A Mother in Israel
CHAPTER FOUR
A Mother In Israel The chief part of family care and government consisteth in the right education of children.
Richard Baxter o| Rete Book of Proverbs characterizes the virtuous woman as one who, 'openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness. Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.' Susanna Wesley probably came as near to embodying this scriptural ideal of the good wife and mother as mortal woman ever has done; and her father's old friend Richard Baxter would certainly have rejoiced at the great pains she took over 'family care and government'. In this prime matter, she makes clear that her whole 'method'— the word is her own—was devoted to the one supreme end of saving her children's souls. Her concentration and singleness of purpose were quite extraordinary, as indeed they needed to be, for she had to face numerous handicaps and 1 Proverbs 31: 26ff.
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disabilities. If she had had nothing to do except manage her household and educate her children, she would have had more than enough. She. bore nineteen children, and ten of them, three boys and seven girls, survived infancy. They were lively children and quite sufficient to keep her fully occupied, but while her husband was in London for Convocation,' she had to do her best to supply his place as well.
She had to keep an eye on the parish, oversee the cultivation of the glebe-land belonging to the rectory, manage the family finances, and keep her husband informed by letter of the state of affairs at home.
Nor was it simply a physical burden of work which Susanna carried. She had also to contend with the cares of poverty and debt. Whether or not, as Samuel's poem declared, 'In our low house, there was no room for pride,' there was certainly none for extravagance. Every penny counted, and waste was a luxury which could not be tolerated. It may well be that John Wesley's lasting concern for the poor owes a good deal to his being the child of a poor home himself. He grew up in a house where the pressure of debt was one of the constants of daily life, and a sore trial to his mother. In 1705, with her husband in jail for debt, she was reduced to extremities. She describes an interview she had with John Sharp, the Archbishop of York: ' "Tell me," said he, '""Mrs Wesley, whether you ever really wanted bread?" "My lord," said I, "'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!' °2 Archbishop Sharp agreed, and gave her a generous money gift to tide her over this crisis.
* As he was for several months during the years 1701 and 1702.
* Clarke, Wesley Family, I, 391.
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Susanna's cares and troubles pressed so heavily upon her, that at times they crept into her prayers and devotions.
She became so preoccupied with making ends meet, so careful for food and clothing, that at one point she became convinced that she had fallen prey to covetousness. She probed herself with the scalpel of self-examination, and: asked : 'Since you seem to me to have desired no more than a competency of the things of this world, no more but only what was sufficient to preserve you from want and debt...
. how were you guilty of covetousness in those desires?' Her scrupulous conscience, unwilling to acquit her, pointed out that, 'we may be in some degree guilty of that sin, when our desires of necessaries, or conveniencies are attended with anxiety and uneasiness of mind.' Her evening meditation crystallized her conviction that, by having her 'thoughts... too much upon the things of this world', she had been guilty
'of some degree of covetousness and idolatry'. The next day, she administered the self-reproof: "You must in the first place examine your self whether you love riches or honour &c., so much as to be the least uneasy without them."!
The temptation of a poor parson's wife to pay undue regard to riches and honour may seem at first sight quite unreal. Yet Susanna was not only a poor parson's wife. She was the daughter of a distinguished and quite wealthy
London divine. As Dr Annesley's daughter, she had enjoyed a modest share of the riches and honour that were his. She found very little of either at Epworth, and it was natural that the contrast with her former station in life should tempt her to feel dissatisfied and resentful. The strain her circumstances imposed on her shows through another meditation, where she records her disappointment at being plunged into money troubles again, just as she seemed about to get clear of them for a time:
1 Headingley MSS, A. ff. 138ff.
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Evening. You had long hoped and expected by your care, frugality, and industry to have provided amply for the ensuing summer, and thought that such a sum which you believed you should receive upon account would infallibly prevent the pressures you lay under last year. Upon review of income and exits you find yourself greatly disappointed and that all your prospects of ease and plenty was but a dream, and after all you are like to be involved in greater difficulties than your boasted prudence could foresee. This hath somewhat discomposed your mind and hath disposed it to that anxiety about the things of this world that in obedience to the command of Jesus Christ you have resolvedly avoided for some time...
She did not, however, give way to recrimination, but instead thanked God for this 'dispensation of his providence', which had given her, 'a sight and sense of some sins which before I could not have imagined I was in the least inclined to, namely of idolatry and covetousness, and want of practical submission to the will of God'.1
Inevitably at times she longed to be free of the continual care and bustle of the household, as when she confided to her devotional journal: 'Were I permitted to choose a state of life, or, positively to ask of God any thing in this world,
I would humbly choose, and beg that I might be placed in such a station wherein I might have daily bread with moderate care, without so much hurry, and distraction ; and that I might have more leisure to retire from the world, without injuring my (?husband)? or children. Nor should any consideration of interest, of riches, honour, pleasure, prevail upon me, to encumber myself with such a multiplicity of business, as I now submit to, only in obedience to the order of Divine Providence.' Yet even at this point, she had the insight and the grace to add, 'I do not know whether such a state of life would really be best for me: nor am I assured that if I had more leisure, I should be more zealously devoted to God, and serve him better than
2 Headingley MSS, A. ff. 136-7. For Susanna's three daily periods of meditation, morning, noon, and evening, see below, p. 136.
* Susanna often leaves a blank instead of a proper name or personal reference.
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now.'! The same pressure of material cares led her in 1727, when she had spent more than thirty years in her struggle at Epworth, to make a vow after the manner of the Patriarch
Jacob. She promised, 'If it will please God indeed to bless me, and . . . if he will vouchsafe to give me food to eat, and raiment to put on, without debt, without this extreme distress, then will I offer up myself absolutely, entirely to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate God, only Saviour of the world !'2
Yet her struggle against poverty was only part of the story.
It might be thought, from the sheer amount of work which Susanna managed to accomplish, that she was the tireless kind, a robust, hearty, indefatigable woman.
She was nothing of the sort. In addition to the strain of incessant childbearing, she had constantly to contend with physical weakness. Her wrestling with domestic and financial difficulties was accompanied by a life-long battle against illhealth. In the words of her husband, for a considerable part of her life, she was ailing for half the year. Her reaction to bodily pain was to make a renewed effort to submit her will to God, and so strive to make physical trials yield some spiritual fruit. In one of her meditations, she recorded:
'Often interrupted by bodily infirmities indeed. Yet such is the will of God; therefore, in this case, your duty is patience and submission. Still remember, obedience is better than sacrifice.'* Because of her poor health, she made it a rule,
'never to drink anything strong, but merely for refreshment.'
