Excellent Women Part 15

Again she writes: "Cowardice and fear of punishment often lead children into lying," and accordingly, to save her own from temptation, the rule was--"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." The most careful discrimination was made between inadvertent and deliberate falsehood.

"If they amended, they were never upbraided afterward." Kindly commendation was regularly awarded to obedience evidently done at a sacrifice. "When the thing crossed the child's own inclinations, and when any of them 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 were kindly accepted, and the child with sweetness directed how to do better for the future."

Recreation was liberally allowed, and outdoor physical amus.e.m.e.nts encouraged. "High glee and frolic," so notably appearing in the narrative that, in after days, some writers thought to turn this matter against John Wesley, remarking that he had himself been indulged by his mother at home in amus.e.m.e.nts which he was now prohibiting to the students under him at college. He made the difference of age and the demands of duty his defence, rather than any difference of principle.

Here, surely, the motherly instinct of this remarkable woman may be of use to-day, in clearing the line of duty in the question of amus.e.m.e.nts.

"Your arguments against horse-races do certainly conclude against masquerades, b.a.l.l.s, plays, operas, and all such light and vain diversions. I will not say it is impossible for a person to have any sense of religion who frequents these; but I never, throughout the course of my long life, knew as much as one serious Christian that did; nor can I see how a lover of G.o.d can have any relish for them."

"Take this rule--whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of G.o.d, or takes off the relish of spiritual things--in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind--that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself."

She fixed the age of five for the teaching to a child the letters of the alphabet; and tells us that in all cases except two, the first day saw the conquest of the alphabet. The birthday festivities over, next morning the child went to the schoolroom of the house, where no one must come into the room from "nine till twelve or from two till five," while the teacher devoted herself entirely to that one pupil. Another feature of the method was the abolition of the study of syllables, and the immediate and usually successful advance into words and sentences, such as the opening verses of the Bible, "In the beginning G.o.d created the heaven and the earth."

"It is almost incredible," said Mrs. Wesley, "what a child may be taught in a quarter of a year." To this period belongs the well-known incident--when one day Mr. Wesley said to his wife while engaged in repeating a lesson to a dull child, "I wonder at your patience: you have told that child twenty times that same thing," and the mother replied--"Had I satisfied myself by mentioning the matter only nineteen times, I should have lost all my labour; you see, it was the twentieth time that crowned the whole."

VI.

THE CHURCH IN THE HOME.

The children at Epworth were well grounded in the observance of Divine worship. We may look in vain in the records of many families for anything so deep and so beautiful as that one thing which is told of them--that before they could kneel or speak the little ones were taught to ask a blessing on their food by appropriate, signs. Repeating, as soon as they were able to articulate, the Lord's Prayer morning and evening, they were encouraged to add sentences of prayers of their own conceiving, pet.i.tions for their parents, and requests for things of their own earnest desire. From this period, in each case, the parental eye was already carefully looking forward, to the time when the mind should begin to think for itself; and to help them in this important matter, Mrs. Wesley, remembering her own mental struggles, prepared for her children a book of Divinity, written for their special edification.

In due time, as the children grew a little older, days of the week were allotted to each of them, for special opportunity of conversation with their mother, as distinct from being catechised by her. This was for the purpose of dealing with "doubts and difficulties." Of the well-recorded list of days and names the "Thursday with Jacky," and "Sat.u.r.day with Charles," will mostly arrest the reader now. These days came to be fondly treasured in the memory of all the children.

Twenty years after John Wesley had left home, it is touching to hear him say---"In many things you have interceded for me and prevailed. Who knows but in this too--a complete renunciation of the world--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 it would be as useful now for correcting my heart, as it was then for forming my judgment."

Yet one more feature of Mrs. Wesley's plan of education was that of the children's appointed conversations with one another, the eldest with the youngest, the second eldest with the next in age, and so on. To this good purpose was devoted the better s.p.a.ce available in the rooms of the "New Rectory," built after the fire.

VII.

STRUGGLES WITH POVERTY.

All this work of education, intellectual and spiritual, was conducted under severe pressure of poverty. When Mr. Wesley received the living of Epworth, it cost him fifty pounds to have the great seal affixed to his t.i.tle, and to remove his family to the place. This unfortunately was but a specimen of the hard conditions under which he held his cure.

Lord Oxford wrote to the celebrated Dean Swift, soliciting his name as a subscriber to Mr. Wesley's book on Job--"The person concerned is a worthy, honest man; and by this work of his, he is in hopes to get free of a load of debt which has hung upon him some years. This debt is not owing to any folly or extravagance of his, but to the calamity of his house having been twice burnt, which he was obliged to rebuild. This is in short the case of an honest, poor, worthy clergyman, and I hope you will take him under your protection."

