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. 65<br />
dence with her first-born ;<br />
but in March 1707 she<br />
wrote him a long and earnest letter, only one passage<br />
of which need be quoted here :<br />
" I have a great and just desire that all<br />
your sisters<br />
and your brother should be saved as well as you ;<br />
but I must own I think ray concern for you<br />
is much the<br />
greatest. What, you, my son, you, who was once the<br />
son of my extremest sorrow, in your birth and in your<br />
infancy, who is now the son of my tenderest love,<br />
my friend, in whom is my inexpressible delight, my<br />
future hope of happiness in this world, for whom I<br />
weep and pray in my retirements from the world, when<br />
no mortal knows the agonies of my soul on your<br />
account, no eye sees my tears, which are only beheld<br />
by that Father of spirits of whom I so importunately<br />
beg grace for you that I hope I may at last be heard,<br />
is it possible that you should be damned ? O that<br />
it were impossible<br />
!<br />
Indeed, L think I could almost<br />
wish myself accursed, so I were sure of your salvation.<br />
But still I hope, still I would fain persuade my-<br />
have been<br />
self that a child for whom so many prayers<br />
offered to Heaven will not at last miscarry. ''<br />
Only a few weeks later Mrs. <strong>Wesley</strong>'s heart, as<br />
well as that of her husband, was rejoiced by an official<br />
intimation that " Sammy " would probably be elected<br />
to one of the King's Scholarships at Westminster,<br />
which would enable him to go to Oxford. This drew<br />
forth another epistle from the wise yet anxious<br />
mother.<br />
" DEAR SAMMY, "Epworth, May 7th, 1707.<br />
" Though I wrote so lately, yet, having received<br />
advice that your election is so much sooner than I expected,<br />
I take this opportunity to advise you about it.<br />
5
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