6. Difficulty and Debt
Difficulty and Debt
In 1703 an important event in the history of England took place: John Wesley was born.
John largely spent his childhood in female company. His father’s hours were devoted to his study and his clerical duties and the home was dominated by the serious but benevolent presence of Susanna. The oldest daughter, Emilia, was now thirteen, Sukey was eight, and they would help to care for their little baby brother. There were also three other sisters: Mary, aged seven, Mehetabel, six and Anne, approaching two. Beside these members of the family there were two maidservants, making a total of eight women and girls whose company John shared during his early boyhood.
When John was only a year old his brother Sammy, who was now fourteen, left home to live in London and attend the celebrated St Peter’s School attached to Westminster Abbey. Their father, though little able to bear such expense, was determined to give his boys the best education that the country could provide. Meanwhile the girls and John attended Susanna’s school in the rectory.
Susanna did not supply toys for her family. There is a record of their playing cards, but there is no mention of dolls, bats and balls or skipping ropes. None the less, the Wesley children were in no sense joyless. In the evenings they played games, the product of their own imaginations, using whatever materials were at hand. They also made frequent use of books, and since the family was gifted with a rich appreciation of music the sound of children’s voices raised in the singing of psalms was often heard during the hours when school was out. There is, however, no evidence of a musical instrument of any kind in the house. They were too poor to afford such an item.
Samuel Wesley’s relationship with his children during these years was undoubtedly one of domination on his part, yet it was often also a jovial one. They invariably obeyed him without question, but since he possessed a spontaneous wit he appears to have joked with them when that was his mood.
Samuel was again in debt. We have seen that in 1700 Archbishop Sharpe had raised money towards paying the £300 he owed at that time, and now in 1703 he was again in debt for the same amount. He wrote to Dr Sharpe, thanking him for gifts he had recently received and listing certain of the donors. Among them were a marchioness, a lady, a duke and Queen Anne, all of whom had been influenced by the archbishop to come to his aid.
Despite his need Samuel now became involved in a controversy that caused him to spend still more money. He wrote a letter criticizing the Dissenters’ academies and, contrary to his wishes, it was published. Three men, Daniel Defoe, John Dunton and Samuel Palmer, all answered him. Wesley replied to their answer, they responded again and then the whole process was repeated. Wesley pictured himself as the staunch defender of the church and of royalty, but Defoe and Dunton, who had known him since his teenage years, claimed that he praised great people in the hope of gaining preferment. Defoe’s biographer also stated that his attack on the Dissenters ‘was intended, through royal patronage, to send this time-serving flatterer into the archbishopric of Canterbury. . .’[1] Even though this statement is obviously exaggerated, we do well to take note of the opinion of Wesley’s former companions. This strife did Samuel no good and it proved an additional expense.
Samuel came into further trouble through changing his opinion about candidates in a federal election. Four men were running, two Tories and two Whigs, and at first Wesley declared himself to be in favour of one man from each party. But later, when he learned that the Whigs opposed the church and royalty and that the Tories stood for them, he changed his position and boldly made it known. The election was being fought with anger and even with violence and on the steps of his church Samuel was denounced as a ‘rascal and scoundrel’.
His opponents were bitterly hostile and he wrote once more to Archbishop Sharpe, telling him of his difficulties arising from the election, mentioning other troubles and saying,
I went to Lincoln on Tuesday night, May 29th, 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 his nurse, being heavy with sleep, overlaid the child. She waked and finding it dead, ran over to my house almost distracted, and calling my servants, threw it into their arms. They, as wise as she, ran 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.
A clergyman met me in the castle yard, and told me to withdraw, for the Isle men intended me a mischief. Another told me he had heard near twenty of them say, ‘If they got me in the castle yard they would squeeze my guts out’. . . I went [home] by Gainsbro’ and God preserved me.
When they knew I was got home, they sent the drum and mob, with guns etc., 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.’ God convert them and forgive them!
All this, thank God, does not in the least sink my wife’s spirits. For my own, I feel them disturbed and disordered. . .
Despite Samuel’s words about his wife’s spirits, the loss of this infant son must have been deeply distressing for Susanna, not least the traumatic experience of having him thrust into her arms, cold and dead, in the dark of night and before she was properly awake. We shall never know the full extent of this tragedy, for if this little boy had lived he might have grown up possessing abilities similar to those of his brothers, John and Charles, and have proved mighty as a preacher or a poet, or both.
Nor were these the only disappointments that lay in Samuel’s path. He was promised a reward following his fulsome praise of the Duke of Marlborough in one of his poems. He was to be given the chaplaincy of an army regiment — a position that would seldom require him to be away from home, but which would provide him with an additional salary. But before he actually received any money from this source the position was taken away from him through the influence of his opponents.