So we find her in one morning meditation reprimanding herself for 'drinking twice of ale in so short a time', and going on to make her delicate constitution a ground for thanksgiving : 'You have great reason to adore the great and good
God, that hath given you so nice a constitution, as will not bear the least degree of intemperance. He might have made
1 Headingley MSS, A. f. 17f.
2 Headingley MSS, A. end papers (unfoliated).
3 Headingley MSS, A. f40.
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you strong to endure the excesses others run into, and so you might often have been exposed to temptations to offend, whereas now you are doubly guarded, both by his wise and holy laws, and an infirm body. Glory be to Thee, O Lord!'?
The absence of self-pity, and the determination to extract positive good from her infirmity, are both typical of Susanna.
After a disturbed night's rest, she deals very sternly with herself for being so upset by it: 'Ifa little pain, or an uneasy bed, be so tiresome for one night, what will you do if God in his infinite wisdom should think fit to afflict you with a long or very painful sickness before he takes you out of the world???
Susanna rarely refers to her ailments in her letter, but twice in 1732, while writing to her son John, she does so.
In February, she speaks of knowing from experience the state in which, 'every member of the body is the seat of pain;'% while in October she explains briefly that she would-have written sooner, but for 'pain of body and other severer trials not convenient to mention'. On another occasion she describes herself as 'one that, by sickness, is compelled to spend great part of her time in a chamber'.® According to one of her daughters, this ill-health was 'often occasioned by want of clothes or convenient meat', but Susanna herself refrains from any such complaint. John seriously thought that illness would carry her off in middle life ; but her frailty was more than compensated by the indomitable will which helped to carry her to the end of a long and ceaselessly active life.
It was not only a busy life, but an anxious one, its surface often ruffled by the winds of circumstance. Debts and duties, sickness and cares, crowded in upon her, and sometimes, as 1 Headingley MSS, A. f. 45.
2 Tbid., A. f. 57.
$ Stevenson, Memorials of the Wesley Family, p. 167.
"Clarke, Wesley Family, I1, 100.
5 Tbid., I, 388.
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we have seen, thrust themselves into the sanctuary of her inner life. Yet for the most part her interior life of disciplined devotion provided her with a depth of peace and calm which worldly care could not finally undermine. John Wesley was later to describe, as he looked back to his childhood,
'the calm serenity with which his mother transacted business, wrote letters, and conversed, surrounded by her thirteen children.'! When the crisis of 1705, leading to her husband's imprisonment for debt, broke upon the family, one of the most impressive features of the whole episode was the serene courage of Susanna. Just before Samuel was arrested in the June, she had the mortification of losing her three-weeks' old baby, through a violent popular outburst against her husband for supporting the Tory candidates in the county elections. Samuel described the events in a letter to Archbishop Sharp, dated 7th June 1705:
I went to Lincoln on Tuesday night, May 290th; and the election began on Wednesday, 30th. A great part of the night our Isle
-_people kept drumming, shouting, and firing of pistols and guns under the window where my wife lay ; who had been brought to bed not three weeks. I had put the child to nurse over against my own house: the noise kept his nurse waking till one or two in the morning. Then they left off; and the nurse being heavy with sleep, overlaid the child. She waked; and finding it dead, ran over with it to my house, almost distracted; and calling my servants, threw it into their arms. They, as wise as she, ran up with it to my wife; and before she was well awake threw it cold and dead into hers. She composed herself as well as she could, and that day got it buried."
The experience was horrible enough in all conscience, and to make it worse her husband was away in Lincoln, and the Epworth mob still kept up their callous racket, even after the child had died. Samuel went on to describe the brutal threats of the 'Isle men' against him and his children. It was rumoured that a gang of them had vowed, 'If they got me
1 Clarke, Wesley Family, 11,7.
~ 2 Clarke, Wesley Family, 1, 211.
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in the castle yard, they would squeeze my guts out'; while, when he got home, 'they sent the drum and mob, with guns,
&c., as usual, to compliment me till after midnight. One of them passing by on Friday evening, and seeing my children in the yard, cried out, ''O ye devils! we will come and turn ye all out of doors a begging shortly." ' These trials, with the impending imprisonment of her husband hanging over her head, might well have reduced a lesser woman to a state of nervous collapse. Yet Samuel, though himself 'disturbed and disordered' in mind, could report to the Archbishop, 'All this, thank God, does not in the least sink my wife's spirits,'+ Three months later Samuel wrote to the Archbishop from Lincoln Castle, on the 12th of September, describing another cowardly attack on his 'forlorn family' by the Isle men: 'The other matter is concerning the stabbing my cows in the night since I came hither, but a few weeks ago; and endeavouring thereby to starve my forlorn family in my absence; my cows being all dried by it, which was their chief subsistence; though I hope they had not the power to kill any of them outright.' Yet still Susanna managed to bear up: 'Tis not every one could bear these things,' wrote Samuel with a world of under-statement, 'but, I bless God, my wife is less concerned with suffering them than I am in the writing, or than I believe your Grace will be in reading them.'? Five days later he wrote to thank the Archbishop for his financial help, and disclosed how, on his first coming to the jail, his wife had sent him all the realizable wealth she had: 'My
Lord, I am so full of God's mercies that neither my eyes nor heart can hold them. When I came hither, my stock was but little above ten shillings, and my wife's at home scarce so much. She soon sent me her rings, because she had nothing else to relieve me with; but I returned them, and God soon
'Clarke, Wesley Family, I, 211-12.
* Clarke, Wesley Family, 1,217.
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provided for me."! His spirit in many ways matched hers, and he too could rise magnanimously to the occasion; but there is no doubt that in this crisis of the family fortunes, it was Susanna who bore the brunt. She had to keep the home going and make ends meet. She had to face the attacks of the Epworth louts upon their property. Samuel, lodged in his debtors' prison, but still able to continue his pastoral ministry there, was at least free of all that. Her rings may have been all she had to relieve him with, in a tangible sense; but it must have been an untold relief to Samuel to know that, as he testified himself, "My wife bears it with that courage which becomes her, and which I expected from her.'?
Despite poverty, sickness, and extraneous misfortune, Susanna managed her large household with conspicuous success. She did more. She devised a careful system of religious training for her children, whose spiritual nurture she looked upon as a sacred trust. Richard Baxter, one of her favourite authors, admirably expresses the profound sense of responsibility for her children's spiritual welfare which inspired her efforts. In a section of The Saints' Everlasting Rest,
Baxter urges parents to face up to their spiritual duties, and points out that mothers are in a specially advantageous position in this matter: 'Especially you, mothers, remember this; you are more with your children while they are little ones than their fathers, be you therefore still teaching them as soon as ever they are capable of learning. You cannot do
God such eminent service yourselves as men, but you may train up children that may do it, and then you will have part of the comfort and honour . .
