As I write this article in preparation for Mother’s Day in America, some American moms are being stretched to their limits in the wake of the Coronavirus Pandemic. They are trying to keep their families well by keeping surfaces clean and making sure everyone washes their hands. They may be having trouble getting what they need at the grocery store. They may be helping their children with schoolwork and trying to keep them entertained. They may have lost family income that causes them to wonder how they will pay the bills and how they will get food. They may be working from home while trying to supervise the children.

I had planned to write an article about Susanna Wesley, famed mother of evangelists John and Charles Wesley. I had heard she was quite an amazing mother and thought it would make a helpful article. Then I wondered whether her story would be appropriate for this season of distress. Little did I know that her life was rife with difficulties. Her perseverance and determination in difficult circumstances can be an inspiration to anyone—not just moms.

Several books have been written about Susanna Wesley’s life. Now that I know some of the details of her life, I feel certain that reading a biography about her would be time well spent. I jumped from website to website to piece together the story of Susanna Wesley.  I will take you through my journey of discovery.

LIFE IN ENGLAND IN THE 17th CENTURY

First let me set the stage for life in England in the 17th century. It was not only a time of great political and religious unrest, but a time of devastation. According to the British Library website, in 1665 the Black Plague hit London [just a few years before Susanna was born in 1669 and where her family lived]. At least 68,000 residents of London died. All trade and social life was stopped. The stay-at-home orders and the crowded hospitals of the current Coronavirus Pandemic seem very difficult, but in 17th century London people with the plague were often subjected to having their homes nailed shut with them inside, to stop the spread. In 1666, the year after the plague hit, a great fire lasting several days destroyed much of the city of London.

In 1660 Charles II, eldest son of Charles I who was executed for waging an unjust, devastating war, became the ruling monarch after being exiled in France. He replaced “Lord Protector” Richard Cromwell, brother of deceased dictator Oliver Cromwell. Charles II had a tense relationship with the parliament. When he died in 1685, his brother James II took the throne. James II was a strong Catholic, and he attempted to fill the parliament with Catholics. The parliament was largely Protestant. Some Protestant leaders invited William, the husband of James II’s oldest daughter Mary, to invade. William III and

Mary II were crowned as joint monarchs in 1689. The British Parliament finally became strong through new laws.

From my studies of the Pilgrims who came to America in 1620, I know that the Church of England at that time had tried to force everyone to attend the Church of England and forbade the British to attend other services. The Puritans were the ones who disagreed with the teachings of the Church of England but felt it could be salvaged. The Separatists wanted to leave the Church of England, feeling it was past saving. The British Library website states that Charles II made a declaration recognizing religious tolerance when he took the throne.

SUSANNA WESLEY’S CIRCUMSTANCES

I found a good source of information about Susanna Wesley at the faithgateway.com website. Susanna was born in 1669, the last of 25 children in the Annesley family. Her father was a well-known, well-educated, Puritan [Church of England dissenter] minister in London. Susanna had minimal formal education, but with the influence of her well-educated father and so many older siblings, she grew up to be well read, and intellectually well rounded. [I wondered exactly how she came to be well read. The holinesstoday.org website provided the answer. She had access to the wide selection of books in her father’s library and later all the books her husband had acquired.]

When Susanna was 19, she married an aspiring Anglican [Church of England] pastor. Susanna gave birth to 19 children.  However, nine of them died as infants. Two sets of twins were among the children lost. One child died during the night while Susanna was still recovering from giving birth. A nurse accidentally smothered the child while she slept. [The hnm.gmu.edu website of George Mason University gives some insight into high infant and child mortality of that time period. “Unidentifiable fevers,” dysentery, scarlet fever, whooping cough, influenza, smallpox, and pneumonia may have killed 30% of English children before age 15. In crowded cities, diseases such as typhus, smallpox, and tuberculosis thrived, and the Black Plague periodically swept through. Children in cities “were often poorly fed and housed.” Drownings in wells and bathtubs commonly took children under age 5. Some children were dropped by siblings. Children age 8 and up might crack their skulls while fetching water or be trampled by horses while plowing. ]

SAMUEL

For 39 years Susanna’s husband Samuel was rector at the church in Epworth. He was an intellectual and could not relate to his parishioners, who were rural villagers. He made the mistake of bringing up a highly inflammatory political issue in his pulpit. The Wesleys’ parsonage burned down twice, probably the work of angry parishioners. [Wikipedia adds that after the second fire Susanna had no choice but to allow her children to live in different homes for nearly two years during the rebuilding of the rectory.] Susanna and her children were often harassed or insulted.

