Life At Epworth 41
LIFE AT EPWORTH 41
of-war with the munificent salary of seventy pounds a year and plenty of time to devote to his beloved writing.
But he and Susanna were deeply in love, so he resigned the chaplaincy after a few months and they were married. They settled down to a London curacy which paid a meager thirty pounds. Their lodgings in Holborn were decidedly forlorn, but their hopes were high. From early Oxford days Samuel had earned many a guinea from his poems and other articles.
Now he was beginning to come into his own as a writer.
About this time, in 1690, John Dunton started the publica tion of a penny paper called the Athenian Gazette. This paper, published three times a week, was a question-and-answer periodical designed to cover the whole area of literature.
Associated with him were Samuel Wesley whose field was religion and philosophy, and Richard Sault for mathematics.
The Gazette won high praise from the leading literary and political figures of the day who eagerly submitted articles for publication.
The three contributors to the Athenian Gazette also pro duced an amazing publication called The Young Student's
Library. One of the most important "pieces" in this work was written by Samuel Wesley, then only thirty years old. It bore the pretentious title, A Discourse concerning the Antiquity,
Divine Original and Authority of the Points, Vowels and Accents that are placed in the Hebrew Bible. This heavily named treatise received high praise from some of the leading scholars of the day for its extensive study of Hebrew and Oriental languages and vast knowledge of Rabbinical writings.
Incidentally, there was no gratuity for this scholarly production.
Events moved swiftly for the young Wesleys. Their first child Samuel was born at Holborn—a difficult birth for Susanna—and when the baby was but four months old they moved to South Ormsby, Lincolnshire.
The living there was obtained largely through the influence
SUSANNA—MOTHER OF THE WESLEYS
of the Marquis of Normanby whose country seat was located in South Ormsby. Samuel served as the great man's chaplain and ministered to the villagers as well, but there was ample time also for his literary pursuits. The Gazette folded in 1696, unfortunately for it had given promise of being lucrative.
During the South Ormsby pastorate Samuel published a long poem entitled: The Life of our Blessed Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. This he dedicated, after the custom of the day, to Queen Mary. Perhaps, too, he hoped by this act to win preferment with Her Majesty, head of the Church of England.
Like the rest of his poetry, this work was of dubious literary merit. Certainly his output in this field was copious and was worthwhile to him financially, but his devoted son John could never rate his poems any higher than fair. He wrote too hastily and with little revision, and too long—^much too long.
Of his erudition, however, there can be no doubt. This is evidenced by his many writings and by the high esteem in which he was held by the scholars of his time.
Life at South Ormsby g^ve Susanna little time to indulge her nostalgic longings for the London of her.'girlhood. Her first daughter, Susanna, arrived the first year of their stay in this parish, to live only a few months. Next came Emilia, followed in short order by twins, Annesley and Jedediah who soon took their place beside little Susanna in the churchyard.
Susanna gave birth to another daughter named Susanna, with Mary's advent the next year—seven children in seven years!
Things were always happening to the fiery, forthright rector Samuel Wesley, and this was true during his pastorate at South Ormsby. The dissolute life at the Hall, as the Marquis' home was called, was constantly galling to Samuel, a strict disciplinarian where morals were concerned. To add to his embarrassment, the mistress of Lord Castleton, then renting the Hall, had several times called upon Mrs. Wesley at the Rectory. Things reached a climax one afternoon when, upon returning home, Samuel found this undesirable visitor seated
LIFE AT EPWORTH 43
cozily at his fireside with Susanna. With little ado he "took her by the hand and very fairly handed her out."
From then on the handwriting was on the wall for Samuel in South Ormsby. He retained both the friendship and the chaplaincy of the Marquis, indeed that gentleman recom mended Samuel for an Irish bishopric, but now the rector was persona non grata in that parish.
How Mr. Wesley came by the Epworth living is not known.