. What a deal of pains you are at with the bodies of your children more than the fathers, and what do you suffer to bring them into the world; and will you not be at as much pains for the saving their souls?
You are naturally of more tender affections than men; and o 1 Tbid., I, 220.
2 Thid., I, 213. b*
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will it not move you to think that your children should perish for ever? Oh, therefore, I beseech you, for the sake of the children of your bowels, teach them, admonish them, watch over them, and give them no rest till you have brought them over to Christ.'+ It is quite likely that Susanna had read these words of Baxter ;2 but whether she had or not, they express precisely the spirit in which she embarked on the Christian nurture of her family. In 1709 she wrote to her son Samuel, "There is nothing I now desire to live for but to do some small service to my children; that as I have brought them into the world,
I may, if it please God, be an instrument of doing good to their souls.'* She mentioned that she had for some years been compiling a 'little manual' of instruction in the Christian faith, for her children's use; but that all her writings had been destroyed when their house was burned down in that same year. In 1712, however, she wrote another treatise for the use of her children, and prefaced it with a text which echoes Baxter's concern: 'I write unto you little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you." In this spirit she devised a careful system of religious training for her children, who were put into, 'a regular method of living' from babyhood. As soon as they reached their fifth birthday, Susanna put them to school in the house, and herself taught them their letters and their faith for six hours a day. How did she manage it, with all her other commitments? The key to her success was her 'method'. She worked to rule,—though in anything but a trade-union sense. The only way in which she was able to give so thorough a training to her large brood of children, was by carefully dividing her day according to an ordered timetable, and by 1 Baxter, Practical Works, (ed. Orme), XXII, 154-5.
2 See below, p. 138.
® Clarke, Wesley Family, II, 3of.
" W.H.S. Pubns., No. 3, Mrs Wesley's Conference with her Daughter (1898), P5-
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placing the children's education high on her list of priorities.
In his sermon to the House of Commons many years before, her father had asked the Members pointedly, 'What are you in matters of religion, and the power of godliness?' and again, 'What are you in your Families? Are they wellordered (little) Common-wealths, well-disciplined Churches?'
Susanna's household was a choice example of both.
When another Puritan divine, Timothy Rogers, preached at the funeral of Susanna's sister, Elizabeth, in 1697, he gave some advice which Susanna could not have followed more closely had he given it to her personally. He stressed that,
'Mothers may do great Service to Religion, by leaving good Advices to their Children,' and developed his point in a way that was prophetic of Susanna's efforts: 'If good Women would apply themselves to reading and study, as the Men do, or had equal Advantage for Knowledge in their Education, no doubt we should have more of their excellent
Composures, many of them have an happy Genius, and a smooth Expression, and might write as well as work, and the Pen might have as good success as the Needle; especially, they may make Observations, or draw up Rules for the good order of their own Families, and when they see fit, communicate them for the Good of others.'!
Mrs Wesley, wittingly or not, took this typically Puritan piece of advice, and drew up a set of rules for her family.
She also saw fit to 'communicate them for the Good of others', when in 1732 her son John asked her for a precise account of her educational practice, for his own guidance.
The opening paragraph of her detailed reply, written on 24th July 1732, is typical:
Dear Son, According to your desire, I have collected the principal rules I observed in educating my family.
The children were always put into a regular method of living, 1T. Rogers, The Character of a Good Woman, pp. 48f.
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in such things as they were capable of, from their birth; as in dressing and undressing, changing their linen, &c. The first quarter commonly passes in sleep. After that, they were, if possible, laid into their cradle awake, and rocked to sleep ; and so they were kept rocking till it was time for them to awake. This was done to bring them to a regular course of sleeping, which at first was three hours in the morning, and three in the afternoon ; afterwards two hours, till they needed none at all. When turned a year old (and some before), they were taught to fear the rod, and to cry softly, by which means they escaped abundance of correction which they might otherwise have had; and that most odious noise of the crying of children was rarely heard in the house, but the family usually lived in as miich quietness as if there had not been a child among them.?
Susanna's competence is vouched for by one of her grandchildren, Samuel, the son of Charles Wesley, who in some manuscript memoirs writes of her:
My Grandmother . .
. was a Person of great literary Attainment, and herself educated her numerous family until they were grown up. She had the happy Talent of imbuing their Minds with évery
Species of useful Knowledge, and in a Method which left all that was taught indelibly imprest on their Memory.
She had a Room appropriate for this Purpose, and accustomed each Child to communicate to another whatever he or she had gained from its Mother; and what was most remarkable they never suffered Punishment from the Rod; for from their Infancy they had been taught to fear it, and cry softly, so that a Finger held up was sufficient to restrain or correct whatever was deserving Animadversion.2
The substance of this paragraph is found in Susanna's own account, but the two details of the separate schoolroom and Susanna's warning finger most probably represent the reminiscence of Charles rather than the embellishment of his son.
Order and restraint were the hallmarks of the Wesley household, as Susanna's description of the children's behaviour at meals makes plain. They learned to eat whatever was set before them at 'their little table', which was 'set by 1 Clarke, Wesley Family, I1, 9.
* British Museum Additional MSS 27, 593. f. 1.
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ours, where they could be overlooked'; and were taught never to shout for what they wanted, but make whispered requests through the maid. The maid put them all to bed between seven and eight o'clock, and left them to go to sleep on their own, 'for there was no such thing allowed of, in our house, as sitting by a child till it fell asleep.?! They were trained to be courteous, both to the servants and to one another: "They were quickly made to understand they might have nothing they cried for, and instructed to speak handsomely for what they wanted. They were not suffered to ask even the lowest servant for aught, without saying,
Pray give me such a thing; and the servant was chid if she ever let them omit that word.' They were not allowed
'to call each other by their proper names without the addition of brother or sister'. (John Wesley's use of 'Brother' and 'Sister' for the members of the Methodist Societies, went back not only to the New Testament Church, but to the family life of Epworth rectory.) The fact that the children were taught at home did not mean that they escaped the disciplines of school. On the contrary, for six hours a day they applied themselves steadily to their lessons, and their studies rapidly bore fruit. Susanna describes the regime:
There was no such thing as loud talking or playing allowed of; but every one was kept close to business for the six hours of school. And it is almost incredible what a child may be taught in a quarter of a year by a vigorous application, if it have but a tolerable capacity and good health. Kezzy excepted, all could read better in that time, than the most of women can do as long as they live. Rising out of their places, or going out of the room, was not permitted, except for good cause; and running into the yard, garden, or street, without leave, was always esteemed a capital offence.?
In ethos the rectory resembled a small private boarding 1 Clarke, Wesley Family, II, 10.
2 Clarke, Wesley Family, II, 13.
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school, for Susanna took good care, as this extract shows, to isolate her children from the rough crude life of the parish.
