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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56 SUSANNA WESLEY.<br />
bring him in not guilty on hearing the evidence.<br />
There were three cows all wounded at the same time,<br />
one of them in three places the<br />
; biggest was a flesh<br />
wound, not slanting but directly in towards the heart,<br />
which it<br />
only missed by glancing outwards on the ribs.<br />
It was nine inches deep, whereas the brawn's tusks<br />
were hardly two inches long. All conclude that the<br />
work was done with a sword by the breadth and shape<br />
of the orifice. The same night the iron latch of my<br />
door was turned off, and the wood hacked in order to<br />
shoot back the lock, which nobody will think was with<br />
an intention to rob my family. My house-dog, who<br />
made a huge noise within doors, was sufficiently<br />
punished for his want of politics and moderation, for<br />
the next day but one his leg was almost chopped off<br />
by an unknown hand. 'Tis not everyone could bear<br />
these things ; but, I bless God, my wife is less concerned<br />
with suffering them than I am in the writing,<br />
or than I believe your Grace will be in reading them.<br />
She is not what she is represented, any more than me.<br />
I believe it was this foul beast of a worse than Erymanthean<br />
boar, already mentioned, who fired my flax by<br />
rubbing his tusks against the wall ;<br />
but that was no<br />
great matter, since it is now reported I had but five<br />
pounds loss."<br />
Whether the Archbishop of York went to Epworth<br />
to see the state of affairs for himself, or whether Mrs.<br />
<strong>Wesley</strong> met him at Lincoln or elsewhere, during her<br />
husband's imprisonment, is not known, but certain it<br />
is that they had an interview, at which, among other<br />
questions, he asked, "Tell me, Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong>, whether<br />
you ever really wanted bread?" "My Lord/' said<br />
she, " I will freely own to your Grace that, strictly<br />
speaking, I never did want bread. But then I had
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