A wealthy brother of Mr. Wesley professed himself quite "scandalised" at the constant struggles of the family, and did a little for the wiping away of the reproach, but no more. "Tell me, Mrs. Wesley, whether you ever really wanted bread?" said the good Archbishop Sharp one day, by way of preface to a very generous donation on the spot. "My Lord," was the reply, "I will freely own to your grace that, strictly speaking, I never did want bread. But then I had so much care to get it before it was eat, and to pay for it after as has often made it very unpleasant to me. And I think to have bread on such terms is the next degree of wretchedness to having none at all."

"All this, thank G.o.d," said Mr. Wesley, "does not in the least sink my wife's spirits. She bears it with a courage which becomes her, and which I expected from her."

Mrs. Wesley's meditations on the matter carry with them an unchanging serenity of mind. "That man whose heart is penetrated with Divine love, and enjoys the manifestations of G.o.d's blissful presence, is happy, let his outward condition be what it will. This world, this present state of things, is but for a time. What is now future will be present, as what is already past once was. And then, as Pascal observes, a little earth thrown on our cold head will for ever determine our hopes and condition.

Nor will it signify much who personated the prince or the beggar, since, with respect to the exterior, all must stand on the same level after death."

In a very dark hour she writes: "But even in this low ebb of fortune I am not without some kind interval...I adore and praise the unsearchable wisdom and boundless goodness of Almighty G.o.d for this dispensation of His providence towards me. For I clearly discern there is more of mercy in this disappointment of my hopes than there would have been in permitting me to enjoy all that I desired, because it hath given me a sight and sense of some sins which I had not before. I would not have imagined I was in the least inclined to idolatry, and covetousness, and want of practical subjection to the will of G.o.d.... Again, the furnace of affliction which now seems so hot and terrible to nature, had nothing more than a lambent flame, which was not designed to consume us, but only to purge away our dross, to purify and prepare the mind for its abode among those blessed ones that pa.s.sed through the same trials before us into the celestial paradise.... How shall we then adore and praise what we cannot here apprehend aright! How will love and joy work in the soul! But I cannot express it; I cannot conceive it."

VIII.

A NEW DEPARTURE.

Where the great religious movement of the last century in England is to be traced to any human influence, the mother of John and Charles Wesley must have a large share of the sacred honour. This will be found to fall to her by right, not only on account of that profound religious education she imparted to her children, but also by reason of the peculiar direction which she gave it. Even in respect of their first inst.i.tution of a.s.semblies for the preaching of the Gospel outside the walls of churches or any stated places of worship, Susanna Wesley may be discovered to have led the way.

In the year 1711, during one of the protracted sojournings of Mr. Wesley in London attending Convocation, and also doing business with his publishers, his place at the parish church was supplied by a curate whose ministrations were not particularly efficient, although, as may be judged from things already told, the people of Epworth were not likely to be very exacting.

However, a notable reaction of feeling in favour of their minister had set in since the days of the fire, and the parishioners were, many of them, quietly attentive to Divine ordinances. Mrs. Wesley, without any p.r.o.nounced hostility on her part toward the curate, felt a deep echo of the popular complaint in her own soul. Divine service at church had been cut down to one diet in the morning, and hence, to save her children and servants from temptation of mere idleness, the gifted mother felt herself called to set up a kind of service at the parsonage. Of this step she duly apprised her husband, saying: "I cannot but look upon every soul you leave under my care as a talent committed to me, under a trust by the great Lord of all the families of heaven and earth; and if I am unfaithful to Him or to you in neglecting to improve those talents, how shall I answer unto Him when He shall command me to render an account of my stewardship?"

As yet, all she had done was reading to, and instructing her own family.

But the news of this spread in Epworth, and a hunger for the Word arose.

The parents, brothers, and sisters of the servants dropped in till the audience was about thirty or forty. The services consisted of praise, prayer, and reading of a short sermon. At this time Mrs. Wesley's mind was greatly stimulated by the accounts she had been perusing of the devoted labours of two Danish missionaries in India. She felt impelled "to do somewhat" for Christ.

Conversation with the neighbours who had come to the parsonage-meetings shaped itself into meetings of inquirers. She now fell back upon the library, in quest of "more awakening sermons," which were found among her husband's stock of Puritan authors.