He thought Queen Mary had suggested it before her death two years prior to his appointment. Be that as it may, he assumed the duties of his new parish called St. Andrew with a complete dedication which never diminished during his long and chequered career in that rural milieu so unsuited to his talents and temperament Susanna must have been aware of the tragedy of this assignment, for in later years she wrote her brother in India:
"And did I not know that Almighty Wisdom hath views and ends, in fixing the bounds of our habitation, which are out of our ken, I should think it a thousand pities that a man of his brightness, and rare endowments of learning and useful knowledge, in relation to the church of God, should be confined to an obscure corner of the country, where his talents are buried, and he determined to a way of life for which he is not so well suited as I could wish ...
From the very outset at Epworth the impossibility of their financial circumstances was frighteningly apparent to both
Susanna and Samuel, so that Samuel with high but unfounded hopes perforce turned to farming on their glebe lands, for economic salvation! Poor Samuel! Energetic and industrious he certainly was, but fundamentally the rector was a city man and a scholar and totally incapable of learning the ways of a farmer. His parishioners, of course, could have helped him, but he seemed unable to make proper rapport with these country folk and they only stood by, ridiculing his awkward-
SUSANNA—MOTHER OF THE WESLEYS
ness. When his barn fell down during their first year at Epworth, added expense was needed to replace it.
In his business affairs Samuel proved equally inept, so that Susanna with her customary poise took over the management of the glebe lands and the finances. She was careful, however, to do nothing that would discredit her husband. She was ever loyal and firmly taught her children to be so.
There were few idle moments for Susanna. Mehetabel, or Hetty, arrived during the first year at Epworth, followed in rapid succession by five other babies, all of whom died. Baby
Anne put in her appearance in 1702. The "churching of Susanna," one authority observed, referring to the Prayer
Book's office for "The Thanksgiving of Women after Child birth," was "an annual affair at Epworth." That period of English history knew nothing of planned parenthood: Susanna lost nine of her nineteen children before they reached ma turity. All this with only one servant most of her married life!
John Wesley in later life speaks of the serenity with which his mother transacted business, wrote letters, and conversed, surrounded by her thirteen children. This means that three of the nine lived beyond early infancy. But the life-span of these three was not very long, and they do not figure in any histories of the Wesley children.
In spite of all their adversities and the ever complicating spectre of poverty, the rectory of the Wesleys was a happy home,—"they had the common fame of being the most loving family in the county of Lincoln," writes Adam Qarke.
The Wesley children were "a cluster of bright, vehement, argumentative boys and girls, living by a clean and high code, and on the plainest fare; but drilled to soft tones, to pretty formal courtesies; with learning as an ideal, duty as an atmos phere, and fear of God as law." ^ Life at Epworth could not be called completely idyllic, however, for Susanna and Samuel differed often. Indeed, later in life, she wrote to her son John indicating her worry
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that she and his father "rarely agreed on a particular matter."
Theirs was the union of two very strong characters. Samuel's quick-tempered pronouncements were met by the calm, wellreasoned opinions of Susanna, who on her side had difficulty in changing once she had made up her mind. But there was mutual respect as well as love between these two people. Susan na attests her feeling for her husband by her famous letter to her brother Samuel Annesley in India, who had entrusted some business transactions to Samuel with dire results. "He is not fit for worldly business," she admitted with characteristic truthfulness but added with undying devotion: "Where he lives, I will live, and where he dies, I will die and there will
I be buried. God do so unto me and more also if aught but death part him and me."
As for Samuel, no one could deny his love for Susanna after reading these lines which are a part of his Life of Christ, written early in his married life:
She graced my humble roof, and blest my life.
Blest me by a far greater name than wife; Yet still I bore an undisputed sway, Nor was't her task, but pleasure, to obey;
Scarce thought, much less could act, what I denied.
In our low house there was no room for pride; Nor need I e'er direct what still was right.
She studied my convenience and delight.
.Nor did I for her care ungrateful prove.
But only used my power to show my love.
Whate'er she asked I gave, without reproach or grudge.
For still she reason asked, and I was judge; All my commands, requests at her fair hands.
