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are so many, as I have lately found out, that were he to save fifty pounds a year he would not be clear in the world this seven years. So here is a fine prospect indeed of his growing rich! Not but he may be out of debt sooner if he chance to have three or four such years as this has been; but for his getting any matter to leave behind him more than is necessary for my mother's maintenance is what I see no likelihood of at present. . . . Yet in this distress we enjoy many comforts. We have plenty of good meat and drink, fuel, etc., have no duns, nor any of that tormenting care for to provide bread which we had at Epworth. In short, could I lay aside all thought of the future, and could be content without three things, money, liberty, and clothes, I might live very comfortably. While my mother lives I am inclined to stay with her; she is so very good to me, and has so little comfort in the world besides, that I think it barbarous to abandon her. As soon as she is in heaven, or perhaps sooner if I am quite tired out, I have fully fixed on a state of life—a. way indeed that my parents may disapprove, but that I do not regard. Bread must be had, and I won't starve to please any or all the friends I have in the world.2
Not long after the Wesleys moved to Wroot a newspaper notice announced that Mr. Samuel Annesley was returning to England in one of his company's ships. What an event this was to be for Susanna—a reunion with her long-absent brother and possible financial salvation through his wealth! For such a great occasion Susanna emerged from her retirement and made the journey to London to meet him. This was probably the one visit in forty years which she paid to the city of her birth.
Susanna looked forward in eager anticipation to a happy family reunion. John was to come from Oxford to join his mother in welcoming his homecoming uncle back to England.
Then they would all repair to the home of Samuel, Jr. at Westminster to celebrate Mr. Annesley's return. But a bitter disappointment was in store for Susanna. John's finances were
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in such a state that he could not make the trip to London, and when the East India Company's ship docked, Susanna's brother was hot on it, nor was he ever heard from again. There was something very mysterious about Mr. Samuel Annesley's strange disappearance. Repeated inquiries failed to reveal any knowledge of his whereabouts and no trace of him was ever found. His fortune disappeared with him, so that Susanna never received the thousand pounds she had been led to expect from his estate.
Unfortunately, too, the rector's optimism over the financial advantages of the second living were completely unjustified.
The fifty pounds which the Wroot living brought in did little more than pay the salary of the curate whom the addition of the second parish made necessary.
During the year 1725, smallpox reached epidemic propor tions in Mr. Wesley's parish, and Mrs. Wesley reported to her son John that now every member of their family had had it except herself.
Anne's marriage to John Lambert, a young land surveyor of Epworth, took place early in the family's stay at Wroot.
This was one of the few happy marriages for the Wesley girls.
In the spring of 1725 Samuel Wesley had a slight stroke which permanently disabled his right hand. He met this mis fortune with an indefatigable spirit. "I have lost the use of one hand in the service," he later wrote to the Reverend
Mr. Piggot, Vicar of Doncaster, "yet, I thank God, non deficit altera, and I begin to put it [the left hand] to school this day to learn to write, in order to help its lame brother." ®
As if calamity had not visited the Wroot parsonage often enough, a more serious trouble befell the Wesleys in the fate of Hetty. Late in the spring she left her place of employment at Kelstein to elope with a lover who cruelly betrayed her. She returned home in disgrace. Later that year, in desperation, she made an unsuitable marriage which will be described later on.
