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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48 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
authority, however, to examine you ; but if<br />
any should<br />
be so impertinently curious to do it, put them civilly<br />
off, if you can ; but, if you cannot, resolutely tell them<br />
you will not satisfy their unreasonable desires ;<br />
and be<br />
sure you never, to gain the favour of any, hazard<br />
losing the favour of God, which you will do if you<br />
To God's merciful protection I commit<br />
speak falsely.<br />
you.<br />
" SUSANNA WESLEY."<br />
The next letter is not dated,<br />
but was written either<br />
during the same or the following year :<br />
SAMMY,<br />
" '<br />
Let your light so shine before men that they<br />
may see your good works and glorify your Father which<br />
is in Heaven.'<br />
" Examine well your heart, and observe its inclinations,<br />
particularly what the general temper of your<br />
mind is; for, let me tell you,<br />
it is not a fit of devotion<br />
now and then speaks a man a Christian, but it is a<br />
mind universally and generally disposed to all the<br />
duties of Christianity in their proper times, places, &c.<br />
For instance, in the morning or evening, or any other<br />
time when occasion is offered, a good Christian will be<br />
cheerfully disposed to retire from the world, that he<br />
may offer to his Creator his sacrifice of prayer and<br />
praise, and will account it his happiness, as well as his<br />
duty, so to do. When he is in the world, if he have<br />
business, he will follow it diligently, as knowing that<br />
he must account with God at night for what he has<br />
done in the day, and that God expects we should be<br />
faithful in our calling as well as devout in our closets.<br />
A Christian ought, and in the general does, converse<br />
with the world like a stranger in an inn : he will use
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