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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LATER MARRIED LIFE. 23<br />
was eminently unfit.<br />
Mr. <strong>Wesley</strong>, who was already in<br />
debt, borrowed a hundred pounds from the Bishop<br />
of Salisbury, which proving insufficient, before he was<br />
fairly installed he had to borrow another fifty pounds.<br />
The interest on and repayment of these sums hung like<br />
a millstone round his neck for the remainder of his<br />
life.<br />
The family could have been only just settled at<br />
Epworth when Mehetabel, the fifth daughter, was born,<br />
and just about the same time Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong> heard of the<br />
death of her sweet elder sister Elizabeth, the wife of<br />
John Dunton. The Duutons had continued lovers up<br />
to the day of the wife's death, and the bereaved husband<br />
declared that during the fifteen years of their union<br />
not an angry look had passed between them. She had<br />
been his book and cash keeper, and always took an<br />
active part in his business, and, in spite of cares and<br />
worries, he never once went home and found her out of<br />
temper. She nursed him devotedly in sickness, and<br />
when there seemed some possibility of their migrating<br />
to America and settling there in business, acquiesced<br />
in the voyage, cheerfully assuring her " most endeared<br />
heart " that she would joyfully go over to him, adding,<br />
" I do assure you, my dear, yourself alone is all the<br />
riches I desire ;<br />
and if ever I am so happy as to have<br />
your company again, I will travel to the farthest part<br />
of the world rather than part with you any more. . . .<br />
I had rather have your company with bread and water<br />
than enjoy without you the riches of both Indies." In<br />
another she<br />
" says, Prithee, my dear, show thy love<br />
for me by taking care of thyself.<br />
Get thee warm<br />
clothes, woollen waistcoats, and buy a cloak. Be<br />
cheerful; want for nothing; doubt not that God will<br />
provide for us." She seems to have been proverbials
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