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Early in the stay at WrcKDt John wrote his parents, express ing his interest in going into holy orders. His father, in reply, advised him to take his time in making his decision and suggested that meanwhile he engage in further study. Think ing of his own work, Mr. Wesley expressed the hope that this study would be useful to himself in an edition of the Holy Bible which he was proposing to prepare and continued with a state ment that would make helpful reading for ministerial candi dates of any age; "As to the motives [for entering into holy orders] you take notice of; it is no harm to desire getting into that office, even with Eli's sons, 'to get a piece of bread'; . . . though a desire and intention to lead a stricter life, and a belief one should do so, is a better reason. But this should by all means be begun before, or else, ten to one, it will deceive us after wards.' . . . But the principal spring and motive, to which all the former should be secondary, must certainly be the glory of I God, the service of His Church, with the edification of our neighbour; and woe to him who, with any meaner leading view, attempts so sacred a work." * ' Susanna was not in agreement with her husband Samuel in the matter of John's ordination. "I approve the disposition of your mind," wrote Mrs. Wesley to John, "and think the sooner you are a deacon the better; because it may be an inducement to greater application in the study of practical divinity, which I humbly conceive is the best study for candi dates for orders. Mr. Wesley differs from me, and would engage you, I believe, in critical learning. ... I earnestly pray
I God to avert that great evil from you of engaging in trifling studies to the neglect of such as are absolutely necessary.
I dare advise nothing; God Almighty direct and bless you!" ® ; It was his mother's advice that John Wesley followed, and he was ordained deacon by Bishop Potter, the bishop of Oxford. The ceremony was delayed for financial reasons but took place September 19, 1725.
SUSANNA—MOTHER OF THE WESLEYS
Meanwhile, in the summer of 1725, Samuel Wesley, Jr. with his wife and little son delighted the family at Wroot with a visit. Some historians suggest that this visit was made in an effort to soften the hearts of his parents toward Hetty. How ever that may be, Samuel, Sr. remained obdurate and un forgiving.
These were eventful years for the Wesleys, the years spent at Wroot. About 1725 when Charles was still at Westminster
School, his father received a letter from Garrett Wesley of Donegan Castle, a member of the Irish branch of the family.
He inquired as to whether the rector had a son named Charles.'
Finding that this was so, and having no children of his own, this wealthy relative wished to make Charles his heir. It was an astonishing proposal, but the decision was with finality left to Charles who declined the offer. Susanna never mentioned this incident in any of her letters. Certainly some additional money would have solved many of the Wesley problems, but Charles undoubtedly had good reason for turning down this windfall.
The summer ddmpness at Wroot caused Susanna much physical discomfort, particularly when heavy rains made the terrain more boggy even than usual. Emilia suffered from malaria in the unhealthy climate and went back to Lincoln in an effort to regain her health and seek employment.
In the midst of the many trials and tribulations of the Epworth Wesleys, one of the happiest events of their lives occurred on March 17, 1726, when John became a Fellow of Lincoln. "Wherever I am, my Jack is Fellow of Lincoln!" was the rector's ecstatic reaction to the news.
Election as Fellow of a college of Oxford was not only an honor but carried with it a yearly stipend, in addition to the regular stipend for whatever academic duties the position re quired. The Fellows were free to pursue their studies in what ever direction they wished and to do tutoring for additional money. Every Fellow of an Oxford College had the right to a
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set of rooms in his college, rent free, irrespective of whether he was actually in residence. If he was on leave of absence he was entitled to the rent from his rooms if they were occupied by other members of the College. John Wesley continued as a Fellow of Lincoln for twenty-six years until the day of his marriage.
It had taken no small amount of sacrifice on the part of both Susanna and Samuel to keep John at Oxford, and now had come the fulfillment that made their long-continued efforts worthwhile. This additional income would enable John to support himself and to help with the education of Charles who was just entering Oxford. True, John would require twelve pounds immediately, and the rector was in debt to Sammy for another ten pounds which the latter had loaned to John. This would leave only five pounds with which Susanna must main tain the family until harvest, but the old familiar specter of insolvency paled in the light of this momentous happening in I the life of dear Jacky.
Very shortly after his election, John came to Lincolnshire and helped his father through the entire summer. He preached
I twice each Sunday, either at Wroot or Epworth, visited the people and assisted Samuel with the monumental writing on , Job. During this period John began keeping a careful personal
I diary. This diary was in cipher and is not to be confused with his famous Journal.
John's stay at home was a particular delight to his mother, for he spent many hours with her, reading aloud, and convers ing at length about such subjects as theology, his sermons, as well as more personal matters regarding his life and conduct.
