After the faithful and beautiful portraiture of Susanna Wesley, recently published by the Rev. John Kirk, it would be worse than superfluous to relate her history here. We wish that her letters were published in a collected form, not only because of their intrinsic excellence, but also because they would help to depict her refined intellect and her earnest piety. She was in all respects a remarkable woman. Like her father, she was godly from childhood. When she died, in 1742, her sons had four verses inscribed on her tombstone, teaching, if they teach anything, that she was not received into the divine favour until she attained the age of seventy. This is a monstrous perversion of facts, and can only be accounted for on the ground that John and Charles Wesley were so enamoured of their blessed and newly-discovered doctrines, that as yet they felt it difficult to think any one to be scripturally converted except those who had obtained a sense of pardon, and had experienced an instantaneous change of heart, under circumstances similar to their own. If Susanna Wesley was not converted many a long year previous to her death, and previous to the conversion of her sons, we have yet to learn what conversion is. Having read her letters and her other literary productions, we are satisfied that, if there ever was a sincere and earnest Christian, she was one.
Her intellectual was as remarkable as her Christian character. Let any one read her writings, and, unless he is blinded with prejudice, he will willingly acknowledge that, for vigorous thought, mental discipline, clearness of apprehension, logical acumen, extensive theological knowledge, purity of style, and force of utterance, Susanna Wesley has few superiors. She was not a poetess, but, if such language may be used concerning a lady, she was an accomplished scholar, a learned student, a correct philosopher, and a profound divine. Dr A. Clarke observes, “She appears to have had the advantage of a liberal education, as far as Latin, Greek, and French enter into such an education.” Though her knowledge of these languages might be far from perfect, yet the fact itself may be taken as an indication of the mental energy of her character, for at that period female education was most scandalously neglected. Macaulay writes, “The literary stores of the lady of the manor and her daughters generally consisted of a prayer-book and a book of receipts. The English women of that generation were decidedly worse educated than they have been at any other time since the revival of learning. If a damsel had the least smattering of literature she was regarded as a prodigy. Ladies highly born, highly bred, and naturally quick-witted, were unable to write a line in their mother tongue without solecisms and faults of spelling, such as a charity girl would now be ashamed to commit. One instance will suffice. Queen Mary had good natural abilities, had been educated by a bishop, was fond of history and poetry, and was regarded by very eminent men as a superior woman, and yet there is in the library of the Hague a superb English Bible, which was delivered to her when she was crowned in Westminster Abbey, in the title page of which are these words, in her own hand, ‘This book was given the King and I at our crownation.—Marie R.’” In such an age Susanna Annesley acquired an education embracing in its compass Latin, Greek, and French.
We pass over the management of her children, and simply add that, as a wife, she was affectionate and obedient. Writing of her husband, after they had been more than thirty years married, she says, “Since I have taken my husband, ‘for better for worse,’ I’ll take my residence with him; ‘where he lives will I live, and where he dies will I die, and there will I be buried.’ God do so unto me, and more also if aught but death part him and me.”
No wonder that Samuel Wesley was passionately attached to such a wife. She was in her person not only graceful but beautiful. Sir Peter Lely, the painter of the “beauties” of his age, has left a portrait of her sister Judith, representing her as a lady of rare charms; and yet one who knew them both has said, “Beautiful as Miss Annesley appears, she was far from being as beautiful as Mrs Wesley.” If her husband had not loved and respected her as much as she loved and respected him, he would have been unworthy of her. Four years after their marriage, and when cooped up in the miserable little parsonage at South Ormsby, Mr Wesley published his “Life of Christ,” in which there is the following poetic portrait of his noble-hearted wife, and of the sort of life they lived in their humble hut, near the shores of the German sea:—
“She graced my humble roof, and blest my life,
Blest me by a far greater name than wife;
Yet still I bore an undisputed sway,
Nor was’t her task, but pleasure, to obey;
Scarce thought, much less could act, what I denied,
In our low house there was no room for pride;