Excellent Women Part 16

Much earnest and deeply discriminative advice is given to John on occasion of his entering the holy ministry. The letter then written to him abounds with traces of the fact that he had been in the habit of confiding much of his mind to his mother through those years. In 1727 she writes to him a profound and beautiful epistle, in terms which indicate that he had made her his _confidante_ at the time, in his love for a young lady whom he had lately met in Worcestershire.

"What then is love? Oh, how shall we describe its strange, mysterious essence? It is--I do not know what! A powerful something; source of our joy and grief, felt and experienced by every one, and yet unknown to all! Nor shall we ever comprehend what it is till we are united to our first principle, and there read its wondrous nature in the clear mirror of uncreated love:"

Another letter belonging to the same year is solemnly prospective the topic being evidently the "cares of the world."

"'Believe me, youth (for I am read in cares, And bend beneath the weight of more than fifty years).'

"Believe me, old age is the worst time we can choose to mend either our lives or our fortunes. Ah! my dear son, did you with me stand on the verge of life, and saw before your eyes a vast expanse, an unlimited duration of being, which you might shortly enter upon, you can't conceive how all the inadvertencies, mistakes, and sins of youth would rise to your view; and how different the, sentiments of sensitive pleasures, the desire of s.e.xes and pernicious friendships of the world would be then from what they are now while health is entire and seems to promise many years of life."

X

WIDOWHOOD.

The Rector of Epworth had been slowly mastering his difficulties with the world. The circ.u.mstances of the family seem to have taken a favourable turn from the year 1724, when the small living of Wroote, four miles distant, and valued at 50 a year, was added to that of Epworth. The family removed to Wroote, and many of Mrs. Wesley's most interesting letters are dated from the parsonage there. Her husband continued to toil for some years at what he meant to be his great work--his commentary on the Book of Job--but the outer man was visibly perishing. His now palsied hand required the services of an amanuensis.

"My eyes and my heart," he said, "are now almost all I have left; and bless G.o.d for them!" He died on the 25th of April, 1735, in the 72nd year of his age.

His death was marked by many utterances of faith and of joy in G.o.d, and by his memorable saying to his sons--"Be steady! The Christian faith will surely revive in this kingdom. You shall see it, though I shall not."

It was Samuel who was now for the most part charged with the support of his mother; but in this duty there was a generous rivalry among-her children. The name of John appears in discharge of the last of his father's liabilities that had been cruelly pressed upon the very day of the funeral; and Charles writes to Samuel--"My mother desires you will remember that she is a clergyman's widow. Let the Society give her what they please, she must be still, in some degree, burdensome to you. How do I envy you that glorious burden, and wish I could share it with you:"

Mrs. Wesley having now left the "old place," settled for a little in the neighbouring town of Gainsborough, and afterwards resided with Samuel at Tiverton from September, 1736, till July, 1737.

Her sons John and Charles had now set out upon their well-known Gospel enterprise to the State of Georgia in America. Their mother signalised the hour by a letter full of solemn and enn.o.bling thought, in which she allows herself but slightly to touch upon the fact of separation, and gives her own personal version of the apostle's "strait betwixt two"--"One thing often troubles me: that notwithstanding I know that while we are present with the body we are absent from the Lord; notwithstanding I have no taste, no relish left for anything the world calls pleasure, yet I do not long to go home, as in reason I ought to do. This often shocks me. Pray for me that G.o.d would make me better, and take me at the best."

The Georgian mission of her sons having ended, to her joy, in their return home, a great work immediately opened for them in England. It now became apparent, in their consultations with their mother, that the views of Divine truth and even of the mode of propagating the Gospel, which were taking possession of their minds, had to her been long and deeply familiar as the desire of her heart. Her testimony was all the more valuable that it was given with much caution.

Samuel wrote to her complaining of the new ideas of his brothers John and Charles, and appealing confidently to her verdict in the matter. He found that she mainly coincided with the returned missionaries in those convictions regarding the Gospel doctrines of faith and instantaneous conversion that were so soon to move the world.

