Susanna Wesley
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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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28 SUSANNA WESLEY. How patiently she taught was shown when, one day, her husband had the curiosity to sit by and count while she repeated the same thing to one child more than " twenty times. I wonder at your patience/' said he " ; you have told that child twenty times that same " thing." If I had satisfied myself by mentioning it only nineteen times," she answered, " I should have lost all my labour. It was the twentieth time that crowned it." Mrs. Wesley does not seem to have thought much of her own system of education, but she could not suffer her children to run wild, and could not afford either governesses, tutors, or schools. The only way of teaching them was to do it herself, and, while they were quietly gathered round her with their tasks, she plied her needle, kept the glebe accounts, wrote her letters, and nursed her baby in far more ease and comfort than she could have done if the little crew had been racing about and getting into boisterous mischief. It was at the desire of her son John, when a man of thirty, and perhaps with his own aspirations that she wrote down the details of how to family life, she brought up and taught her children, and that record is best given in her own words.

29 CHAPTER V. TEACHING AND TRAINING. JOHN WESLEY certainly could not have remembered the beginning of his mother's educational work, as it commenced before his birth ; but he must have experienced its benefits, as she, with some assistance from her husband in rudimentary classics and mathematics, prepared him to enter the Charterhouse at eleven years of age with considerable credit to himself and his teachers. He pressed her repeatedly in after life towrite down full details for his information, and she was evidently somewhat loath to do it, for at the end of a letter dated February 21st, 1732, she says : " The writing anything about my way of education I am much averse to. It cannot, I think, be of service to anyone to know how I, who have lived such a retired life for so many years, used to employ my time and care in bringing up my children. No one can, without renouncing the world, in the most literal sense, observe my method; and there are few, if any, that would entirely devote above twenty years of the prime of life in hopes to save the souls of their children, which they think may be saved without so much ado ; for that

28 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />

How patiently she taught was shown when, one<br />

day, her husband had the curiosity to sit<br />

by and count<br />

while she repeated the same thing to one child more<br />

than " twenty times. I wonder at your patience/'<br />

said he "<br />

; you have told that child twenty times that<br />

same " thing." If I had satisfied myself by mentioning<br />

it only nineteen times," she answered, " I should<br />

have lost all<br />

my labour. It was the twentieth time<br />

that crowned it."<br />

Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong> does not seem to have thought much<br />

of her own system of education, but she could not<br />

suffer her children to run wild, and could not afford<br />

either governesses, tutors, or schools. The only way<br />

of teaching them was to do it herself, and, while they<br />

were quietly gathered round her with their tasks, she<br />

plied her needle, kept the glebe accounts, wrote her<br />

letters, and nursed her baby in far more ease and<br />

comfort than she could have done if the little crew<br />

had been racing about and getting into boisterous<br />

mischief. It was at the desire of her son John, when<br />

a man of thirty, and perhaps with his own aspirations<br />

that she wrote down the details of how<br />

to family life,<br />

she brought up and taught her children, and that<br />

record is best given in her own words.

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