! Here he could also enjoy the company of the Wesley sisters who were then at home. He bought.for them many articles they were unable to provide for themselves.
In these maturer years of Susanna, the contemplative side of her nature came more and more to the fore. The years of childbearing were behind her as well as the exacting schedule
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of her family classroom. She realized that her husband, though as sprightly as ever and making fun of his increasing physical ills, was failing in health. Furthermore, Susanna now knew for a certainty that Samuel would never have another parish, one better suited to his temperament and superior talents.
The dreary fenlands of Lincolnshire would be their home to the end of the chapter, with the never ceasing struggle for existence that had characterized their life in this uncongenial parish from the beginning.
Susanna herself was far from well during these years. There were long periods when she was confined to her bedroom and when the girls had to take over her duties in home and glebe.
And so, Susanna increasingly turned to her writings, to her letters to the children who had gone out from the home, and to the cultivation of those qualities of life and thought that trans cend the material and the earthy.
Years before when Susanna was about thirty years old, with her demanding brood around her, she had adopted the practice of observing an hour of solitary meditation in the early morning—and very early it was—and also in the evening.
Later in life she added a noonday period. Nothing was allowed to interfere with this schedule, for she believed that such times of solitary communion were essential if she were to play her exacting role with the composure and self-control it required.
Her thoughts during these hours of private devotion she sometimes wrote down and embodied in letters to her children for their edification. Others of her meditations were later found among her private papers. Here is the beginning of one of her Morning Devotions, undated as were all such writings.
It would seem from this excerpt that she is actually addressing herself and exemplifying one of her most striking characteris tics : the ability to be almost completely objective in evaluating herself and her growth, or the lack of it, as a personality.
"It is very likely that your humour last night was, rather the effect of fancy and passion than of a clear sound judgment. If
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otherwise, why did you feel uneasiness at another person being out of humour? Was it not pride made you resent contra diction?" ® And in a letter to her son John she says; "I heartily wish you would now enter upon a strict examination of yourself."
This marked trait of impartial self-analysis which she helped inculcate in her son had decided results in the type of leader ship he was able to give in establishing the Methodist move ment.
In the early summer of 1727, the rector wrote a number of letters to his sons, John and Charles, which clearly revealed his decline in health. Therefore John prepared to return to Lincolnshire to act as his father's curate for a time.
"I hope I may still be able to serve both my cures this summer," said Mr. Wesley in one of his letters, "or if not, die pleasantly in my last dyke." In another he proposes that John make Wroot his headquarters when he comes, with the rector himself to stay most of the time at Epworth. "The truth is," father Samuel writes, "I am hipp'd by my voyage and journey to and from Epworth last Sunday; being lame<i with having my breeches too full of water, partly with a down fall from a thunder shower, and partly from the wash over the boat. . . . They tell me I have lost some of my tallow between Wroot and Epworth but that I don't value, as long as I have strength left to perform my office. ... I am weary, but your loviqg father."
Still another letter outlines the difficulties of transportation.
The Wesley horses had outlived their usefulness, and perhaps John should purchase one on the way there. Excessive rains had washed out some of the crops and made land travel im possible between the two parishes.' And running through nearly every letter like a leitmotiv is "Job," with its insatiable calls for help that were never entirely satisfied to Samuel's dying day.
Susanna's physical condition during this period wa^ of great
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concern to Samuel. One of his letters expresses the wish that both John and Charles come home. Their mother has been seri ously ill, he says, and they will find her noticeably altered.
Alarmed by this news, they both made the trip to Epworth and happily found their mother greatly improved. While at Ep worth they visited Emilia and Kezzy in Lincoln where both were employed at Mrs. Taylor's school. John remained a whole year, acting as curate for his father, then went back to Oxford where, on September 22, 1728, he was ordained a priest in the Church of England. Shortly after this ordination he re turned to Epworth to assist his father for another year. He was then recalled to Oxford and at the request of Dr. Morley, the rector of his college, was made moderator of Lincoln.'^
About this time Mr. Wesley sustained a serious accident.
