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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MATERNAL SOLICITUDE. 63<br />
not without difficulty to themselves, in order to their<br />
living comfortable here and for ever this must surely<br />
be owned to be much the greater and more valuable<br />
kindness ;<br />
and consequently reason will sink the sail<br />
on this side, how heavy soever affection<br />
may hang on<br />
the other.<br />
" Now on both these accounts you know what you<br />
owe to one of the best of mothers. Perhaps you may<br />
have read of one of the Ptolemies who chose the<br />
name of Philometer as a more glorious title than if<br />
he had assumed that of his predecessor Alexander.<br />
And it would be an honest and virtuous ambition<br />
in you to attempt to imitate him, for which you have<br />
so much reason ;<br />
and often reflect on the tender and<br />
peculiar love your dear mother has always expressed<br />
towards you, the deep affliction both of body and mind<br />
which she underwent for you both before and after<br />
your birth ;<br />
the particular care she took of your<br />
education when she struggled with so many pains and<br />
infirmities ; and, above all, the wholesome and sweet<br />
motherly advice and counsel which she has often given<br />
you to fear God, to take care of your soul, as well as of<br />
your learning, to shun all vicious practices and bad<br />
examples (the doing which will equally tend to your<br />
reputation and your happiness) as well as those valuable<br />
letters she wrote you on the same subjects. You<br />
will, I verily believe, remember that these obligations<br />
of gratitude, love, and obedience, and the expressions<br />
of them, are not confined to your tender years, but<br />
must last to the very close of life, and even after that<br />
render her memory most dear and precious to<br />
" you.<br />
You will not forget to evidence this by supporting<br />
and comforting her in her age, if it please God<br />
that she should ever attain to it<br />
(though I doubt she
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