All went well until the fire of 1709, which not only burned down the rectory, but scattered the children and threatened to undo much of Susanna's training. Sukey and Hetty went to live for a time with their Uncle Matthew Wesley, a London doctor, but the others were boarded out with folk in the village, from whom they learned an unaccustomed freedom and a very different code of behaviour from the one their mother had instilled into them. Susanna's chagrin can be imagined, and even shows through her objective account of the sequence of events :
For some years we went on very well. Never were children in better order. Never were children better disposed to piety, or in more subjection to their parents, till that fatal dispersion of them after the fire, into several families. In those they were left at full liberty to converse with servants, which before they had always been restrained from; and to run abroad to play with any children, good or bad. They soon learned to neglect a strict observance of the Sabbath; and got knowledge of several songs and bad things, which before they had no notion of. That civil behaviour, which made them admired when they were at home, by all who saw them, was in a great measure lost ; and a clownish accent and many rude ways were learnt, which were not reformed without some difficulty.
Her observation that their habits 'were not reformed without some difficulty', is no doubt a characteristic understatement.
Compared to what they had been, Susanna's children were evidently beginning to run wild. The Lincolnshire accent which they had picked up was only a token of a general deterioration of their manners which had set in; but to Susanna the situation was merely a challenge, to be taken up at once. She soon had them back to their former ways, and even added improvements to her system. She began to enlist the aid of the older children in helping to train the younger ones, and described the 'strict reform' she entered on when the family were together again in their new house:
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"Then was begun the custom of singing psalms at beginning and leaving school morning and evening. Then also that of a general retirement at five o'clock was entered upon. When the oldest took the youngest that could speak, and the second the next, to whom they read the psalms for the day, and a chapter in the New Testament: as in the morning they were directed to read the psalms, and a chapter in the Old; after which they went to their private prayers, before they got their breakfast, or came into the family.'!
The memory of this fire and the burning of their old home, must have stamped itself indelibly on the minds of the Wesley children. We may trace the fire's after-effects in John's description of himself as 'a brand plucked from the burning', and in the flame of the Spirit which is such a constant motif in Charles's hymns. For Susanna too the fire was a turning point. The family reform she instituted once they were settled in the new house, was carried forward by theological treatises, which she wrote for her children's
'benefit, and by regular weekly interviews in which she gave each child personal instruction in the Faith. She resolved to take special care of John, who had been so providentially rescued from the blaze just before the roof fell in. On 17th May 1711, as part of her evening meditation, and under the heading of 'S.J.' (Son John), she vowed to God,
'I would, if I durst, humbly offer Thee myself and all that Thou hast given me, and I would resolve (Oh give me grace to do it) that the residue of my life shall be all devoted to thy service; and I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this child that Thou hast so mercifully provided for, than ever I have been, that I may do my endeavour to instil into his mind the principles of thy true religion and virtue. Lord, give me grace to do it sincerely, and prudently, and bless my attempts with good success.'?
1 Clarke, Wesley Family, II, 13f.
2 Headingley MSS, A. f. 65f.
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~ In her family, Susanna had eight rules or "'bye-laws', which constituted a kind of children's charter at Epworth, and which show an unusual degree of enlightened common sense and understanding of the child mind. She detailed them for John's benefit, though it is hard to believe that he had quite forgotten these eight pillars of wisdom from the world of his childhood :
There were several bye-laws observed among us. I mention them here because I think them useful.
- 1. It had been observed that cowardice and fear of punishment often lead children into lying; till they get a custom of it which they cannot leave. To prevent this, a law was made that whoever was charged with a fault, of which they were guilty, if they would ingenuously confess it, and promise to amend, should not be beaten:...°.
2. That no sinful action, as lying, pilfering at Church or on.the Lord's-day, disobedience, quarrelling, &c., should ever pass unpunished.
; 3. That no child should ever be chid or beat twice for the same fault ; and that, if they amended, they should never be upbraided with it afterwards.
4. That every signal act of obedience, especially when it crossed upon their own inclinations, should be always commended, and frequently rewarded, according to the merits of the case.
5. That if ever any child performed an act of obedience, or did any thing with an intention to please, though the performance was not well, yet the obedience and intention should be kindly accepted, and the child with sweetness directed how to do better for the future.
6. That propriety! be inviolably preserved ; and none suffered to invade the property of another in the smallest matter, though it were but of the value of a farthing, or a pin; which they might not take from the owner without, much less against, his consent.
This rule can never be too much inculcated on the minds of children ; and from the want of parents or governors doing it as they ought, proceeds that shameful neglect of justice which we may observe in the world.
7. That promises be strictly observed; and a gift once bestowed, and so the right passed away from the donor, be not resumed, but left to the disposal of him to whom it was given;
1 |.e. property rights.
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unless it were conditional, and the condition of the obligation not performed.
8. That no girl be taught to work till she can read very well; and then that she be kept to her work with the same application, and for the same time, that she was held to in reading. This rule also is much to be observed ; for the putting children to learn sewing before they can read perfectly is the very reason why so few women can read fit to be heard, and never to be well understood.
Yet if these 'bye-laws' seem liberal and enlightened, Mrs Wesley's description of the essential preliminary to her system of training, has led some to stigmatize her whole
'method' as cruel and reactionary. This judgement rests upon one section of the letter, which to the unsympathetic reader may well suggest that Susanna's children had imposed upon them a joyless and repressive regime, with the fear of 'the rod' dominating their lives from babyhood onwards. The passage merits quotation in full:
In order to form the minds of children, the first thing to be done is to conquer their will, and bring them to an obedient temper.
To inform the understanding is a work of time; and must with children proceed by slow degrees, as they are able to bear it: but the subjecting the will is a thing which must be done at once, and the sooner the better; for by neglecting timely correction, they will contract a stubbornness and obstinacy which are hardly ever after conquered, and never without using such severity as would be as painful to me as to the child.
Her aversion from severity, which is apparent here as it is in the 'bye-laws', is confirmed by a passage in one of her meditations. In one of her daily pauses for devotions at noon, and possibly after having dealt rather sharply with one of the children, she warns herself: 'Never correct your children to satisfy your passions, but out of a sense of your duty to reclaim them from their errors, and to preserve your authority. And then be exceeding careful to let the measure of correction, be proportionable to the fault. Make great
1 Clarke, Wesley Family, II, 14f. Note the typically eighteenth century emphasis, of the 'bye-laws'. on obedience, truthfulness, good faith and rights of property.
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allowances for the weakness of their reason, and immaturity of their judgements.'! Her qualifying clause—'but never spare them through foolish fondness when they sin against God'—does not contradict the mild tenor of the passage, but confirms that she found such 'foolish fondness' as great a temptation as most parents who love their children.