Susanna tells in a letter to John, dated July 21, 1731, how she, Martha, and the maid were riding in the family wagon, with Samuel seated on a chair at the rear of the vehicle. Suddenly, going down hill, the horses broke into a gallop and Samuel was thrown out. Susanna's chair was at the front of the wagon.
When the horses quickened their pace, the maid, with great presence of mind, threw her whole weight against Susanna's chair, thus saving her from a fate similar to Mr. Wesley's.
Fortunately some neighbors were close by and their quick action and that of the driver saved Samuel's life. He was badly bruised and shaken, but the wheels fortunately had only crushed his sleeve. He was placed in the bottom of the wagon and Susanna held his head between her hands during the slow, painful trip home. The following Sunday he insisted upon conducting his services as usual but did so with noticeable difficulty. Though he continued to go about his duties as if nothing had happened, he was never quite the same after his accident.
By 1731, the Wesleys had returned to the Epworth rectory to live, and it was during this year that Dr. Matthew Wesley,
Samuel's brother from London, visited them for the first time.
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It was he who had opened his home to young Susanna and Hetty after the fire. Also, he had befriended Hetty during the difficult days following her unfortunate marriage.
Dr. Wesley proved a most agreeable guest, but he was "strangely scandalized," as Susanna put it in a letter to John,
"at the poverty of our family," the scant furnishings, and the "mean" clothes the beautiful daughters were forced to wear.
He was much impressed by Patty, and during his visit Susanna and Samuel granted his request to permit Patty to go to London to live with him "for a year or two." Actually, she remained a member of his family for a number of years.
Some time after his return to London, Matthew Wesley wrote a scathing letter to his rector brother, censuring him for the poverty-stricken conditions at the Epworth rectory.
These he attributed to Samuel's poor management of his salary.
"You have a numerous offspring," wrote Matthew Wesley, I "you have had a long time a plentiful estate, and have made no provision for those of your own house, who can have nothing in view at your exit but distress. This I think a black
! account. ... I hope Providence has restored you again to give you time to settle this balance." ® This letter was in many respects grossly unjust. Samuel
W^esley, as anyone acquainted with his circumstances knew, never had a "plentiful estate." Some of the injustice of this letter may possibly be laid to the affluent writer s complete ignotance of the financial demands that were a part of the life of a dedicated parson with a large family, but the letter cut deep. In response, Samuel Wesley wrote at great length to ' his brother, trying to answer his accusations, or rather, he dictated the greater portion of it to Susanna and to John, since he had by now little use of his hand. This undated epistle is one of the last Samuel Wesley ever wrote. He is proud of his numerous offspring and his rearing of them, he tells his brother. Has he not given to three of them the best education
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England affords? He has no doubt of God's provision for his family after his death. As in the families of many English gentlemen, those of his children who are more comfortably off will help the others. He admits his lack of skill in "worldly affairs," but has "all his life labored truly both with his hands, head and heart ... to get his own living, and that of those who have been dependent on him." (This letter was written in the third person.) Whether this epistle satisfactorily refuted Dr. Matthew
Wesley's charges is not known, but the interchange gave Samuel long thoughts about the future of his family.
This period in Susanna's life was one of bitter dejection.
She called it her "sad defection when I was almost without hope." One thinks always of Susanna as mistress of every situation confronting her, an invincible woman. But the in firmities of age' were increasing for her, infirmities which seem premature to those familiar with twentieth-century geri atrics. Much of her time she was forced to spend in bed, and there was always the specter of Samuel's failing health and the lack of security for them both in their approaching old age.
It is no wonder that from her sickroom, in February 1732, she wrote to John:
"I never did much good in my life in the best health and vigor, and therefore, I think it would be presumptuous in me to hope to be useful now. It is more than I can well do to bear my own infirmities and other sufferings as I ought and would do."