And her requests to me were all commands.^ Some writers have too greatly belittled Samuel Wesley and given him a low rating in comparison with his unusual wife.
He has been accused of shrewd conniving for preferment.
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even of setting fire to the Epworth rectory on the occasion of its burning, not to mention the accusation of an utter lack of understanding for his daughters. But regarding his daughters we must remember that he, too, should be judged according to the standards of his own day. Perhaps there were things about Susanna that irked him; he was full of a spontaneous wit, and not even Susanna's most ardent admirers have ever attributed much of a sense of humor to her. Perhaps it was a trial to Samuel also that Susanna would not always follow the accustomed submissive pattern of a wife of the eighteenth century.
These are mere matters of conjecture. What we do know is that the Epworth parsonage produced children of exceptional qualities whose love and concern for one another persisted to the end of their lives.
There must have been some relief from oppressive debts during their early stay at Epworth, for there is a letter written by Samuel in December of 1700, to the Archbishop of York, relating at length his pecuniary difficulties. This appeal resulted in the needed help.
The Wesleys settled down to the life of their parish. Susanna was content to let Samuel pursue what he considered to be in line with his duties—his writings, his trips to London—^but she remained at home. Her entire life was centered about the rearing of the children, attention to the business of the home, and the life of the parish. She had few congenial friends in Epworth and is said to have made only one trip to London in the forty years of her sojourn at Epworth. But she was never bored.
Samuel took an active part in the wider affairs of the Established Church. Early in his pastorate at Epworth he was selected to preach the sermon at the time of the bishop's visitation in the neighboring town of Gainsborough; three times he was sent to the Convocation in London,' as the
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representative of his diocese. Each trip meant a personal expense of fifty pounds. The family finances could ill afford this outlay, but it was the Lord's work, and the budget had to be stretched to meet it.
Samuel Wesley was a Tory through and through and his belief in the divine right of kings remained firm as ever when
William of Orange and his queen supplanted the Stuarts in 1688. But Susanna, who was a Jacobite, considered the Prince of Orange to be a usurper. When one evening at family prayers she failed to say "Amen" to the rector's prayer for the king, he took her to task for it. She stated her views in no uncertain sound, and, as John Wesley's Journal relates the story, she was "inflexible." "Sukey, if that be the case," rejoined the rector, "we must part, for if we have two Kings, we must have two beds." He thereupon took his departure for London in high dudgeon and did not return until Anne's accession to the throne saved face for him.
An interesting sidelight on this episode is contained in an excerpt from a letter of Mrs. Wesley to her confidante. Lady
Yarborough of Snaith Hall, in which Susanna states that she had told her husband that "since I'm willing to let him quietly enjoy his opinions, he ought not to deprive me of my little liberty of conscience." ® It is true that a trip to the Convocation coincided in time with this departure, but the episode exemplifies how uncompro mising they both were in what they considered matters of conscience. It was following their reconciliation that John, their most famous son, was conceived and born.
From the very beginning things never went very smoothly in the local parish. Samuel Wesley was a strict disciplinarian where his parishioners were concerned. He minced no words in his preaching, and tact was noyer one of his virtues. On one occasion he came upon a parishioner cutting ears of corn from the tithe sheaves and putting them in his own sack. Samuel took the man bodily to the marketplace of the village, emptied
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the bag before the dumbfounded people, related the story of the thievery, then stalked home to the rectory.^ He also forced some of his wayward flock to stand barefoot on the cold church floor Sunday after Sunday in penance for some misdemeanor.
The people of that area were disturbed anyhow. When Samuel came to Epworth they were still in the throes of settling the terms under which their island home had been drained by the Dutch engineer Vermuyden, brought there for that purpose. In return for his services Vermuyden was to receive a third of the land, the Crown another third, and the natives were to get the remaining third. Working out this triple ownership entailed a complicated and bitter controversy.
