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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CHAPTER VII.<br />
MATERNAL SOLICITUDE.<br />
OP the next five or six months of Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong>'s<br />
life<br />
nothing is recorded; so they were probably passed<br />
in as much quietude and comfort as she had ever<br />
known. In May she wrote a letter to her eldest son,<br />
which shows that what we now call teetotalism was<br />
not among the austere virtues practised either in her<br />
own circle or that in which her boy lived.<br />
" DEAR SAMMY,<br />
" Epworth, May 22nd, 1706.<br />
" You cannot imagine how much your letter<br />
pleased me wherein you tell me of your fear lest you<br />
should offend God ; though, if you state the case truly,<br />
I hope there is no danger of doing<br />
it in the matter<br />
you speak<br />
" of.<br />
Proper drunkenness does, I think, certainly consist<br />
in drinking such a quantity of strong liquor as<br />
will intoxicate, and render the person incapable of<br />
using his reason with that strength and freedom as<br />
he can at other times. Now there are those that, by<br />
habitually drinking a great deal of such liquors, can<br />
hardly ever be guilty of proper drunkenness, because
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