But her actions belied her words. She had ten more years of life ahead of her, and in those years she was to make un precedented adjustments and help to shape a movement world wide in its impact.
Samuel's narrow escape from the wagon accident, added to his brother's reproof, made him think more seriously than ever before of what was to become of Susanna should she survive him. Accordingly, he wrote to his son Samuel, proposing to
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resign the Epworth living in his favor. This would mean that Susanna could continue to live in the rectory and would be tenderly cared for by the oldest son, who had already shared so many of the family's burdens.
But Samuel declined the olf6r. He knew all too well the inconveniences of Lincolnshire life as compared with London.
Besides, he had his own plans about his mother, with no other idea than to provide for her in his own home as long as she lived.
Next, the rector made the same proposal to John, who set down twenty-six reasons why he should not accede to his father's request. Also, he had found out that the chances of effecting a transferal of the Epworth living so as to keep it in the Wesley family were exceedingly slim.
Meanwhile, Susanna and Samuel had taken into their home John Whitelamb, a thin, ungainly youth, a native of Wroot and product of its Charity School. "Poor, starveling Johnny,"
Susanna called him—a most suitable epithet. John Whitelamb served as amanuensis to the rector in the further compila tion of the Dissertations on the Book of Job.
John Whitelamb gave promise of becoming a fine scholar.
He was an enthusiastic pupil of Mr. Wesley during his stay in the rectory, and poor as they were, the Wesleys managed to send him through Oxford, even clubbing together to supply a gown for him which his own meager resources could not provide. John Wesley was his tutor at the University, serving without pay. After his ordination, John Whitelamb returned to Epworth in the capacity of curate to Mr. Wesley.
Mary Wesley, or Molly, the third of the Wesley daughters, always remained at home. She had a beautiful face but a body shortened and misshapen because of. an injury received in infancy, thought to be due to a nurse's carelessness. Molly's nature was as lovely as her face and without a trace of bitter ness. She proved very successful in the management of the glebe lands and was her mother's standby, particularly during
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Susanna's many spells of illness. She was devoted to her father, too, and more understanding of him than were her sisters.
She and John Whitelamb were, of necessity, closely associ ated during his years as a member of the Wesley household.
After he had finished Oxford and had become Samuel Wes ley's curate, he proposed marriage to Mary and she accepted him. The family highly approved of the match, for John and Mary were genuinely in love with each other.
Samuel succeeded in having the living at Wroot transferred to John Whitelamb and promised to supplement by twenty pounds annually the meager fifty pounds which that parish paid. There were few clergymen who were willing to live in such an unattractive place as Wroot, but the Whitelambs loved it and happily began their married life there.
It was short-lived, however. Mary died within a year in childbirth, and baby and mother were buried together in the same grave. Whitelamb quietly served on at Wroot for more than thirty years but lost touch with the Wesleys in after years.
He became uncertain in his beliefs, was once almost a deist and at another time leaned toward the Roman faith. However, as the Methodist revival began to spread, Whitelamb had John
Wesley preach in his sanctuary—one of the few Church of England pulpits in which Mr. Wesley was then allowed to speak. And when John Wesley preached from his father's grave, September 6, 1742, John Whitelamb was a part of the large audience that heard him. Following this occasion White lamb wrote John Wesley a moving letter of appreciation for what the Wesley family, and John particularly, had done for him.
After Mary's death, Whitelamb returned to the Epworth household and was immediately put to work on the Disserta tions on the Book of Job, as was everyone Samuel could commandeer for the completion of his labor of twenty-five years.
But the end was approaching for Samuel Wesley, and
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Susanna knew it. "Your father is in a very bad state of health," she wrote to John; "he sleeps little and eats less. He seems not to have any apprehension of his approaching exit, but I fear he has but a short time to live. It is with much pain and difficulty that he performs Divine Service on the Lord's Day, which sometimes he is obliged to contract very much. Every body observes his decay but himself, and people really seem much concerned for him and his family."
