, Madam ;<br />
she will do/'<br />
James Boswell tells, in his life of Johnson, how on<br />
Easter Sunday, 1781, Mrs. Hall, a Mr. Allen, and himself<br />
dined with the Doctor and the two old ladies who<br />
were his pensioners. The day naturally gave<br />
its tone<br />
to the conversation, and Boswell " mentioned a kind<br />
of religious Robin Hood society, which met every<br />
Sunday evening at Coachmakers' Hall for free debate,<br />
and that the subject for this night was the text which<br />
'<br />
relates what happened at our Saviour's death<br />
And<br />
the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints<br />
which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his<br />
resurrection, and went into the holy city,<br />
and appeared<br />
unto many/ Mrs. Hall said it was a very curious<br />
subject, and she should much like to hear it discussed.<br />
'<br />
Johnson replied, somewhat warmly, One would not<br />
go to such a place to hear it.' I, however resolved<br />
'<br />
that I would go. But, Sir,' said she to Johnson, ' I<br />
should like to hear you discuss it.' He seemed reluctant<br />
to engage in it. She talked of the resurrection<br />
of the human race in general, and maintained that we<br />
'<br />
shall be raised with the same bodies. Johnson :<br />
Nay,<br />
Madam, we see that it is not to be the same body, for<br />
the Scripture uses the illustration of grain sown. You<br />
cannot suppose that we shall rise with a diseased body ;<br />
it is enough if there be such a sameness as to distinguish<br />
identity of person/ The Doctor told the story<br />
of hearing his mother's voice one day calling him when<br />
he was at Oxford. She seemed desirous of knowing<br />
more, but he left the question in obscurity/' On this<br />
occasion Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Hall talked at their<br />
host so persistently that he at last stopped them by
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