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. 4$<br />
lively innocent, and not to slay the righteous with the<br />
wicked ;<br />
but to put a stop to the effusion of Christian<br />
blood, and, in His own good time, to restore u&<br />
to the blessing of public peace. Since, then, I do not<br />
absent myself from Church out of any contempt for<br />
authority, or out of any vain<br />
presumption of my own<br />
goodness, as though I needed no solemn humiliation,<br />
and since I endeavour, according to my poor ability,<br />
to humble myself before God, and do earnestly desire<br />
that he may give this war such an issue as may most<br />
effectually conduce to His own glory, I hope<br />
it will<br />
not be charged upon me as a sin, but that it will<br />
please Almighty God, by some way or other, to satisfy<br />
my scruples, and to accept of my honest intentions,<br />
and to pardon my manifold infirmities."<br />
It was probably a month or two before the birth<br />
of John that Samuel, the eldest boy, was placed at the<br />
school of Mr. John Holland, at Epworth, that there<br />
might be no break or loss of time in his preparation<br />
for Westminster School, and he was the only one of<br />
the brothers who received any other assistance on<br />
entering at a public school than that which could be<br />
given by his parents. John was probably a delicate<br />
babe, as he was baptized by his father when only a<br />
few hours old. He received the names of John<br />
Benjamin, after two baby boys (the tenth and eleventh<br />
children) who had preceded him and died in infancy.<br />
He was the only one of the family who had a second<br />
name, and it was never used, as he was simply called<br />
Jack, or Jacky, at home, and never signed himself<br />
otherwise than plain John.
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