Susanna contrasts her own consistent firmness with the indulgence which passes for kindness in many homes:
In the esteem of the world, they pass for kind and indulgent, whom I call cruel parents ; who permit their children to get habits which they know must be afterwards broken. Nay, some are so stupidly fond, as in sport to teach their children to do things, which in a while after they have severely beaten them for doing.
When a child is corrected it must be conquered, and this will be no hard matter to do, if it be not grown headstrong by too much indulgence. And when the will of a child is totally subdued, and it is brought to revere and stand in awe of the parents, then a great many childish follies and inadvertences may be passed by.
Some should be overlooked and taken no notice of, and others mildly reproved; but no wilful transgression ought ever to be forgiven children, without chastisement, less or more, as the nature and circumstances of the offence may require. I insist upon conquering the will of children betimes, because this is the only strong and rational foundation of a religious education, without which both precept and example will be ineffectual. But when this is thoroughly done, then a child is capable of being governed by the reason and piety of its parents, till its own understanding comes to maturity, and the principles of religion have taken root in the mind.?
Here we see some of the implications of Susanna's method.
Instead of the movement being from foolish indulgence to possibly disproportionate severity, when the parent finally loses patience with a wayward child and 'puts his foot down', the tendency is reversed. Strictness comes first, to reduce the child to a normal temper of obedience, then relaxation and a more easy-going relaxationship. For all that, Susanna's insistence on 'conquering the will of children betimes' may
1 Headingley MSS, A. f. 73.
* Clarke, Wesley Family, II, 11.
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well carry obnoxious overtones for the modern ear. The question is, what did Susanna mean by the expression?
She seems here to have been influenced by the educational theory of John Locke, whose works she read and admired.
Charles Wesley, in dealing with the upbringing of his own first child, John, suggests a link between Susanna's determination to 'conquer the will' and Locke's similar ideas.
Writing to his wife, Sally, Charles urges her confidently, "The most important of all Locke's rules you will not forget: it is that in which the whole secret of education consists— make it your invariable rule to cross his will, in some one instance at least, every day of your life. The Lord give you wisdom and resolution to do so."!
Susanna adopted a similar policy, and it may easily be made to sound harsh and inhuman. Yet by the conquest of the will Susanna surely did not mean that the parent should try systematically to break a child's will-power until it was cowed into abject submission. Her detailed exposition of her system, and the fact that her children grew into such independent and spirited men and women, are sufficient to refute any such view. It has been well said that, "The strongest advocate of the Montessori System would hesitate to affirm that the Methodist Revival was the work of men who had been brow-beaten and cowed in their infancy.'?
Susanna's stress upon 'conquering' or 'subduing' the child's will meant something other than that. It seems to have meant primarily a refusal to let the child have its own way in everything. Here surely is the issue which at an astonishingly early age confronts every parent: is the will of the child, freakish and undisciplined as it is, to be allowed to govern its life and conduct? If it is, then the 'spoiled' child is the result, whose marred, misshapen nature makes clear that in getting the better of its parents, it has got the worst of itself.
1 Cited in F. Baker, Charles' Wesley as Revealed by his Letters, p. 109.
2M. R. Brailsford, Susanna Wesley, the Mother of Methodism, p. 55.
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That, to Susanna, as a wise parent, was sheer cruelty to the child, who could afterwards be brought to disciplined goodness only by a fierce and painful struggle. Her alternative was simply that the child's will should be governed, trained and guided according to the enlightened will of a godly parent. It is vital to realize that it is self-will which Susanna is anxious to subdue. The final paragraph of her exposition of this theme reads:
I cannot yet dismiss this subject. As self-will is the root of all sin and misery, so whatever cherishes this in children insures their after wretchedness and irreligion ; whatever checks and mortifies it promotes their future happiness and piety. This is still more evident if we farther consider that religion is nothing else than the doing the will of God, and not our own; that the one grand impediment to our temporal and eternal happiness being this selfwill, no indulgences of it can be trivial, no denial unprofitable.
Heaven or hell depends on this alone. So that the parent who studies to subdue it in his child, works together with God in the renewing and saving a soul. The parent who indulges it does the devil's work; makes religion impracticable, salvation unattainable, and does all that in him lies to damn his child soul and body, for ever.
Strong words! But they spring from and are consistent with a whole carefully thought-out scheme of theology and devotion, which at a later point we must examine in detail.2
The modern parent who is self-indulgent and ill-disciplined, may well look askance at Susanna's approach, and prefer for his children the easier option of 'self-expression' and 'free development'. He will have noted with disapproval that her 'method' not only sets a high standard for children, but makes very great demands on parents. It is not a matter of the parent imposing his will on the child, but rather of those who are consciously trying to live in conformity to the divine will, bringing up their children in the same obedience.
Dr John Baillie, in recalling his own upbringing, has written 1 Clarke, Wesley Family, II, 12.
2 See below, pp. 131ff.
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some apt words on the subject. He knew himself, from his earliest years, under the authority of the elder members of the household, and yet, he recalls, my earliest memories contain the knowledge that these elders did but transmit and administer an authority of which they were not themselves the ultimate source. For I never supposed that it was merely a case of my father's or mother's will being pitted against my will, still less of their power being pitted against my weakness. I knew they had a right to ask of me what they did and that I had no right to refuse what they asked ; that is, I knew that what they desired of me was right and that my own contrary desire was wrong. But I knew also that their desiring it did not make it right, but that they desired it because it was already right independently of their desire. In other words, I understood that my parents were under the same constraint that they were so diligent in transmitting tome...
He concludes with a reference to his father: 'Actually, the way he himself lived, and the kind of being he was, exercised over me a more powerful and lasting constraint than all his spoken words of command.'! The little Wesleys knew that same constraint, and supremely from Susanna's life and character.
Constraint there certainly was in the Epworth household, but not a trace of overbearing tyranny, which had no discernible place in Susanna's character. She could be firm and strict, but her temper was even and her patience inexhaustible. Once Samuel, whose patience was as short as his temper, was amazed to hear his wife repeat the same thing twenty times to the child whom she was teaching.
' "I wonder at your patience," said he; "'you have told that child twenty times that same thing." "If I had satisfied myself by mentioning it only nineteen times," she answered, "I should have lost all my labour. It was the twentieth time that crowned it." '2 One has the impression that long before that stage, if Samuel had been doing the teaching, he would
1 John Baillie, Invitation to Pilgrimage, p. 37f.
2 Cit. Eliza Clarke, Susanna Wesley, p. 28.
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either have given the child.a good shaking, or flung away from the lesson in disgust. Again, Susanna was not a killjoy, and games and play found a place in her children's lives as they had done in her own.! It was indeed a carefully regulated place, for the whole Puritan ethos, with its stress upon seriousness and duty and redeeming the time, discouraged any undue stress upon amusement and frivolity.