Lacking money skills, Susanna’s husband at one time was in debtors’ prison for several months. Lacking ability and interest for farm work, he failed to tend the little farm included with the parsonage. On top of homeschooling the children, Susanna had to take on the responsibilities of the farm. Samuel spent much of his energy and his family’s scant financial resources to work on an exegetical treatise dealing with the book of Job. He went away for long periods to write and study, abandoning Susanna to take care of the family alone.

SUSANNA’S RESPONSE

In all of Susanna’s difficult circumstances, she managed to have her household amazingly well organized. She set up a schedule whereby each of her children rotated in spending an hour with her at bedtime one night a week. She gave her children a first-class education, with classical and Biblical learning included. Rather than just teaching her daughters the traditional “feminine skills,” she made it a priority to give them the same kind of education her sons received. Six days a week the older children studied from 9AM to noon and 2 PM to 5 PM. The older children helped teach the younger children.

Susanna had promised early in life that she would never invest more time in leisure pleasures than in praying and studying the Bible. In the midst of her busy life, she placed two hours a day in her schedule for spending time with God. In order to find privacy, she would pull her apron over her head to form a little tent. The children all knew they should not disturb her, except in the event of an emergency.

Susanna started a Bible study in her kitchen on Sunday afternoons. The study had to move to a different location, since it grew to as many as 200 attendees.

SUSANNA’S WRITINGS

From the gcah.org website (General Commission of Archives and History of the United Methodist Church) I learned that as her children matured, Susanna wrote manuals to guide them on subjects such as the attributes of God, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Holy Spirit.  Her spiritual nurture is evident is this excerpt from one of the letters written to her children, this one to Samuel around 1704: “A Christian ought, and in general does, converse with the world like a stranger at an inn; he will use what is necessary for him, and cheerfully enjoy what he innocently can, but at the same time he knows it is but an inn, and he will be but little concerned with what he meets with there, because he takes it not for his home.”

All of this already seemed very impressive. Then I read an article about Susanna Wesley on a website by a woman named Sharon Glasgow. She shared some details that made Susanna Wesley’s determination and dedication even more remarkable. One of the Wesley children was crippled. Another of their children was unable to talk until almost age six. Susanna was frequently sick most of her life. One of the Wesleys’ daughters became pregnant by a man who never did marry her.  Though Susanna was distressed by this, she was faithful to keep praying for her. Sharon Glasgow recommends a biography entitled Susanna Wesley—Servant of God by Sandy Dengler.

SUSANNA’S INFLUENCE ON THE WORLD THROUGH TWO SONS

Susanna was undoubtedly a profound influence on her sons John and Charles, who turned out to be a global influence on Christianity. The Christian History website provided me with a brief overview of John and Charles Wesley. It declares that they “are among the most noted evangelists who ever lived.” When young, John and Charles originated a group at Oxford University that was given a ridiculing label of “Methodists” because they had a method to go about obeying the commands of the Bible. Eventually they discovered that they could not be saved by works and found salvation through Christ. They then carried the message of salvation by faith in Christ throughout England through their sermons and music. John Wesley is actually believed to have prevented a bloody revolution in England, as the one that took place in France.

In a christianity.com article called “John Wesley’s Big Impact on America,” I learned how John came to saving faith in Christ. In 1735 John boarded a vessel bound for Georgia in the American colonies, bent on bringing Christianity to Native Americans. The ship contained 26 German Moravian Christians. When a devastating storm battered the ship one night, the Moravians continued joyfully singing and showed no fear. Their pastor spoke to John of knowing Christ and knowing he was saved.

GEORGE WHITEFIELD

Wesley’s mission to America seemed to fail, but an English horseback preacher named George Whitefield came to America and preached salvation by grace and being born again. He was instrumental in the “Great Awakening” in America. Wesley’s message of righteousness may have paved the way for Whitefield’s message of the power to change through salvation.

John was invited to a Moravian service in London in 1738. While some read a Luther commentary on the book of Romans, John’s heart was “strangely warmed.” He experienced salvation. Whitefield preached messages of salvation by grace in England, and revival broke out in Bristol. Whitefield invited Wesley to take his place preaching in Bristol. Wesley preached in other parts of England as well. Being gifted in the ability to organize, Wesley set up Methodist societies in England. In 1784 he appointed leaders for America, and the Methodist church swept through America.

