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.
44 SUSANNA WESLEY. CHAPTER VI. TRIALS AND TROUBLES. THE Rector of Epworth was not remarkably popular in his own parish ; perhaps a very poor clergyman never is. He had great difficulty in repairing and rebuilding the part of his house that had been destroyed by fire ; and when his son John was about seven or eight months old Mr. Wesley suffered a fresh loss, as his crop of flax was set fire to and demolished under circumstances that looked very much like incendiarism. He was also involved in a controversy that caused a deal of ill-feeling and bad blood in consequence of a letter, or rather pamphlet, which he had written in his youth, before he removed from London to South Ormsby, after attending a of violent meeting of the Calves Head Club, a body political Dissenters. Very much disgusted, Wesley went home, and, while his heart was hot within him, wrote off a long letter, and, after writing it, went to bed about five in the morning. A friend probably his landlord, Robert Clavel, a bookseller and then Master of the Stationers' Company came in while he slept, took possession of the MS., and, after reading, dissuaded Wesley from sending it to the person to
TRIALS AND TROUBLES. 45- whom it was addressed, but contrived to keep it in his own hands. Twelve years afterwards, without the author's consent, he published it, under the title of " A Letter from a Country Divine to his Friend in London concerning the Education of Dissenters in their Private Academies in several parts of this Nation : Humbly offered to the consideration of the Grand Committee of Parliament for Religion now sitting." The temper of the House at that moment was one of extreme hostility to Dissenters and eagerness for their suppression. The strife waxed quite furious as pamphlet succeeded pamphlet, and angry passions arose on all sides. Mr. Wesley's special antagonist was a Rev. Samuel Palmer, who, of course, had his adherents, and to such an extent did this wordy warfare go that Daniel De Foe, who took his full share in it, was committed to Newgate in July 1703. Mr. Wesley might, perhaps, have had the same fate had he lived in London ; for so universal was the contention that, according to Dean Swift, the very cats and dogs discussed it, whilst fine ladies became such violent partizans of the Low and High Church " parties as to have no time to say their prayers/' The Rector of Epworth, with his sharp tongue and hot temper, was far more likely to make enemies than friends at such a time, and no doubt a great deal of prejudice and ill-feeling was aroused against him in Lincolnshire, and his wife, as well as himself, had to bear the brunt of it. she would have been the last woman It was a great trial to her to part with her firstborn son, Samuel, who in 1704 was placed at Westminster, though to have stood in the way of her child's advancement. The boy went to London with his father, probably
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44 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
CHAPTER VI.<br />
TRIALS<br />
AND TROUBLES.<br />
THE Rector of Epworth was not remarkably popular<br />
in his own parish ; perhaps a very poor clergyman<br />
never is. He had great difficulty in repairing and<br />
rebuilding the part of his house that had been<br />
destroyed by fire ;<br />
and when his son John was about<br />
seven or eight months old Mr. <strong>Wesley</strong> suffered a<br />
fresh loss, as his crop of flax was set fire to and<br />
demolished under circumstances that looked very<br />
much like incendiarism. He was also involved in a<br />
controversy that caused a deal of ill-feeling and bad<br />
blood in consequence of a letter, or rather pamphlet,<br />
which he had written in his youth, before he removed<br />
from London to South Ormsby, after attending a<br />
of violent<br />
meeting of the Calves Head Club, a body<br />
political Dissenters. Very much disgusted, <strong>Wesley</strong><br />
went home, and, while his heart was hot within him,<br />
wrote off a long letter, and, after writing it, went to<br />
bed about five in the morning. A friend probably<br />
his landlord, Robert Clavel, a bookseller and then<br />
Master of the Stationers' Company came in while he<br />
slept, took possession of the MS., and, after reading,<br />
dissuaded <strong>Wesley</strong> from sending it to the person to
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