Timothy Rogers, preaching at her sister Elizabeth's funeral, and sketching the ideal 'Character of a Good Woman', included a note on the Good Woman's upbringing of her children. Since Elizabeth Annesley is meant to exemplify this ideal, and since she resembled Susanna in character and outlook, it is interesting to compare this description with Susanna's scheme of religious education in the rectory. The Puritan family likeness is striking. In bringing up her children, says Rogers, the 'Good Woman' forms their Minds to what is best; teaching them betimes to love
God and Goodness, and to look upon Lying and Pride, and all other sins, as much below their Excellent Nature, and a Shame and a Reproach. She betimes guards them against self-will, and peevishness, and obstinacy, and the too great Love of Play, which is the common fault of these little creatures. She keeps them to work, and yet while she saves them from being idle, she is not too severe ; but her Wisdom teaches her to know that such as are ingenious are more excited by good Words than by the Rod.
She knows whilst their Fingers are employ'd, their Thoughts are at leisure; and therefore she orders some to read, while others sowe ; and when she is discoursing, suggests to them some useful
Saying or other almost at every stitch .. .?
Susanna also kept a balance, and was not 'too severe' with her children. She could condemn Thomas 4 Kempis as 'an honest, weak man', because he counselled the rejection of all amusement as sinful. There was laughter in the rectory, and there were games, including, to John's later embarrassment, games of cards. All of which helps to explain why
1See above, p. 55f.
® Rogers, Character of a Good Woman, p. 24f.
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the Wesley children were not repelled by their early training, either as children or in later life. The fact that John Wesley sought his mother's detailed account of her educational aims and practice, is clear evidence that he, at least, was not alienated by her 'method'. Indeed, we have evidence of his positive appreciation of his mother's training, in his own writings on religious education. In his sermon, 'On Family
Religion', he expounds Joshua 24. 15, 'as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,' and urges,
Your children, while they are young, you may restrain from evil, not only by advice, persuasion, and reproof, but also by correction; only remembering, that this means is to be used last ;—not till all other have been tried, and found to be ineffectual. And even then you should take the utmost care to avoid the very appearance of passion. Whatever is done should be done with mildness; nay, indeed, with kindness too. Otherwise your own spirit will suffer loss, and the child will reap little advantage.
The importance which Wesley attached to the work of instructing children in the faith, is apparent from his injunctions to his preachers in the Large Minutes of 17809:
(1) Where there are ten children in a society, meet them at least an hour every week.
(2) Talk with them every time you see any at home.
(3) Pray in earnest for them.
(4) Diligently instruct and vehemently exhort all parents at their own houses.
(5) Preach expressly on education, particularly at Midsummer, when you speak of Kingswood.
"But I have no gift for this."' Gift or no gift, you are to do it; else you are not called to be a Methodist Preacher. Do it as you can, till you can do it as you would. Pray earnestly for the gift and use the means for it."
But the most interesting and relevant document for Wesley's views on the upbringing of children, is an article he wrote for the Arminian Magazine of 1783, entitled 'A Thought on the manner of Educating Children'. It arose, he tells his
1 Wesley, Works, VII, 80.
2 Ibid., VIII, 316. For the less attractive side of Wesley's educational theory, see his A Token for Children, and the Rules of Kingswood School.
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readers, from a chance conversation he had with a certain gentleman who 'objected strongly to the bringing them up too strictly, to the giving them more of Religion than they liked ; to the telling them of it too often, or pressing it upon them whether they will or no', so that in later life they react against it, and turn out worse than other children. Wesley's reply began by deprecating the two extremes of severity and laxity: if they either give children too much of their own will, or needlessly and churlishly restrain them; if they either use no punishment at all, or more than is necessary, the leaning either to one extreme or the other, may frustrate all their endeavours. In the latter case, it will not be strange if Religion stink in the nostrils of those that were so educated. They will naturally look upon it as an austere, melancholy thing; and if they think it necessary to salvation, they will esteem it a necessary evil, and so put it off as long as possible.
All of which is surely admirable testimony to the fact that Wesley came to experience what the 1780 hymn book calls
"The Pleasantness of Religion', because of and not despite, his own upbringing. He concluded, strongly in line with his mother's teaching, that the aim of religious education was
'to turn the bias [i.e. of human nature] from Self-will, Pride, Anger, Revenge, and the Love of the World, to Resignation, Lowliness, Meekness, and the Love of God'.
As far as possible, this end should be effected 'by mildness, softness and gentleness', but where necessary 'we must correct with kind severity'.* "Kind severity' might serve as a good description of Susanna's own practice, and we are reminded of her by John's view that punishment should be carefully controlled and used only as a last resort. Where had Wesley, himself a childless man, learned these lessons, if not among his own brothers and sisters at Epworth, and in mature reflection on his experiences there?
1 Arminian Magazine (1783), VI, 380ff.
2 Tbid.
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The influence of his mother which we can detect in John's sermons and tracts, is also apparent in Charles Wesley's hymns 'For Parents' and 'For Children'. The sense of children being a solemn trust to parents, and the need to 'break the will' alike appear in the first hymn in the section
'For Parents' in the 1780 book:
Father of all, by whom we are, For whom was made whatever is; Who hast entrusted to our care A candidate for glorious bliss:
Poor worms of earth, for help we cry, For grace to guide what grace has given; We ask for wisdom from on high, To train our infant up for heaven.
In a later verse of the hymn, parents ask for grace:
To time our every smile or frown, To mark the bounds of good and ill:
And beat the pride of nature down, And bend or break his rising will.?
In another hymn we find the same emphasis on mildness and gentleness in dealing with the child, as in the writings of Susanna and of John:
We would persuade their hearts to obey; With mildest zeal proceed ; And never take the harsher way, When love will do the deed.
For this we ask, in faith sincere, The wisdom from above, To touch their hearts with filial fear, And pure, ingenuous love.
To watch their will, to sense inclined ; Withhold their hurtful food ; And gently bend their tender mind, And draw their souls to God.?
1 A Collection of Hymns for the use of the People called Methodists (1780), No. 467 verses I, 2, 8.
2 Ibid., No. 468, verses 6, 7, 8..Cf. Hymn 469, verses 6, 12.
I2!I
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Finally, in a hymn 'For Children', parents beseech all the resources of the Godhead to equip them for their great task:
Come, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, To whom we for our children cry ; The good desired and wanted most, Out of thy richest grace supply ; The sacred discipline be given, To train and bring them up for heaven.?
This prayer for 'sacred discipline' was one which Susanna might well have offered. In her own way, she did so; and it was because her prayer was answered that her sons could echo so faithfully her own ideal of religious training.
