01/06/2024
HEROES DIARY
Name: Susanna Wesley
Date of Birth: January 20, 1669
Date of Death: July 23, 1742
Years spent: 73 years, 184 days
Country of Birth: England
Susanna Wesley was the daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley and Mary White, and the mother of John and Charles Wesley.
Susanna was a remarkable woman, although she never preached a sermon or published a book or founded a church, is known as the Mother of Methodism. She certainly never went to university or had any of what we would term formal education; that simply was not available to women in 17th century England. But her father taught her to read and to think for herself and as the twig is bent, so grows the tree.
Her father was the Rev. Dr. Samuel Annesley, a noted scholar, beloved clergyman, a mentor to young seminarians, renowned and respected preacher, and sometime chaplain to Parliament
Susanna Annesley was the youngest of 25 children, so it seemed unexceptional to her that she gave birth to 19 children (including two sets of twins). She and Samuel Wesley were married on 11 November 1688. Samuel was 26 and Susanna was 19. Samuel Wesley, a congenial and bright young clergyman whose father was also a Dissenter.
Susanna experienced many hardships throughout her life. Her husband left her and the children for over a year because of a minor dispute.
To her absent husband, Susannah Wesley wrote:
I am a woman, but I am also the mistress of a large family. And though the superior charge of the souls contained in it lies upon you, yet in your long absence I cannot but look upon every soul you leave under my charge as a talent committed to me by God under a trust. I am not a man nor a minister, yet as a mother and a mistress I felt I ought to do more than I had yet done. I resolved to begin with my own children; in which I observe the following method: I take such a proportion of time as I can spare every night to discourse with each child apart. On Monday I talk with Molly, on Tuesday with Hetty, Wednesday with Nancy, Thursday with Jacky, Friday with Patty, Saturday with Charles.
After living for a few years in London and in South Ormsby, Samuel and Susanna moved to Epworth near Lincoln, where they remained until his death nearly 40 years later in 1735. Of the children born to them, ten survived to adulthood: three sons and seven daughters. Despite the Wesleys' poor financial condition, all three sons earned M.A.s from Oxford. All three were ordained in the Church of England. The eldest, Samuel Jr, became a teacher at Westminster in London and helped his family generously by sending home money and by taking Charles especially under his wing when the younger brother came as a student to Westminster. Samuel Jr later became head of Blundell School the Free Grammar School in Tiverton, Devon.
Samuel Jr was already in London but John was about five and Charles a babe when in 1709 a fire destroyed the Epworth rectory in fifteen minutes one cold February night. Homeless, the family was forced to split apart: for a while two daughters looked after by an uncle in London, other children staying with friends nearer home. Susanna's 19th child was born a month later and not for the first time in her life was Susanna deeply sad and almost immobilized by shock and grief. Yet she seems to have survived, and with a great determination to unite her family and to save her children's souls. This, she wrote, was indeed her focus for twenty years of the prime of her life.
Samuel Wesley Sr spent time in jail twice due to his poor financial abilities, and the lack of money was a continual struggle for Susanna. Their house was burned down twice; during one of the fires, her son, John, nearly died and had to be rescued from the second story window. She was the primary source of her children's education.
After the second fire, Susanna was forced to place her children into different homes for nearly two years while the rectory was rebuilt. During this time, the Wesley children lived under the rules of the homes they lived in. Susanna was mortified that her children began to use improper speech and play more than study.
During a time when her husband was in London, defending a friend against charges of heresy, he had appointed a locum to bring the message. The man’s sermons revolved solely around repaying debts. The lack of diverse spiritual teaching caused Susanna to assemble her children Sunday afternoon for family services. They would sing a psalm and then Susanna would read a sermon from either her husband's or father's sermon file followed by another psalm. The local people began to ask if they could attend. At one point there were over two hundred people who would attend Susanna’s Sunday afternoon service while the Sunday morning service dwindled to nearly nothing. It was now, after the rebuilding of the rectory, that Susanna more than ever regulated home life in order to reassure her family of stability and to reestablish the necessity for order and priorities by which to live a useful life. The Wesleys arose at 5:00; each hour of the day was assigned to specific activities.
She set aside an hour each day of the week for a particular child – Thursdays, for instance, was Jacky's (John's) day. During this hour she would inquire after the state of their soul on its journey as well as their progress, fears, expectations, and goals in other endeavors. Thus began lifelong habits of regular self examination.
As children left home – the sons to school, the daughters to serve as governesses or to marry – Susanna wrote them letters not only about family news but about manner of living and subjects of belief.
In addition to letters, Susanna Wesley wrote meditations and scriptural commentaries for her own use. She wrote extended commentaries for instance on the Apostles Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments. Alas many of these were lost in the rectory fire, but many survive. The most accessible means to her writings is Charles Wallace's excellent and important Susanna Wesley, Her Collected Writings.
Susanna Annesley Wesley was a remarkable Christian woman. One can only wonder to what she would apply herself were she alive in this 21st century! But she was not of the 21st century; she was of the 17th and 18th centuries and it is in that context that, tucked away in a small town, she planted seeds in her children's minds that engendered the Methodist movement. From her frequent illnesses and no doubt the often poor health of others in the family suffering the wants of poverty grew a lively concern for clinics for the poor. From Susanna's effective home schooling grew a recognition of the importance of education and schools for the indigent; from this grew too schools where the unskilled could learn trades to lift them from poverty and dependence. From her own love of learning and habits of independent thought grew the respect for differences in persons and beliefs. From her determination to provide regularity in a world of disorder grew a method for bringing creative, positive, Christ-centered change. From her example and methods grew Methodism.
What a woman she was! She nurtured and nourished her children in the Lord’s way. Every night she is usually found on her knees praying for her children. Her knee was the platform to which the ministry of John and Charles Wesley was built. How I wish every mother reading this piece could emulate such a virtuous woman. Her life really challenged me and that is why I really dim it fit for such a virtuous woman to be our celebrated heroine for this week.
©LDDS
