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Spiritual Growth
Cindy Loving, Captain
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While her husband was absent in London in 1711, attending Convocation, Mrs. Wesley adopted the practice of reading in her family, and instructing them. One of the servants told his parents and they wished to come. These told others, and they came, till the congregations amounted to forty, and increased till they were over two hundred, and the parsonage could not contain all that came. She read to them the best and most awakening sermons she could find in the library, talked to the people freely and affectionately. There meetings were held "because she thought the end of the institution of the Sabbath was not fully answered by attending Church unless the intermediate spaces of time were filled up by other acts of devotion."
Inman, the Curate, was a very stupid and narrow man. He became jealous because her audience was larger than his, and he wrote to Mr. Wesley, complaining that his wife, in his absence, had turned the parsonage into a conventicle; that the Church was likely to be scandalized by such irregular proceedings; and that they ought to be tolerated no longer. Mr. Wesley wrote to his wife that she should get some one else to read the sermons. She replied that there was not a man there who could read a sermon without spoiling it.
Inman, the Curate, still complained, and the
Rector wrote to Mrs. Wesley that the
meetings should be discontinued. Mrs.
Wesley answered him by showing what
good the meetings had done, and that none
were opposed to them but Mr. Inman and
one other. She then concludes with these
wonderful sentences: "If after all this you
think fit to dissolve this assembly do not tell
me you desire
me to do it, for
that will not
satisfy my
conscience; but
send your
positive
command in
such full and
express terms
as may absolve
me from all guilt
and
punishment for
neglecting this
opportunity for
doing good
when you and I
shall appear
before the great
and awful tribunal of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Were not these the first Methodist meetings held by the Wesleys?
Can we wonder that Isaac Taylor says that "the mother of the Wesleys was the mother of Methodism;" and that in her characteristic letter, when she said, "'Do not advise me, but command me to desist,'" she was bringing to its place a corner-stone of the future of Methodism."
Who can tell the influence those meetings of their mother in the parsonage had upon John and Charles in future years, who were then little boys, and always present!
From the web site: John Wesley: Holiness of Heart and Life, http://gbgm-umc.org/UMW/Wesley/susannawesley.stm
Source: J. B. Wakeley, Anecdotes of the Wesleys: Illustrative of Their Character and Personal History (New York: Nelson & Phillips, 1869).
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If you have any comments on any of these pages, please email me: Robert W.(Bob) Mckitrick, thanks.
Last update: January 7, 2005