Vermuyden brought in workmen from his own country who proved unwelcome to the native people. Then Vermuyden sold part of his holdings and retained a part. To add to the general confusion, some of the tocal inhabitants were loath to relinquish their rights. There was much double and crooked dealing in the whole affair, making the people of Epworth more rebellious and violent than even their natural bent called for. Accordingly, they expressed their frustration by violent acts—burnings, tearing down dykes, and the like.
All in all, the early days at Epworth were a time of mis fortune for the Wesleys. During a dry spell sparks caught in the thatched roof of the rectory and two thirds of the house was destroyed. No one was hurt and the books and library were left intact, but rebuilding was costly. To add to the Wesleys' troubles, the parishioners hated their rector's High
Church ways and his fierce royalist sympathies. He had once written a letter to a fellow minister condemning the Dissenters' educational system, and without his knowledge the letter was published. This did not increase his popularity, particularly when he was indebted to the Dissenters for his early education.
Furthermore, his flock bitterly resented their rector's censure of their morals, and took it out on him and his family in many ways. They burned his flax crop, taunted the Wesley children.
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pried the hinges off the rectory doors. They stabbed his cows so that they gave no milk and once even tried to cut off the . legs of the house dog.
Things came to a climax in the local elections of 1705.
With great zeal but insufficient knowledge Wesley promised his vote to the wrong candidates; then, discovering his mis take, publicly repudiated his commitments. This infuriated the men of Epworth. His life was threatened, and while he was away casting his vote the townspeople kept up an all-night harassment of Mrs. Wesley and the children, drumming, shouting, and firing pistols directly under the window where
Susanna lay, weak from the recent birth of a baby. The baby was being cared for across the street by a nurse who, exhausted after the night's disturbances, slept so heavily that she rolled on the baby and smothered it. When the nurse awoke and discovered what she had done, she became almost distracted, rushed into the rectory, and threw the baby into the arms of the servant. The maid ran to Mrs. Wesley's room and, before Susanna was half awake, placed the dead baby into her arms.
"She composed herself as well as she could,'' says her husband, "and that day got it buried.''
The election fiasco did not end here for the Wesleys. One of the enraged parishioners, to get even with Samuel, de manded the immediate payment of a debt of the rector's, amounting to a mere thirty pounds. Samuel did not have the ready cash, but his creditor would not give him even one day of grace, had him arrested and forthwith carried off to the debtors' prison at Lincoln Castle.
Susanna was left at home with all the care of the family and only ten shillings with which to feed them. Three of the cows she depended on for food for the children had dried up, due to the stabbings they had received. But her great concern was for her husband who had "little above ten shillings'' in his pocket and must provide food for himself in the jail. Susanna sent him her rings—all she had—but gallant Samuel returned
SUSANNA—MOTHER OF THE WESLEYS
them to her. Samuel, in turn, frustrated over leaving his "poor lambs in the midst of so many wolves," again sought the help of the Archbishop for his desperate family, and again the appeal was not in vain.
Archbishop Sharpe decided to pay a personal visit to Epworth to see for himself how the mistress of the parsonage was faring. It is easy to imagine the flutter of excitement that ran through the household as the great prelate with his en tourage appeared at the door. But Mrs. Wesley was not in the least perturbed. After all, she had grown up in the company of some of the leading divines of England; why should she be awed by a mere archbishop? There is no doubt as to the impression this visit made upon the kindhearted cleric, as he witnessed the indomitable courage of the proud lady of that parsonage, her intelligence and dedication in surroundings that bespoke extreme poverty.
After promising her relief from their present distress and the payment of her husband's debts, the archbishop said to Susanna:
"Tell me, Mrs. Wesley, whether you ever really wanted bread ?"
"My Lord," was her candid reply, "I will freely own to your Grace that, strictly speaking, I never did want bread. But then,
I had so much care to get it before it was eat, and to pay for it after, as has often made it very unpleasant to me. And I think to have bread on such terms is the next degree of wretchedness to having none at all."
The archbishop is said to have left a generous gift of money on the table as he departed. Mrs. Wesley, gracious lady that she was, quietly accepted it in the spirit in which it was given.