At the same time she shared his apprehensions regarding certain things in the work that bore an aspect of extravagance. "I should think that the reviving these pretentious to dreams, visions, etc., is not only vain and frivolous as to the matter of them, but also of dangerous consequence to the weaker sort of Christians. As far as I can see, they plead that these visions, etc., are given to a.s.sure some particular persons of their adoption and salvation. But this end is abundantly provided for in the Holy Scripture's, wherein all may find the rules by which we must live here and be judged hereafter. And if, upon a serious review of our state, we find that in the tenour of our lives we have or do now sincerely desire and endeavour to perform the conditions of the Gospel covenant required on our parts, then we may discern that the Holy Spirit hath laid in our minds a good foundation of a strong, reasonable, and lively hope of G.o.d's mercy through Christ."

To the communications of John and Charles regarding the fresh baptism of the Spirit that had come upon them, she wrote expressing her thankfulness for the glad tidings, only remarking to Charles that she thought he had surely fallen into an "odd way of thinking," in stating that till within a few months he had no spiritual life nor any justifying faith. "Blessed be G.o.d, who showed you the necessity you were in of a Saviour to deliver you from the power of sin and Satan, for Christ will be no Saviour but to such as see their need of one. Blessed be His holy name, that thou hast found Him a Saviour to thee, my son!

Oh, let us love Him much, for we have much forgiven."

XI.

THE FOUNDRY AT MOORFIELDS.

Susanna Wesley came to London in April, 1739, to spend the rest of her days in a place that had been well prepared for her. John had found a centre at Moorfields for his work in the metropolis. Out of a disused Government foundry had been constructed a chapel, a house for the lay-preachers, and apartments for himself, where he wished to have his mother come and live with him. The new home, though but scantily furnished, proved to her a little paradise in the communion she now enjoyed with her son, in the easy access of all her children to her, and in the pleasure of seeing the great work and increase of the Gospel.

Here also she received in her own soul a wonderful increase of blessing--so much surpa.s.sing all her experience hitherto as to cause her to make the reflection that "she had scarce heard, till then, such a thing mentioned as the having G.o.d's Spirit bear witness with our spirit." "But two or three weeks ago, while my son Hall was p.r.o.nouncing these words in delivering the cup to me, 'The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee,' the words struck through my heart, and I knew G.o.d for Christ's sake had forgiven me all my sins."

It caused her no apparent pain a little after to receive a letter from her son Samuel, saying: "It was with exceeding concern and grief I heard you had countenanced a spreading delusion, so far as to be one of Jack's congregation. Is it not enough that I am bereft of both my brothers, but must my mother follow too? I earnestly beseech the Almighty to preserve you from joining a schism at the close of your life, as you were unfortunately engaged in one at the beginning of it.

It will cost you many a protest, should you retain your integrity, as I hope to G.o.d you will." The new joy of his mother evidently so abounded in charity as to drown all bitterness and take away all fear of any real separation between them.

Samuel died in the autumn of the same year, during an illness of his mother, and John Wesley left the house that day rather than break the sad news to her, and one of his sisters was commissioned to do it with all gentleness. We find nothing but sweetness and hope in the letter which Susanna Wesley was enabled to write to her son Charles:--"Your brother was exceedingly dear to me in this life, and perhaps I have erred in loving him too well. I once thought it impossible to bear his loss, but none know what they can bear till they are tried. I rejoice in having a comfortable hope of my dear son's salvation. He is now at rest, and would not return to earth to gain the world. He hath reached the haven before me, but I shall soon follow him. He must not return to me, but I shall go to him, never to part more."

Many Christian friends continued to visit her at Moorfields; her conversation was prized by all, and her presence on the scene and at the centre of evangelism was a power for good. In true consistency with the memorable season at Epworth, and her own inst.i.tution of the Church in the Home, Mrs. Wesley was privileged to give her testimony in favour of lay-preaching. To John Wesley the field was now indeed "the world," and his labours were multiplying past his strength. While he went from place to place, Mr. Thomas Maxfield, "a young man of good sense and piety,"

took charge of the work at Moorfields. His appointed duty extended to "the reading and explaining of the Scriptures to bands and cla.s.ses;" but Maxfield soon went the length of public preaching, which he did with much ability and unction. John Wesley lost no time in coming home to check this "irregular proceeding." But his mother urged:--"John, you know what my sentiments have been. You cannot suspect me of readily favouring anything of this kind. But take care what you do with respect to this young man, for he is as surely called to preach as you are.