The attendance at the services now increased so as completely to fill the rooms. At length some three or four persons, headed by the curate, wrote to the rector in London concerning the doings of his wife and the danger of a "conventicle." Mr. Wesley was sufficiently interested and apprehensive to write to her and ask what had been done, and whether it did not look "particular." To this his wife, rather glad to be challenged, lost no time in replying; and her written explanation to the head of the house and parish has resulted in our possessing an ample account of the movement. "As to its looking particular," she said, "I grant it does, and so does almost everything that is serious, or that may any way advance the glory of G.o.d or the salvation of souls, if it be performed out of a pulpit or in the way of common conversation." After giving various reasons for her action, she proceeds: "Now, I beseech you, weigh all these things in an impartial balance.... If you do, after all, think fit to dissolve this a.s.sembly, do not tell me that you desire me to do it, for that will not satisfy my conscience; but send me your positive command in such full and express terms as may absolve me from all guilt and punishment for the neglecting this opportunity of doing good, when you and I shall appear before the great and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ."

[Ill.u.s.tration: S Wesley]

No wonder that all opposition on the part of the rector from this moment disappeared, and on returning to his charge he found many signs of a happy change, and that all things were as if freshened under the dew of the blessing of G.o.d.

IX.

RELATION TO HER SONS.

Susanna Wesley was the life-long counsellor of her children.

Amid those interesting conversations which were held with each member of the family on appointed days and hours, and which are frequently noted in Mrs. Wesley's private meditations, we are arrested by the heading of one of them--"Son John"--and we learn that he became a communicant at the Lord's table at eight years of age, this important step being taken by reason of his great seriousness and of the signs of grace that were seen in him.

His mother gives us another striking glimpse of him, in April 1712, when the scourge of small-pox attacked five of the children--"Jack bore his disease bravely like a man, and indeed a Christian without any complaint."

On recovering he was, through the influence of the Duke of Buckingham, to whom his father was known, sent to Charterhouse School; but at this period there is little or nothing recorded of correspondence with his mother. It is tolerably clear that the reason of this was that the boy was studious to a degree, and needed his father's injunction to see to it that he took regular exercise in the garden. The letters of Mrs.

Wesley to her sons are best represented by those addressed to Samuel, now twenty years of age. After having distinguished himself at Westminster School, and won the special regard and friendship of those two eminent men, Bishops Sprat and Atterbury, Samuel repaired to Oxford.

Following the fashion of the time, the youth had hitherto addressed his mother as "Dear Madam." His mother disliked the phrase, but had waited till the change should be made spontaneously to "Dear Mother," which instantly evoked the response, "Dear Sammy,---I am much better pleased with the beginning of your letter than with that you used to send me, for I do not love distance or ceremony; there is more of love and tenderness in the name of _mother_ than in all the complimentary t.i.tles in the world... You complain that you are unstable and inconstant in the ways of virtue. Alas! what Christian is not so too? I am sure that I, above all others, am most unfit to advise in such a case: yet since I love you as my own soul, I will endeavour to do as well as I can."

Admirable advice is then given as to choice of company, with strictness yet with charity, for "we must take the world as we find it;" and the wholesome caution to beware "lest the comparing yourself with others may be an occasion of your falling into too much vanity," and "rather entertain such thoughts as these, 'Though I know my own birth and advantages, yet how little do I know of the circ.u.mstances of others!'

'Were they so solemnly devoted to G.o.d at their birth as I was?' You have had the example of a father who served G.o.d from his youth; and though I cannot commend my own to you, for it is too bad to be imitated, yet surely my earnest prayers for many years and some little good advice have not been wanting.... If still upon comparison you seem better than others are, then ask yourself who it is that makes you differ: and let G.o.d have all the praise.... I am straitened for paper and time, therefore must conclude. G.o.d Almighty bless you and preserve you from all evil. Adieu.

"SUSANNA WESLEY."

It is a striking fact that Mrs. Wesley's letters to her son John are for the most part concerning his secular affairs; the inference is not remote that, as regards his spiritual welfare, John Wesley appeared to his mother at all times to be in a satisfactory condition. At one time he presses her for an opinion on Thomas a Kempis, and receives an elaborate answer, at once philosophical and theological, in the course of which the remark is made--"I take a Kempis to have been an honest weak man, with more zeal than knowledge, by his condemning all mirth or pleasure as sinful or useless, in opposition to so many plain and direct texts of Scripture. 'Tis stupid to say nothing is an affliction to a good man; nor do I understand how any man can thank G.o.d for present misery, yet do I know very well what it is to rejoice in the midst of deep afflictions. Not in the affliction itself, for then it would cease to be one; but in this we may rejoice, that we are in the hand of a G.o.d who has promised that all things shall work together for good, for the spiritual and eternal good, of those that love Him." Evidently it is from an unshaken soul the concluding words of the letter proceed--"Your brother has brought us a heavy reckoning for you and Charles. G.o.d be merciful to us all!"