On another occasion he had to travel to London to see a nobleman who then offered him a prebend — a stipend granted out of the estate of a cathedral — but once again he was prevented from taking up the offer through the action of his foes.
Back at Epworth his crop of flax was set on fire, his cattle were stabbed and wounded, his dog, a mastiff, was attacked and its leg nearly severed. It seemed that, whichever way he turned, he faced opposition and disappointment.
Among Wesley’s creditors was a man to whom he owed £30. This man had him arrested, refused all negotiations and had him thrown into jail at Lincoln. We see a gentler side of Samuel’s nature in a letter that he wrote from the prison:
I thank God my wife was pretty well recovered, and churched some days before I was taken from her. . . One of my biggest concerns was my being forced to leave my poor lambs in the midst of so many wolves. But the great Shepherd is able to provide for them, and to preserve them. My wife bears it with that courage which becomes her, and which I expected from her.
I don’t despair of doing some good here. . . and it may be I shall do more in this new parish than in my old; for I have leave to read prayers every morning and afternoon here in the prison, and to preach once a Sunday. . . And I’m getting acquainted with my brother jail-birds as fast as I can; and shall write to London to the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, who, I hope, will send me some books to distribute among them.[3]
In another letter from prison Samuel says, ‘A jail is a paradise in comparison of the life I led before I came hither.’ He goes on to list the several trials he had met with and states, ‘I bless God my wife is less concerned with suffering them than I am in writing them.’ Susanna sent him her wedding rings to sell so that he could pay the creditor, but he refused even to consider the suggestion and immediately returned them.
Letter from Samuel Wesley to Dr Sharpe during his imprisonment in Lincoln Castle, in which he says that Susanna sent him her rings to sell
Susanna found it more difficult to feed the family while Samuel was in prison. He says concerning the stabbing of his cattle that his enemies had ‘endeavoured thereby to starve my poor family in my absence, my cows being all dried up by it, which was their chief subsistence. . .’ They had been used to make butter and cheese from the milk, but now they were probably reduced to nothing but vegetables and grain. Some time later Susanna wrote, ‘The late Archbishop of York once said to me when my master was in Lincoln Castle, “Tell me, Mrs Wesley, if 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.”’[4]
Various persons, learning of Samuel’s imprisonment, sent sums of money to secure his release. There is no record stating precisely how long he was held, but his arrest took place in June 1705 and before the end of the year he was at home again.
Shortly after his release Samuel divulged a great plan that he had developed for the furtherance of foreign missions. He spoke of going to Surat in India, using that place as a centre and reaching out by travel or by correspondence to St Helena, China and Abyssinia and to the followers of the apostle Thomas ‘who were in all parts of the Indian nation’. He would endeavour to learn the language of Hindoostan so that he might preach to the people in their native language. He also indicated his hope that the plan might interest the East India Company and that the queen might give it encouragement. He said, ‘If one hundred pounds per annum might be allowed me, and forty I must pay my curate in my absence, I should be ready to venture my life, provided any way might be found to secure a subsistence for my family.’[5]
Nothing came of the plan, however. It reveals a commendable zeal for missionary endeavour on Samuel’s part, but it also shows that he still wanted to escape from his troubles in England and to get away from Susanna and the children.
However, being obliged to remain in Epworth, Samuel did not neglect his ministry there. He was no doubt up early every morning and vitally active throughout the day. There were some 300 homes in the parish and during the thirty-eight years that he lived there he visited them all in order three times. It is claimed that he knew every parishioner and that the sick and dying were the objects of his special attention. In his visitation he wasted no time on trifles. He believed that since he was in holy orders he possessed authority over the people and when he entered a home he made his presence felt. He questioned both parents and children as to their religious behaviour: ‘Who can say the prayers and catechisms? Who have been confirmed? Who have received the communion?’ His manner could range from the kindly to the imperious. He was liked by some but feared by others.
His pulpit ministry apparently had a similar effect. Being a scholar, he laboured in the preparation of his sermons and manifestly gave his hearers substantial teaching. Yet we are told, ‘The Sabbath congregations were exceedingly small. The communicants at the holy sacrament of the Supper seldom numbered twenty. The baptism of children was either totally neglected or so long delayed that the “monsters of men children brought to the font” made the minister’s arm ache with their weight, while their “manful voices disturbed and alarmed the whole congregation”.’[6]
Samuel held to the view that as a clergyman he was responsible to discipline his parishioners. This concept undoubtedly coloured much of what he said from the pulpit and we may be sure such statements aroused antagonism. He was especially severe in the case of persons known to have been guilty of adultery. He ordered them to be present at the Sunday morning service, and ‘The criminal was seen standing for three successive Sabbaths, on the damp mud floor in the centre of the church, without shoes or stockings; bareheaded, covered with a white sheet, and shivering with cold. This was “doing penance” and the offender publicly stood forth as a warning to others. . .’[7] This practice had been discarded by most clergymen by this time, but Wesley retained it.
