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.
54 SUSANNA WESLEY. I thank God, my wife was pretty well recovered, and churched some days before I was taken from her ; and hope she '11 be able to look to my family, if they don't turn them out of doors, as they have often threatened to do. One of my biggest concerns was my being forced to leave my poor lambs in the midst of so many wolves. But the great Shepherd is able to provide for them, and to preserve them. My wife bears it with that courage which becomes her, and which I expected from her. " I don't despair of doing some good here (and so long I shan't lose quite the end of living), and, it may be, do more in this parish than in my old one ; for I have leave to read prayers every morning and afternoon here in the prison, and to preach once a Sunday, which I choose to do in the afternoon when there is no sermon at the minster. And I 'm getting acquainted with my brother jail-birds as fast as I can; and shall write to London, next post, to the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, who, I hope, will send me some books to distribute amongst them. I should not write these things from a jail if I thought your Grace would believe me ever the less for my being here ; where if I should lay my bones, I 'd bless God and pray for your Grace. Your Grace's very obliged and most humble servant, " S. WESLEY." Archbishop Sharpe's kind heart must have warmed to the man who could be so cheery in such a position, strive to help his " " brother jail-birds without repulsion, and look upon them as the flock committed to his charge for the time being. He immediately wrote him a sympathetic answer, told him the reports he had
TRIALS AND TROUBLES. 55 heard, and asked for a statement of his affairs. Mr. Wesley was able to explain all satisfactorily, and, after detailing the falsehoods fabricated and spread by his opponents, adds : " My debts are about 300, which I have contracted by a series of misfortunes not unknown to your Grace. The falling of my parsonage barn, before I had recovered the taking my living ; the burning great part of my dwelling-house about two years since, and all my flax last winter ; the fall of my income nearly one half by the low price of grain ; the almost entire failure of my flax this year, which used to be the better half of my revenue ; with my numerous family ; and the taking this regiment from me, which I had obtained with so much expense and trouble : have at last crushed me, though I struggled as long as I was able. Yet I hope to rise again, as I have always done when at the lowest ; and I think I cannot be much lower now." How Mrs. Wesley and the family fared at home, he tells in a letter written on the 12th of September : " Concerning the stabbing my cows in the night since I came hither, but a few weeks ago ; and endeavouring thereby to starve my forlorn family in my absence, my cows being all dried by it, which was their chief subsistence ; though, I hope, they had not the power to kill .any of them outright. " They found out a good expedient, after it was done, to turn it off, and divert the cry of the world against them and it was to ; spread a report that my own brawn (boar) did this mischief, though at first they said my cows ran against a scythe and wounded themselves. " As for the brawn, I think any impartial jury would
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54 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
I thank God, my wife was pretty well recovered, and<br />
churched some days before I was taken from her ;<br />
and<br />
hope she '11 be able to look to my family, if they don't<br />
turn them out of doors, as they have often threatened<br />
to do. One of my biggest concerns was my being<br />
forced to leave my poor lambs in the midst of so many<br />
wolves. But the great Shepherd<br />
is able to provide<br />
for them, and to preserve them. My wife bears it<br />
with that courage which becomes her, and which I<br />
expected from her.<br />
" I don't despair of doing some good here (and so<br />
long I shan't lose quite the end of living), and, it may<br />
be, do more in this parish than in my old one ;<br />
for<br />
I have leave to read prayers every morning and afternoon<br />
here in the prison, and to preach once a Sunday,<br />
which I choose to do in the afternoon when there is<br />
no sermon at the minster. And I 'm getting acquainted<br />
with my brother jail-birds as fast as I can; and shall<br />
write to London, next post, to the Society for Propagating<br />
Christian Knowledge, who, I hope, will send me<br />
some books to distribute amongst them. I should<br />
not write these things from a jail<br />
if I thought your<br />
Grace would believe me ever the less for my being<br />
here ;<br />
where if I should lay my bones, I 'd bless God<br />
and pray for your Grace. Your Grace's very obliged<br />
and most humble servant,<br />
" S. WESLEY."<br />
Archbishop Sharpe's kind heart<br />
must have warmed<br />
to the man who could be so cheery in such a position,<br />
strive to help his<br />
" "<br />
brother jail-birds without repulsion,<br />
and look upon them as the flock committed to<br />
his charge for the time being. He immediately wrote<br />
him a sympathetic answer, told him the reports he had
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