Meanwhile, Samuel was giving a goodly portion of his ebbing strength to his Dissertations which he firmly believed would be so well received that it would bring in a sizable
I income sufficient to take care of whatever might happen.
Poor Samuel! If only he could have been practical enough to put his superior talents to shorter writings of a more popular nature! Many of his contemporaries had done this and had reaped a rich financial harvest thereby. But Samuel Wesley j could never lower his sights to a level he considered unworthy
! of his scholarship.
Adam Clarke says of the Dissertations: "It is one of the 1 most complete things of the kind I have ever met with; and j must be invaluable to any man who may wish to read this i book critically." But the rector's ponderous tome was written entirely in Latin and was doomed from the outset to be a failure as a best seller. The engravings illustrating the book were in general done by John Whitelamb. "Nothing can be
! conceived more execrable," was one critic's evaluation of them.
The frontispiece by Virtue was well done, an engraving of the venerable patriarch, seated in an ancient chair, scepter in hand,
I dispensing, justice. Samuel Wesley must have lived so long : with Job's troubles as well as his own that they had become
S)monymous in his mind, for the face and figure seated in that f ancient chair were none other than those of Mr. Wesley himself!
The last trip the rector made to London was in promotion of Joh. This time his manservant, John Brown, was sent to
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London to attend him home. Parenthetically, Samuel Wesley never lived to see the Dissertations on the Book of Job in print, but Samuel, Jr. completed the work for him. Six months after his father's death, John Wesley presented the book to queen Caroline to whom it was dedicated. When John Wesley was introduced into the royal presence, relates Adam Clarke, the queen was playing with her maids of honor. She received the volume graciously from John's hand. "It is very prettily bound," she said, and laid it down without once looking at its pages. When John Wesley made his bow and withdrew she returned to her play.
As spring came on in 1735, Susanna knew that her hus band's end was near and sent for John and Charles. Mary was dead now, leaving only Kezzy at home to help care for her parents, and John Whitelamb. Emilia came home from Gains borough where, with a little help from her brothers, she had set up her own school. She and John and Charles took turns in waiting on their father, and he was able to enjoy their company before the end came.
There were dreams unfulfilled for Samuel Wesley as he came to the close of his life: his parish would not pass to his sons but to a man of whom he heartily disapproved; his beloved Job was not yet published, and dear Sammy he would not see again in the flesh.
The words of advice he had given his sons from their very infancy continued almost to the last. "The inward witness, son, the inward witness," he repeated to John in those last days,
"that is the proof, the strongest proof of Christianity." And to Charles, laying his hand on his youngest son's head: "Be steady. The Christian faith will surely revive in this kingdom; you shall see it, though I shall not."
Susanna was completely "broken down." She went into the sickroom at intervals but each time she fainted and had to be carried out. Death came quietly for Samuel Wesley on
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April 25, 1735, at the age of seventy-two, and he was buried in the Epworth churchyard.
John settled up his father's affairs. The debts amounted to little more than one hundred pounds, but when everything was sold and the accounts tallied up there was little left for Susanna. So for the rest of her life she had no choice but to live with her children. Her letters reveal no word of complaint, though there must have been some sorrowful pangs as she left forever the familiar halls of this rectory she had occupied for nearly forty years with her beloved companion.
"But heaven hath a hand in these events," as Shakespeare put it. Susanna Wesley had yet another mission to perform, and she was to perform it well.
The seven Wesley daughters,
THESE HANDSOME, SPIRITED GIRLS.
THE
DAUGHTERS
If Susanna Wesley had sat down at the end of her life and objectively evaluated it—and she, if anyone, could have been perfectly impartial in such a summation—she would undoubt edly have concluded that her greatest contribution to the world was in her children. Upon them she poured cut an intelligent and selfless devotion from the birth of "dear Sammy" to the last day of her life. No biography of Mrs. Wesley, therefore,