In 1709 an event took place which affected the lives of the entire Wesley family: the rectory was burned to the ground. Susanna told the story in a letter to her son Samuel:
Dear Sammy,
When I received your letter, wherein you complained of want of shirts, I little thought that in so short a space we should all be reduced to the same, and indeed a worse condition. I suppose you have already heard of the firing of our house, by what accident we cannot imagine; but the fire broke out about eleven or twelve at night, we being all in bed, nor did we perceive it till the roof of the corn-chamber fell upon your sister Hetty’s bed. . . She awaked, and immediately ran to call your father. . . He says he heard some crying ‘Fire!’ in the street before, but did not apprehend where it was till he opened his door; he. . . bade us all shift for life, for the roof was falling fast, and nothing but the thin wall kept the fire from the staircase.
We had no time to take our clothes. . . I called to Betty [a maidservant] to bring the children out of the nursery; she took up Patty, and left Jacky to follow her, but he going to the door and seeing all on fire, ran back again. We got the street door open, but the wind drove the flame with such violence, that none could stand against it. I tried thrice to break through, but was driven back. I made another attempt, and waded through the fire, which did me no other hurt than to scorch my legs and face. When I was in the yard I looked about for your father and the children; but, seeing none, concluded them all lost.
But, I thank God, I was mistaken! Your father carried sister Emily, Suky, and Patty into the garden; then, missing Jacky, he ran back into the house, to see if he could save him. He heard him miserably crying out in the nursery, and attempted several times to get upstairs, but was beat back by the flame; then he thought him lost, and commended his soul to God, and went to look after the rest. The child climbed up to the window, and called out to them in the yard; they got up to the casement, and pulled him out just as the roof fell into the chamber. Harry [the manservant] broke the glass in the parlour window, and threw out your sisters Mary and Hetty; and so, by God’s great mercy, we all escaped. Do not be discouraged: God will provide for you.
The fire probably began in the fireplace chimney. Samuel said afterwards, ‘We had been brewing, but had done all; every spark of fire quenched before five o’clock that evening — at least six hours before the house was on fire. Perhaps the chimney above might take fire (though it had been swept not long since) and break through into the thatch.’[9]
The entire rectory was consumed in the flames — the house, the furniture, Samuel’s books, the parish records and all the family’s possessions.
Susanna was eight months pregnant at the time of the fire. She and Samuel, with Charles, who was a child of two, went to live with parishioners in Epworth, and there, within a month, the baby Kezia was born. This was the last of Susanna’s nineteen children. The others were placed in various homes and two, Sukey and Hetty, went to live with their Uncle Matthew, a prosperous physician in London.
Samuel quickly began the construction of a new rectory. He planned a house that was of solid brick and sufficiently large to serve his considerable family. The costs were partly supplied by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, but a great deal of the expense, £400, fell to him. This responsibility set him still further in debt.
Many people have felt for Susanna in the many trials that she was called on to bear. But Samuel also deserves a share of our sympathy, even though many of his difficulties were of his own making. In the midst of all these trials he wrote ‘A prayer for one in affliction and want’ and in it he reveals his inner self, the essence of Samuel Wesley. Here it is:
O God, who art infinite in power, and compassion, and goodness, and truth, who hast promised in thy holy Word that thou wilt hear the prayer of the poor and the destitute. . . look down, I beseech thee . . . upon me, a miserable sinner, now lying under thy hand in great affliction and sorrow. . . I am weary of my groaning; my heart faileth me; the light of my eyes is gone from me; I sink in the deep waters and there is none to help me; yet I wait still upon thee, my God.
. . . I believe, O Lord, that thou who feedest the ravens, and clothest the lilies, wilt not neglect me (and mine); that thou wilt make good thy own unfailing promises, wilt give meat to them that fear thee, and be ever mindful of thy covenant. In the meantime let me not be querulous or impatient, or envious at the prosperity of the wicked, or judge uncharitably of those to whom thou hast given a larger portion of the good things of this life, nor be cruel to those who are in the same circumstances with myself. Let me never sink or despond under my heavy pressures and continued misfortunes. . .
Help me carefully to examine my life past; and if, by my own carelessness or imprudence, I have reduced myself into this low condition, let me be more deeply afflicted by it, but yet still hope in thy goodness, avoiding those failures whereof I have been formerly guilty. . . Teach us the emptiness of all things here below, wean us more and more from a vain world, fix our hearts more upon heaven, and help us forward in the right way that leads to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ our Lord, etc. Amen.[10]
There certainly were two sides to Samuel Wesley — one might almost say two personalities. Here in this prayer we see the better side, the man who recognizes his faults, admits them before God and prays that he may be given grace to overcome them. Here indeed is a kind and good and humbled man, who desires only to serve God.