I.
PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION.
The mother of John Wesley was the daughter of Dr. Samuel Annesley, an eminent minister of the Church of England at the period of the great Civil War. He resigned his charge, being one of the two thousand who, after the Restoration, declared for Nonconformity, and preached their farewell sermons in the Established Church, on the 17th of August, 1662. He found his sphere in the meeting-house of Little St. Helen's, Bishopsgate.
Dr. Annesley's second wife, the mother of Susanna, was a woman of eminent piety, and beloved of all who knew her. "How many children has Dr. Annseley?" was a question asked of the eminent Puritan preacher Manton, who had just been officiating at the baptism of one of the number. "I believe it is two dozen, or a quarter of a hundred," he replied. Such was the family into which the mother of the Wesleys was born on the 20th of January, 1669. Of this crowded household, the majority were daughters, and Susanna was the youngest of these. In her own Journals, which form the only account of her childhood, we read of several instances of her "preservation from accidents," and once from a "violent death." The method of her education is not clearly stated, but "the tree is known by its fruits." There is evidence that it was sound and liberal, and up to the best standard of the day in any rank of society. French and music were evidently among her attainments, while in her letters and treatises there are abundant tokens that logic and philosophy were also held in effective possession and use. She tells us that which might have been expected when she says that she "was early initiated and instructed in the first principles of the Christian religion;" and in after days we find her giving to her son a rule which had proved to be a blessing to her own girlhood—"Never to spend more time in any matter of mere recreation in one day, than I spend in private religious duties."
The thoroughness of her own "private religious duties" is shown by the fact that in the year 1700 she made a resolution to spend one hour morning and evening in private devotion. This practice she kept up through life as far as circumstances would admit.