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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TEACHING AND TRAINING. 39<br />
mischief was done. It must have occurred either when<br />
Anne was a very few weeks old or just before she was<br />
born. Mr. <strong>Wesley</strong> gave an account of it in writing to<br />
his kind and constant friend the Archbishop of York,<br />
to whom he had commenced a letter on July 25th,<br />
writing only the date and the words "My Lord/'<br />
This identical sheet of paper was partly burnt and<br />
wetted with the water that extinguished the flames ;<br />
but as it was saved, with other books and papers, the<br />
letter was ultimately completed on it and forwarded to<br />
Dr. Sharpe.<br />
" He that 's born to be a poet must, I am afraid,<br />
live and die poor, for on the last of July 1702, a fire<br />
broke out in<br />
my house, by some sparks which took hold<br />
of the thatch this dry time, and consumed about twothirds<br />
of it before it could be quenched. I was at the<br />
lower end of the town to visit a sick person, and<br />
thence to R. Cogan's. As I was returning they<br />
brought me the news. I got one of his horses, rode<br />
up, and heard by the way that my wife, children, and<br />
books were saved, for which God be praised, as well<br />
as for what He has taken. They were altogether in<br />
my study and the fire under them. When it broke<br />
out she got two of the children in her arms, and ran<br />
through the smoke and fire ;<br />
but one of them was left<br />
in the hurry,<br />
till the other cried for her, and the<br />
neighbours ran in and got her out through the fire, as<br />
they did my books and most of my goods ; this very<br />
paper amongst the rest, which I afterwards found as I<br />
was looking over what was saved.<br />
" I find 'tis some happiness to have been miserable,<br />
for my mind has been so blunted with former misfortunes<br />
that this scarce made any impression upon me.<br />
I shall go on, by God's assistance, to take my title
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