Susanna's whole scheme of general education for her children was set within the framework of worship and family devotion. As she described it to John in her long letter of 1732:
Our children were taught, as soon as they could speak, the Lord's prayer, which they were made to say at rising and bedtime constantly; to which, as they grew bigger, were added a short prayer for their parents, and some collects, and some portion of Scripture, as their memories could bear. They were very early made to distinguish the Sabbath from other days, before they could well speak or go. They were as soon taught to be still at family prayers, and to ask a blessing immediately after, which they used to do by signs, before they could kneel or speak.?
Later, as the children grew older, Susanna set aside special times for their individual spiritual nurture: 'On Monday,
I talk with Molly; on Tuesday, with Hetty; Wednesday, with Nancy; Thursday, with Jacky; Friday, with Patty;
Saturday, with Charles; and with Emily and Sukey together, on Sunday.'* These private sessions with their mother must have left an ineffaceable impression on the minds of the children. The mere fact that she, who never trifled with one precious moment of her time, should be prepared to lay out
1Tbid., No. 473, verse 1.
2 Clarke, Wesley Family, II, 12.
® Thid., II, 92.
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so much of it on their behalf, was enough of itself to convince them of the importance of the instruction they received.
The Puritan preachers of the seventeenth century had 'particularized' in their preaching, or in other words had made close and searching personal application of the truths of the Gospel to the condition of their hearers. Susanna stood in that tradition, as she strove with patient insight to bring home to each individual child the relevance of Christian truth to its own heart and life. Jacky (John) Wesley certainly never forgot his Thursday evening appointments with his mother. The effect of them may be gauged from a letter he wrote to her years later, when he was a Fellow of Lincoln
College, Oxford. He sought her prayers to help his efforts to follow a strict rule of life and to 'renounce the world', and reminded her: 'In many things you have interceded for me and prevailed. Who knows but in this too you may be successful? If you can spare me only that little part of Thursday evening which you formerly bestowed upon me in another manner, I doubt not but it would be as useful now for correcting my heart as it was then for forming my judgement."?
In addition to these personal interviews with her children, Susanna prepared for their instruction special manuals of Christian teaching. The first was composed in the form of a letter to Sukey, who was then away from home because of the fire, and expounded the Apostles' Creed. Susanna wrote from Epworth on 13th January, 1710: 'Dear Suky, Since our misfortunes have separated us from each other, and we can no longer enjoy the opportunities we once had of conversing together, I can no other way discharge the duty of a parent, or comply with my inclination of doing you all the good I can, but by writing.'? The strongly intellectual cast of 1 Wesley, Letters, I, 110.
2 Headingley MSS, C. f. 11. Clarke, Wesley Family, I1, 38-72, prints Susanna's exposition of the Creed in full.
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Susanna's piety is seen in her stated aim, 'to lay a good foundation, that you may act upon principles, and be always able to satisfy yourself, and give a reason to others of the Faith that is in you.' She went on to review the religious instruction her daughter had already received, and urged her on to deeper understanding and more faithful practice:
You have already been instructed in some of the first principles of religion: that there is one, and but one God; that in the unity of the Godhead there is three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; that this God ought to be worshipped ; and you have learnt some prayers, the Creed and Catechism, in which is briefly comprehended your duty towards God, yourself, and your neighbour. But, Sukey, 'tis not learning these things by rote, nor the saying a few prayers morning and evening, that will bring you to heaven ; you must understand what you say, and you must practise what you know: and since knowledge is requisite in order to practise, I shall endeavour after as plain a manner as I can, to instruct you in some of those fundamental points which are most necessary to be known, and most easy to be understood ; and I earnestly beseech the great Father of spirits to guide your mind into the way of truth.
Susanna apparently sent a copy of this exposition to her son Samuel too, for she wrote to him on 7th April 1710:
'I have sent you a letter which I sent to your sister Sukey at Gainsborough, which I would have you read, and copy if you have time.' She was diffident about her competence to produce these theological treatises, but believed she was making good use of her time in trying to serve her children in this way. She had rather more time to spare at this period, thanks to the fire and the scattering of her family. She explained to 'Sammy': 'When I have leisure, I think I cannot be better employed than in writing something that may be useful to my children; and though I know there are abundance of good books wherein these subjects are more fully and accurately treated of than I can pretend to write,
» Headingley MSS, C. ff. 12-13.
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yet I am willing to think that my children will somewhat regard what I can do for them, though the performance be mean; since they know it comes from their mother, who is perhaps more concerned for their eternal happiness than any one in the world."!
In her writings, as in all else, she had a definite plan, a 'method'. She wrote down the heads of her scheme in her evening meditation for 24th May 1711, when she admonished herself, 'Tis necessary to observe some method in instructing and writing for your children. Gothrough your brief exposition on the Ten Commandments, which are a summary of the moral law. Then briefly explain the principles of revealed religion, which will make up the second letter. Subjoin by way of essay, a short discourse on the being and attributes of God.'? Similarly, at the end of the treatise she sent to Sukey, she projected further writings: 'I have purposely omitted many arguments for the being of God, the divine authority of the Scriptures, for the truth of revealed religion, a future judgement; and have left the last article very imperfect, because I intend to write on all these subjects for the use of my children when I have more leisure. I shall only add a few words to prepare your mind for the second part of my discourse, obedience to the laws of God, which I shall quickly send you.'* If she managed to complete the paper on 'the principles of revealed religion', it does not appear to have survived; but her 'short discourse on the being and attributes of God' is in print, and her exposition of the Ten
Commandments, or discourse on 'Obedience to the laws of God', is available in manuscript.* She did not accomplish all this writing, however, without a good deal of misgiving and self-reproach. She felt keenly that she was ill-equipped for the task, and gives several hints
1 Stevenson, Memorials of the Wesley Family, p. 193.
2 Headingley MSS, A. f. 69.
8 Headingley MSS, C. f. 59.
4 See W.H.S. Pubns., No. 3 (1898), and Headingley MSS, C. ff. 61ff.
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that someone close to htr—almost certainly her scholarly husband—was inclined to ridicule the whole design as a waste of time. In one of her morning meditations she catalogued the 'many discouragements' she had met with in the undertaking:
'the weakness of your mind and body, it seeming unnecessary because there are aready so many excellent discourses written on those subjects, your little time, and abundance of other business, your apprehension of censure and contempt &c.' She was not to be deterred, however, by any obstacles, believing that God's grace would strengthen her, and reflecting with her usual good sense that,
"The books that have been writ on those subjects affect not you or yours; you have them not, and perhaps your children may never see them. However, if they should, it will be some time first, and what you write will not hinder them from reaping advantage by reading them, but rather prepare their minds (by accustoming them to think and learn) for further instruction.' She returns to the likelihood of her meeting contempt in her undertaking, and we seem to hear Samuel's rather testy objection to her trespassing in the field of scholarship : 'As for creature contempt, you need not trouble yourself about such things. If any will censure you for doing your duty, what is that to you? And if any one will condemn you as unlearned and of little sense, why should that affect you, when you do not pretend to learning, and you think as meanly of your own performances as any other can do?'