Examine what have been the fruits of his preaching, and hear him yourself." This was done; and John Wesley said, "It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth Him good. What am I that I should withstand G.o.d?"

Thus fitly, as became her already historic part in it, Susanna Wesley may he said to have launched the important inst.i.tution of lay-preaching in the Church that bears her name.

XII.

LAST DAYS AND DEATH.

The life at Moorfields, which had been, to this venerable mother in Israel, of the character of a peaceful haven after a rough voyage, was now drawing rapidly to a close. Her bodily illnesses much resembled those of her husband's later years, and were, no doubt, to be in some measure attributed to the penury and hardship she had shared with him so long.

But we do not hear so much about her maladies us of the many signs of triumph over them, till by the month of July, 1742, the vital power is ebbing low, and her daughters gather round her. The sons were out in the field. Charles had bent over her with filial attentions, till, concluding in his own mind that her strength would hold out for a few days, he departed to his work, hoping soon to return.

John Wesley was at Bristol on Sunday evening the 18th of July, and had just ended preaching to a large congregation, when the message came that his mother was apparently near death.

He rode off immediately for London, which he reached on the 20th, and, as he says in his Journal, "I found my mother on the borders of eternity; but she has no doubt or fear, nor any desire but, as soon as G.o.d should call her, to depart and be with Christ." She enjoyed a quiet sleep on the evening of the 22nd, and awoke in the morning in a joyful frame of mind. Her children heard her say, "My dear Saviour, art Thou come to help me in my extremity at last?"

Utterances of praise at intervals filled the hours that remained, At four o'clock in the afternoon her son had left her for a little, that he might s.n.a.t.c.h some hasty refreshment in the adjoining room, when he was called back again to offer the commendatory prayer. "She opened her eyes wide and fixed them upward for a moment. Then the lids dropped, and the soul was set at liberty, without one struggle or groan or sigh, on the 23rd of July, 1742, aged seventy-three. We stood round the bed and fulfilled her last request, uttered a little before she lost her speech, 'Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to G.o.d.'"

There was a vast crowd at the funeral, at Bunhill Fields, on the 1st of August. John Wesley's voice faltered as he p.r.o.nounced the words, "The soul of our dear mother here departed"--and the grief of the mult.i.tude broke out afresh. A hymn was sung, and he then stood forth and preached one of the most moving sermons that ever came from his lips, turning not upon the pathos of the funeral, but upon the Bible picture of the last judgment. Of the occasion he himself has said--"It was one of the most solemn a.s.semblies I ever saw or expect to see, on this side eternity."

The stone at the head of her grave was inscribed with her name, and with verses from the pen of her son Charles:--

HERE LIES THE BODY OF MRS. SUSANNA WESLEY, YOUNGEST AND LAST SURVIVING DAUGHTER OF DR. SAMUEL ANNESLEY.

In sure and stedfast hope to rise, And claim her mansion in the skies, A Christian hero her flesh laid down, The cross exchanging for a crown;

True daughter of affection she, Inured to pain and misery; Mourned a long night of grief and fears-- A legal night of seventy years.

The Father then revealed His Son; Him in the broken bread made known She knew, and felt her sins forgiven, And found the earnest of her heaven.

Meet for the fellowship above, She heard the call, "Arise, My love!"

"I come," her dying looks replied, And lamb-like, as her Lord, she died.

XIII.

CONCLUSION.

The t.i.tle "Founder of Methodism," humanly speaking, must be shared between mother and son. To many minds this will seem to have been a question settled by the action of Mrs. Wesley at Epworth.

But her part in the matter shows a deepening beauty from the first in fulfilment of the words of her Journal concerning John, with special reference to his remarkable rescue from the fire, "I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this child, that Thou hast so mercifully provided for."