I wondered whether John had ever married, having read of a failed romance he had in America on the christianity.com website. I found the “sad story” on a website called christiantoday.com. It truly is a sad story. In 1751 [8 years after his mother’s death in 1742] he married Molly Vazielle.  [Another source says John was 48, and Molly was a widow.] Due to John’s busy preaching schedule, his wife was frequently left alone for weeks. She began to mistakenly suspect that he was being unfaithful. His correspondence with other women upset her, even though the contents was spiritual. She gave Wesley’s enemies slander material and someone reported seeing her become physically abusive. The words John wrote to her were sometimes harsh and provided no affirmation of her needs. Molly finally left John for good in 1771. [I couldn’t help but think that maybe the fact that his mother was so amazing and his father was often absent and neglectful wasn’t good preparation for his own marriage. No doubt Satan tried to use John’s marriage problems to destroy his ministry.]

THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR -1756 to 1763

It’s probable this war added extra tension to home life at this time. The History Channel’s website provided information on this war. Winston Churchill called it “the first world war.” France, Britain, and Spain struggled over possession of the colonies in America. Meanwhile, Frederick the Great of Prussia battled Austria, France, Russia, and Sweden. The end of the war brought two treaties. In the Treaty of Hubertusburg, Prussia gained Silesia. France, Great Britain, and Spain agreed to the Treaty of Paris, which drew colonial lines that mostly favored the British. This ended the “French and Indian War” in America. The advantage gained by the Bristish prompted France to align with the colonists in the Revolutionary War.

The website at gcah.org filled in some information about John’s brother Charles. Charles left for the American colonies with John in 1735, but he only stayed in the colonies for 6 months. After his return to England, he was cared for by a man named Mr. Bray and a man named William Holland. They led him to salvation through faith in 1738, just three days before John experienced salvation at the German Moravian service. Charles began writing hymns and preaching throughout England.

I began to wonder whether the Puritans and Separatists and the Church of England did teach salvation through faith in Christ. According to the vancechristie.com article entitled “Gaining Assurance of Salvation,” they did teach it. They placed great emphasis on righteousness and works, which may have caused many to get their focus off of salvation by grace. I often observe that we suffer from a lack of balance in many areas of life. This seems to be a perfect example of the need for balance. Focusing completely on grace and forgetting that God wants us to be transformed in our behavior can cause a lack of the righteous living that God desires us to have. But focusing completely on righteous behavior and forgetting the grace by which we can find salvation can cause empty efforts to try to be righteous on our own without  the spiritual rebirth that provides our salvation and makes transformation possible by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In 1748, Charles was ill in South Wales, at the home of the Gwynne family. He ended up marrying the Gwynnes’ daughter, Sarah Gwynne. Charles and Sarah had eight children, but only three lived past infancy. [Another source says four children survived him.]

The hymnary.org website tells us that Charles wrote the lyrics for about 6,500 hymns. Not all were of the same quality, but many were excellent. Some well-known hymns containing his lyrics are “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” and “Jesus, Lover of My Soul.” Through the years they have been set to different melodies.

The christianity.com website mentioned a detail that shows the great impact that Susanna Wesley had on her children. It is reported that at age six or seven John Wesley believed he would never marry. He said it was “because I could never find such a woman as my father had.”

SUSANNA’S IMPACT TODAY

Susanna’s life is an inspiration to persevere in the hardest of circumstance. Her dedication to God is an example for all of us. Her vow not to ever spend more time on entertainment than time with God is very relevant to our lives today. Our leisure activities may be different from what hers were, but the same principle applies. I don’t know for sure what Susanna’s pleasures were. Maybe the biographies shed light on that. No doubt reading was one of them. Maybe  she enjoyed embroidery or tending to a rose garden. Putting time with God before pleasure was a common Puritan teaching , but the vow she made and kept seems remarkable to me. It seems very unlikely that she found anywhere close to two hours a day for leisure, but she made sure she spent two hours in Bible-reading and prayer. Perhaps spending time with God became a pleasure to her, though not an earthly one. It should become a pleasure for all of us. I believe Susanna must have lived with eternity in mind, realizing that we are only in this world for a time.  She invested her time wisely while on earth, looking forward to her heavenly home without all the problems of this life.

Below you will find two versions of a popular hymn with rich lyrics written by Charles Wesley. The first version has the melody I am accustomed to. The second has a melody unfamiliar to me, heartily sung at a gathering in Wesley’s homeland, Britain. You will see that the song seems to take on two entirely different personalities with the two different melodies.

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