Samuel would have to learn the lesson of Bunyan's pilgrim, that "He that is down needs fear no fall', and that you cannot browbeat humility. Susanna concluded, 'Let those that set up for persons of learning and extraordinary sense, mind such things. You do not (or at least ought not to) pretend to what you have not; and let those that desire a reputation in the world seek ways to obtain it.' There was only one person in Epworth rectory who set up for a person
1 Headingley MSS, A. ff. 74-7.
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of learning and extraordinary sense, namely the rector. He certainly sought 'a reputation in the world', and his book dedications to the royal family were intended to secure it.
Susanna's writings, on the other hand, made no pretensions either to technical scholarship or to public recognition. They were a private, pious act, undertaken out of loyalty to God and her conscience, part of the unstinted care she lavished on the upbringing of her children. We may well believe that Samuel resented the invasion of his prerogative, and sensed a rival theologian in the house. Nevertheless, despite fightings without and fears within, Susanna pressed on with her scheme and brought it to fruition. Tyerman's judgement is no doubt somewhat over-enthusiastic in its praise, but it makes clear the very real merits of Susanna's writings: 'For vigorous thought, mental discipline, clearness of apprehension, logical acumen, extensive theological knowledge, purity of style, and force of utterance, Susanna Wesley has few superiors . .. She was an accomplished scholar, a learned
-student, a correct philosopher, and a profound divine.'} - Much of this eulogy might be applied to John Wesley, who was his mother's aptest pupil, and part of the handsome justification of all her efforts as an amateur theologian.
Her influence over her children, through her life and teaching, was powerful and lasting. When the boys left home for school and university, she was their faithful correspondent and mentor. In return, they as grown men still valued her advice, and sought it equally on theological questions, matters of conduct, and problems of the spiritual life. On 5th May 1729, Charles, who was then screwing himself up for the spiritual athleticism of the Holy Club, wrote to John:
'I won't give myself leisure to relapse, for I'm assured, if I have no business of my own, the Devil will soon find me some. You may show this if you think proper to my mother,
1], Tyerman, Life and Times of the Rev. Samuel Wesley, p. 125.
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for I would gladly have a letter from her upon this subject.'} A few years later, as they were both contemplating going to Georgia as missionaries, they first laid the whole project before their mother, to obtain her full approval and consent.
John especially would continue to consult his mother on matters of moment, whether personal or doctrinal, to the end of her life. Her resolve to be 'more particularly careful of the soul of this child', was so fully kept that the child, become a man and leader of men, was more particularly careful to ascertain her mind before taking major decisions. Julia
Wedgwood's study of Wesley draws attention to his correspondence with his mother as evidence against the view that would write him down as a proud and domineering character. Susanna's letters, she contends, could not have been written to a son who was not singularly ready to be taught.
'To how few clever young men of twenty-three could: a mother say, with no softening expression of doubt, "You are somewhat mistaken in your opinion of"—anything that' was as open to his investigation as to hers. Many faults are compatible with this submissiveness of intellect; some perhaps are even connected with it. But that impatience for dominion which has been ascribed to John Wesley assuredly belongs to neither class.'2
Susanna was a good mother to her children, in the sense that she cared deeply for their physical and moral welfare ; but she was far more to them than that. She laid herself out unstintingly for their souls' good: she was to them teacher, pastor, class leader, and an outstanding example of godly life. The words of the memorial tablet to John Wesley in Epworth Methodist Church, may be widened in their reference to embrace all the Wesley children. After recording
John's birth at Epworth and naming his parents, it seizes * F. Baker, Charles Wesley as Revealed by his Letters, p. 13.
* Julia Wedgwood, John Wesley and the Evangelical Reaction of the Eighteenth Century (1870), p. 37f.
_ of the Wesleys, then seems small doubt that Susanna | the major and decisive part.
> hey E
CHAPTER FIVE
Sertous Godliness It is only serious godliness that can really abate the vanity that cleaves to every condition.
Samuel Annesley i ee Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church describes St Teresa of Avila as 'a woman of strong character, shrewdness, and great practical ability', and adds that 'Her combination of mystic experience with ceaseless activity as a reformer and organizer make her life the classical instance for those who contend that the highest contemplation is not incompatible with great practical achievements'. The tribute is striking, and might with little alteration be applied to Susanna, who, like St Teresa, united the monastic strictness of a devotional rule with a superbly efficient discharge of practical duties. Her biographers have often noted that her rule of life had a certain affinity with that of a religious order : her ordered timetable for the household, her exclusive concentration on her home and family which virtually immured her from the world, her overriding religious purpose,—all these challenge the comparison. Mrs Harrison speaks of 'her
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glorious method and routine of the cloister';! John Kirk speaks of her living 'a sort of cloister-life';* and Susanna herself gives warrant for this monastic analogy, when she states that only a mother who is prepared to renounce the world can possibly carry through her educational programme.
We see in Susanna a remarkable blend of the active and the contemplative life. Yet despite the comparisons cited, the inspiration behind her ordered religious life was not monastic.
Her life exemplified rather Luther's teaching on the calling of the Christian woman. Luther had taught that the saint's path to heaven was to be trodden, not by renouncing the offices of wife and mother, but precisely through fulfilling them, while at the same time making the concerns of the spirit paramount. Such teaching of the Reformation was mediated to Susanna through the Puritan tradition in which she was reared. Indeed, it is in her devotional life and practice that her Puritan heritage and upbringing are most clearly apparent. In her writings all the great Puritan keywords recur: method, discipline, duty, reason, conscience, experience, and holiness. These terms, which give the clue to her whole pattern of life, were translated into an ordered framework of Puritan theology and devotion.
The tone of Puritan devotion is set by Milton's desire to live, 'As ever in my great Task-master's eye.' The Puritan was acutely conscious that the whole of his life was lived coram Deo, in the holy presence of the all-seeing God.
Susanna's father gave eloquent expression to this insight in one of his sermons. Preaching from Acts 24. 16, on the theme
"How may we be universally and exactly conscientious?' he urged his hearers to 'daily actual repentance', and added:
'Compose thy self to live as under God's eye, live as in the more than sensible presence of the Jealous God. Remember,
WG. Elsie Harrison, Son to Susanna, p. 24.
* John Kirk, The Mother of the Wesleys, p. 256.