Meanwhile Samuel took up life in the Lincoln prison with the optimism of a Micawber. Confident that Susanna would carry on at home with her customary inventiveness and efficiency, he tackled the self-appointed task of rector to his fellow jailbirds.
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"Now I am at rest," he wrote to the archbishop, "for I am come to the haven where I've long expected to be," adding that perhaps he might "do more [good] in this new parish than in my old one." ® He preached to the prisoners on Sunday, had morning and evening prayers, and, with the help of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, was able to distribute Christian literature to his fellow inmates. Again
Archbishop Sharpe, backed by others of the clergy, came to Samuel's rescue. They arranged for the payment of his debts, and after three months in the Castle he was released to return to his family at Epworth.
Never once did it occur to Samuel to seek another parish, in spite of advice to the contrary. "'Tis like a coward to desert my post because the enemy fire thick upon me," was his rejoinder.
In 1704, at the age of fourteen, Susanna's eldest son Sammy, as he was affectionately called, went off to West minster to school. This must have been a painful separation for Mrs. Wesley. Though she was rigidly impartial in the treatment of her children, if she had a favorite it was probably young Samuel. This may be accounted for by the fact of his difficult birth and the awful anxiety under which she lived until he was five years old. For it was not until this age that he spoke his first words. Then, too, Samuel was the oldest child, and she always leaned on him. Indeed, as long as he lived he was a tower of strength to his family and took upon himself more than his share of their cares and financial woes.
Samuel went about his work as faithfully as ever after his return from prison. In the fall of 1706, Patty was born, and in December of the following year, Charles. Samuel was as faithful as ever in his ministrations as pastor of his flock, visiting them from house to house, but he was not popular.
Had the writer of the Book of Job lived at a later period he might well have had the Wesleys in mind when he penned his famous proverb: "Man is born unto trouble, as the sparks
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fly upward." This was literally true of the rectory family on the night of February 9, 1709, when the sparks not only flew upward but flew in all directions, and fire completely destroyed the house. Some authorities, including John Wesley himself, believed the fire to have been of incendiary origin—^the fenmen had been guilty of similar depredations before. However, this is hardly a fair accusation. A thatched house of lathes and plaster, candles for light, plus the rector's absentmindedness, may easily have added up to a fire.
The story of the fire, pieced together from accounts written by both Susanna and Samuel, is a dramatic one. Susanna, who was within a short time of what proved to be her last accouche ment, had retired for the night; so had the rest of the family.
Hetty who occupied a little room up under the eaves, was awakened by fire falling on her bed. She gave the alarm which was taken up by passersby on the street. Samuel was aroused by the cry of "fire" from outside and with but little on besides his nightshirt led the way downstairs, the two older girls arousing the rest of the children. Susanna would have tarried to bring out the little money they had upstairs, but Samuel bade her "fly for her life." When they reached the front door he remembered he had left the door key upstairs. So holding his breeches over his head he dashed back to recover it, the stairs by that time being already ablaze. No one had time to put on any clothes.
With the opening of the street door the northeast wind drove in the flames, making all return to the upper floor impossible. Meanwhile some of the children had gotten out through the windows, the rest through a door into the garden.
Susanna was in no condition to climb out the window nor could she get to the garden door. Finally, she waded through the flames at the front door and collapsed outside in the garden.
The maid, aroused by Susanna, brought out the baby in her arms, telling John and the other children sleeping with her in the nursery to follow.
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By this time the fire had reached such proportions that all was in the wildest confusion. No one knew whether other members of the family had escaped until Samuel finally could assemble his little brood about him in the garden—^all safe except John whose cries could be heard from the upper floor.
Several times Samuel tried to mount the stairs to fetch him out, but the whole stairway was ablaze. Thinking the boy lost,
Samuel fell on his knees in the yard and commended his soul to God. Apparently the little fellow had not awakened at the maid's call. When he did and tried to go through the door the flames prevented him. But the crowd outside caught a glimpse of the tiny figure at the window, for he had climbed up on a chest beside it.
