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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50 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
was the hero of the hour, he had gained the battle of<br />
Blenheim in August 1704, and struck such terror into<br />
the French nation, as long found echo in the refrain<br />
Marlbrouck s'en va-t-en guerre. The nation delighted<br />
to honour the soldier-statesman, whose victory justified<br />
Queen Anne's confidence in him, both Houses of<br />
Parliament publicly thanked him, the City of London<br />
entertained him at a civic feast, the nation gave the<br />
Manor of Woodstock to him and his heirs for ever,<br />
and built for him that Blenheim Palace but just now<br />
despoiled of the art treasures he collected during<br />
his successful campaigns against the power of the<br />
Grande Monarque. Policy and patriotism both tended<br />
to inspire Mr. <strong>Wesley</strong>'s muse, and he achieved a poem<br />
of five hundred and ninety-four lines, entitled, Marlborough,<br />
or the Fate of Europe. Archbishop Sharpe<br />
took poem and author under his fostering wiug,<br />
and brought them under the Duke's notice. The<br />
least that the hero could do in return was to give<br />
Mr. <strong>Wesley</strong> the chaplaincy to Colonel Lepelle's regiment<br />
;<br />
and so pleased was another peer with the poem<br />
that he sent for its writer, and tried to procure him<br />
a prebend's stall. But, alas !<br />
The best laid schemes of mice and men<br />
Gang aft agley !<br />
and the very means by which the poet-parson sought<br />
to serve his patrons and strengthen his position caused<br />
him to lose all that he had gained, as well as all he<br />
hoped for.<br />
Early in May 1705, Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong> gave birth to<br />
another son, but, between worry and weakness was<br />
unable to nurse it, so it was given into the charge of<br />
a woman who lived opposite the rectory. Epworth
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