"Fetch a ladder!" shouted one man—^but there was no time for that. Then a big practical villager ("who liked me," Samuel later narrated) braced himself against the wall while a smaller man climbed up on his shoulders. The first time the slighter man fell; the second try was successful, and strong arms lifted the little fellow out of the window. It was in the nick of time, for just then the whole roof fell in.
"Come, neighbors," cried Samuel, as the Wesley family shivered beside the charred ruins of their home, "let us kneel down; let us give thanks to God ... ; let the house go. I am rich enough."
Yes, Susanna and Samuel were abundantly wealthy in the courage and fortitude necessary to rise above calamity, but this, catastrophe robbed them of every material thing they owned: their home, their furnishings, the books, Dr. Annesley's precious papers, and their own writings.
Ever afterward John Wesley referred to himself as "the brand plucked from the burning." Perhaps his miraculous escape deepened in him a sense of his calling. Certainly Susan na believed he was saved for some great purpose, for she later wrote: "I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this child, that Thou has so mercifully provided for."
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Kezziah, the youngest child, was bom in March, 1709, a matter of weeks after the ordeal of the fire.
To Mrs. Wesley's great distress, following the fire the family had to be separated until the rectory could be rebuilt.
Emilia, then seventeen years old, cared for her mother for nearly a year in lodgings at Epworth. Young Susanna and Hetty were sent to London to live with their uncle. Dr.
Matthew Wesley; young Susanna stayed with Samuel Annesley until his departure for India. John is said to have stayed in the home of a minister. The rest were scattered about in the homes of the villagers of Epworth. During this dispersion the children learned rough ways and uncouth speech quite foreign to their upbringing in the rectory, and it took time and great patience on the part of their mother, when they finally got back home, to correct such thing^s.
Samuel, with the help of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, succeeded in rebuilding the rectory, this time with substantial brick. The family, however, never completely recovered from the loss incident to the fire. Years later Susanna wrote to her brother in India: "Mr. Wesley rebuilt his house in less than one year; but nearly thirteen years are elapsed since it was burned, yet it is not half furnished, nor his wife and children half clothed to this day."
The children were put into a
REGULAR METHOD OF LIVING.
SUSAIVIVA ag MOTHER and TEACHER *> In the England of Susanna's day elementary education, where there was any, was often in the hands of a tutor. Sammy was the only one of Mrs. Wesley's children to receive such instruc tion. He was enrolled at Mr. John Holland's private school in Epworth, but this gentleman was so eccentric and imbibed to such excess that Samuel was removed from his school at the end of a year. Besides, in the destitute Wesley family there
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were no funds for schooling, so Susanna permanently took over the education of her children.
At the proper time the three boys were sent to preparatory schools, Samuel and Charles to Westminster, John to Charterhouse; the girls had no other education than that received at home, with the exception of Susanna and Hetty during their stay in London following the fire.
The wonder is that any one person could have maintained such a schedule as Susanna Wesley set for herself. In addition to her constant childbearing, the conduct of her household with insufficient domestic help, her management of the tithes and glebe lands, and her parish duties, she kept school for many years for her large family and did it well.
To accomplish such a gargantuan task, she had to work out a systematic method of procedure. The statement by Fitchett that the childhood piety of John Wesley was "constructed on the principle of a railroad time table" is therefore not surprising.
Historians are unanimous in saying that Susanna was a born teacher. She had the patience for it. On one occasion her hus band, sitting in on a session of the school, counted the number of times she repeated one bit of information to the same child. Always impatient, he could sit quietly no longer. "I wonder at your patience," he cried. "You have told that child twenty times the same thing."
"If I had satisfied myself by mentioning it only nineteen times," was the calm reply, "I should have lost all my labor. It was the twentieth time that crowned it."
Years later one of Charles Wesley's sons was to say of his grandmother: "She had the happy talent of imbuing a child's mind with every kind of useful knowledge in such a way as to stamp it indelibly on the memory." More important than that,
Susanna Wesley gave to her pupils a love of learning that was to flower out, particularly with her brilliant sons, in an astonishing way.